Author: admin

It’s been a while between reviews, and what better way to delve back into the reviewing business than to start of with this classy blog. You won’t find whizz-bang graphics, bells, whistles or any odd error-alerting coding on the site. It even loads pleasantly quickly, considering it’s a Blogspot blog. I’m a simple girl, with simple tastes, and this blog really appealed to me from start to finish. Firstly, it’s very easy to read, I cannot stress how much this affects my reviews. I found the colours so refreshing and easy to look at for a long period of time – which I did when I was scouring the entries.

As it says in the header quote: “A somewhat daily chronicle of the events that concern D. Kelly Smith (and I’ll call him “Kelly” for the purpose of this review) and the world around him.” And it certainly is. As it’s a personal blog, I immediately searched out the “about” section to find out a bit more about the person behind the blog, and I wasn’t surprised to find a simple statement about himself and a few lovely pictures of his family. Hell, he’s even got his own theme song which I think is rather novel.

Kelly’s love and concern for his family is evident in his blog – it’s something you see straight away as you read them. He questions the motives of people and organisations around him and worries about the effects they could have on his family, this is what makes his blog so personable. I enjoyed Kelly’s thoughtful responses to what is considered “pop culture” as well (probably because I found myself agreeing with him much of the time) and found myself nodding along or whispering the same sort of sentiments to myself as I read.

The blog possesses a quiet intelligence that’s subtle and quite nice to read. There’s nothing in your face about it. He doesn’t rant about how people should agree with him, he just puts his point across politely and without much fanfair. I think that has a more profound affect on any reader than the simple “agree with me or eff off” sort of blogger.

One final note, as I was clicking through the archives, I came across Kelly’s post for 9/11. This awesome quote is from that entry:

“We talk about racial issues, socioeconomic issues, regional issues, and religous issues, we talk about all of the issues that divide us as a nation, we laugh and scoff at the President and our Congressional Leaders without the realization that in one way, we are all the same.”

Thanks for this awesome blog, Kelly.

Weblog Afficianado

I laughed at the photo of the boy!! It made me smile which is always a good start when you first click onto a journal! Then I noticed the nice neat boxes and was struck by how organised it all looked. Then I saw how long the list of links was and felt abit overwhelmed!!

This is a personal blog with an insight into Lee’s mind. It is exactly as it says, a journal. You can share and read Lee’s thought and feeling on everything from her packing up smoking and drinking, to what she thinks of awards shows!!! Follow her as she turns from nice to a cigarette starved woman on a mission! Her about me page suggests that she values her privacy, but I think that you get a good idea of the woman behind the blog with her entries.

The design is nice and simple. Clean cut and easy to use and read. There is a list of her more notable blog entries, the Apartment Guide is a must!! Then you get a list of her archives, and then a list of her blog categories. You can go in and read all her rants which I found quite good fun!! I just hope her mum sees sense and removes the picture!! There are alot of links though, I did find these slightly overwhelming, but she is obviously just a popular girl!

I think that the categories are the best ever bonus feature. I liked going through and reading Lee’s rants, then going back and reading all the humour entries. I really liked the feature, and it gave me a chance to find out alot more about the author. The clean cut and easy to use design was a feature.

I liked this blog because posts made me laugh, made me think and made me feel in tune with Lee. I liked the way that it reflected my idea of a blog, a personal insight into someone else life. The real nitty gritty warts and all entries of one persons life. I think that I will probably pop back, once every so often, just to see if her mum moves the dreaded photo and to see how the giving up smoking goes!! Best of luck Lee!
Malarkey, Tom-Foolery and Guff

Before I even jumped into the weblog, I took it upon myself to see what else Gary, the author and creator of GaryHolifield.com, had to offer readers and anyone else that were to stumble upon this site.

Gary’s “about the author” section is set up in an interview type format, and covers everything from where he grew up to the ever-pressing question of boxers or briefs. Gary certainly doesn’t leave much out as he covers nearly aspect of his life, which gives readers a great idea of who they’re about to start reading about on a regular basis.

The section marked “Coming of Age” features an assortment of school event and growing up pictures of Gary and his friends. When visiting the Club Reviews section, look out for some animated .gifs and a little background music action while Gary gives his opinions of various clubs that he’s visited. His “My DVDs” section also has the nice feature of the movie title, an image of the DVD case, Gary’s rating of the particular movie, the genre, along with whether or not that particular DVD has an Easter egg hidden somewhere.

There were several more links along the left sidebar that led to other places Gary’s store information – such as a link to the 2000 Election under the heading “The Art of Politics”, a welcome video that plays in Real Player, his resume, and several different links that lead to different photo galleries Gary has put together.

The layout that’s used looks like so many of the other weblogs on the ‘net – the actual weblog portion of the site in a center table, with a table on either side featuring various links, menus, etc. It doesn’t appear as if Gary uses any particular weblog tool (i.e. Movable Type, Blogger, etc.), but instead updates the site manually.

