Month: January 2003

Let’s get something cleared up right away. This blog is personal, very personal. If you read it as if it were your own, you will be on an emotional roller coaster. If you read it as a guest with an open heart, you will be on an open roller coaster. And if you try to read it for entertainment, you will be very disappointed. Oh yeah, you need to start at the first post, and work your way to current otherwise you will miss the entire point of this blog.

With that said, we have the weblog of a 19 year old girl who is recovering from an eating disorder. The weblog is full of pain and suffering, but then there are times when you see that moment of happiness that really brightens up the weblog. Posts consist of poetry, daily life, and mixtures of the two. The daily life posts are written and formatted sometimes like a poem, with only a couple of words per line.

As I stated above, you have to read the archives first with this weblog. I started to read current to old, and I just didn’t understand what was going on. I read her little about section and still didn’t get it. I finally decided to read it from the very first post and it all made sense.

The design of the site is beautiful, but not functional. On the current months we have a picture of a chandelier and the archives have a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar in front of a cemetery. Both designs feature an iframe for the blog which is a pain in the butt to use. My scroll wheel only works about 50% of the time inside the iframe, and if switch windows I must click inside the box again for my arrow keys to work the scrolling of the window. Also some of the archived months do not load properly from the archives, but will load properly from the current month.

This is one of those blogs where you can see the growth of the author through out. Unfortunately that was about the only thing I enjoyed with the blog. The blog was clearly started for the author’s benefit, and I am not sure if the public should be able to read it and judge it. The posts are filled with emotion, mainly pain, and this was a very hard blog to read, let alone review. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. So if you are looking for a blog that has a lot of growth and a lot of potential, here you go.
sleepless

I had no idea what I was going to be reading when I clicked on the title “Marley’s Ghost” – maybe it’d be a shrine to Bob Marley, or maybe it’d be some type of a ghost story posting place. As it turns out, “Marley’s Ghost” is a weblog that I’m glad I didn’t miss out on. It’s definitely one I’ve already bookmarked and plan on visiting regularly.



The layout of “Marley’s Ghost” certainly defines simplicity at its finest. Links to other various portions of the site (about the author, outside links, a disclaimer, etc.) shoot down the left side, and all of the daily updates run right down the middle. The color choice of black, gray, and white continue to exemplify Marley’s attempt at keeping everything simple as can be. Or from what he says, he just uses these colors because he likes them. Either way works for the site, and works for making the site easy on the eyes.

Taking a line from Marley’s “about” section: “… it’s more about content than presentation …”, and the content isn’t anything to blow off in this weblog. There’s no consistency in what topic is going to be touched on from day to day, but that makes this site fun to visit and more importantly, fun to read. He’s entertaining and he writes in a manner that’s easy to follow. The thing that makes this weblog truly personal is the way you can tell Marley’s not writing for anyone else; he’s just writing to write.

One of favorite posts was Marley’s comparison of starting his blogging ritual at the age of 26 to a scene from a Keanu Reeves movie. And I found an amazing new pick-up line in yet another one of Marley’s earliest posts: “”Say, is that a keg in your pants? Because I sure would like to tap that ass!” From reality TV shows to current events, and from religion to whatever topics he can touch on to make the day go by faster while at work, Marley’s an entertaining writer.

You don’t find your typical “this-is-what-I-did-today” posts here as often as you do on other weblogs, but you don’t find the author harping on the same worn out news topic day in and day out either. Marley mixes his entries like a bartender mixing drinks. Most of them are just right. Every so often you’ll find an entry that makes you laugh a little more and feel a little bit better, just like a screwdriver with Tang instead of orange juice. Variety is good, and it guarantees that readers won’t get tired of coming back to a site like this.Marley’s Ghost.

“A Little Bit of Lisa” – I figure you can’t get more self explanatory about a personal weblog than that. I can certainly appreciate getting right to the point of a title and not leaving everyone guessing what they’ll be reading about.



