Month: January 1970

When I clicked on the link for Young Liberals, I decided to keep an open mind. I like reading about politics – any politics – because it’s interesting to hear other people’s views, no matter how much they differ from my own. But, sometimes, these political weblogs can become preachy, scary, or downright boring. I always enter politically based weblogs with a bit of trepidation and caution.

However, I didn’t need to feel at all cautious when reading Young Liberals. If you can’t tell by the title what the political views of the authors are, they are liberals and they try to present their views with humor. The effort at humor worked; I found myself chuckling, giggling, and shaking my head at entries such as “Christophenia,” and “The Machine Goes On.”

While the authors don’t seem to know each other well, and from the entries I read, rarely make references to each other, they do share a common belief system and their writing styles compliment each other. The authors also tried to add personal entries about their everyday lives every once in a while. I found these entries helped to give more substance to their voices; they didn’t seem like nameless entities on their soap boxes, preaching about politics, but came across as intelligent, real people.

The only thing that kept me from giving this weblog a 5.0 was the design. While it does have a neat layout that compliments the site’s content, the entries’ text was so much larger than the headers and footers that sometimes, it was hard to see where one entry ended and the next began. When I initially looked at the web page, I thought that it was just one very long entry on the main page!

But, beside that little, nit-picky detail, I thoroughly enjoyed my read of Young Liberals. In a day and age where people keep whimpering that the youth of today don’t care about politics or their country, it’s good to see a weblog like Young Liberals out there, proclaiming that the youth of today do care.The Young Liberals

I didn’t know what to expect from “Blue Penguin Killer” till I went to the site, read about 5 posts and pretty much figured out what kind of blog it was. It’s a the-world-sucks-so-do-you-so-go-f***- yourself type blog. Now, some people really dig sites that complain about everything and everyone and cuss to express their thoughts, but I personally think it gets old after about the 8th post.

“Blue Penguin Killer” is written by BPK and Evil White Guy. Where did the title of the site come from? Well, from the looks of it, BPK states, “Ultimately a Blue Penguin is any person that I deem stupid.” So I’m guessing he’s the “killer” of anyone who he thinks is stupid? I still don’t get it, but I’m assuming it’s not that important. He also compared his type of humor to South Park which I think is a bit far fetched in my opinion. There’s a major difference between his site and South Park. For instance, the show is done more intelligently in insulting and offending others. Plus, writing large amounts of profanity and using sexual references can only get you so far when offending readers. It gets boring really quick.

The layout is black, nothing excited. The colors you’ll find here is just blue, red and white.

All in all, the site’s great if you’re into reading about two guys who like to complain about everything and everyone they come in contact with and use profanity in every sentence to get their points across. I, on the other hand, wasn’t impressed.
Blue Penguin Killer

I had no idea what I’d find on Blue Penguin Killer, so my mind was open to just about anything. The first thing that caught my eye was the black background, which I generally dislike. Black is hard to read. At least these guys are using a decent font.

This blog is written by a “staff” of two, BPK and Evil White Guy. Evil White Guy has recently started writing here. After reading a few random posts, I was convinced that these guys are a couple of 14 year olds based on their rampant use of profanity. There is no “about” section, so I had to dig a bit to find out for sure. Evil White Guy mentions his wife, so I guess he’s at least of legal marrying age.

There is a rather recent post that attempts to explain the blog. The writers are attempting to satirize events much like the writers of South Park. Even in the early days though, the profanity in South Park wasn’t as prevalent as it is here. As BPK explains, “If myself (BPK) or Evil White Guy thinks that you, your thoughts, your ideas, your writing, your movies, your actions etc. are stupid, then you can expect to get verbally treated as if you were a 12-year-old redneck that was [doing] his mom when all of a sudden his jealous redneck father walked in on the scene after drinking too much moonshine at the still hours before.” Yes, that’s pretty much how all readers are treated. That is frequently the level of writing proficiency as well.

BPK goes on to tell the reader that the blog’s purpose is to make people laugh. Unfortunately, there is not much that is comedic here unless you are a young teen who giggles at curse words. I’m sure the authors are trying to be irreverent in an “angry guy” kind of way, but it comes off as them trying too hard. Let me also say that I am no prude. Profanity can and is used effectively on many blogs. Unfortunately when it’s used constantly, as in almost every sentence, it’s just boring. An interesting example is the post titled “To All Of Those,” (April 17, 2004) where BPK basically tells everyone and everything to f-off. I guess you have to have a certain sense of humor to find this stuff amusing.

The blog itself is functional and the design is minimal. The archives go back to February 2004, though the posting is pretty light. Some months only contain one post. It is not until October that BPK begins posting on a regular basis on this site. November posts are nonexistent, so I assume Evil White Guy was brought in to keep the site regularly updated. There is no common thread to any of the posts. The “staff” just spouts off about whatever comes to mind.

This blog is not for the faint of heart. If you are looking for humor, you should probably look elsewhere. I can only imagine the interesting words BPK and Evil White Guy will use to describe my review. Then again, how many times can you call someone an m-fer before it gets old? In October BPK posted about a blogger he particularly dislikes. He bashed her because as he says she, “has a low self-esteem problem and can’t handle a negative opinion geared toward her work.” I wonder if he can?
Blue Penguin Killer

Upon visiting Bizz Bang Buzz I was impressed at its formal layout. Focused thought has gone into the presentation of the blog, with a business like self portrait photo included for the reader’s viewing. I was amazed to see the author’s resume included in the sidebar, and was impressed with his qualifications & experience!

The weblog is also very formal and business orientated. Posts are geared towards those affiliated with business, law & technology. “Harvard Business School produces online guides for business and career research. Below is a list of the topics covered:” and other business-like topics can be found a-plenty in this blog. The blog is well written, although many of the posts are simply quotes, or references to articles that the author feels will be of interest to his target audience. All of the language within the blog is very formal.

The design and layout of this blog is purely functional. While there are photographs and links to sites of interest throughout the blog, they are done in a very professional, no-nonsense way. The selection of sidebar links is mind boggling! There are 44 blogs under his blogroll section alone! The colors are pleasing to the eye, and add to the feeling of professionalism in this blog.

I appreciated the links promoting tourism to his area. Fun additions like http://zoo.pgh.pa.us/ make this blog a little bit more accessible to the general reader. Most of the links are business related though, again, appealing to a specific target audience. The many links appeal to a business traveller.

Overall, I feel that this site obtains its goal of presenting business orientated material to a specific audience.

Bizz Bang Buzz

Lewies Blogs opens in one of several templates. The one I saw was called “Friendly,” and it was just that. The template is very cluttered. I like friendly, but cluttered? Not so much. I mean, he has one of those blogs that has just about everything you can think of on it. He has translations of his site into 8 different languages, RSS feeds, links, ads, webrings, sourcecodes he’s written, the list goes on and on. And I wish it didn’t.

Lewie is 29, a programmer, married and from Virginia. He takes a photo of himself every day for his blog entries. It was a nice touch. Lewie’s writing is very matter-of-fact and to the point. More often than not, his posts are short but sometimes he tells a good story about his past, such as Moon Halo.

Because Lewie is a programmer, I can understand his need to tinker with and add things to his blog. He needs to suppress that need. There is enough stuff on your blog already, Lewie. Stick to the writing and letting your readers know more about you without worrying about the bells and whistles.Lewies Blogs