Author: admin

When I first went Cat Whisperings…, I was thinking to myself Oh God. Not another blog about cats. However, I was pleasantly surprised. This blog had nothing to do with cats. Thank God.

Cat Whisperings is written by a guy named Christien Lomax from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The weblog is designed using Modblogs and a very gray coloring scheme. It’s clean. A little complicated because there is a lot of stuff to see, but no flashing banners, and someone begging you to help them get a free iPod.

Christien writes about politics quite fregquently. Music is another big thing he’s in to and lyrics from the music he listens to is posted on a regular basis. When you first arrive at the site, you are presented with a disclaimer. Bottom line: if you disagree with him, don’t leave a comment. He makes it abundantly clear that he is the ruler of his website and everyone else just needs to get in line or get out. He would even go so far as to ban your IP address if he thinks you’re an idiot. Nice. Awfully adult of him…

Christien’s blog is about average. Nothing really sticks out as being fantastic. To be honest, I got stuck on that stupid beer game just so I could see the girl undress, but that was the highlight of my experience.Cat Whisperings…

The Captain’s Log is a nice little title. With the not so subtle hint that this might be a reference to Star Trek, I knew that it was not so. I knew that the name of the site is Captain Spanky, and this was just, well his log.

When going to the site, I noticed that the url was index2.asp. I wondered what would happen if I just went to the base url and I found a mock magazine cover with an attractive woman and what to expect in this months entries. I am glad the author has read up on how I hate splash pages, and was very happy that the url went straight to the log and not this page (more on this in a bit).

The design of the site is something that needs some serious work. Black overall background, blue to black gradient background for the blog area, white to black gradients for the right column, and white text for the blog. Does that cover it all? Oh no, forgot to mention the attractive schoolteacher image at the top. This image seems out of place if you were to 1. Not look at the title (Captain Spanky) and 2. Not look at the splash page I mentioned earlier. Personally I think the design needs a face-lift to better capture the goal of “Captain Spanky”.

The blog itself is all about The Captain. What is going on with him this weekend, his pool tournament, his girl, his friends, the bars he visits, ect. Most recently his thoughts were on the election here in the states which to me is rather dull as everyone has been talking about it for the last 4 months or so. One thing I liked was the inline comments on each post. While this took a little getting used to as the text for the comments is a goldish color and a smaller font, I enjoyed being able to see such communication.

Overall I thought the blog was well written and has a large number of people willing to share their comments as well. The design needs to be updated. This is not a blog for me as I have too much to worry about in my own life, but if you are interested in someone else’s daily life, then this is the blog for you.The Captain’s Log

I was thinking about maybe skipping over reviewing The Captain’s Log as this is not my first visit to the site and I thought it might be a bit weird to go back as a reviewer. However, I am glad I did get the opportunity as it was nice to revisit a pretty solid weblog about a (now ex-) Canadian and his every day life.

This is a Big Blog Tool blog and when I started out as a blogger (way back in er… 2003), I cut my teeth on BBT as it was pretty straight forward to get going on. Another thing I noticed from exploring its “Recently Updated” list was that nearly all the sites which used it had absolutely awesome templates. Captain Spanky was already well under way with his blog by this stage (it dates back to March 2002) and his blog is certainly no exception in terms of impressive design.

It is a custom, two column template with a witty titlebar and stylish fonts used in the sidebar. The blog itself is tasteful and easy to read with differentiation between the comments and blog entries, the comments being displayed inline. There is no “About Me” page but there are a few cool links to be found including one to a site where the author sells his own custom car stickers and the like. You can also find out the local weather, read the archives or browse the “Recently Updated” list mentioned earlier. My only minor gripe is that the site doesn’t look quite so slick in Firefox, due to slight alignment problems, but it does not make the site unreadable by any means. I also really liked the “Front Pages” which are always clever, funny designs and add another touch of individuality (click in the top right corner to go see).