Naturally, the first thing I noticed when loading the site was the layout. The image of a rubber duck and the use of different hues of yellow give the site a fun appearance, and the colors are also very easy on the eyes. The main focus of the site, naturally the weblog, can be found directly underneath the rubber duck image. A good chunk of information about the author can be found along the right hand side of the weblog – information about the author, the archives listed in both by month and by category, stats on the weblog itself and MANY more things to check out upon visiting.

The archives for April had a line or two of coding that may have been a little off, causing the majority of the entries for that month to be difficult to read, but the rest of the monthly archives were all uniform in design and just matched up perfectly. I was met with “403 Forbidden” screens a few times when following some of the links along the sidebar, but I’m assuming that has something to do with the “moving in” process to a new domain.

“A Little Bit of Lisa” has been around, as far as the archives indicate, only since January of 2003. Already in that time period, it’s switched from a Blog*Spot location to a new domain/location: http://www.lisaandben.com/alittlebitoflisa/.

Depsite over five months of entries, the time I spent reading all the archives seemed to just fly by. A good chunk of the entries are that of the standard weblog “fillers”: Friday Fives, Saturday Scruples, and a few various quizzes. Thrown in with those entries, you find personal tidbits of Lisa’s daily life. A very personal type of entry that I really enjoyed were the different entries where Lisa listed five things she loved about her husband, Ben.

Lisa is a regular person just like you or me, and her weblog reflects that. She talks about every day topics that any one of us could experience. For that reason, “A Little Bit of Lisa” is a good weblog to check out if you’re looking for a personal site to add to your list of daily reads.

A Little Bit Of Lisa

Becoming an estate agent has always been an interest of mine, and I’m an avid viewer of Selling Houses and Location, Location, Location, so I was interested to see a weblog dedicated to the profession. Just to make clear, the weblog is heavily linked to the author, John Mudd’s, business site. I suppose this would be more useful if you were actually house hunting in Tampa Bay, but I took advantage the featured homes to check out how the property market was going in another part of the world.

Back to the weblog, the main purpose of the site is given as being news/links, and whilst any news on the real estate front is reported, there are also tips such as “Getting the Best Price When Selling Your Home” and “What Sellers Should Disclose When Selling”. Many of these posts are followed by Mudd’s contact details and you are encouraged to contact him if you are interested in selling or buying in his locality (or if you just want advice on real estate). This site is definitely used as a promotion for John’s work, as well as for a personal site, and this does feel quite imposing if you are reading for leisure or just out of interest.

I would be very interested to see how this site is received by Mudd’s clients. Accompanying a few news posts are Mudd’s own comments and opinions. A very recent one even comments around America’s relationship with the Middle East. This is surely a risky move considering that his clients and potential clients use the site. He could easily offend people either way. Still, it must be refreshing to some customers to get an insight into their agent/seller like this.

The layout of the site works okay, but as all the links towards the top of the screen are for the business site, you have to scroll right down the screen to find the archives. Mudd’s ‘about page’ (which is well worth a read) can only be found on the business site, so I’d like to see that brought onto the weblog. To look at, the site is a little busy, but then Mudd is a real estate seller and writer, not a web designer.

I’m guessing that you’re going to get a lot more out of this site if you are thinking of moving house (especially in the Tampa Bay Area) or if you’re in the real estate business. Although I don’t fit into those categories, I still found the site interesting and am sure there are many other weblog readers out there for whom the site is worth a visit. I have given John Mudd’s Inside Real Estate Journal a 4 because it is an original and interesting concept. With more work on the layout, a move away from the business site (so that Inside Real Estate stands alone), and more frequent posts, it could command an even higher rating.
John Mudd’s Inside Real Estate Journal

Do you know what Ei Baa Hashne means? I’ll tell you about it. No, that’s what it means, “I’ll tell you about it”. I am very intrigued by this weblog, it’s subtitled “A web log by a Navajo in New Orleans”. I must admit, I don’t know much about Navajo culture, and this made me very interested to read the weblog. The first thing I noticed was the Navajo Word of the Week column in the right hand sidebar. That is a really nice touch that adds a lot to the blog. It’s a great way to introduce the written Navajo language to the readers.

