Author: admin

Bored But Busy I didn’t know what to expect with this site before I went there, so I kept an open mind. Upon entering I see a design with some old shoes, and it mostly black. I immediately thought, “Wow this site is going to suck. I bet it will be one of those read me and feel sorry for me sites.” Man, I was completely wrong.

The weblog itself is very well written. This is a good thing as it really makes the blog more readable. The posts are completely random as in they deal with whatever the author wants to post about. These range from her husband, to movies, to politics, to funny stories, to well, pretty much anything.

But the gem of the posts don’t lie in the topics, more so the presentation of them. Just in reading the first months archives I literally laughed very loud. I am sure if I was actually at work, I would have gotten the entire office’s attention from my laughter. The author is very smart, and she knows what she is doing.

Back to the design for a bit. We have the picture of the old shoes and the black background covered. The weblog uses a pretty standard layout, and I think it might just be a modification of a template, but I could be wrong. There are plenty of ways to access the archives which is a good thing.

It is very rare that I would give out a 5 for a weblog. But with Bored But Busy, it was a no brainer. The author is original, writes very well, and has amazing content. I honestly can say that this is a site I will probably read on a daily basis.
Bored But Busy

Cactus Lover‘s writer, Ribs, is, on the evidence of the photograph in the half-empty about section, an attractive young lady. I love it when bloggers include a photo of themselves on their site (partly addressing the voyeur need we all feel; surely a factor in the attraction of blogs, no?), so thank you Miss Ribs. Hopefully we’ll see more information, too, eventually.

The blog itself is neatly presented, with a few rough edges. Once you get going, the site is easy enough to navigate (although there is no obvious link to the home page, and the calendar-format archive isn’t as strong as available alternatives), and reads well despite the low contrast.

The strongest area of the blog currently is the one that addresses English language misuses, rather like Bill Bryson does in his early novel “Troublesome Words.” I’ve certainly heard enough empty instances of the word ‘quality’ to agree with Ribs that it needs a modifier at all times – good quality or poor quality but never simply quality, which means nothing. Good one Ribs – I hope 95% of British football commentators find that entry on your site.

Other posts are loosely grouped under various headings; the cactus of the week section is looking a little sparse, but other sections make up for the lack of content. The “Currently Reading” portion of the site contains only two entries – both reviews of Palahniuk novels (he of Fight Club notoriety).

Unfortunately, this is fairly representative of the site as a whole: there simply isn’t more than half an hour’s worth of content here, which is a shame. What there is shows signs of promise; by grouping blog entries into sections, it hastens the reader’s arrival at an interesting story, though with so little to read anyway it would make as much sense to browse through the site in its entirety. For now, that is.

ramblings of a cactus lover

Well, when I first arrived at soulis.co.uk I thought I was in for a treat. It hat great graphics, flash animations, very nifty eye candy. It had clean, crisp layout with nice bright colors. Then I started looking for the weblog section.

Content? Where? I really have yet to find some serious content. Any site I can read in less than ten minutes is not a weblog. What he does say is somewhat intriguing. Somewhat being the key word. All or most of his posts seem to have little or no relevance to anything important. Many posts are just about random pictures he has made or an animation he had made, Martian vs. Cow, which happened to be top 7 on lycos.com. Soulis.co.uk has a total lack of any real edge-of-your-seat content.

The design was one high point. Great effects and nice molding of flash make this a decent looking website. Although black and green has become slightly overused in my most humble opinion after the release of the XBOX, he makes it look good and flow rather well. Perhaps less time designing and more time writing some content is needed.

One thing I do like about the site is his pictures and a part he names “splash screens,” or the main image/animation on the main page. He also has a very funny animation Martian versus Cow. It itself isn’t funny; the fact that somehow it made top 7 on Lycos is funny. I thought it was just about as humorous as a box of rocks.

Well, rules at TWR state that I cannot give a rank higher than 2.0 due to the fact that this site has no archives or an amount of posts that would warrant such a section. Also, my handy “reviewer’s guide” tells me I shouldn’t give it a 0.0 because I was not urged to vomit during the review. So I give it a 1.0 or as my reviewers guide says “1 – The site is really bad, but has one or two good things about it.” Stated rather simply this site is bad, it does have its pictures and its nice graphics, but a weblog needs content. This site is in dire need of content worth reading.
soulis.co.uk

Hmm, initial thoughts about this one? I thought it would be just about as interesting as watching grass grow in a desert. Layout is not very sharp, very dull colors making me think about it raining, I thought I would be in for a really exciting hour or two. Then I actually started looking around.

