Category: Uncategorized

The first thing I thought when browsing onto this blog was, “Oh no, another same old layout.” However, as I read into the entries, the generic layout didn’t seem to even have my attention anymore as I skimmed the Nomad’s blog about his life.

This is the blog of a South African/British blogger (he declares that he’s not sure which category he would fit into), talking about his life and times. As I tend to be drawn more towards personal blogs, this was nice. The most recent entry is about confusion (I can relate!) and the one after that is about the decision of whether or not to answer the unexpected, unknown number call… I can relate to that as well. The entries are well written and drew me in right away.

The design is… well… fairly boring. It’s the basic white Blogger layout that we see all the time, but it’s got its own touches, such as sidebar content that isn’t on every single blog out there. This is definitely a plus.

Let’s take a look at the extras. Some of the links are somewhat interesting (I checked a few of them out) and there’s a picture of the author as a child. Overall, not bad at all.

If we examine the site as a whole, it’s above average, but it just doesn’t have anything entirely unique. While definitely a good read that may be making it onto my blogroll, most likely it’ll be just a site to fall back on if I’m bored and get the urge to read something new. I have to give this one a 4 out of 5. With a little work it could easily become one of my favorites.NULL

KillJim.com. I can’t explain why, but I really loved that domain name from the second I saw it. The best domain names are ones you do not forget, and I think it would be pretty darn impossible to get something like KillJim.com out of your head.

This starts out to be a group weblog, with the main author of the site inviting people that can contribute to Kill Jim on a regular basis, but winds up being the brainchild of the creator, James. He’s a 20 year old from New Zealand, according to the informational page about the authors of the site.

With only three months of archives listed on the site, there unfortunately aren’t really that many posts to read. Sadly, the humor in most of these posts will probably be lost on some viewers. Not everyone can appreciate James’ excitement about becoming a sniper for the U.S. Army (if he were an American) and popping off the heads of terrorists one by one. And I’m fairly certain there are blog-readers out there who won’t be entertained by the entries written about getting drunk beyond belief and deciding which disco ball he likes the most. Me? I was entertained. Immensely.

Every once in a while, one of the authors will share a link they’ve found on a different site somewhere, but that’s definitely not the main focus of the site. In my opinion, it’s a site that’s made to entertain – short, sometimes eccentric entries that may or may not have a point, and may or may not strike its intended audience as funny.

The design used for KillJim.com fits the site perfectly. No frills, nothing fancy – just a design that does the job. The title of the site is in the upper left-hand corner of the site, with a link to the archives and the authors listed below. James lists a few of his favorite links below, and the rest of the site displays the weblog entries.

This is a site that’s not going to be entertaining for everyone, and a site like that is hard to rate. While this site is not the average mainstream site, it is very well written, complimented with a very nice design. Having said that, it deserves a good ranking like the one I’ve given. NULL

A blog about dating! Sounds great. This is the kind of thing I like to read (and write) so I was eager to dive in. First, this is the only blog I’ve ever read that lives in the “bloglines” template. It has absolutely no frills, but that’s fine. A good blog is all about content and the bloglines layout is simplicity itself. It is easy to read and easy to navigate. There are no features to speak of–no links outside of the ones that are built in, no “about me” section, though the first entry gives the basic intent of the blog.

Speaking of the first entry, it is dated November 15, 2005. This is a baby blog. I read the entire thing in twelve minutes, but I’m a fast reader. The writer, as he tells us in the first post, is “a 48 year old man about to re-enter the world of dating after a nineteen year marriage, and a disasterous [sic] two year rebound relationship.” I’m able to sympathize with him until I read, “…this time I have set my sights high, and I am resolved to go after the most unaccessible [sic] women. I have decided at this stage in life, the chase is often more interesting than the catch.” I don’t like him as much after I read this. Is he just dating for dating’s sake? Looking to get laid or what? How much is he actually going to tell us about his chase? As it turns out, not much, at least not so far.

The rest of the entries give his take on a few of the more popular on-line dating services, a near-miss with a Russian bride scam, his experiences at a speed dating event and an ill-advised comparison of baseball and dating. I was bored. I feel like I’ve read all this before and there were no new insights. I don’t get a sense of who the writer is. Most dating blogs are written by younger people and women (myself included) and the potentially different perspective offered by a dating blog written by a 48-year-old man would be most welcome. Yet, it reads much like the dating blogs written by younger men–he’s looking for the same women (hotties) as the younger guys, though he is willing to date women his age and older. Yet, all the older women do is complain that men their own age only want to date younger women. Really? Maybe. He is one of these men!

I read a lot of dating blogs and this one does not stand out. However, it is very new and there is room for improvement. A more personal voice and more details about the writer’s feelings about his experiences might make it an interesting read.NULL

Cutesy is not a real word but if it was it would be a good way to describe my first impression of the design of this site. Pink, pretty, flowery, girly. I go straight to the authors blogger profile and see a huge amount of info about our hosts interests and favorite things and one of those mysterious photos you sometimes see. Is she hot? She kinda looks hot.. although I can’t really tell because the postage-stamp sized photo has her looking away. But thats ok, privacy and tact are a bloggers license after all.

Jessica loves her music and culture and her blog is thick with lists, photos, portraits, reviews and news. She sums them up pretty nicely and gives us her views on all these things interrupted only by news about her life and movements. She writes well but it doesn’t suck me in totally, and the site has not been updated for several weeks now. When she is on a roll, she will write long blocks of text without breaking them up into paragraphs to make them more readable, bite sized chunks of information.

The content basically revolves around not so much “the world” as “Jess’ world” and the things she is into at any given point in time. For example at the time of writing this there is a lengthy post on handbags that is probably fascinating for bag aficionado’s but doesn’t register on my fun-o-meter. But then, I’m not a girly girl like Jessica either.

World According to Jes is a nice looking site with heaps to see and read. It is a mish-mash of popular culture and Jessica’s day to day stuff with the potential for improvement, not a bad read but could be better. NULL

Since it’s been ages since I’ve read any new blogs so I have to say it was fun to read a new site, however, I was wishing for something a bit more original.

Kinipela.org is hosted and ran by Jenn, a 21-year-old woman living “an average life” as she puts it. She’s married, has a dog and is currently going to college. She mostly just talks about her family, husband and school. I did like the few personal entries she had regarding some news about pregnancy and another post about how it’s important to not argue about every little thing that ticks you off about your partner. Over all the posts were so-so. I think I would like it if she engaged me more in her posts so I could get an idea who Jenn is and relate to her. I don’t really feel like I really know who she is.

The site’s default look currently is black with large, white snowflakes, in season with the time of year it is currently. Felt a bit too dark for me, so I changed it to a purple, winter theme because it was easier on my eyes. Her site’s fairly easy to get around which is always a plus for any type of site. I wish though her archives were organized by month, rather than having to click on the link “previous entries” to get older posts.

Kinipela.org doesn’t really differ from a lot of blogs out there on the internet. I think the only draw to this was maybe those few personal posts, but that’s about it. It’s an average site about a girl with “an average life.”
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