I have a strong feeling that anyone that actually knows Gary in person would find his site to be convenient to keep track of what he’s up to and what’s been going on in his life as of late. However, being someone that’s never known Gary, the sometimes infrequent updates make it a bit difficult to feel connected to him. The posts are short, but right to the point of what’s going on in Gary’s life. He often covers such topics as the media, the entertainment world, and many times he touches on how his work in the pharmaceutical sales industry is going.

With archives dating back to Feb 2000, readers do get the opportunity to experience a lot with Gary, providing they go back that early to read; however, it’s a bit hard to come into the site and just be able to feel “right at home” with this site.

If I were to have found GaryHolifield.com on a whim by just surfing right to it, I don’t think it would be a site that I would come back to daily, and that’s just because Gary doesn’t update daily. If you’re looking for a site that’s updated just every so often, this isn’t a bad one to go ahead and add to your list.

gary holifield

When I first clicked onto this site, I spent ages wondering what the background pattern was! I was wondering if it was stones or something. I have to admit that it totally distracted me for awhile! I then noticed the contrast between the background and the boxes. It stood out to me. I noticed how tidy the site was and how few boxed links there were. It all felt very compact. I also linked the top drop down menu.

The blog is a real mixture of subjects. Chad is ill at the moment with bronchitis and is feeling quite down in the dumps! He made an interesting survey of what he saw on TV for a day though that made me titter. The posts are made up of sport, some political musings and the story of his court appearance. I did not find out what he actually had to go for though! There is a touch of personnel posts and if you go back through the archives, you can catch a picture of him with a puppy! He also has links to other sites to discover weird and wonderful ways to amuse yourself, including how much you are worth on your own barcode!! There is also some technical posts thrown in as he is studying computer networking.

I personally, as mentioned above, got really distracted by the background. I kept finding my eyes drawn to it, and continuing to wonder what it reminded me of! I was also fascinated by the fact that the boxes moved whilst the background stayed static! I guess that I am easily distracted! The design though is very clean and there is no clutter on the site. The boxes to the right are kept to a minimum and there is a drop down title bar. The “speak” button had me foxed though. It was novel to have a person talking to you, once I had recovered from the shock! I do not have broadband though, so experienced a few problems!

It is hard to tell when the posts were made as there does appear to be any dates on each post. There is a calendar that marks how many days he has posted on that month. I must also admit that the difference in the page designs did make me feel as though I had left the weblog and gone somewhere else when I clicked out! I could not get the graduation or greenbier links to work though…it lists the jpegs for the pages.

The main bonus for regular readers is that you can subscribe to receive the latest updates to C:TOOKIEWANA.EXE. The mixture of the posts on the blog do ensure that there is something to amuse everyone. I am sure that anyone that visited could find part of the site that they would enjoy reading, or find a link that takes them to somewhere that makes them smile.

I can honestly say that there is such a varied mixture of subjects in this blog, that I found myself reading for ages!! I really enjoyed my visit and found some of the posts truly fascinating. I always love to read about people and their lives outside of where I live. Some posts made me laugh, some got me closer to Chad and some just made me sit back and think. I think that this blog has got better as time has moved on. I will certainly be visiting it again. It was refreshing and made a very good read.
tookiewana

With a blog being hosted by a .co.uk and a title of American Individual, I immediately thought this would be the blog about an American in the UK. Oh how I was wrong, for the most part.

The blog is written by an American, he just isn’t in the UK. So not too bad, I was half right. Tony is the blog’s author. He is involved with a lot of different things, but mainly the entertainment industry. His fingers are in music, acting, and art, as well as other things. This blog talks all about those.

The design of the site is a standard two column layout, with an original header. The colors he uses to seperate the columns and the header (olive green and a complimenting yellow) are not found anywhere else in the site unfortunately. Because the site is hosted by a company, there is of course an ad banner at the top of the site. I hardly noticed it once I started digging into the blog.

The blog itself is easy to read, but a pain to navigate. The only options you have for reading the archives are a “previous and next page” link at the bottom of each page, or by clicking on a specific date in the calendar. I was really dissapointed that I could not browse an entire month’s worth of archives at a time, and that the calendar function of navigating between months, doesn’t change the posts to that month.

The only extra to this site is an about page which gives a nice little bit of information. I wish that he had links to his Freestyle Records (which I enjoyed reading about the progress of) or to his art. He mentions posting things to other sites, and direct links from his blog to those would be really cool.

Overall I enjoyed my time here. My biggest complaint is about the archive naviagation and how it really isn’t there. The topics of the blog are interesting and will keep you entertained. While most blogs give you the same drivel of stuff, Tony stays away from that, and focuses on specific topics. This is a refreshing new entry into the blogging world.american individual