Month: January 1970

Upon entering this blog, the first thing I saw at the very top of the page, was a row of baby photo’s,(including 2 of before the baby was born).

At that time, my first impression was that this blog may be of real interest, especially in a female perspective.

I looked in the top right hand corner and there was a brief description of what the blog was mainly about. It said:
… a blog about a journey through pregnancy, birth and life with a baby…

It’s always nice to see a description of some kind about the blogs contents. It gives readers a better perspective on things.

Erin (the author) is a 27 year old “stay at home wife and mother”, and also an ex writer for an advertising agency. At the moment she is loving every minute of staying at home caring for her baby. Her blog is devoted basically on her baby (Benjamin). She writes about his feeding periods, his sleeping habits etc. Being a mom myself, reading her entries brought a smile to my face . One of the reasons being that it brought back some fond memories of my own.

Erin started her blog in January 2003. Practically every post (except for maybe 1 or 2), is focused entirely on Benjamin. Erin has links as well posted on several of her entries which contain sites on parenting . Very helpful sites to new moms especially.

Erin has links on her entries as well, where you can actually hear Benjamin making baby sounds.

On the right hand side , Erin has several links arranging from Benjamin’s ultrasound photos, Erin’s pregnancy pics and even little home movies of Benjamin, (which were very cute indeed) There are also several adorable photos of Benjamin located throughout the blog.

Anyone can see that Benjamin is Erin’s pride and joy. Her entries are very well written and very easy to read. However, I wasn’t too fond of the colors on the page. But since the blog was about a baby, the colors suited it quite well. This would be a great site for an expectant mother to visit. It would give her a few insights on parenthood. No offense to the male population, but it would be good for them to visit as well. One of the reasons being that maybe they would get more of a perspective and insight on the female and childbirth.

There was a problem I had with the links on the right hand side. Every time I clicked on one, it wouldn’t let me go back to the previous page. It continued to knock me off of the blog completely.

In conclusion, I do recommend giving this blog a visit. It is quite interesting and informative. As I already stated, the links kept knocking me off the site. Well now that Erin knows about that problem, I am sure she will have it fixed in the near future.Tale of a Baby Human

Tale of a Baby Human opens to a line of photos in the header that range from an ultrasound, to a picture of our little celebrity at five months old. Under this is a green caterpillar that shows his age also. The entries have a pale yellow background and are crisp and clean to read.

But what steals the show on this blog is the multimedia section that rises this Mommy blog to a whole new level. There’s a song composed by the grandfather before the baby was born, and slide shows of ultrasounds, along with ones of the baby on the day of delivery and they continue to the present. The windows media presentations include some very well chosen soundtracks that will have you laughing or if you have children of your own, tearing up. ( Those of you who don’t have children yet may not have this reaction. And you probably think the rest of us dolts. But believe me when you do, you will understand that parents can go a little whacko about their kids. It’s our job. 🙂

The written entries begin when our Mommy finds out she is pregnant and they document the whole process in a personal and humorous way that is fun to follow. I began to see also how this blog must have been a great way for friends and family to keep up to date on the latest news.

There are the usual links to other Mommy blogs and other web sites of interest to the new mother and child. And the author seems to have a fair number of regularly commenting readers. Which is a good sign that you are writing well enough to keep people’s interest.

The obvious target audience is Mommies. But don’t let that stop you from checking out the multimedia section of this blog, even if you are not in your child bearing years just yet. I think you will get a chuckle out of the one entitled “Practice Makes Perfect”. Though I have to admit, I watched every one of them.

Go on, have a little fun. I did!

Tale of a Baby Human

Smack My Booty sounded like an exciting, maybe even titillating title for a weblog so I was quite keen to head on in and review it. The site design I was first struck with was ok – at least it was individual, though I wasn’t too sure about the somewhat gaudy red and black colour scheme. Having scanned down the sidebar I found a skinning facility which enabled me to change the whole thing to a much more tasteful green affair which was far easier on the eyes. The only minor gripe is that some of the posts were too wide and this forced the sidebar down to the bottom of the screen (as on the front page), though as this is a problem I regularly have on my own blog with certain skins, I could only sympathise.

There isn’t much else of note to be found in the sidebar – links, archives, not much else. No sign of an “About Me” page (which I think would have helped a lot with this blog) or a photoblog. There are a few pictures to be found in amongst the entries but they are usually along the lines of ones nicked off the internet rather than photographs taken by the blogger.

