Month: January 1970

Anie is your typical angst ridden, why-me, hates-the-world, miserable teen who expresses her misery quite well in her blog. In spite of her constant over the top melodrama, her blog is honest, emotional and full of entries like this:

“I wish I could go back and relive my life. Life used to be so good. Now I don’t see the use for living. Life is so depressing anymore. I used to be so happy. I used to say I wanted to be so grown up. Now I look back and say I want to be a kid again. Life is too stressful. I miss the days when I could hang out with friends and we didn’t have anything to worry about. Now there is so much to worry about, and I fear my worries will lead to walking pneumonia (or pneumonia).”

Many entries are of the “I’m depressed” sort and they get tiresome real fast. Some entries contain a little more substance when she adds a political quote or rants about abortion, occasionally she has some poetry… but usually she is just depressed. She is always depressed. I think she should see a doctor or choose her words more carefully. Depression is a serious illness and tossing the word depression around for sympathy, attention or effect is wrong.

I think this is a blog other angst ridden teens might want to read, perhaps they could relate. The rest of us, however, won’t find this blog too satisfying. There aren’t many entries either, the archives go back barely two months. (Just enough to avoid the TWR 2 star archive crunch) The comments to her blog entries (and her subsequent responses to the comments) are fairly interesting:

“everyone acts slightly different around different sets of people, it’s not you, it’s just the effect those people have on your personality, you might just show one side more than others around different people…don’t fret
kate | 12.24.02 – 3:41 pm | #”

I guess, but… …just so dramatically???
I guess it’s part of being “enthusiastic personafied”… …or maybe I’m just depressed. Hmm…
Anie | 12.26.02 – 11:32 pm | #



A few things…Edit the contact code it reads “mailto:enter your email address here”. It makes a poor impression. Admittedly I use Word’s spell checker a lot. My spelling is awful. Why can’t others cut, paste and check their entries? Anie should learn this skill as well. Typical teen angst. Grrr. OI-vey.
OI

This is the weblog of small-town-Wisconsin-native, Ira, who’s now living in Chicago. The North Avenue Traffic Report is a personal weblog detail Ira’s personal traffic report, if you will. Ira best explains his purpose and intent by letting all the readers know the story behind the title of the weblog, and how it effects what he chronicles at this site.

The way Ira narrates stories is often very picturesque. When he tells of his dumpster diving experiences, it’s very easy to imagine him, legs sticking out, scrounging around for that great deal that you can’t find anywhere else – aside from the bottom of a dumpster. With Ira’s description, for the first time ever, I realized the advantages of scoping out those perfect dumpsters and piqued my curiosity enough to wonder where I might find some professional dumpster divers in my area…



No, his posts aren’t all about digging things out of the garbage. A good portion of his posting deals primarily with his bike ride to and from work each day. I never knew one could have so much to write about just along a bike ride. Ira takes time to notice what’s going on around him each day, and does us all a favor by taking the time to write about it. It’s a refreshing thing to read for me, because on my way to work, all I’m concerned about is the jerk in front of me who keeps riding his brakes and the lady next to me who’s got her lipstick out trying to use her rearview mirror to apply it.

The only thing I really felt like I missed out on at the North Avenue Traffic Report was some more information about Ira. His stories sometimes clue us in to a little bit about him, but you only learn that if you go through the few months of archived entries that are available. I’d like to see somewhere I could read a more general description of this guy that managed to entertain me the whole time I read through this site.



The design of the site is nice. It uses standard black, white, and yellow. There’s nothing flashy or something that’ll throw in any shock value. It’s just a nicely done site that makes for easy navigation and easy reading.

Stop by and give the North Avenue Traffic Report a read for a few days. Ira is sure to hook you with is writing and just the mere way he can tell a story. And that always makes for a good weblog.

North Avenue Traffic Report

This girl can vent, and I mean she can really vent. For people that have followed this particular weblog all along, they’ve known this from the first official post, where someone steals money from the author’s wallet. I would not have wanted to be on her hit list that day. And with her second post listing all over her boyfriends (Edward Norton, Jude Law, Paul Rudd, etc.), I felt like this was going to be the weblog of someone I just couldn’t help but like.

