Author: admin

High school life is a time of struggle, regardless of which country you live in or where you study. It is a time for young individuals to form their own characters, often an amalgam of their parents and their peer group, or in the case of the lucky few, a result of their learning. It is also a time of struggle for precocious talent. Sports stars are pressed to do better, train harder, and attract more cash to their schools. Attractive members of the student populace fight to become more attractive and more popular.

And there is also the next generation of writers to consider. Finding a voice is incredibly tough; many fail, instead attempting to adopt the style and language of their favourite published authors. To those that succeed, I raise my hat to you.

Fatuity (With A Grain Of Salt) is the work of a sophomore named Karan (with an ‘a’, apparently), a writer with a voice.

The blog is new, fresh, and like all young blogs faces the threat of becoming stillborn with each day that passes unremarked. Fortunately, there are no gaps in the history of this work; though it stretches back only two months (this and last), Fatuity is packed with highly involved posts, many worthy of comment here. Early in the writer’s online career, Karan takes an insightful look at the phenomenon of real-life stereotypes – those people that make a snug home for themselves in the pigeonholes society has crafted for them.

The site is a little empty, though. The design is wonderfully minimalist and doesn’t distract the reader, which helps, but I’d like to see more content. The page has a random photograph at the top – all of the ones I’ve seen look majestic and wonderful, but I know nothing about them, such as who took them, and with what, and why? The “About” section is prosaic and leads to no useful additional information, which is a shame, considering I have no idea about the name “Karan” and feel like it may be closely related to the effeminate “Karen.”

I also want to know more about the author’s experience with Dengue Fever in the Pacific Rim. I have read tales about Dengue, and know that it is a nasty, nasty virus; an additional post or even a short travelogue separate from the main content would be most welcome.

Otherwise, this is a good site, and could one day become very good. Karan has heard from the site’s detractors, complainants saying the tone is too depressive. It isn’t, I don’t think, and it is worth visiting. With a bit more time invested, and the continued hard work of the writer, it could grow to be a titan in its field. Until that time, I’m forced to give no more than an upper-average grade.

Fatuity

With a title like Mike’s Brain, one has to assume that this site is going to be daily thoughts and ramblings. Anything other than the above would just not fit with the title. Thankfully, nothing is out of place at Mike’s Brain.

The weblog itself is complete random posts and thoughts as I thought it would be. Posts range from topics such as movies, to cool websites, to just strange things. Most of the posts are written very well, and will make you laugh. The humor in the posts comes naturally and is not forced which is a good thing.

The design however is not near as good as the weblog. He is using a standard blogger template that has been used over and over again. Even if he doesn’t know HTML, I think he needs to tweak the colors to serve his site better. Of course an original design would be best. The one good thing about this design is that it makes it very easy to ignore the ad at the top of the page since this is a blogspot page.

Unfortunately there aren’t any extras for this site. There are your usual links to places and what have you, but nothing else about the author or the site. I really wish that I could have found out more about the author other than what was posted through out the blog.

Overall we have a very good weblog. There are lots of posts to keep you entertained, and it is fairly easy to read. The lack of an original design and extra content brings the score of this blog down. With a little bit of an extra effort, I see this blog scoring higher in the future.
Mike’s Brain

Xenon, huh? Could be anything. It’s number 54 in the periodic table of the elements, symbol Xe. It is a noble gas. Maybe we’ve some deep-geek scientist here unlocking the secrets of the universe…

Two column template, purple and white. Purple’s my favorite color, so I’m inclined to like this blog anyway. No distractions, a few tiny graphics, looks like navigation’s going to be easy. All the links are neatly lined up on the right hand side. He’s got links grouped by astrological sign, which is a clever touch. But wait — where’s the “about” section? I scroll down to the bottom and find there are 753 entires, 498 comments, and 47 members. Members? Is this a group blog? How can that be — it’s copyrighted by a single individual. Huh…

So far, there’s no indication the author’s a scientist, or at least maybe not. There’s a graphic for a web writer’s conference in Austin next month. There are also links to the Pepys project, Austin Bloggers, and Austin Stories, so even though he could be a scientist or anything else in his day job, he’s certainly interested in writing online. There’s also a terms of service page, (lengthy, tiny print) and a link to an astrology site.

Wait — there’s a link to a profile! Maybe there’s something there. Nope, sorry, it wants me to log in. The Members link also wants me to log in. There’s nothing up front here that says what happens when you log in, or why you’d want to, so I pass.

