Month: January 1970

Before I begin this review, I have to state that minishorts is a blog I have been reading
regularly for quite a while, and the owner is on my ICQ contact list. That being said,
I’ll try to offer a review that’s as unbiased as possible, and one that may offer
additional insight into the site which is afforded by knowing the author. Minishorts
has been online since September 2002 and the first post involves three pieces of
poetry which the author wrote. I particularly enjoyed the one entitled “Dearest
Mother” which manages to be touching without being clichéd.

The weblog is a mix of the author’s thoughts about everything and also her
personal issues, with occasional posts which provides a very intimate view into the
author’s life. An example of this is the January 14th 2003 post which has pictures of
her bedroom, complete with photos of the bed, her wardrobe (with clothes) and the
author herself. Minishorts is a 23 year old Chinese Malaysian doing her Masters in
Linguistics and the blog is representative of what personal weblogs in Malaysia are
all about. The author aspires to be a writer and she occasionally posts bits of
ongoing stories in the blog.

The entries are updated consistently, and the author manages to post even while
on vacation in Hong Kong, using the hotel’s business center’s net connection. The
posts have a nice smattering of photos at appropriate intervals and this manages to
prevent the monotony in reading an all-text blog and provides a window into the
author’s world. There are plenty of pictures of the author’s and her friends and one
can’t help but feel like they’re with the author as she goes through her life. There are
photos of her trips, her convocation and so forth and reading the blog feels like
watching one of those time delayed footage of a plant going through the growth
process of a bud to a flower. This and the always entertaining posts is what keeps me
going back for more.

The design of the site has recently been changed into one featuring a Matrix
layout, with a non-standard horizontal scroll bar. The content of the blog is featured
in a window of the left side, followed by a large Neo, and leading into the tagboard.
The tagboard is dynamically replaced by things like minishort’s bio, links, credits
and so forth when one of the navigation buttons is clicked. However, the links are
images which doesn’t provide anything to suggest where it leads to, except when the
hover text comes up. This “mystery meat” navigation does not seem to be a good
design strategy.

Someone pointed out in an email that there are essentially two kinds of weblogs
– the personal ones and the ones that provide social commentary on current issues
and news. This blog belongs to the first group and if you like those, you’ll love
minishorts. If you don’t, well I guess you won’t, but click on the link anyway and
see if the site will change your mind. I’m giving it a 4.5 because I honestly think it’s
a very interesting site. This would be interesting for you too if you’ll like a voyeuristic
look into the life of a 23 year old in Malaysia.minishorts@urban-flirt

Who is Tony Blackburn? That was pretty much my first thought when I started reading this blog. After some research on the internet, I found out that he’s a radio DJ in Britain. The link? Apparently, the author – Michelle, also known as Shelley, had a talk with her friend, and her friend noted that Shelley and Tony Blackburn had similar erm, eating habits. Well, you can check out the story over here.

The writing is concise and very straightforward, making it very easy for both the brain and the eyes. Oh yes, the spelling is PERFECT, and there’s nothing I like more than good spelling. The content ranges from talking about her Buffy (or rather, Spike) obsession, to the war in Iraq (her earlier entries were almost always talking about something in relation to the war), and her fight with dementia. I particularly enjoyed this entry, where Shelley complains about excessive use of overly fanciful vocabulary in a Sheri S. Tepper book she read. Very sarcastic. I loved it.

The blog layout is rather standard, with a top title bar, and a sidebar containing the essential links. The technical bit is almost flawless (kudos to her for making the effort to learn up HTML for the blog). However, some work could be done on the archives because there were more May entries on the main blog page than the May archives, which only displayed 3 days’ worth of entries.

I had a good time reading this blog. This is a blog where Shelley jots down her thoughts rather than her daily activities, and she does a great job putting her thoughts down in words (well, what do you expect? She IS a novelist, or would be one soon anyway). I would ask anyone to give this blog a try. It isn’t too heavy, but it isn’t fluff either. I hope you will have as much fun as I did while reading this blog.
Becoming Tony Blackburn

When I read the title, Passport to the Third World, I figured I would be reading about third-world politics. I was close. The blog is about someone who grew up in a third-world country, and is now living in a first-world country, namely, the United States. I can usually tell when a blog is serious by the template, and this is a very serious blog.

This blog is about politics, as many of the news blogs are. Nuno, the sole author of the site, talks about the presidency and recently, the war on Iraq. What I like about Nuno is the fact that he gives the facts, rather than only biased opinion. Many of the news sites I have been reading recently are extremely biased. Nuno usually just gives a link to the original news site, and will sporadically comment on it. The links come from a plethora of sources such as the BBC, Reuters, and CNN.

