Month: April 2001

This weblog reads like a novel. That’s probably a good thing because the author is in the process of writing one. The richness and cohesiveness of the posts make for an enjoyable read and set it apart from the vast majority of weblogs.



Design-wise, the weblog is simple and straight-forward. The purple text is difficult to read on the black background.



The subject matter covers such topics as commitment and streetwalkers. Heavy stuff. The personality of the author is revealed through carefully chosen words, well thought-out dialogue, and self-consciousness monologues.



The tone of the weblog is deadpan.. kindof depressing. That, and the purple color scheme together left me feeling blue. The author sighs a lot. The whole weblog, in fact, reeks of resignation, fatigue, exhaustion, confusion, ambiguity…



thumbs-up.



fin. firefly: version decoy

Just like the puppy dog in the name, this site is very charming.



The author posts fully-fleshed out, complete ideas chock full of gems like this one describing a Michael Jackson video:



“A crowd of dopey white people stood around, slack-jawed and amazed, as if they had never seen that Fred Astaire movie from 50 years ago.”



..and this one describing post-apocalyptic equiptment:



“I am not physically fit so hand to hand combat is out for me, and I guess I wouldn’t be too good against a scimitar in a knife fight. So I want a gun. And not one of those little ladies’ guns, either. I need one of those big boo-ya ones.”



Design-wise, the site seems to be a generic template… it looks exactly like http://www.cloudwrangler.com/ Either that or someone borrowed someone’s design. Anyhow, that’s kindof lame. The design does, however, serve the delightful content up nicely without being gaudy.



The author’s age and musical tastes are distinctive and add a uniqueness and personality to this weblog. The occasional photograph are interesting and really spice up the posts.



The entries alternate between “cohesive, significant subjects”, and “these are the things that I did today”. The author’s writing style presents even the mundane as compelling.



This weblog is mature, thoughtful, and thorough. Quality, all around.



fin.BobtheCorgi

First thought as this site was loading up: some 14 year old girl. She’s definitely into anime. The layout’s okay, a little too kid like for me though, but I like that her site’s simple and there isn’t a bunch of stuff everywhere. She also has little links to other people who she likes and a little info about herself.



Her blog, it’s okay. She tends to use little facial expressions in her posts, like >_< and -_- that gave her posts a little more emotion to what she was saying, but sometimes I didn't get them. Her posts are fairly short that talk about school or just about what's going on with her site or family:


“Another Monday. Another week. My mom’s coming home tomorrow; I hope her flight’s not delayed. Anyways, I’m looking forward to seeing her again. ^_^ At least that is something cheery to look forward to.”



But I did like her post about her visit to San Francisco where she talked about her day in Chinatown.



I wasn’t totally in her site, but it would be nice if she blogged more so you got more of a feeling of who she was and what her life was like.Ask Someone Else

The design of a weblog doesn’t weigh very heavily in to a review unless it is exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. This case is the former.



The lines run together so tightly that the letters overlap each other. Nothing says “i hate my reader” like overlapping lines. From a design/artistic perspective, this phenomenon posesses some novelty, but having to read it is painful.



The column that the text is in is also much too narrow to read without pain. Making the eye jump to the next line after every four words is just sadistic.



Content-wise, this site suffers from ADD. The posts are very short, bite-sized snippets of nothing. They also suffer from chronic misspellings, no sentence structure, overuse of the word “like” and *huggies*.



While admittedly a petty point, the drop-down boxes used for nagivation are obnoxiously ugly.



The colors scheme is pretty though. I just love purple.



fin.singalongsong

First thing I read when I came to this site was the little quote that’s near the top in pink. I refreshed the page and noticed that the quotes change every time you come to the site. I’m not sure where all the quotes come from, but some looked like they were some other webloggers which is cool. Might be nice to give them a little plug with a link, like the one by booboolina.com that said, “I’ve just decided to see if I can go a whole weekend without the internet. I hope so, otherwise I’m more pathetic than I already think I am.” I started to laugh when I read this later on about her quotes:



“If you want a quote listed, just email me and I’ll fling it up there. Sometimes you’ll have to refresh and refresh and refresh to find your quote. It’s not like I’m trying to beef up my hits either (read: I’m trying to beef up my hits).”





Layout’s okay, it has this dark, forest green look to it. On the side bar the author has links to other webloggers, a “diagnose” section which is more on the author, Tracy, such as her wish list, and bio where she says she’s a “Registered Nurse specializing in psychiatric and addictions treatment.” Her bio’s quite long, but creative because she uses every letter in the alphabet to reveal something about herself, like “C” was for cats which she hates, “F” is for friends of hers, “H” for hobbies and so on.



Now her weblog … I liked one of her most recent posts where she gives you some strange little facts about herself. “Sometimes when the image of the woman’s face pops up when I open Paint Shop Pro 7, I poke her in the eye with my cursor,” and, “I have to make a sentence out of the letters on car license tags at red lights. If the car in front of me has a plate with the letters ‘BMV 172,’ I have to come up with a sentence like ‘Boys move voraciously’ or ‘Bananas make vibrations.'”



Her writing kept me interested the whole time. It’s mostly about her job and what goes on there. You’re guaranteed to find some interesting stories here, I mean she IS a “registered nurse in psychiatric and addictions treatment.”



“I had a patient once who could not remember who the president was. She was about 99 years old, had no teeth, and had one (count it), one hair on her head. After several attempts at guessing, she finally said, ‘Oh shit, he’s the prick who’s fucking Monica Lewinsky.’ I’d say that was a big “alert and oriented.'”



I would have given the site a 5, but I was just a bit put off by the lengthy bio. But this site is really great and isn’t it about “time for your meds” anyway?Time For Your Meds