The content itself is divided in to the usual categories and whilst there are quite a few to choose from in the title bar, they seemed to boil down to politics, gadgets, Lego and a few comic books as far as I could make out. Yes, that’s Lego as in the little plastic bricks that fit together to make stuff. The author has written a book which is linked to (in some of the earlier posts) about Lego trains and even went to a Lego convention in Europe which I thought was quite cool. The things people get up to with Lego is way beyond what I had imagined and I personally would have liked to read more about this subject. It is not one you find everyday on a blog and let’s face it, EVERYONE likes Lego.

The tech stuff seemed mostly computer related and the comic posts were too few and far between to really get the drift of what the author was in to. There were a few posts about personal stuff- family visiting, films watched and books read, but again, more and longer posts about these subjects would have given me a better idea of who the author was as a human being.

Ok, let’s talk about the politics then. I am not a big fan of politics and unfortunately this subject took up most of the blog. I positively dislike blogs about American politics because, apart from anything else, I don’t live there. In the author’s favour, the issues raised and arguments put forward are often more balanced and well argued than some blogs I have encountered. He tends to steer clear of extreme polemic most of the time and whilst you may not agree with what is being said, at least you can see where he is coming from and that there is room for debate. This doesn’t apply across the board, as there are also some sweeping generalisations and (I think) completely misinformed lines of arguments, but these are certainly not the norm and can be excused for the most part. The main problem with politics is that it all depends on what you want to believe. The other problem is that I don’t care.

So this is an entertaining enough blog which would appeal mostly to Americans I think. There is unfortunately nothing particularly outstanding about it at present, so come on Jake, let’s have more Lego!Smack My Booty

Brain Lint. A Bloggar site. Hmmm, has something changed at Bloggar? This page looks better than the last one I visited. I like the two toned green scheme. It’s simplicity is soothing to the eye and puts the focus on the entries where it belongs.

For some unfathomable reason, on the current entry page the side bar doesn’t seem to have enough room, so it loads way down below the last entry. But on the archives pages the side bar appears in its proper place. A small adjustment will probably fix this.

I checked out the 100 Things About Me link and found a humorous and informative list where I learned that our author is a High School English teacher (for 25 years no less) and lives in Manitoba Canada. She is a published author and has a scan of the check to prove it. (I thought this was cute.) Our author has been blogging here since May 2003.

I decided to begin at the beginning and headed for the archives. Most of the entries are essays about the author’s childhood. A theme that continues throughout the blog, though in recent times, she writes more often about current events in her life.

Her writing style is casual and mildly humorous. Very readable and I found myself being drawn in to an interesting and varied compilation of memories. I recommend this entry in particular, May 23, 2004 in which she tells us about her father, and how he coped with life under Nazi occupation in Holland. Worth a read.

I had a great time visiting here. If you enjoy reading memoirs, this site will delight you. Check it out.

brainlint.blogspot.com

Wars of Compassion starts out with the following Blog description: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Career, Romance, and Nation-Building”. Sweet.

But that’s just the beginning. The author, Ryan is a member of Overlord, a pop band and he lives in Philadelphia. Funny, this is the second musician I’ve had to review in the course of a day.

Ryan’s blog is beautifully written (his first entries from 2003 are worth browsing just for the kick of reading words used with such elegance). Although his posts are digressions on a series of topics (as his blog description states), he has interesting things to say on matters ranging from his dating life to his views on politics. He handles narrative well, his vocabulary is impressive and his political thoughts, I for one, found appealing.

It’s nice to run into these kinds of blogs, where English is used so stylishly and people like Noam Chomsky are admired. Call this man the Fred Astaire of the blogosphere with a political standing.

He’s been blogging since 2003 and I really regretted not having all the time in the world to read every entry.

Regarding layout and design, the template is standard blogspot, simple; but the content was so appealing that I soon forgot my aesthetic tendencies. Not that he didn’t choose a white (elegant) template.

The right-hand side bar has links ranging from Overlord (his band) FAQs, to “people links” including Chomsky and others of the author’s interest.

I very much appreciated the quote at the end of the side bar (Goering, Nuremberg Trial). So true. It strangely reminded me of Leo Strauss. Well worth putting a quote like this into a side bar.

Overall, I loved the site. I only wish it had a beautiful layout to do it justice. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in good writing and passionate stands. wars of compassion