Nuno is the only author at Passport to the Third World and I think he does a good job giving the reader news without biased opinion, for that is the way news should be. However, more often than not this site has commentary, and you do get a feel for who Nuno is. That is what sets it apart from other news blogs that just give links to other news sites.

The template used at Passport to the Third World I can only describe as “news-y looking.” There are links to other news sites such as Reuters, The New York Times, and CNN. Also appearing in this blog are links to other “War Blogs.” Everything is in fine working order.

If you are sick of hearing about the war, I wouldn’t suggest reading Passport to the Third World. If war news is your thing, then I think you should take a look at this site as it will educate you on the current war proceedings. This site is definitely a well-written educated site and I will be looking back on it whenever I get the urge to read about war.passport.to.the third world

The name of the site, A Castoff Cigarette Butt, made me wonder what exactly the site was about. I saw that it was categorized under news so I figured I would be reading about cigarette lobbyists. However, I was wrong. While the overall design of the site turned me off, I was interested to begin reading about politics. Like most, I am always interested in other people’s swing on things.

A Castoff Cigarette Butt is a highly political site. The Mission Statement of the site is nice because it lets you know what the site is going to be about before you even start reading it. At A Castoff Cigarette Butt, you can read about the Middle East, American Politics, and other political jargon. While many news sites solely post links leading to other news sites, the main author of this site, Manumission, puts a personal take on current political events. Also located in the blog are links to other news sites in case Manumission’s opinionated news posts just aren’t for you. Everything contained in this site is in good working order. I had no problems with links or archives.

Manumission is the main author for this site, and I wouldn’t have even known there were other people writing for this site if it weren’t for this little blurb: “…I will be taking a short break from posting on this site. As the rest of my teammates on this blog are absolute deadbeats…” Manumission does a great job giving news about politics, and many times it shows through that he has a negative point of view on many political aspects.

A political blog, A Castoff Cigarette Butt has much more to offer than CNN, ABC, and Reuters and that is personal opinion. Manumission is a graduate student, and you can sense that through the many posts. I would recommend this site to the educated people that are deeply involved in politics. However, I myself don’t dive into politics often, and I was still able to comprehend the majority of this site. While the design isn’t that great, the knowledgeable posts make up for it.A Castoff Cigarette Butt

For most of us growing up in the late 80’s and early 90’s we had the Simpsons. I remember when they were still on the Tracy Ulman show and the drawings were rough and choppy. And today they are what they are, and there’s a huge fan base… How can you not love a site that has Ned Flanders when you first come to view it!?! Not to mention the quote of “Where there is nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the short coming’s of others.” Though I suppose you’d have to have a good sense of humor to actually find that funny or amusing.

When I first started reading the blog to do this review, there was a post about censorship in textbooks in school, and the ridiculousness of the severity to which the publishers are now going to maintain the “politically correctness” of those books. This post was. highly. intriguing. He’s a writer, and shares the new chapters with his readers, which makes things completely all the more interesting to read his every day posts. I don’t know if it’s me, or just the writer in me, but I find that people who are writer’s or aspiring writer’s actually have some silly and strange stuff to say on their own blogs. And this author is no exception to the rule.

He has the occasional rant about things we’ve all been ranting about before, but Rob seems to say the same things we’ve all said with a different kind of pizzazz and spunk. When I first started reading I was sure that this guy was like more people my age, considered generation x-ers, but he’s actually a little bit older than myself. I saw a lot of the same things you’ll see on the “younger” generation blogs. Not a bad thing, since this author actually has a laid-back mentality, which shows in his writings. But that didn’t take away from his insanely real and humorous writing style. He has a sense of humor only other sarcastic people might understand. People might actually find him offensive to a degree. I, on the other hand, find him ingeniously entertaining.

As with any other blogspot blog, there are a few problems with loading and archives actually showing up, load time and things of that nature. Its sites like these that make me want to offer subdomains for nothing, and just host for the sake of putting really good blogs out there to share with the world. However, once you do get the archives to work you’ll find some serious gold there (May 8 #3 & #15).

The design works well. The only problem that I ran across is that if the font appears to be too small, you can just make the text size of the browser bigger in order to read it better, you’re basically stuck reading the small print.

The majority of this blog is filled with witticisms and hilarity overflowing. If you want something real and yet still amusing, this is the place to go. I found myself highly obsessed with menial things like his driving for 10 hours and all he had to say about work. You’ll find fun for the whole family here, only if you have a good sense of humor. The New Empire Lounge