Month: January 1970

“Halfway Between” is an appropriate title for this blog. It’s halfway between a good blog and a great blog. Upon arriving at the site I found a Greymatter blog with a few links, a lengthy archive of posts, and some mildly interesting content.

Most of Brett’s posts are short and sweet, and his style seems to imply that he feels his readers are his friends, which I liked. Unfortunately, “short and sweet” doesn’t necessarily make for “captivating” most of the time. I noticed a LOT of one or two sentence entries, which can be annoying when you are looking for real meaty content.

Aside from that, I think that if you know Brett and have been reading his blog from the beginning (he’s had the current version since March 2001) that you’d probably be a daily visitor. But if you are just coming to it now, like me, you’d hope for a little more content to keep you coming back.

The design of the site is basic enough and can’t be faulted – two columns, one with links, the other with the blog. The color scheme is easy on the eye as well. With a bit more tweaking, this site can leave behind the realm of “Halfway Between” and become the great blog it’s meant to be. Halfway Between If & When

Wow. Where to begin with this site? How about with what I didn’t do for it. I didn’t read the other reviews already written on this site for fear of it influencing my rating or judgment of it. I did take a sneak peak at the ratings however just to see who reviewed it, and what they thought of it. But of course, since it was already reviewed, she posted that info on her site.

So what did I find here at Bumptious? I found a funny site with lots of direct and indirect humor. For the most part I laughed at what was being said, but then other times I wasn’t as “tickled” shall we say as other times. But I quickly solved the question of why the other reviewers found the site extremely funny, and I only laughed at parts – because I am male, and the author of the site is female.

Yes, sometimes that makes all the difference. I couldn’t relate near as well as the other reviewers could for that reason. So with solving that little problem I read on.

Ok, so we got some funny stuff, what else is there to read here? Some personal posts, some posts about the government, some about movies and actors and all that other stuff. It is a fairly “general” (I say that very loosely) blog, with the exception that it is funny.

The design of the site has to be a blogger template, which works. However, I would like to see a Bumptiously design to reflect the words the author writes. Also, she likes to bolden certain phrases to really grab my attention, or to enforce a thought which I liked. But design, there isn’t anything here since it is a template.

Over all the site is very well done, and enjoyable. If you want a good laugh, head on over. And if you are female and want a good laugh, you really should take a look. So go check out Bumptiously and have yourself a good laugh.
Bumptious

I love Monkeys. This is probably why the name of this site, MonkeyReview, stood out in my mind. I mean, don’t we all want a Monkey?

Anyhow, this site is a Review website mostly concerned with PC Gaming. It has reviews on Hardware, Software (mostly games), tips and tricks concerning PC configuration, as well as movie reviews. The reviews are well done and relatively professional. The articles, as a whole, are quite informative and helpful as well. Overall, the written (content) part of the site is quite well done. I, personally, would visit this site in order to gather information on the gaming scene if I was still seriously involved in it.

The design is also well done. There is nothing revolutionary about it, but that is what you want in a News related site such as this. It has a classic PHPNuke (and other content management system) layout with left rails containing the basic links, a menu and quickfind on top, a main content middle section, and a category listing (Game Reviews, Software reviews, Movie Reviews, etc), poll, and other features on the right rails. Clean, well laid out, and uncluttered. It is easy to find what you want on this site.

There seems to be a bundle of content available to peruse on this site as well as a viable community involved, which is always a plus. Myself, I would probably head back to check out some of the PC configuration articles. If you like computers, and games on said computers, most likely you will find something here for you.

On a side note, this is not what I would call a traditional Weblog. It is more of a News site (original news site, not a news linking site like many news Weblogs). Still, the news is laid out in a Weblog fashion, it is well written, and it is updated routinely. The News also does not simply concern the site, but the topic of the site as a whole.

So, altogether, this site is incredibly worthwhile to anyone who is involved in the gaming scene. A lot of work has gone into this site and it shows. It is a very clean and professional site, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the gaming scene.MonkeyReview

This site follows a classic “splash page to menu” design, and has a nice and clean look. The design is laid out nicely, flash is used appropriately, and the site, overall, is very attractive. Themes (hot chocolate) are used well throughout, as well. The problem?

This site has no “Blog” element to it as of writing. I looked through all the links and found nothing in the way of a Weblog at all. The closest you get is the “News” section. The News section does have a layout suggesting that it uses a Weblog engine (such as Blogger, Greymatter, etc), but it is simply used for news concerning the site and it’s subject, author Garrett Diamond. Unless the content of this section changes, this site contains no Weblog whatsoever. If the author of the site has decided to begin a Weblog, then this very well might be a site with a much, much higher rating. However, as it is now, I can not give a non-Weblog site a high rating on a Weblog review.

Having said that, the site itself is wonderful. There are links to music, poetry, video, artwork, and more concerning the author the site is about. And, like I said in the opening paragraph, it is well laid out and designed. So, if you enjoy eclectic writing, music, and so forth then check out this site. However, if you go here to see a Weblog, you best try something else.HOTCHOCOLATE.TV

I like this woman. I may not know anything about her, but she’s funny.

Upon entering this blog I noticed that it’s in the no-frills Blogger template, which I have no problem with. She has a cute tiny picture of a kitten (I’m a sucker for kittens) on her sidebar, as well as links to a couple other websites and her archives. Other than that, her site is just her musings and little else. And that’s not a bad thing in this case.



Our host has only been doing the blog since July, but she’s active and posts regularly. Her posts are largely commentary on pop culture, with some miscellaneous mentions of her personal life tossed in for good measure. While her posts are brief, they are snarky and fun to read.



There are no extra frills here – other than her email address I saw no personal information whatsoever. It’s literally an anonymous woman posting funny anecdotes and thoughts online. But it works. Bumptious