Month: October 2003

A personal blog is all about personality. Check out twodolla.org and you’ll know what I mean.

The site is a fresh green, and a cute guy in a lying position smiles at you rather coyly when the page loads, which kind of prepares you for site owner Wendy – fresh, optimistic, and always on the lookout for all guys cute. Proof: She runs a site called Hottie Of The Month. Go on, click on it and check out the March Hottie. You know you want to.

What I find most endearing and exciting about twodolla.org (and what I assume most people like about Wendy) are the sarcasm and at times in-your-face attitude prevalent throughout. Even when she complains or blogs about not-quite-good news, she manages to come off as sassy and spirited. You grin when you read about her feeling great. You grin when you read about her being nasty. Sometimes, you don’t know whether to grin or not, but by the time you make up your mind, you find that it’s too late – this huge grin is already all over your face. Of course, this doesn’t mean that twodolla.org is all silly entries; there is food for thought, packaged up nicely. None of that preachy, the-world-should-listen-to-me nonsense. Sometimes there are some nice surprises too, like the entries about Wendy during her birthday, posted by her friends.

If you still don’t get the idea, then let me put it in one sentence: twodolla.org is interesting. Wendy is at times bubbly, at times wicked, and always interesting. Usually, when I come across a good blog, I urge others to go “check it out”. For twodolla.org, I can’t do that. I have to say – “go check her out”.

twodolla.org

So you’re in your room, cranking out top 40 songs on your stereo while surfing blogs and you say to yourself, “I’m sick of all these trendy, pop songs. I need to find some new stuff and see what other folks think is good.” How about pointing your browser to e-zog.com?

E-zog.com is a site about music and a group of folks who have opinions about music. The site has gone through several layouts over the last few months, which made it a bit difficult to follow; however, I liked the vocal posts given on music. The bands discussed and reviewed are mainly non-mainstream (e.g., Ben Folds, The Flaming Lips, The Lemonheads, etc.) artists, but if you check out the bios of the critics, you’ll find that their tastes in music vary.

You’ll get to read up about what these guys think about up-coming albums by other artists, including concerts and current news. They sometimes post albums they just bought to let readers know what they’ll be listening to and reviewing soon. I also liked some of the recent posts contained other reviews from other sites were incorporated into the review.

Other perks to this site are the sections where you the reader get to voice your own opinion on music. The “recommended” section is cool because you can post a quick review of why people should check out an album. I personally found “The Top Five” section funny where you can post the top five of anything you want. Some folks posted the usual “Top Five Songs” type lists, but I liked the more creative lists such as, “Names My Friends Have Given My Vehicles Growing Up” and “Types of People I’ve Seen at the College Gym” lists. “Zog’s Mix” section’s cool. You can check out what stuff Zog (creator of the site) and other critics have put on mix CDs.

This site’s pretty cool and the fact that it’s an interactive site gives it extra points. The organization and layout could be much better and the content in some areas should be moved to other sections, however, the ideas and opinionated critics is what makes this site worth visiting. Check the site out if you’d like to read up on some new music. I think this site will totally be rocking in a few months after some tweaking is done.

Two thumbs up.
E-zog…Confessions of a Former Pop Junkie

How does one go about reviewing a site they have read for almost two years? Its like trying to review a movie that you acted in, or a book that you wrote. It just doesn’t seem to flow no matter how hard you try.

I have seen Wendy go through countless designs, some more imaginative than others. I have seen her struggle with issues at work and in her life. I have seen her go from living in one state to living in another. To say I have seen it all would really not be true, but I have seen a lot.

So rather than do a standard review and go through specific things about her site, I will go through why after all of these years I have continued to read her site. What is it that she has, that has been able to keep my attention?

For starters, Wendy is original. She has her own style and her own presence. Now I have never met her, but I know that her web persona must carry over into the outside world. Or is it that her persona from the outside world carries over to the web? Either way, it is all good.

So how is she original? Yes she faces similar problems that most people face in their everyday life. Things like attending work, dealing with co workers, dealing with crushes, and those sorts of things. But rather than go into boring details about it, she puts spins on the stories. She gives people nicknames to fit who they are. These include The Gambler, The Crush, and Mr. Moneybags.

Wendy is also able to convey a story very well. She writes with the idea of wanting to picture the moment. What? Huh? Ever read a good book, that didn’t have every single detail, but had just enough of the facts to get the picture across? That is how Wendy writes.

