Author: admin

The Waiting Place intrigued me from the beginning. It’s tagline, “…Contemplations on those who left, by those who were left behind.” The image of two women, one veiled, increased my curiosity. Reading a few entries, I learn that this is a “warblog,” of sorts, but isn’t easy to categorize as so. The writers aren’t your average armchair pundits, in fact, much the opposite.

Trish and her daughter, Eva, have been blogging since April of 2003, mostly regarding the situation in the Middle East and their own deep connection to it. Meran, Eva’s husband, is a Kurdish Iraqi who emigrated to the United States in 1992. There, he fell in love with and married Eva. Last year, he was called back to Iraq to translate for the Department of Defense. I found this to be a powerfully human and eye-opening story, and the blog is an eloquent expression of it.

The entries, though far from regular, are full of details, and easily read. This blog focuses more on the human aspect of the Middle East conflict, and this is marvelously refreshing. The authors speak of the situation facing Kurdish natives of Iraq, very personal to them. Be sure to read the poem on the left of the page, as it helps to give cotext to the rest of the blog. Eva writes about life as an American Muslim, both stateside and abroad. Despite its somewhat ethnic flavor, this blog has incredible universality.

By far the most enjoyable part of this blog is the occasionally-posted letters between Eva and her husband. These are truly touching, and give readers a portrait of a genuinely loving marriage, and what happens when two people who love eachother are torn apart by circumstances. Amid Meran’s sweet missives of love to his wife, we learn of his experiences overseas and the job he does. I was most moved by Meran’s dutiful assurance to his wife back in the states, “I am a man of this century and the next.”

Be sure to follow the links in the right-hand column, to other blogs and complimentary sites. Beneath the picture, Meran’s name is linked to a page showing the Kurdish area of Iraq and an brief bio of him by Trish. The sheer quality of the blog itself makes up for any design issues. However, the page appears somewhat off-kilter. I would move the main picture to directly beneath the title. Also, on my screen-resolution, there is a horizontal scrollbar. This isn’t a big deal, and could probably be remedied by cropping the edges of the photo of Meran and Eva in the right-hand colum.

This blog is a must-read for anyone in the blogosphere wanting to be well-informed about the war in Iraq. In all honesty, however, the blog is not about the war in Iraq. It is about a woman, her mother, and the man she loves. For that reason, I recommend this site to anyone and everyone. The Waiting Place

The focus of ‘Chew’s Place’ is clearly on the words of its author, Chewie. The design is simple, with little to distract the reader’s attention from the most recent entries. At the same time, many of the usual weblog features are here, too — links, archives, credits, an ‘About Me’ page, and more, hidden by default but expandable with a click on the appropriate link. It’s a simple, clean look, and it worked for me; the posts are ‘front and center’, but the extras are easily accessible, too. Very nice.

I first took a look at Chewie’s About Me page for some insight about the author, and found that she is — among other things — an avid reader, a chemical engineer/biochemist, and an aspiring teacher. I dug into the archives, wondering how and whether those topics would come through in her writing. I didn’t have the opportunity to read the very first posts; only the past six months of archives are available, and it’s clear that Chewie was already in a ‘groove’ in September of last year. It would have been interesting to see how her posts and writing evolved during the earlier stages, but that’s a minor quibble.

The good news is that the archives are filled to the brim with content; Chewie posts daily on a variety of subjects, ranging from commentary on recent news stories to personal anecdotes to book reviews to (more recently) a ‘Photo of the Day’ feature. Most posts are substantial, covering several topics; the monthly archives are huge, with stories and links and opinions to satisfy the most avid readers.

It’s clear that the author puts a lot of time and effort into ‘Chew’s Place’. Those looking for a new weblog to try out should be very happy with this site — with a wide variety of topics and links, there’s a bit of something for everyone here. And if Chewie has missed a day’s posting in the recent past, I didn’t catch it. It’s that commitment to delivering the goods that sets ‘Chew’s Place’ apart. I give this site 4.5 out of 5.Chew’s Place

Good Blimey! What a great phrase to title your site with. I have to admit I was half expecting a UK site (.co.uk) from this phrase, but Matt is not from the UK. He in fact lives in Florida.