The posts continue on like that. The author goes off on a tangent quite regularly, but I don’t think that’s anything unusual from anyone else. And these particular tangents also happen to be ones that I’m sure lots of people out there could go off on just as well. It’s definitely something that I liked reading about, oddly enough.



It’s a Blogspot weblog, but I was exuberantly happy to see that the author had done something more to the design than just leave it in a prefab template. The background you find when you click on the archive link is a bit… well, bizarre, for lack of a better word. The full layout, though, is one that works for the site. It doesn’t actually tie in with the title in any way, but I suppose it doesn’t really have to.

The about section is limited. It’s very bare, but I suppose that works into the Bare part of the site’s title of “Barefoot and Happy”. There are other links available – one to a poll and of course several that lead to other sites the author frequents.

This is one of those rare weblogs that have you going “Hey, me too!” over and over again while reading each entry. To me, that makes a weblog one that you’ll want to come back to over and over again. Check this one out. I’m confident at least one of her posts will grab you and shake you just like it was something you’d said yourself.

Barefoot And Happy

Met by pictures of naked boys, hiding their junk behind pants-in-hand, ‘Brandon’ gave an interesting first impression. The naked boys are holding jeans by the way, which is ironic, considering our new friend Brandon never liked wearing jeans … I guess that’s why the boys have them off instead of on?

Anyway … Brandon, 19, a Cancer, from Indiana, is quite the character. He’s a very literal writer, but inherently, his writing style expresses the down-to-earth personality he possesses. I think people can honestly relate to Brandon … he’s a college-going homosexual who is dealing with current things, admittedly affected by a prejudiced past, and ultimately growing as a result of remaining open to new experiences. I like Brandon … he’s a solid guy, with no regrets.

Brandon’s design is a very clean one. Easily navigated, and attractive, it’s all-in-all a functional, well designed weblog.

I think Brandon, the site, the blog, and the person is very worth anyone’s time. This weblog received a 4.5 because of it’s simplicity, and mild-spirited everyday ramblings./brandon

Digital Tirade was listed as an “entertainment” blog, so I expected to show up and get the latest lowdown on television or the movies. Digital Tirade really isn’t an entertainment blog though – it’s a group blog about….well, a myriad of topics. Four guys with an overabundance of testosterone: let the hilarity ensue!

If the co-workers from Office Space got together and wrote a blog, I imagine that it would be much like Digital Tirade. Almost the whole first year of entries are mostly Waylin complaining about his job [that’s some entertaining stuff], but then the other writers of Digital Tirade show up. There is an element of an entertainment blog to Digital Tirade – there’s a section for reviews of mostly movies and video games. I will fully admit this: I love this blog. It’s funny, irreverent, and well-written. I’m totally hooked – I read every single entry, and that’s just about three years worth of entries.

The four writers at Digital Tirade don’t always play off each other’s entries, but regardless of whether they do or not, each of them makes great contributions to the blog. Devilturnip has some great entries about his trouble with cops, and I think he’s my favorite writer at Digital Tirade because he likes one of my favorite writers. Waylin is hilarious – he likes to teach Mormons about the chaos theory. I laughed and cried with Docnose as he explored the darker side of hibachi grilling, and with KoRyo as he complained about being his boss’ personal bitch.

Digital Tirade has one of the best About Me type of pages I have ever read. It doesn’t give too much information, but it’s hilarious. There is a store where you can purchase Digital Tirade merchandise, but the graphic links to the merchandise were broken when I visited. There’s also a section devoted to Waylin’s artwork, and a section that displays stills from and links to three of the writers’ webcams. Aside from all this, there are links to sites of interest and a great search feature. The design is good, with clean navigation.

Digital Tirade is one of the most entertaining blogs I’ve come across in a while – I’m definitely adding them to my blogroll list and will read regularly!
DigitalTirade