Author: admin

The challenge all personal weblogs face is, invariably, keeping an audience interested. There are ostensibly two ways to do this. The first is to lead an extraordinarily exciting life; the second is to provide enough insight into the mundane as to make your account of the day to day events in your life worth reading. Apart from a semester spent studying in Rome, or a having a hurricane pass through her district in 2003, or getting married and having a son at the tender age of 20, Ashley Sisson’s life is not exactly terribly fascinating. After ploughing through almost 200 entries spread over just over 2 years, I regretfully have to conclude that she’s not particularly insightful, either.

Before I come across as being overly presumptuous, I’d like to state that, above all, weblogs, especially those being reviewed here, should hold some appeal for a larger audience. Therein lies the problem with this particular weblog. Ashley’s account of her college life focuses mainly on classes she takes, grades she receives for them, and random musings about her boyfriend. Eventually, she dumps said boyfriend (Aaron), gets with a new boyfriend (JD), becomes pregnant, and gets married. She stops going to school, and decides to work in a hotel in Victoria, Texas. Throughout all these recollections, she references characters we have no connection to, or interest in.

Ashley’s description of her friends is brief and cursory, so we never really get a feeling for these peripheral characters in her life, and, at the same time, never really become attached to any of them. It seems, therefore, that this weblog is much like any other personal weblog out there – something which only interests people who already have some vested interest in the characters represented.

That being said, Ashley is by no means a bad writer. She conveys her thoughts and emotions competently – the reader who perseveres in going through all her entries will definitely come out with a sense that he or she knows this character, this english song bird. However, as Ashley says on November 25th, 2003, about a short story she wrote, ‘I wouldn’t read all of that unless I had to grade it.’

Indeed, Ashley, indeed.sitdiary The Shadowlands

Ryan Joseph Hudson has a red and black livejournal with yellow tints and white print. The journal is entitled ‘Belligeretron,’ and is littered with pictures of Asian people. This immediately begs the questions – who is this Mr. Hudson, and why does he take pictures of Asian people?

The answer to this question is, quite naturally, revealed in Ryan’s journal entries. Chronicling the adventures of an expatriate elementary school teacher somewhere in Taiwan, Belligereton is, all in all, a fairly entertaining read. Mr. Hudson has a tendency to review everything he comes into contact with, whether it be records, movies, concerts, animated web series, posters, Taiwanese politics, or even the children in his class. After reading a couple entries, it becomes fairly obvious that Mr. Hudson has an opinion, and that he’ll mince no words in making it known.

Fortunately for Ryan, his in-your-face rants are actually fairly amusing. In describing a show he attends in Taiwan, he criticizes not only the Taiwanes music scene’s apparent lack of talent, but its choice in drugs, as well. Somehow, his rant comes out sounding strangely humorous.

Where Ryan’s journal really shines, however, is in his description of the children he works with. Mr. Hudson might not be flattering in his depiction of these 8 or 9 year olds, yet you find yourself strangely attached to these children he describes – while they often seem lost and unresponsive, you can almost imagine the delicious awkwardness of a white man facing asian children, with only minimal skills in the medium they communicate in. Somehow, these vignettes come across as entertaining in the most charming way.

All in all, therefore, belligeretron is definitely worth a read. While it may come across as random and eclectic at times, solid writing carries it through, and Ryan Hudson manages to keep his readers interested in his rants.Belligeretron

Heather 24/7 doesn’t exactly break a whole lot of ground in the blogging world. Her template (Dots Dark) is one of the tried and trusted pre-fabricated layouts provided by blogger. Her sidebar is covered with pictures of her friends (since simple text links were obviously not enough), as well as a catalogue of her quizilla quiz results. Nonetheless, the blog of this freshman at Baylor college manages to keep its readers interested enough to keep clicking, if only for the bizarre voyeuristic pleasure of it all.