Matt is a self-taught web designer. The blog is here to ” provide him a place to post his thoughts ranging from web design, technology, gaming, and personal insights. It also serves as a nexus to upload and share photos taken with a digital camera.” This was great for me as I shared an immediate connection with him. We both have similar interests and I knew that this would be an enjoyable read.

The weblog is about what he said it would be about; his everyday life, thoughts on stuff, and of course photos. I had a nice trip down memory lane with certain events happening while reading Matt’s blog. Everything from the kid who got suspended for doing a netsend of “hey” to the EU’s fine to Microsoft is posted. I especially enjoyed reading about his cooking and the recipies that he provided.

The design of the site is crisp and clean. My only complaint is that it looks too much like a “standards compliant” blog. All to often a programmer gets caught up in coding for standards, and the site looks like it. This can be resolved with a simple banner at the top instead of just the phrase Good Blimey! But other than that, I have no complaints about the design.

Overall I enjoyed my time at Good Blimey. I think that Matt has found what makes for a good weblog and is sticking to only posting the good stuff. I will continue to follow up with Good Blimey to see where it takes me. Good Blimey!

Nice Cookies. Interesting title. I can’t say that I really knew what to expect, but the unique name was definitely interesting. Unfortunately most of my interest with this blog ended with the name.

Nineteen year old Stacy, blogs mainly about her boyfriend, school and shopping. She really seems to enjoy shopping. Which is fine. But not something I would really find myself being interested in reading much about.

This blog is relatively well-written, and an enjoyable read, to a degree. I read back through many of the archives, and found that many posts are so similar, it’s a little monotonous. Very few posts had any content that was overly meaningful or thought-provoking. I have a feeling that Stacy’s friends probably enjoy this site quite a bit, but as for a stranger happening upon it, I doubt that the content would have them coming back.

The design of this blog is nice enough. Different shades of purple, with white font. The font is quite small, but legible enough. The layout is fairly simple and clean, though I found that the link to the archives was in an odd spot. (At the very bottom of the page) The archives were set up in a very odd format, in my opinion, and I found myself wishing it was done in a more streamlined way, but to each their own.

Overall, this was a nice, light, friendly blog. It just didn’t have enough content to make me want to read more than was necessary to write a review. I wanted to get to know Stacy as a person, inside, and not simply read about where and what she ate, or what she bought recently. It seems that there’s definite promise, but the current content just isn’t enough, at the moment.
Nice Cookies

So, “The Road To Braj Is Strewn With Thorns”? Aha, uhm… if you say so. Thing is, I have no idea what or where Braj is, so my first impression of the blog was: confused.

Being confused, however, usually arouses my curiosity. I started my investigations of this blog with the usual visit to the “About Me”-page, which says the blog author is Satyavati devi dasi, a disciple of “His Holiness Indradyumna Swami”. Frankly, learning this didn’t do much to enlighten me, in fact, I was even more confused now.

Reading on, I learned the blog was initially just for “preaching purposes”, but has evolved into a mix of daily live reports, philosophical rants, recipes, and much more.

Now, I have to be honest here – I’m not having any problems with Krishna-people, but I also don’t know much about them, so it’s human I started reading the blog entries with some scepticism, maybe even prejudices.

Much to my surprise (and joy), I found several entries that kept me entertained, made me think, and, most important, gave me the chance to have a glimpse through the eyes of someone who lives a life totally different from mine – altough I frankly don’t understand all religion related posts, the author usually does a good job in explaining her world.

Concerning the design, and other superficial things: It’s a fairly simple, but easy to read layout; lot’s of posts are illustrated with pictures. The navigation is a fairly standard (established) bar on the right hand side, with the usual blog roll, archives and misc. links.

Summing it up, I’d say this site is surely worth a visit for open-minded people, and an interesting read even for agnostics or atheists like me.

It’s a bit hard for me to give a numerical rating because there’s so much content that’s too far away from my world, but considering the blog entertained me after the first confusion, I’d give it a four – it’s good, but it’s not gonna be a dialy must for me.

Oh, and I still don’t know who or what Braj is… 😉
The Road To Braj Is Strewn With Thorns