Author: admin

I read the latest posts of You and Me and Wainbow and noticed, “Hmmm… there’s no punctuation!” (Well, in some places there is and some places there isn’t and the sentences don’t begin with capital letters either) While that is fun to read with oh, let’s say, James Joyce, it’s not so much fun with a blog. Still, I delved deeper, went back into the archives to see whether this was a one-off thing. Nope. Except for the August archives, it pretty much seemed to be the same thing. Which is a shame, because the writing—once you get used to the fact that it’s all one long sentence—is really good: sharp, arcebic and witty. Basically, everything I look for in a well-written blog.

I absolutely loved the picture of a cat streching on the title banner. It sort of made it feel more homely, like, for instance, you were opening someone’s big blue journal, with messy writing and doodles up and down the margins. The “bio” section is a bit intimidating, a picture of a girl’s feet saying,”You don’t deserve to know a thing about me.” Rather menacing, eh? And then she’s got the usual books and music list. I like the movable type design, except, Wainbow, please, get rid of the weather girl box you have becaus eit clashes so much with the rest of the blog.

The writing, as I said before, is very good, and for that, this blog deserves a really high rating. Take this post for instance:

“i like making new friends especially when they are pretty and you have a lot in common and then you start talking and all of a sudden two hours have gone by. i have a new friend who invited me out for brunch it all of a sudden felt so gutsy and like i had just been asked out on a date kind of, people don’t so much ask you out of the blue to do things with them and so it was nice and surprising and then it turned out to also be easy and comfortable too.

also i got a coat with elk antlers on it and it is brown with red stitching and i’m happy with that too”

So often people go overboard in their descriptions so I liked that she kept it to a bare minimum. I could go on copying passages out of her blog to put here, but I really think you should visit it yourself.

You and Me and Wainbows

“Wow” is my first impression on opening up this page. It is graphically intense, and still loads like lightning, even though I am half a world away. A gorgeous picture of the Stars and Stripes greets me, along with well chosen font & background design which echo’s the main picture, but in grayscale. Nice touch!

Are the posts as good as the design? I start to read, and the story of a happy American family starts to emerge. I want to read more, find out about these seemingly design and web savvy people! Somebody in this family has taken an html class…

A really useful group of links tears me away from earlier posts, offering untold riches with titles like, ‘video, sound, pictures and interesting’. I am going a bit click crazy, following links in quick succession, and find myself on a site advertising light sabres. Ok, I’m definitely coming back here, this family has just become really really cool.

Back to the site, and I’m checking out more cool stuff, time to bookmark this site with my browser, because these guys have made a fan out of me.

Back to the blogging, and I find an interesting mix of socio political analysis, right inbetween pictures of a family birthday, which in my mind is great, it means that these guys are blogging about what affects them in life and a) they are not living in a fantasy world, and b) they’re real people too. I am starting to like this family, a lot! Hey I just found some digital artwork, is there anything this family doesn’t do?

Before you start to fret, I found some spelling mistakes and typos, so don’t worry this family isn’t all perfect. But they are definitely interesting enough and blog daily with a skipped day now and then(It’s ok, I forgive them, even perfect families need a break from blogging). Now go and see for yourself!Danz Family

Jenny doesn’t like Bombs Mr. President and I don’t like Jenny. I thought this site was going to be an anti-Bush site and man was I very wrong. Enough of my pre-thoughts as they were all political based, and this blog is not that.

Ok the page loads and it is all dark grays, black, and oh wait light gray. Nice. The design seemed like a template, but I am not sure if it is or not. It reminded me of a design I did back in early 2000 back when this was all the rage.

The blog itself is just as boring as the design. The posts are all a headline and 1 line of text. I was going to post some bits from the site to give you an example, but then I remembered the April 20th post which reads:
Your blog sucks dude. Its filled with inane posts. That’s the point.
So the author is going for the sucky posts route? Well in that case I should score this site a 5.0 because it accomplishes what it is trying to do. But no, I provide a service for people to find good blogs.

I may sound a little harsh, even for me, but this site did not do anything for me. Something is wrong when I spend more time thinking and writing my review than it did to read the entire site. The site is so random and chaotic, I don’t know where to begin, so I will just end this review. Jenny Doesn’t Like Bombs Mr. President

Before venturing into any site I like to try to guess what is going to happen at the site I review. On Second Thought had me thinking. What could this be? My main guess was that it was going to be about decisions that were made and the author was going to present both sides.

When I first got to the site I was impressed with the design: totally original. Then I realized some limitations to this design as it has the text in a mini box in the center with its own scroll bars. This would be nice if my up/down arrows, or my spacebar would scroll this box, but it didn’t. Still props to the design, as it is very slick.

The most recent post talks about how the author doesn’t post much about his personal life, and then goes on to talk about it. More interesting is that almost every post is about his personal life but I don’t think he realizes it. Some examples of this are his “Saturday Night Law” post where he talks about staying in, his constant Photography posts, and my favorite which was “Rise and Shine”.

The navigation is a bit harsh for this site. When one clicks on the archive link you are given a list of all the titles, not a monthly break down. This makes it harder to read the site, especially with the text being in the little box that it is. The other bit is the lack of scrolling which I talked about earlier.

Overall I thought this site was pretty good. The design is very original and the writing is well done. After some tweaks to make the navigation easier this site will be a lot better. I think you should go check it out, even if it is just for the black and white photo gallery. On Second Thought…

This site is written by a woman. I have no idea how old she is or where she lives. The template of “Wainbows” is pretty basic, navy blue and white. A photo of what I assume are her feet is the only hint of her in the sidebar. Under “Bio” it says “You don’t deserve to know a thing about me.” (Seems a bit odd for someone who has put her blog up for the world to see. Not to mention for review by The Weblog Review)

Let’s not forget, however, that although she doesn’t want you to know about her, she does have cats and photos of them on her blog. I sometimes wonder if cat owners start blogs just so they can talk about and show photos of their cats.

Her entries all seem to be caffeine induced. They are all a mash of free-flowing thoughts, one not really connected to the next. If she’s like this in ‘real life,’ she may very well be one of those people who never ever stops talking. I’m guessing that in real life she’s a bit shy and/or quiet. Blogs sometimes let the inner non-stop talker come out in full force.

Take for example this post. If you can get past the non-stop, nonsensical chattering and finish the post, you won’t be any more satisfied that you know anything more about this person than before you read the post. Most of the posts are like this. However, some are very insightful and amusing. The insightful and amusing posts get lost among the posts on speed.

She never uses capitalization. This bothers me. A lot. I won’t let it affect my overall review rating of Wainbows, but come on, your readers deserve the rules of grammar to be followed. It’s a sign of respect. And it would make your caffeine-induced posts much easier to follow.

You and Me and Wainbows