Author: admin

Usually when I enter a weblog for the first time I dive straight into the “about” page. With The Book of Paige it was different- I actually stopped on the front page and got caught up in the writing before I felt the need to go elsewhere. Now that’s a sign of a good blog.

You can’t go more than three posts in this weblog without finding one that sucks you in. One of my favourite post was about M&Ms, of all things! Paige, the author, has a love of writing and books, and with her writing abilities and inspiration combined can make the most unexpected things very readable and amusing or thought provoking.

I’d say that Paige’s writing would appeal more to female readers, as she often writes about issues that would be of more relevance to them: A response to a 1955 Good House Keeping article, how to make a plastic bag bra [very useful for the unemployed- read “broke”- among us!], Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream. However, there is enough variety to make this an enjoyable visit for anyone.

As for the layout, I definitely prefer the current one as opposed to the one used in the archives. It is clean and easy to navigate and has good use of colour. The weblog has an ‘about’ page and links to the books and CDs that Paige is listening to. This is a nice idea but I’d have preferred them to take you to a another page in the site as opposed to the Amazon site. With Paige’s writing skills, I’m sure that a reading and listening page with her views on the books and CDs would be a worthwhile addition to the site.

Whilst The Book Of Paige uses a simplistic design and focuses mainly on the day to day life of its author, the quality of the writing is what really won me over. With the new layout highlighting the writing more than ever, if you haven’t visited this site before then I would definitely recommend you go there now.The Book of Paige

A month later, Katy Raymond’s blog has certainly shown several improvements. Her site immediately caught my eye the first time I visited it, and this time is no different. Katy has maintained her simple, yet highly unique, design – a border of different shapes and symbols, much like a quilted blog. Taking a second look at her blog, I see once again that the border is very much like the author – complex and composed of many different interesting pieces.

Among the several improvements to Katy’s blog are links to additional essays written by her and an RSS feed, a useful feature for those who want to provide live content from her blog on their site. The previous errors that I found in the archives have also been fixed, although these were never a major distraction from the actual content of the site.

As always, I truly enjoyed reading Katy’s blog entries. Alternating between first-person and third-person is a dangerous technique if not handled carefully, but Katy manages to artfully portray her life in this manner. I noticed that her more recent posts have been slightly more detailed and descriptive, a characteristic I personally believe is essential to an interesting blog. What amazes me most, however, is Katy’s cohesiveness and her consistent blogging. Going back over two years, you see that her entries have remained vivid and absorbing. Katy’s blog is the kind that makes you want to keep on coming back to read about her life.

Once again, I recommend that you visit Fallible.com. However, I must also remind readers that her blog may not be to your liking – Katy is a very emotive writer. Having reviewed her blog again, I now realize that Fallible.com is a site that you either show complete indifference towards or absolutely love. I am inclined to predict that the majority of readers will fall into the latter category. Fallible.com

I am pretty sure there’s a website out there, that shows bloggers how to make a blog. If I ever find the site, I’ll find the owner, and I’ll have him or her flogged for hours. Ladies, Gentlemen: it is not enough, to take a blogskin, slap it on a Blogger site, write a “100 things” list, and start blogging your life to have an interesting ego blog. And there seems to be a misconception, too – there is no law in the world that forces you to use purple and rose as your dominant colors if you are a female blogger.

Never the one to judge a book by its cover, I started digging deeper into “Are the Stars Out Tonight”, ignoring for a while the choice of colors, beginning with “feather boa”s Top 100. There’s only so much to be learned from such a list, but as the interested visitor, I am, I now know, that she is a 21 year old, British, bi-sexual glockenspiel player, with an IQ of 174 and size 32B breasts. Did I really need to know this much?

Reading through her journal, I’d discover more about feather boa. One of the cooler things about her blog is a cast list, handy for understanding the who-is-who in her writings, I perused it quite often. The entries are, expectedly, very personal and ego-centered, and cover vomiting after a a night out as well as heart breaks, the dating world, and what else ever a 21 year old girl could find interesting.

