Author: admin

Rambling Along, eh? Funnily enough that is what I myself seem to do an awful lot of the time but, unfortunately for me, not as well as this guy does it. The tag line is ‘musings from a muddled mind’ but the author is not as confused as he might have you believe.

The weblog itself is very well written, I think. The author admits that his grammar is not as good as his spelling, but both are still way above a good many blogs these days. Although it is a personal site, practically every post I read was very funny and so I just had to pop this one in the humour category. The first post was only in September 2003 but after reading the recent Christmas musings, I think I can safely say that this man has enough material in his everyday life to keep this standard going for quite a while!

The design is a clean and simple one provided, I suspect, in the form of a template from the hosts, Blog Drive. The advertising that makes this site free does not detract from the blog itself and the colour-scheme the author has chosen doesn’t detract from the writing either.

This is 100% pure blog with no unnecessary extras. The hosts do seem to provide a couple of nice features though and the tag board is a nice touch, but the archives are awkward to navigate if you are looking for something specific. I didn’t find this to be too much of a problem, however.

Although this site could, at some point in the future, benefit from a re-design, the one thing that makes it very good is already there – the writing. In the author’s own words “think of it as Bridget Jones meets Queer as Folk, only with less sex and more slapstick”. So far I think this description works quite well.Rambling Along

The first thing that hits you about the random thoughts main page is how sleek the design is. I instantly wanted to read more and learn a bit about the site’s author as it is quite a professional looking design. Turns out that it’s just another example of a self-confessed geek trying his hand at new things and being very good at them.

The author’s name is Keith and he started the weblog in its current format in June 2003 but, although it hasn’t been going very long, things have changed a lot in that time. When he started, the writing was immaculate but actual content was a little thin on the ground – now there is an awful lot here to keep most people occupied for quite a while. I’d classify it as a personal blog but there are a great deal of interesting links to be had, as well as a lot of rather cool science related stuff.

One of the most interesting things about the design of random thinks is that Keith appears to have doen it all himself, with no prior knowledge. He has learnt HTML and CSS, tinkered with Type Pad and fiddled with graphics, even taking a course to help. It is a nice site to read if you want to learn about web design from a layman’s point of view as most of his ‘adventures’ have been detailed in the archives. The effect now is a very good one, but I suspect this will change again before long!

As well as the blog, there are some interesting snippets (quote and word of the day), recommendations (books, DVDs and films), wonderful random photos and a large load of links. A thing that strikes me about this site is that it will either teach you something new or take you somewhere else interesting on the web practically every day. Keith works in education but the site doesn’t set out to educate – I think it’s just a sign of someone who loves what he does so much that he likes to talk about it and make it interesting.

I would recommend this site to most people, but especially those with even a passing interest in science. I may even blogroll it for the sheer amount of fantastic links that I encountered when dipping into the archives. I don’t think I’ve sat this long with a new site for quite a while.random thinks

Your first impression of this blog is very good. As soon as it had completely loaded (which took only mere seconds), I was surprised by the design, as it’s a really rather unique design. One minor point though, the ads right at the top are really ugly. But for the rest it looks pretty nice.

Most of the entries are written in a humoristic way, mostly to amuse the reader, but also to prove a certain moral/point. The spelling is pretty good, although the lack of any paragraphs whatsoever may put you off from reading this blog.

However, this shouldn’t stop you from reading this blog. It contains some very entertaining stories that’ll get a guaranteed chuckle out of you.

Like I said before, the design is a very unique one. I’ve never seen it before on any other blogs, so it must be a custom one. The only down-side of the design is the side-bar (right). At certain points it’s a bit crowded, and certain images give it a very amateur look.

All the links seem to work, and the archive links also function correctly. One minor thing; there seems to be a refresh every xx seconds, and this is quite distracting, especially when you’re a really focusing on the entries.Overall, I’d say the design is very nicely done, and some work has obviously been put into it.

