Author: admin

Elisla’s Place is a pretty nice place to go visit really. Nothing really out of the ordinary but a positive place overall.

When I first entered the site, I noticed another Modblog (my second reviewed this week) and found it to be pretty similar to the first- photoblog, poll, chat console and rudimentary “About Me” page were all there. I know everyone has to start blogging somewhere and some people don’t want much hassle with it all, but I am always enthusiastic when people have explored the more creative aspects of how a blog can look. Ok, this isn’t exactly an offensive looking blog, and it has a nice titlebar, but it is not exactly cutting edge in terms of layout and I always think colours are good thing in a lot of ways. I personally don’t like this Modblog system at all really- it seems pretty clunky and there are better ones out there, but hey, I can’t take too many marks off for that.

I moved quickly on to the content and the blog has only been going a month or two so the archives didn’t take too long to get through and most of the entries are fairly short. There is a good mix of content though – some family (and other) photos, personal entries and discussions of wider issues. One thing which really shines in this blog is the fact that the personality of the author really comes across and all the entries are positive and fun to read. The author has clearly been through some bad times too, but she does not focus on these in the way some bloggers do (a point well made in this post here).

Not too much else to say about this blog really. As I said at the beginning, it’s ok. Nothing great, but it’s pleasant enough really and much like her husbands blog, little of any controversy to be found here. Elisla’s Place

Upon arriving at The Transplant I was greeted with a striking banner graphic and a clean (but very busy) website. The author of The Transplant is a twenty something that lives in Seattle. The ‘about me’ really didn’t tell me a whole lot about the author other than he’s : ‘perplexed by the simple act of tying my shoelaces’ and ‘I have not a single reason for a website, aside from reading to myself my very own words. Fodder for the ego. My very own hyperreal self.’ . While this was interesting content… More specific information would have been useful as a starting point. It took several pages of reading to know where the author was, that the author was married and the author’s gender. Hmmpt.

This blog consists mostly of short curious observations by the author. The entries are often about things the author is interested in… such as TV shows, bands, and the odd personal reflection. The blog is well written but at times exhaustively verbose, such as the entry ‘We shall ride in silent’. While I believe the author is trying to be funny somehow… I’m not sure all readers would hang in to read the whole entry. The entries are categorized by: Body Parts, Luminaries, Nonentities, Pointless and the Inbetweens. Curious categories indeed. In Body Parts you’ll find the author’s suffering with his mandible, Luminaries is mainly movies and music, Nonentities was strange descriptions of people presumably in the author’s life, Pointless: mostly amusing observations and Inbetweens is generally personal reflections. Sometimes entries aren’t explained, such as ‘&*!@#&!!!^*’ which reads, ‘Food, then drink. Food, then drink.’ Huh? Which is the down side to Transplant… sometimes you’re left wondering “Huh?”. Clearly this blog is often more for the author than the reader.

If you are looking to read a different perspective this blog may appeal to you.
Some of the more eclectic entries ‘Is Sweden better than the United States?’, ‘Onomatopoeia, Frenzy and Glocked Bus Trips’ and ‘You best not steal my Blockbuster card’ have a uniquely aberrant wit to them which I’m sure some readers would enjoy. Check out The Transplant to see if this wit appeals to you.

The Transplant

I really enjoyed reading the entries of this blog. Kevin (the author) is a college student who writes about his every day life, his friends, emotions and a dream that he continues to have.

He continues to have a dream about some mystery girl. According to Kevin, he has been having this dream for quite a long period of time. Reading his posts concerning this dream, I found to be very intriguing. It kind of makes you wait for him to have the next dream to find out what happens. Kind of like a daily soap opera.

Kevin also writes about problems he has been having sleeping, different mood changes he has which he can’t understand etc. I guess you could say his blog is like a soap opera and a mystery novel all rolled up into one. But interesting for the most part. From reading Kevin’s entries, he seems to be trying to discover who he is and what he wants to do with his life. I discovered from reading one of his earlier entries, that he applied for an internship. Hope it really works out for him.