Like so many other ego-blogs, featherboa is, in a sense, a therapeutic activity. If you’re into this kind of thing, a deep dive into someone else’s mind, you’ve come to the right place, baby. For me, it always feels a bit like voyeurism, but this blog was at least nicely read voyeurism.are the stars out tonight

Like I do with any site I review, I immediately found the “about” section of this site. The first two paragraphs in this part of the site indicate exactly the author’s intent of this site. “This site was intended as a portal into the toronto digital hardcore scene, an opportunity for people who share similar interests in electronic music & dHc to read regular pointless updates, promote events, and converse”, which is followed closely by a paragraph explaining that different ideas and inspirations for the site are constantly changing and keeping the author very busy.

The layout is a simple, standard one. A gray banner at the top, with a bit of original looking artwork, heads a two column layout, including different links on a right hand sidebar. The main menu, the CrushCam, Crushkill Radio, and Media are all different links to other areas around Crushkill.com. All the links found under the heading Toronto Digital Hardcore are external links the author has accurately found that relate to the content at Crushkill.

A particular feature I was fond of can be found in each entry. At the bottom of individual entry, the author has conveniently placed a link users can click on to email out the particular weblog entry.

Certain entries touch base with the international or political aspects alive in the media using extreme satire. And while reading through the rest of the archives, there are other entries which use extreme satire, and could possibly be found offensive to some people, such as an entry called god bless reality. While some, myself included, may grasp the type of humor that’s displayed in this site, I think the majority of the subject matters at hand aren’t topics that a large portion of people will find as things that can be made fun of or taken lightly enough to laugh at.

There’s both an audio and a video section available at Crushkill.com featuring some of the author’s original works.

Overall, I enjoyed the random photos that the author had posted on every single post. There were often times that I felt a bit lost when reading different entries, but those that know more details about the author may be able to follow those posts and better enjoy or understand them. I certainly wouldn’t count this weblog out of the sites that I read frequently; it’s just more of a site that needs to grow on a person.crushkill : digital cynicism

I clicked on to a very black and white site. It was like looking at a nighttime vision of a blog! I noticed that it looked quite well laid out, navigation on the left, title and the main text section. The text was comic sans and quite large which made it easier to read. Quick to load, though somewhat startling on my eyes! Nice and easy navigation to follow, it looked very user friendly to use.

There was a lot to cover in this review as Matthew has 3 blogs. The bible blog has a reading for each day and Matthews thoughts on the reading. The tech blog covers everything that you can image to do with computers!! I have to be honest and tell you that a lot of it was over my head!

The blog that I read the most of was Matthews personal blog. There are a lot of reference in there to God and Matthew is in the middle of making a big life decision. It appears that Matthew is one of the world’s greatest optimists, and a lot of his entries have a moral within the posting. He is also a very open man, and I was touched when I read about his cat dying, which lead him to tell you of his inability to cope with death. Some of the posts are long, but they make an interesting read and really allow you to get to know Matthew. The posts are all very varied. He sometimes posts links, posts silly items and sometimes posts really deep thoughts. You can meet his rabbits, that are in magic training too! They do get more personal as the blog gathers age.

Matthew is also a magician and he makes references to this in his blog. He also has a section on his site relating to his magical side! If you go back to the May archives, you can see a photo of him with his magical face!

When you first enter the blog, you only get to see entries for a few days, so in order to see all the current months entries, you need to click on the current months archives.

I liked the fact that when you clicked onto any other pages, they all carried the exact same design. I liked that as you knew that you were still in Matthews World! Matthew has 3 blogs, a personal, a technical and a bible blog. All have the same template. All the links worked, and all the archives were there carrying the same template. It was a very organised and very easy to use site.

The continuation of the design was the biggest bonus for me. You knew that you were still in Matthews World. The archives were well organised and the site was clutter free. I liked the fact that you can read all about Matthew and read some very personal and inner thoughts. He also offers you various magic performances!

I really enjoyed reading this site. He is a magician, he studied the performing art of mime and is also studying a major in computer programming! This is all added to his love of music and love of X-box gaming! All of this comes through in his posts and makes an interesting blog! This blog does have a religious theme, and Matthew is an optimist, and a magician, so you can imagine just how interesting this blog is once you start reading. I think, that over time, Matthew will get a following of die hard readers.

Mystical Matthew’s Wacky Weblog