In conclusion, I’d like the say this blog is very nicely done, and definitely worth reading. If you need to extend your blogroll, I suggest you add this blog right now. You won’t regret it.Rambling Along

My first impression of this blog was that, even though the layout might be simple, it’s deceptively concealing a gem. I don’t know why, but I got a really good feeling from this site. The picture, which is the only really design oriented one on the site, is very abstract and suggest that the author will be unique. The classic colors also show someone with style.

I read on to find that quite a few of my initial perceptions were correct. First of all, Kai is a 30 year old gay man with a killer sense of humor. The more I read his blogs, the more I liked his site. Every entry was funny and entertaining and it made me wish I had a life that compelling. Another thing I like about his blog is that it can be read by any age group because all of the blogs are addressed with no particular age group in mind. I suppose some of the language used might not be suitable for a 10 year old, say, but to the general webloging community, this is perfectly suitable for anyone.

As I read through the blogs on the first page, I began craving more of Kai’s great stories and found that finding more of these comic masterpieces proved much more difficult then simply hitting an archive button. I found myself looking at a little calendar with the dates of posts linked. This isn’t uncommon but it is usually accompanied by a monthly archive link. Although this was a slightly hassle, I eagerly fumbled to some earlier posts and read on to be even more enthusiastic about his posts. Kai truly is a comedic man but it’s hard to read his comedy when it’s hidden in many clicks of his calendar month changer. I also found, to my dislike, that he blogged a total of one time between his first post at the beginning of September and mid November, when he seemed to start back up again.

The extras on this site are rather generic, with a tagboard, a cute, little Cartman (for you South Park fans), and a Quizilla result. He didn’t have any links to other sites he enjoyed or books of interest but I believe these will come with time. I think this site definitely deserves to be visited, especially since he’s such a funny guy, but I wouldn’t let the back arrow be deceiving when you’re looking at his calendar. It will keep going forever!

Rambling Along

My initial response to this blog is cute. I love the design and the graphics at the top of the site. The first thing I did was stop by and read through the “about me” page, which almost always has a ton of interesting tidbits about the author. Here, you’ll find much more insight into who Keith is. I love the look of this blog and I can’t help but hope that my first impressions of this site mirror the rest of the blog. I have high hopes for this blog as I start on the entry archives.

The first month of archives are pretty uneventful, with a few bits and pieces that are worth reading. As with any new blog the first few weeks usually entail checking code, making sure that stylesheets are working correctly and in the case of Keith, the include for php is working write as well. After getting past the first this first month you run across a few very political entries, which, in my opinion, aren’t meant to reflect one way or another but to just open some eyes. This post of a particular article was very interesting to read. When I started to get more into the blog, as the author seemed to do as well, I found intriguing entries like this one about a cookie’s fortune and his thoughts on what it made him feel. I’m sad that I missed the Binky the Crayon naming, but was glad to share in it after the fact. The blog, for it’s randomness of subjects, is very well written. I suppose that would happen with a blog so aptly named. A recent entry about the Boondocks was a wonderful read, not only because of the author’s insight but the articles that are linked.

The design is good. Very good by today’s standards. The author has taken the time to learn something new, html and css, in order to create his own designs rather than stick to some tried (and died) templates. I love the design because it fits the author so well. Everything is easily accessible and well navigated. There are couple of quirks, for example, the “randomness photo” opens into another window, but the window is not resizable and doesn’t have scrollbars. This only poses as a problem when the image is larger than the new window opened. Otherwise, I love the design.

There are a lot of bonus features to this site. There is a photoblog to see the world through the author’s eyes. You can contact the author without opening your email. He has a list of his favorite web places as well as a separate blog list. There are recent reads, dvd’s and other good things that you’re able to post about while using TypePad. The author also does a quote of the day and a word of the day. These are all worth a look since they change on a regular basis.

The majority of this blog is personal. There are a lot of insight entries, or entries that are just there to share ideas or artwork, pictures or thoughts. He keeps the blog interesting by picking different things to write about. I enjoyed reading this blog very much. Each person seems to approach the blogging world with a different viewpoint on life, and Keith’s thoughts are definately worth a read. random thinks