I’m now aware that ‘chidi’ means a car (or automobile) and browsing through the Navajo Word of the Week archives is interesting, I think I can formulate a sentence based on what I’ve read: “Ei ashkii bi ‘at’eed shik’is nizhoni”. My apologies if my attempt came out wrong. I was trying to say “That boy has a beautiful girlfriend” but I’m not sure it ‘’at’eed’ and ‘shik’is’ can be joined to mean ‘girlfriend’. It’s fun to learn the sentence structure and grammar and at least I can say “Ya’at’eeh. Huai Bin yinishye. Ashkii nishli. 22 shinaahai. Melbourne di shighan” with confidence. It’s in the Navajo Word archives. 🙂 Go look up what it means, Vernon (the site owner) has done a really good job with the description and sample sentences!

Vernon has been running the blog since the 19th of February 2003, so this makes it a relatively new one. The entries are fairly regular, Vernon does not skip more than a couple of days in between posts. The monthly archives are nicely peppered with photos too, and Vernon participates in quite a few “blog memes” like the Friday Five and Photo Friday (to name two). The blog starts out nicely, with most of the entries in the first month and the first few entries in March updating the reader about the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans. Vernon was part of the parade as well, in one of his entries in March titled “MG update: My Orpheus Experience”, he describes his experience with setting up and riding on a float.

It’s also very nice to see that Vernon is a proud of his heritage and he makes his feelings about that known in the March 4th entry about non-Native Americans dressing up as such during Mardi Gras. The later entries are a mix of commentaries about TV series and the “blog memes”, which makes the reader know more about Vernon. The two poems entitled “My Words” and “My Deeds” are really good too, and I particularly liked the second one. His feelings in that one really came through strongly.

I have always liked reading “nostalgic entries” and I enjoyed reading Vernon’s post on the 6th of April regarding cliques while he was in high school at the reservation. I have never noticed clique-type behavior at my high school, but it seems to be common in the United States. It’s also interesting to read that he’s on the Atkins Diet, which I’ve heard a lot of bad things about. It’s worthy to note that Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt is on that very same diet by Dr. Atkins…I picked that up while reading the papers last week regarding Hollywood personalities and their diets.

I also noticed that I’ve been to his blog before, but didn’t read anything then. I have recently started doing the Photo Friday too, and I remember clicking through all of the past entries, so I must have stumbled upon his weblog then, but didn’t pay attention to anything other than the photo. I am disturbed by his entry about accidental kerosene consumption when he was five. The taste of kerosene is all too clear to me (don’t ask why) and reading that made nearly made me retch in recollection of the taste.

The design of the site is based on a three column template, with the blog entries occupying the middle column. The right sidebar contains the wonderful Najavo Word of the Week (which I will definitely bookmark this site for) and links to other blogs. The left sidebar has the site navigation column, an avatar with the current weather in New Orleans, links to fellow Native American bloggers and webring memberships and other miscellaneous links. The design of the site isn’t anything special and doesn’t stand out, but the interesting entries makes up for that. This is definitely blog that favors content over eye candy.

The About Me page pops up a window (with a different background) with Vernon’s personal details, including his tribe and his ancestor’s clans. It’s interesting to learn another fact about Navajo culture – it seems to be a matrilineal society. Vernon is a physician (which he mentioned in the unforgettable kerosene entry) and we share the same favorite drink! No, not kerosene. Diet Coke. The other links are Vernon’s poetry, photos (of the photo memes like Photo Friday), an archive of all the memes he has done, a page dedicated to his pets, the blog archives and The May Day Project!

I haven’t seen a May Day project I didn’t like, and this didn’t break that tread. I enjoyed visually seeing what a day in the life of the author is. Ahehee Vernon, I really enjoyed reading through your entries! I’ll have to follow the guidelines and give it a 4 for the inconsistent design though. hagoonee’ everyone, and don’t forget to click on the link to check out Vernon’s blog, it certainly is a refreshing change and a fun read for me. It’s a very good site, that’s for sure.

Ei Baa Hashne’ – I’ll tell you about it