One of the best things Wendy has to offer is her other projects, be it a full project or a mini one. Her main mini project is photography as she is obsessed with her digital camera. While the pictures won’t win an award, they are a good addition to the blog.

Her other main project is Hottie of the Month. She got bored of people talking about hot people, so she created her own version. Anyone and everyone can be a hottie, just ask.

Over all Wendy’s site has been one I have stuck to because she is so easy going. The site is enjoyable to read and has plenty of reasons to keep coming back. If you don’t believe me, look at her participation last year in the blogathon when she posted 48 different toilet pictures.
twodolla.org

I don’t know who the guy casually lying on the chair is, but I find him very attractive! My first view of twodolla.org! The domain name itself sounded familiar, but I realised that my expectations were quashed when I started to read (which is a good thing!) Although the text was fairly small, it was an easy read.. something that I personally tend to look for in a blog. Its easy to comprehend the simplistic nature of this young woman from Minneapolis from reading the first few lines.

It had only been two minutes, and I’d already gathered a lot about her including work, music tastes & that glue sticks are better than conversation hearts. I don’t even know what the former is! Subsequently entertained by the list of unusual referrers which I can easily identify with.. (believe me, Wendy!)The rest of the main page was fairly consistent in writing style and contained a varying amount of daily life topics most of which are kept concise & in small paragraphs. Highly appreciated!

The layout of twodolla.org is common to most weblogs. A large space on the left for the blog material and a sidebar containing links within and external to the site. Easy to navigate so effective in that sense, however I like a bit of originality.. something that will prevent me from having to scroll down and up for (what it seems) miles in order to breeze through the sidebar. Luckily I can’t really complain with Wendy’s site as the main links were at the top, few as they are, they proved a bit of nice reading.

I became slightly confused as to why she has a password protected section & giving out the password to those who email her or who know the name of her pet cat? Its likely that those who would be interested in that section will be closest to her & perhaps even be implicated in her blog (hence the retributions??), otherwise I don’t think your average reader would bother too much. I identify with her need for privacy however seems that releasing the password so freely (as it seems) isn’t really the way.

Having read some of the ‘100 things’ and a few Deuce Bigalow quotes, I found it difficult to get back to the index page without using the back button on my browser. Perhaps a homing link somewhere would help, unless I’d missed it? I also read some archives which were equally entertaining.

Her entry subjects are derivative of the events surrounding her existence, and example being her grandmother’s fight against Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma & questions a variety of theories about God & whether actual prayer will be listened to and dealt with. Her love affair with Best Buy (workplace amongst other things) is obvious, & spreads throughout the entries; but its work & we all identify when things just don’t go our way. In contrast, a few posted conversations make a change from direct paragraphs.. almost like reading a play! Namely the brief meeting with the attractive cop, (second one she’d been pulled over by that same day). That particular entry concluded with some tasty sarcasm. Thats what I like in a girl! One of the funniest entries I stumbled across was a series of responses to a spamming representative owned by a web hosting company. Its unusual for one to reply to spam, thus any further response deems hilarious, as indicated in the entry.

Wendy is also the brainchild of Hottie of the Month, a website dedicated to nominated non-celebs as well as keeping to her eventful journal. She could exploit her creation a lil bit more by putting a link on the sidebar.
In all, twodolla.org is worth more than it implies, but I sense I need for some more interactive material & more of an incentive to return. However for a passer-by, it’d keep you hooked for a bit.twodolla.org

Woodencracker is easy to navigate and nice to look at. There are probably more pictures than words. And this, in the middle of lots of overlong and needlessly complicated blogs, turns out to be refreshing. But in this point also lies the downside of this type of site: lack of content.

There are lots and lots of nice photographs that fill the blog in the middle of posts and in monthly archives. The photographs are of great quality and many are really interesting.

The navigation is clearly something the author cares about, and it’s greatly appreciated by a reader. Things are easy to find and work smoothly, except for the webcam, at least during the time I visited.

The design feels just right. Very clean and intelligently chosen. It fits the blog nicely. The look of the site is important to the author, and it shows hard work, and probably lots of natural talent.

The posts themselves fall obviously into the journal category. Brian writes down daily activities and situations and the photographs play an important role in this weblog. But sometimes I just felt lost in the middle of 20 pictures and almost no words.
The posts are well written, and don’t intend to be very deep or insightful. They are clear and simple.

To sum up, Woodencracker won’t change your life or the way you think. It won’t even try to. But if you want to read a nicely designed, smartly written and carefully constructed journal with some beautiful pictures, this is one of the good places to begin.WoodenCracker