There is nothing spectacular about the design of the blog. But it is very clean and neatly laid out. He has a little rubber duck in the corner of each post (where I don’t see that it has any bearing on the entries.) His archives and links are located on the left hand side of the page.When you click on Kevin’s archives, there are calenders for each one, which is a little different than most blogs. However, I did notice that he doesn’t post too many entries in the run of a month , which was a little disappointing because there was less to read.

If you like a bit of mystery , then this is a blog you should really check out.After these messages…

Verse Guru. My poet’s soul stirred. A blog devoted to poetry?

Alas, it is not to be. After much searching I found that the Verse part refers to some kind of web/tech/consulting/design/development company.

Our author states right off the bat that this site does not look so hot if we are using Internet Explorer. (Poor unfortunate me…. IE is what I have.) He recommends we use Mozilla. Now I am not going to go download Mozilla right now, so I agree, the site doesn’t look so hot. The page is cluttered, the fonts too small and the background is an annoying hazy leopard print…. although I think it changes. Wait a minute… Yep, every time you refresh the page, the background changes. All of them are too busy for my taste.

There are tabs at the top of the page that read: Blog, Deli, Journal, Entries, and Index. They lead to other pages that look similar, but are categorized a bit differently. The Deli one has entries about food, complete with photos of same. The Journal and Blog pages have the same entries, but one has more pictures, I think. It all adds up to a confusing mish mash that is starting to make me frown. It’s not NICE to make the Weblog reviewer frown!

I got the impression that because he CAN produce an incredibly complex and confusing page … he DOES. But frankly, it’s a navigation nightmare.

After much clicking and searching, I found an About page. Our author is a British citizen living in France. A Myers-Briggs type INTJ.

Okay, so let’s read some entries. There are quite a few about film and TV in the recent posts that did not capture my imagination much. And while reading, I encountered sentences like this one:

“I think Clay Shirky [Many2Many] has lost grip of his divining rod in respect to XFN. Certainly you can argue over the rationale until you reach the restaurant at the end of the universe; I agree with him that XFN does provide inflexible categorization… “

I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what that is all about. And to add to my growing pile of annoyances, the entries contain just a sentence or two and then you have to click a “read more” button and open another window for the rest. I don’t get this strategy. What’s the point of not having the whole entry visible on one page?

I headed off to the archives to see what might be hidden there. . . I found entries on food, computer topics, an entry that includes a graphic picture of a road killed rat, technical themed entries containing obscene amounts of linkage and entries that have bulleted sections that jump from one subject to another.

Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh!

Perhaps this entry will give you a good picture of the mind of our author: Dec. 31, 2003 Entitled “Old Ideas”.

While I must say the author of this blog is obviously an intelligent fellow, I found his writing style to be quite inaccessible and at times aloof. What can I tell you. He has myriad interests and blogs on all of them. I just could not connect. However, if you have technical leanings, this blog might just float your boat.

The one redeeming thing about this site is his photo gallery. There are some truly beautiful shots there. It’s worth a visit just for those.

VerseGuru

Upon entering this weblog, I was greeted with one of the most outstanding pages I have ever come across. By outstanding, I mean it wasn’t your ordinary design. You could plainly see that there was a lot of time and effort put into it.

Jacob (the author), started the blog in December of 2000. He writes about everything from Television, music, food, etc. You name it and it’s there. When you click on the index link, you will see what I mean. Most of his entries are very informative as well. Jacob has so many topics listed in his index, that it makes it kind of difficult where to start first. It would take quite some time to read his entire blog. When you click on his navigation link he also has desktop wallpaper which are his own original material. Jacob states in his “about me” section, that he could also be called a designer. That would explain the design of his page being so unique.

Jacob is apparently a very talented individual. His entries are extremely well written. They are really not just your ordinary entries. When he writes about a particular topic, he will give you a detailed description of how something works.

I was playing around with the blog for a bit, and I did notice that most times when you enter his pages, the background changes in certain aspects. This really gives the blog a sort of uniqueness as well.

In conclusion, Jacob could take this blog a long way. I couldn’t find one fault with it. My only regret is that I couldn’t go through the entire blog at the time. I’m sure Jacob’s blog will be around for quite some time. It is one that I highly recommend you bookmark. VerseGuru