Author: admin

So you’re in your room, cranking out top 40 songs on your stereo while surfing blogs and you say to yourself, “I’m sick of all these trendy, pop songs. I need to find some new stuff and see what other folks think is good.” How about pointing your browser to e-zog.com?

E-zog.com is a site about music and a group of folks who have opinions about music. The site has gone through several layouts over the last few months, which made it a bit difficult to follow; however, I liked the vocal posts given on music. The bands discussed and reviewed are mainly non-mainstream (e.g., Ben Folds, The Flaming Lips, The Lemonheads, etc.) artists, but if you check out the bios of the critics, you’ll find that their tastes in music vary.

You’ll get to read up about what these guys think about up-coming albums by other artists, including concerts and current news. They sometimes post albums they just bought to let readers know what they’ll be listening to and reviewing soon. I also liked some of the recent posts contained other reviews from other sites were incorporated into the review.

Other perks to this site are the sections where you the reader get to voice your own opinion on music. The “recommended” section is cool because you can post a quick review of why people should check out an album. I personally found “The Top Five” section funny where you can post the top five of anything you want. Some folks posted the usual “Top Five Songs” type lists, but I liked the more creative lists such as, “Names My Friends Have Given My Vehicles Growing Up” and “Types of People I’ve Seen at the College Gym” lists. “Zog’s Mix” section’s cool. You can check out what stuff Zog (creator of the site) and other critics have put on mix CDs.

This site’s pretty cool and the fact that it’s an interactive site gives it extra points. The organization and layout could be much better and the content in some areas should be moved to other sections, however, the ideas and opinionated critics is what makes this site worth visiting. Check the site out if you’d like to read up on some new music. I think this site will totally be rocking in a few months after some tweaking is done.

Two thumbs up.
E-zog…Confessions of a Former Pop Junkie

I don’t know who the guy casually lying on the chair is, but I find him very attractive! My first view of twodolla.org! The domain name itself sounded familiar, but I realised that my expectations were quashed when I started to read (which is a good thing!) Although the text was fairly small, it was an easy read.. something that I personally tend to look for in a blog. Its easy to comprehend the simplistic nature of this young woman from Minneapolis from reading the first few lines.

It had only been two minutes, and I’d already gathered a lot about her including work, music tastes & that glue sticks are better than conversation hearts. I don’t even know what the former is! Subsequently entertained by the list of unusual referrers which I can easily identify with.. (believe me, Wendy!)The rest of the main page was fairly consistent in writing style and contained a varying amount of daily life topics most of which are kept concise & in small paragraphs. Highly appreciated!

The layout of twodolla.org is common to most weblogs. A large space on the left for the blog material and a sidebar containing links within and external to the site. Easy to navigate so effective in that sense, however I like a bit of originality.. something that will prevent me from having to scroll down and up for (what it seems) miles in order to breeze through the sidebar. Luckily I can’t really complain with Wendy’s site as the main links were at the top, few as they are, they proved a bit of nice reading.

I became slightly confused as to why she has a password protected section & giving out the password to those who email her or who know the name of her pet cat? Its likely that those who would be interested in that section will be closest to her & perhaps even be implicated in her blog (hence the retributions??), otherwise I don’t think your average reader would bother too much. I identify with her need for privacy however seems that releasing the password so freely (as it seems) isn’t really the way.

Having read some of the ‘100 things’ and a few Deuce Bigalow quotes, I found it difficult to get back to the index page without using the back button on my browser. Perhaps a homing link somewhere would help, unless I’d missed it? I also read some archives which were equally entertaining.

Her entry subjects are derivative of the events surrounding her existence, and example being her grandmother’s fight against Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma & questions a variety of theories about God & whether actual prayer will be listened to and dealt with. Her love affair with Best Buy (workplace amongst other things) is obvious, & spreads throughout the entries; but its work & we all identify when things just don’t go our way. In contrast, a few posted conversations make a change from direct paragraphs.. almost like reading a play! Namely the brief meeting with the attractive cop, (second one she’d been pulled over by that same day). That particular entry concluded with some tasty sarcasm. Thats what I like in a girl! One of the funniest entries I stumbled across was a series of responses to a spamming representative owned by a web hosting company. Its unusual for one to reply to spam, thus any further response deems hilarious, as indicated in the entry.

