Review 2857

My first impression on visiting Bint Blog was that it was a pretty online mag. It has pinks and other colors easy on the eyes, and it’s laid out in pleasing proportions with plenty of white space. There’s plenty of links on the left that go back to Bint Magazine.

As for blog content, it does tend toward the mundane and banal. I’m sure this is the proper place for these thoughts, they sure don’t belong in a magazine. I took a spin through the magazine portion and didn’t get much out of it. I never figured out what a Bint was. I think it has something to do with being British. Of course, this just points to my own ignorance, but it seems like there could have been a short statement explaining it under “About Us.”

The blog certainly gets high marks for being part of something more than rambling comments. Plenty of content in this space, interviews, tests, links, and of course the blog. Well worth a look, and I’m sure if you’re British it’s a must see.bint blog

Review 2901

I liked Paper Sack Lifetime immediately for its humor. Humor is hard to do right, but Mr. Kyle has it going on. The tagline is “Think of it like a photoblog with no pictures.” Funny stuff.

Visually the site could use a little work. The type is black on a dark grey background, so its hard to read. The blog is in a table that stretches past the edge of the browser window, requiring left to right scrolling. It could use some margins on the left, since the text butts up next to the left edge.

It looks like the blog has only been in existence since January of this year, but there are copious entries. Most of the postings are semi news stories. True bizarre and stupid events.

It’s worth a visit, and it will make you smile.Paper Sack Lifetime

Review 2853

I immediately liked Tales of a Modern Junkie for its black, white, and grey interface. The color really popped.

The postings are very short and the blogger, Joey, doesn’t seem to like using proper punctuation, which makes the blog hard to read. The postings are about his mundane life. Here’s a post that pretty much sums up the writing style:

anyways gas is super expensive and it sucks, and on top of that it was super hot outside i thought i would totally melt away. the clouds were nice and the sky was a deep blue, i love the sun but it was just too hot, i thought i would just die

The site is on Modblog, a blogging service I’m not familiar with. If a template was used originally, it looks like it’s been modified extensively. This blog is worth a look because it pushes the envelope of blog design.

One other item of note is that it has a login/password entrance. I have to admit I didn’t sign up, so I don’t know what kind of extra material awaits members.Tales Of A Modern Junkie

Review 2846

Maybe it’s just me, but it took a few minutes to figure out what “animusmeansmind” read or said – but I finally got it – “Animus means Mind” in case anyone else was stumped by this blog name.

But moving on … this blog is by Jade, who is a high school student. I say this because I myself passed through high school quite sometime ago and so I am not very interested in things that high schoolers usually write about. But this young lady has excellent writing skills! She does not update very often, about once every 10 days, but her posts are usually detailed, long but not too long, and interesting. She stills write about the usual things that happen during high school life, like almost getting into trouble with the almost cops (i.e. school ‘police’), getting into it with fast food employees and such, but it’s the kind of reading which instead of making you think, “God I hate reading about this high school, teenager crap” instead leaves you reminiscing with a smile, taking you back to when you actually did that sort of thing, and thinking, “Oh yes, that was fun then, but what the hell was I thinking?” and then you want to read a few more of the archived entries.

Jade even managed to make a cute blogdrive template with a cartoon female vixen. The blog is very easy to navigate, but there is not much more content other than the blog. There is a link to fiction written by Jade. This was ‘interesting’ reading, and as she points out at the other site, the stories are RATED R (or as I would like to point out, rated XXX).

Overall, this blog makes for a good read. What I liked most was it was a fun read and a look into the mind of a high school student. I think it could be improved by updating a bit more often.Looking for My Animus

Review 2922

Creative Living was a title which had instant appeal, and led me to hope that I would be encountering a weblog of a creative individual; either a writer or an artist perhaps. I was not to be disappointed on this score because on finding the about me page I was greeted with the following “I’m a writer and therapist living in Reading, Berkshire happily with my partner and cats”. On that note I ventured into the archives.

I was not really surprised to discover that the author of Creative Living writes very well. Many of her entries are personal in origin; random musings and thoughts on writing specifically. I found myself more and more drawn into her entries the further I read. I was also pleased to find a link to her website Fiona Robyn, which displays examples of poetry and extracts from her novels. I think one other aspect of her writing that I found interesting was the mode of her entries; seemingly written to promote thought. I really liked that.

The design on the whole was however a little generic for my tastes, a little too much like your average blogger template. But it was easy to read, navigate and didn’t detract from the content. It did nothing to really catch your eye either, and I do feel a nicely designed template which is eye catching without being over the top would really assist this author in obtaining the readership I believe she deserves.

All in all I really enjoyed the time I spent at Creative Living. I found it beautifully written, and thought provoking. It left me wanting to know more about the author, and read her works. I would recommend, where possible, design alternations and incorporation of her weblog into her main writing site. A weblog with real potential, and a must for any blogroll.

creative living