So, top marks for the way it all looks, but can the content match up? Well kind of. This is very much a personal blog about the day to day stuff going on in the life of the author. As the archives go back a couple of years, there is no way to get through them all unless you have A LOT of spare time. I decided to read the first few months, then picked a few pages at random after I got fed up with the Republican bashing which has been particularly rife in the blog recently. It’s not that I like Republicans or disagreed with what was being said, it just got a bit wearing. Other topics to be found in the blog include pool tournaments which The Captain takes part in, programming stuff (his career), some cool links, rants and some photos of social events – the usual blogging fare in fact. There is some swearing, but none of the content is really offensive, just opinionated and often funny too. Overall, it is of a high quality, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

So this is really a blog of the old school variety. Great design, and consistent content about a 30 something, socially adept, tech savvy American. Nothing more nothing less. As with so many thousands of blogs out there, this is obviously great for his social circle, but it is hard to think of many things which set this apart and would draw in the casual reader.The Captain’s Log

Christien’s a 27-year-old guy from Canada. His weblog, Cat Whisperings, has been up and running since May 2004, according to the blog information listed on his site. Readers can learn even more details, though, by clicking on “Full Profile”. The only reason I’m even pointing out that link is due to the links being the extremely close to the same color as the text on the site.

The layout of the Cat Whisperings appears to be set specifically for a 1280 x 1024 screen resolution. Anything smaller resolution results in visitors having to scroll from right to left to navigate the entire site. Everything is done in some shade of gray/black – the text, the background, the links, etc. Gray is great. In a blog entry, however, it’s extremely difficult to distinguish between the sentence and the link readers are encouraged to explore.

Readers never learn the myth behind the name of the site: Cat Whisperings. Perhaps it’s better left untold, or perhaps I just didn’t find it in the six or so months of archives on this domain.

The sidebars of the site do have some interesting tidbits. There’s a poll that changes from time to time and my personal favorite, Christien’s own concoctions for his favorite alcoholic beverages. There are also the usual archives, a chatterbox, and the typical links to other sites on the web.

I don’t remember the last time I reviewed a weblog that had this many quiz answers or other various memes. The author’s appropriately stuck these posts in a category called “Dumb quizzes, etc..”. Christien has many different categories, as well, which give people an idea of how wide a variety of topics he covers from day to day – Geek stuff, Hotness, Stupid White Men, and finally something to do with the name of the site, Cats.

There are posts that contain Christien’s interests, which are often very well written and become quite passionate in meaning. Enjoyably, he gives readers the chance to comment on the things he writes. According to his disclaimer, he’s more than happy to participate in a debate type atmosphere about any given topic, but would rather avoid discussing anything with anyone who isn’t open minded and in Christien’s words, has an IQ of over 100.

When Christien actually takes the time to write a post from his thought or his experiences, readers will be in for quite a treat. He’s conveys his thoughts clearly on very serious topics like gun control and politics, and is very confident and well-informed on the subjects of his writing. These posts don’t come often enough, though, and people may lose interest in the copied and pasted text from other sites and the very regular results to the current quiz.
Cat Whisperings…

The Sum Total Of Me has that nice parchment Blogger template that I am rather fond of. It is a very simple straightforward place. The only things in the sidebar are some of the author’s blog friends, recent posts, and the Archives list.

Our blogger lives on the west coast and is married with children and works as a pre-school teacher. The subtitle of the blog reads thusly:

“Just another individual trying to heal through the power of writing.”

As good a reason to start a blog as any I can think of. She has been writing since July of 2004.

The entries are of a moderate to lengthy nature and are filled with various reactions to her world from day to day. There are ups and downs recorded with a guarded candor that at first was hard for me to break into. She is obviously a private person, trying to deal with the very public world of blogging.

She is dealing with psychological issues in these pages and occasionally manages to outline quite clearly what haunts her even today. This entry is a good example: November 1, 2004 “My Wish”.

Her writing is clear on some levels, and cryptic on others. It’s kind of a mixed bag in this respect. There are often entries that contain music lyrics, which I don’t usually find all that inspiring to read in people’s diaries. But I do understand the desire to share how a song affects you when you listen to it. Frankly, I think it’s difficult to share that kind of emotion on a blog. Would that it were easier for some of us less technically adept to include the sound clip. That might work better!

In any case, it was a pleasant visit all in all.

The Sum Total Of Me