Wendy is also the brainchild of Hottie of the Month, a website dedicated to nominated non-celebs as well as keeping to her eventful journal. She could exploit her creation a lil bit more by putting a link on the sidebar.
In all, twodolla.org is worth more than it implies, but I sense I need for some more interactive material & more of an incentive to return. However for a passer-by, it’d keep you hooked for a bit.twodolla.org

Woodencracker is easy to navigate and nice to look at. There are probably more pictures than words. And this, in the middle of lots of overlong and needlessly complicated blogs, turns out to be refreshing. But in this point also lies the downside of this type of site: lack of content.

There are lots and lots of nice photographs that fill the blog in the middle of posts and in monthly archives. The photographs are of great quality and many are really interesting.

The navigation is clearly something the author cares about, and it’s greatly appreciated by a reader. Things are easy to find and work smoothly, except for the webcam, at least during the time I visited.

The design feels just right. Very clean and intelligently chosen. It fits the blog nicely. The look of the site is important to the author, and it shows hard work, and probably lots of natural talent.

The posts themselves fall obviously into the journal category. Brian writes down daily activities and situations and the photographs play an important role in this weblog. But sometimes I just felt lost in the middle of 20 pictures and almost no words.
The posts are well written, and don’t intend to be very deep or insightful. They are clear and simple.

To sum up, Woodencracker won’t change your life or the way you think. It won’t even try to. But if you want to read a nicely designed, smartly written and carefully constructed journal with some beautiful pictures, this is one of the good places to begin.WoodenCracker

Whatever I Say is an oddly attracting site. Perhaps it’s title, a seemingly sarcastic spin on the “whatever you say” mantra. Perhaps it’s the subtly funny yet informative commentary on pop culture. Or maybe it’s the bright orange banner luring you in from the get-go.

Whatever I Say is a personal blog, a classification that invites moans from many. You immediatly think of the typical teenage girl blog, rambling on about he-said she-said at a pace that’s dizzying. Whatever I Say, however, has done a fine job at being a blog that’s interesting for everyone to read. The posts stem from the author’s personal life, but expand to a more general scale. Topics include the author’s battle to quit smoking, the web, dating, and music.

The author herself does not openly illicit attention to herself on the blog; one must dig a little deeper to find out information. This just makes it all the more worth it when we find out her name is Katie and that she loves the smell of fresh paper. She’s humble, and so is Whatever I Say. It’s all rather refreshing in this time of “me-me-me” blogs.

The layout is composed of a simple orange banner at the top with a vintage-y feel, proudly providing quick words of observation with every visit. (“When you ride the bus every day, you start to get to know people, whether you like it or not. I haven’t seen the crying man on the bus in a few months, though. I wonder what happened to him.”). The blog itself is easy to read, with the classic black on white combo with orange links thrown in just for kicks.

Whatever I Say is an enjoyable ride through Katie’s brain, and is much deserving of repeat visits. Whatever I Say

Jay’s website has a couple of names, including The Talamasca² and Random Acts of Blasphemy. The latter part of the site is Jay’s journal, which as far as I can tell is all hand-coded. Although his URL is wiccajesus.com and the title mentions blasphemy, I didn’t find much religious in the journal. He does have a couple of very well-written essays about religion, though, which are in a separate section of the site. Also at the site is the Book of Jay, his witty collection of stories, personal anecdotes, and pet peeves from his work in a call center.

Back to the journal. Jay doesn’t write very frequently, sometimes not more than a few times a month. He’s been writing since 2001, though, with a few entries from 1994 as well. The majority of his pieces are typical journal fodder: notes from the day, often about his car or his job. And despite insisting he doesn’t like LiveJournal anymore (having originally kept his journal there), Jay does continue to post a mood/music block with each entry. It’s not possible to leave comments on entries, but there’s a link to send e-mail.

Even though it’s just personal day-to-day stuff, Jay’s writing is enjoyable to read. He took his biography down back in mid-2002, but I was able to find out that his education is in computer animation and that’s been his work too. Put together, this means that Jay is great at expressing his ideas, both visually and through words.

The site’s design is black, white, and gray, which makes it feel a little gloomy. It’s still visually appealing, though. Overall, I think Jay deserves a 4.Random Acts of Blaspheme