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Riri's Brain Dump
This is a re-review of Riri's Brain Dump
My first impression of this site was how vibrant the colors were, and how touching the sidebar photo was. I thought this site was going to be dedicated to individuals with breast cancer, due to the sidebar link inviting visitors to donate to this worthy cause.
But I was mistaken. I lurched through a horrifically descriptive paragraph including memorable quotes such as "One can only hope that it'll all come out because it's sure gurgling and moving, and pinching, and spasming and the whole bowel show" Oh My Goodness. I was alarmed, but intrigued, and continued on, expecting to find more lurid details of her personal life.
However, as I read on, I became increasingly touched with this woman's life. Her insight into her marriage, her family, and herself is gentle, yet still open and honest. She has a solid base in blogging techniques, cleverly linking you to Christmas Carols by clicking on a record cover, or a flash presentation of family photos. Heading through the archives, I found that she also has hosted a number of photobloggers on her site, and her blog is packed with her personal photography successes as well. She is an amazing photographer, and gives you an intimate view into her inner eye & private life.
The design of her weblog is just right. While the colors are a bit of a strange pick, they do nothing to detract from the overall layout of her blog. She cleverly inserts comics, photos and links to give a visual & mental break to her entries. On the whole, the layout is clean, and pleasing to the eye.
All of these extra features truly add to the quality of this blog. I love the little perks like "The Riri Quiz" where you show how well you know her, based on answering questions pertaining to information inside of her blog.
I highly recommend visiting this blog. I found that I felt connected to this woman, through cyberspace, and that is a rare thing. Enjoy her intelligence, her photography & her take on life.
This site was reviewed on 2005-01-05 by siskac.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
siskac felt that Riri's Brain Dump deserved a rating of 4.75.
Although I have only given “Riri’s Brain Dump” a 3.5 out of 5, it is a nice enough weblog to visit and pleasant enough to read. The template is fairly standard with a few pictures added to brighten it up. The colour scheme is not bad either, being mostly green and pleasant on the eye. Although this is a Blogspot blog, the author has made the effort to get rid of the adverts at the top as well, which is helpful.
The first thing I went to on arrival at the site was the “100 things About Me” section, which was fairly informative. After getting a feel for the author and who she was, I started on the content itself and found a good personal weblog. The author is a mother, software developer and immigrant (currently living in Canada but born in Romania.) Incidentally, if your curiosity is not satiated by the “100 things”, I also discovered another "About Me" type thing back in the archives. These aspects of the author’s life certainly colour her postings and add an interesting dimension to what may otherwise be another run of the mill personal blog. For example, there is an informative post about her experiences with settling in to Canada, lots of stuff about bringing up kids and what they get up to and she also has some interesting opinions about female sexuality as well. The usual commenting system is in place and made use of by her regular readers.
The archives go back to February, 2003 though the author did take a break from blogging for a couple of months. There are a few little perks to the blog too- a little photo montage of the author and her family in the sidebar as well as a list of the music she is listening to/ books she is reading, though no reviews unfortunately.
There is plenty to read here though, despite the break in March and for anyone wanting an insight in to the ups and downs, thrills and spills of family life, this should prove to be a good read.
This site was reviewed on 2003-12-16 by ODAAT.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
ODAAT felt that Riri's Brain Dump deserved a rating of 3.5.
Seeing so many blogs over the course of being a reviewer you see a lot of the same layout again and again. It's always such a pleasant surprise to see something different, something new, something that hasn't been overused. My first reaction to seeing this blog is almost the equivalent of deja vu, only a pleasant form of it. There's a beautiful piece of art that the author is using in the title area along with the navigation. The green is a nice change of pace and I can't wait to head to the archives to see what is brewin' in the past entries.
The oldest of the entries explains that the author, nicknamed Riri, doesn't speak (or write) perfect English. You learn that she moved from France to Canada and is making the adjustment while having kids, a husband, injuries and a life. The author writes with much feeling as you can tell from the entry about the many cats she's had through her lifetime. Be forewarned, reader, that these are pretty heart wrenching stories and may bring a tear to your eye. You read about the movies her children are addicted to in this entry, and I have to say, her kids have some good taste in movies. In more recent entries Riri starts to add a word of the day, which is often fun (and I read them myself anyway). She starts to open up a little more letting us see a more political side to her. You, as a reader, get a chance to see her family, find out what she did with her day, and get a holiday greeting.
The design is pretty and functional. She's a webmistress out in Canada and has worked on a couple of other projects you can find in her archives. The design is simple by means of graphics, but simplicity can be a good thing. Like I said before, the green can be a nice change from the gamut of colors that are often overused in the blogging world. There aren't a lot of images to wait for download, which means the reader using dial-up can get straight to the content without having to wait forever for large images to load.
There are a lot of extra links in the sidebar. Webrings, a blogroll and weather pixie are quickly becoming a standard in blogs, so it's only natural to see them on this blog. There are some new blogs that I haven't seen as of yet in her blogroll which were kind of nice to peruse and see what interests the author. In the sidebar, as well, are a few snapshots of her and her family. Sometimes it's nice to get an opportunity to see who you're reading about. Riri also has a 100 Things in the navigation at the top where you can learn a little bit more about her.
Overall the blog fits into the category of "general" as she writes about so many different things. You'll see how much she loves her kids and how she seems to enjoy planning for different events. She sometimes writes about the things going on here in the states and what we've done recently regarding the war, but she keeps the political references to a minimum (meaning you won't be inundated with huge diatribes of her take on the whole war situation). Her blog is a relatively interesting read and worth a look.
This site was reviewed on 2003-12-16 by firefly.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
firefly felt that Riri's Brain Dump deserved a rating of 3.5.
My first thoughts on visiting Riri's Brain Dump were infuriating ones. At the top of the page, next to the links, is a picture of a painting that I recognise but cannot recall either the title or the name of the artist who painted it. Still fascinated by pre-Raphaelite art, even all these years after finishing school, I was drawn into reading further to see if the identity of the woman in orange is revealed anywhere in the blog.
The weblog itself is relatively new to this world, having only been going since February 2003. The posts are a strange mix of personal diary-style entries about the author's life and technical musings, fitting the title of the blog perfectly - Riri clearly just types what's on her mind that day. Although it took her a while to get going there is now plenty here to read but, although it is well written, nothing really held my attention for very long because the main subject matter (software developing and motherhood) is not really of much interest to me. Still, that's just me.
The overall design of the site is simple and the colour scheme works well, with the vibrant orange of the painting in the header perfectly set against the soothing greens of the template, but the page did take a while to load. This is probably due to the number of photos and pictures scattered over the sidebar and in the posts, but this does help to give the site a nice friendly feel.
Aside from the blog, archives, links and 100 Things About Me, there is not much else to the site. It's a weblog in its purest form - no added extras, just a pure journal. There are some nice bits in the sidebar, like the weather pixie and a Google search, but nothing much to distract you from the site's main purpose.
All in all, I'd say that Riri's Brain Dump is a reasonable site. Unfortunately, it may have limited appeal due to the subject matter, but weblogs are a very personal thing and all do find their audience eventually. This one's is technically minded women with kids, I reckon. I may just stick around a bit longer though, just to find out who the lady in orange is!
This site was reviewed on 2003-12-16 by Lori.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
Lori felt that Riri's Brain Dump deserved a rating of 3.
4 reviewers gave Riri's Brain Dump an average rating of 3.6875
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Site Category: Personal
Reader Rating: 2.4500 based on 5 votes
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