I read through some of the entries (no, not all 753, this guy’s already made me work too hard) and find some nicely-written daily ramblings, some references to astrology, and a daily record of a trip to England, apparently going on now.

See, the thing is, when I look at a blog, I’m there for the first time without knowing anything about the author, his or her intentions in doing this, or if the author has been doing this for two months or two decades. It’s good to know as much of the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where,why ) as possible going in to something like this. Sometimes, though, the author gets caught up in other details and forgets the casual visitor. It’s always possible for bloggers not to really want people reading the blog, or sometimes a blog’s there for a definite purpose that’s so important to the author you feel badly if you miss it. If the blogger doesn’t let you in on the secret, the reviewer or casual visitor may entirely miss the intended message.

I’ll probably look in from time to time, because I’d like to hear more details of the trip. Otherwise, I most likely wouldn’t. I’m a big fan of clarity and ease in writing, and when the structure around it fails, it can’t help but detract from the main event.

xenon

The title didn’t give much away for this weblog, so I clicked the link and found a standard template which er… also didn’t give much away. Now don’t get me wrong, the template was functional, technically sound and the content easy to read, so no real complaints. The sidebar had links to his friends and the rest of his website and that was it, but then that was all that was needed. On the other hand, the template overall could maybe have done with a little more eye candy to brighten it up a bit. My only other gripe in this respect was that I could not view the author’s profile without registering, which I always think discourages the casual reader.

Anyway, on to the content, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I want to lay my cards on the table now and say that I read nothing like a high percentage of this weblog. Archives go back to January 2002 and the author is VERY prolific. Most of the entries are quite long too and often cover more than one issue. This is where the weblog shines though, and the reason why I gave it a high score. The most recent entries deal with a trip to London where the author took in plays, art and general sight seeing. Going back through the archives, it is easy to see that he is a very broad minded individual, with many tastes and opinions on literature, art, website design and travelling to name but a few. Picking some entries at random, I was always given a glimpse of his personal life as well as views on these wider issues, striking a good balance between the two. The other thing I liked was the fact that the author is an Astrologist by trade (which is the function of the rest of his site) and this colours most of his entries, adding a new dimension to them.

The style of writing is very accessible. The author is literate, intelligent and witty without being patronising or pretentious. He is also keen on using his digital camera which adds a visual element to the posts.

I think most people would find this weblog entertaining to read, as the subject matter is varied enough and the writing style is easy to get on with.

Having said that, I expect the author may be able to explain my affinity for his weblog due to my being a Sagittarius!xenon

There isn’t much to say about my initial instinct on this blog. It’s not necessarily plain, but it’s not eye-boggling either. I wasn’t sure about what the title of the blog, “Bleeding Burgandy and Gold,” until after I started to read the earliest entries. It all seems to make sense now, as this is the blog of an avid sports fan. Not just any sport, but football. And not just any team either. This author is a huge Washington Redskins fan.

The blog is in it’s infancy stages as there are only two months worth of entries. However, the month of August is filled with quite a number of entries a day. The problem isn’t that there’s a lack of content because, as I’ve said, there are a ton of entries. The problem is that most of the entries send the reader somewhere else. This blog signed up for a review under the “personal” category, but there’s little that’s actually personalized in those early entries. These entries simply seem like news/links entries with little feedback on the author’s thoughts on the subject matter. As you get further into the Pre-Season the entries become longer and focus more on the feelings and thoughts of the author. Once you get beyond all the football talk there are some movie reviews and other intersting thoughts from this author. If you’re not a huge fan of sports you might find this blog rather boring, and it seems most of the entries revolve around sports of some kind. The blog author follows a direction which is mainly directed in some sports-affiliated direction. The entries, when not sending the reader in another direction, have some insight into the thoughts and ideas of this author.

The design is workable, though somewhat plain. It’s not a template that you see often, so that makes it all the more pleasing to see that it doesn’t look like every other template out there. The archives work and are organized into different categories.

The author gives you glimpses into a photoblog, which is always nice to see the world through someone else’s eyes. The author’s landscape photography is quite beautiful and worth a look. The design of the photoblog is quite beautiful as well. Otherwise, there are the usual spattering of outgoing links to other blogs and recent entries; nothing out of the ordinary.

The author posts a lot. Usually this is a good thing. If we had a category for “sports” this one would definately fall into that category, as it’s mainly about sports rather than anything more. The posts about his life and observances are interesting, but the sports posts will drive many other reader’s away. You’ll find yourself enjoy the more recent entries than the older as you get to see the author through his words… finally.Bleeding Burgundy and Gold