I soon found the reason, as I read weblogs in reverse chronological order, so I understand better where the blogger is coming from. “My philosophy with this site is that as far as possible it should be ‘pure’ hypertext, and that there should be no intrusion of the machinery of web navigation into the surface level.” That was one wonder out of my mind. Another huge plus, for me, is that there is not repetative posts talking about how his day at school went. Each post has a point, and instead of 500 posts telling a story, he tells many short stories to explain his views on life. Every blog is more of an insight into his life that a review of his past 24 to 48 hours. This blog lets you into his life between how his father battles cancer, to his rather funny views on batteries. It is intrigueing as it is a roller coaster ride, one post can be on the humorous side, followed by sadening news about his father, and once again followed by a blog about a historical event. Sadly the blog is only in its infancy. A short eight months with with anywhere from five to ten posts a month.

As stated in his philosophy of what he wants from his site, eloquence was not his main goal. I think this idea matches his style, hes dirrect and does not feed you dirt. Afterall a weblog isnt about looking at backgrounds. In my mind, he does not have to compensate a lack of decent blogs with a great looking website. Every blog is great, and once you start reading his blogs, design is an afterthought. Although it is easy to read, it is not the easiest to navigate, it took me a good minute or two to find the link to the archives.

A Feature I found VERY attractive is his comment system. Anyone can post their ideas about his blogs. It’s a little touch of interactiveness that I find a wonderful addition. Also quite amusing is that he lists his blog on a virtual Stock exchange called Blog Shares, found at http://www.blogshares.com/blogs.php?blog=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theculture.org%2Frich%2Fsharpblue%2F

I give this site a 3.5. It has wonderful blogs, even better storyline to read. Great for someone with a few hours to browse a website. Gramatical errors are relativly prevalent, but nothing that cannot be made out. A better navigation and more enticing colors may be a good addition but as we know, it is all about the content, and this site has it.Sharp Blue

When it comes to video games, I’m old school Nintendo all the way – give me my Super Mario Brothers before they were in 3D and Duck Hunt where you always wanted to gun down that stupid hunting dog. I’ve played a small share of Playstation 2, and have heard the talk of all the cool features of the different new gaming units, and the great new perks of the latest and greatest games – that happens when you work for a major electronics retailer. But I couldn’t ever put together a weblog devoted strictly to video games.

“What’s your game?” comes to us from Will, and Will’s on top of things when it comes to video games. Probably the key factor in making people trust his opinion and continue to come back is that Will’s loves his video games. Clearly, they play a big part in Will’s free time, and who better to take video game advice and ideas from then someone like that?

Being someone that’s not right on top of the video game scene, I found myself sometimes clueless on various abbreviations that were used: IGI2 and PVP to name a couple. I wasn’t overly bothered by this, and instead just looked over the unknown acronyms and read what I did know. Hardcore gamers, or even those who play more than I do, will probably pick up on these right away and read them just as if they were every day language.

The layout of the site isn’t anything special. It’s a very slightly modified version of one of the standard Movable Type templates. With a site like this that’s main focus is video games and the liking, the layout doesn’t really matter. The text is readable and the colors are tolerable.

The creator of “What’s Your Game?” is Will. From the bottom of the main page, you learn some general information that even further “validates” his credibility of keeping a website such as this one. He’s a technical editor at Maximum PC magazine, where he keeps up “with the current happenings in 3D acceleration tech, games, operating systems, and networking gear”.

Will doesn’t go into great depth about the specifics of the various video games he plays, which cover PC games, Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, and basically any other type of game he can get his hands on. He just touches the main information, and gives his overall opinion of what he’s been playing as of late. He throws out a few of the pros and cons out into his overview of particular games, and other times you can tell just how good the game is by how much Will lets us know he’s playing it.

It might sound like this was the wrong type of a weblog for someone that’s not up on the latest in video games to review, or even to stop by and read, but that’s not true. Will is doing a fine job. He doesn’t expect all of his readers to be nearly obsessed with video games, but he does like telling those who are the finer points of the games he’s been playing. This weblog is definitely worth anyone’s time that has the slightest interest in video games.
What’s your game?