Heather McLeod demonstrates the wonders of keeping journal entries short, and serving up a generous helping of pictures. With the rapidly increasing number of blogs on the internet, keeping entries concise is key to maintaining the attention of one’s readers. Thus, while Heather might not exactly be one of the best writers to grace the planet, her editorial discretion is commendable. Furthermore, while she might not be stunningly attractive, Heather is, at least, not camera shy. The judicious use of a picture or two every entry or so helps the readers get a feel for who they’re reading about, giving them a reason to keep reading.

While Heather doesn’t really offer very much original material to the blogging world, her tales of sorority life, her pictures of her friends, and her meditations on how she resembles (or doesn’t resemble) certain characters on the OC are, at the very least, bearable. Occasionally, some of her raves even seem amusing. Given the number of sorority girl blogs on the internet, Heather 24/7 isn’t exactly outstanding. But then again, it isn’t exactly horrible, either.heather 24/7

Looking at the title of this particular weblog didn’t give me any idea what to expect. But seeing that it was listed under a personal blog, kinda did.

The blog itself loaded up into a basic template, blue background and links on either side of the main entries in the middle of the page.

Ashley, the author is 20, has a little boy and there are quite a few pictures of him throughout the blog as well as pictures of other things like when it snowed, pictures of herself and her partner and pictures from home. Her other entry’s detail private or at least personal happenings within her life, her pregnancy and work.

The author writes well, her paragraphs flow, the only issue I have is the fact that as I’ve stated before, personal blogs just don’t seem to have anything that engages me enough to want me to blogroll or even come back and visit at a later date to see what might have happened since my review.

There was no real “about” page for the author herself, at first glance I couldn’t find the archives. I then figured out that the links going all the way down the page on the right side of the blog were actually the archives listed as the entry titles. The only way I found how to go back within the entry’s is that there was a back 9 link above the main entry’s in the middle of the page. I just think that the layout of the blog could be a bit more user friendly. There is a link to her webpage that shows photos of her trips to Europe.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think the blog could do with a face-lift, a bit more of thought going into the layout so that it is easier to navigate. Apart from that, as a personal blog, it’s just like many other personal blogs out there. I didn’t find any entry that made me laugh, or piked my interest. But then, the author could be writing this for herself and not her audience. Which would explain the highly personal entries and not many other links.

The reason I gave this blog a 1.75 is because of the lack of navigation help, as well as the fact that the way her archives are set out wasn’t very helpful, nor were there any links or about me pages that helped to tell you a quick run down of the author. Plus the fact that I didn’t find the content of the blog to be anything apart from personal replays of days and events that happened to the blogger.

You can always check it out and prove me wrong!
sitdiary The Shadowlands

MC Rebbe is apparently ‘an award winning stand-up comedian, rapper, musician, DJ, VJ, journalist, television presenter, producer and remixer’. When I first started reading his blog, I was unaware of any of this. Somehow, though, while reading this blog, you get the feeling that he’s something of a celebrity – the confident, tongue-in-cheek writing style, the snazzy blue and white header, as well as, I suppose, the constant references to his life in show business give this away.

Once you read his blog, though, MC Rebbe’s witty, occasionally acerbic writing style really shines through. From his farcical terms of use for his website, you can tell that this blogger does not take himself seriously, or demand that you take him seriously, either. In my opinion, this can only be a good thing. What’s most impressive is that MC Rebbe can wisecrack his way through subject matter that is, at times, very Jewish and, at other times, incredibly British, and make someone like me, someone who is neither a Jew or from the United Kingdom, actually care enough to read what the rapping rabbi has to say.

Key to this, I suppose, is the fact that MC Rebbe doesn’t waste his words. Entries are kept fairly short, and filed neatly into categories using the wordpress publishing platform. All in all, therefore, the site is an easy (and fairly enjoyable) read.

Given his apparent celebrity status in Britain, MC Rebbe’s blog will probably hold an added appeal for people familiar with his body of work. Strangely, though, this is not reflected in his comments section, making me wonder if his blog is suffering from a lack of under publicity. Perhaps he’s just not that big of a star.

However, none of this should stop you from stopping by the home of the web of the rapping rabbi. I definitely enjoyed my visit, and might just stop by again, in the future.MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi