Category: Uncategorized

Mondo Irlando opens to a rather garish page, with a lot of homemade icons and an annoying flashing Amazon advertisement. The background is black and in three columns we have the headings, Film, Music, and Other Shit. Overall, not an inviting looking place I’m sad to say. I did not run across an explanation of what the title of the site means, although it may be in there somewhere. And I only found one journal entry, so technically, to my way of thinking at least, this is not a blog.

The author writes reviews about film, and music. In the “Other” category you will find articles like “The Duke’s Guide to Ireland”, and “The Cinema of Woody Allen”. The writing style is rambling, tangent filled, and liberally sprinkled with profanity. I must confess, I’m convinced the fellow is fairly intelligent, but his penchant for smart aleck asides gets in the way of some otherwise cogent remarks on his chosen subjects. This is a shame, for he obviously has put an impressive volume of work here.

There were a few links that I tried that were not working for one reason or another… might have just been a bad day on the Web. There is no “About” page that I could find.

I don’t think I will be returning to this site any time soon. But it is entirely possible that it might appeal to film and music buffs, who look for a healthy dose of sarcasm and irreverence in their reviewers. It didn’t work for me.

Mondo Irlando

The background of this site (ModBlog – Thoughts on paper) as it loaded took me back to about seven years ago, when I first got the idea of using a notebook paper image as my background… because, well, that’s the image that’s used as a background here. Despite that, the black and white sketch of a warrior on a mountain, and the big orange modblog banner, I was able to concentrate on fairly reviewing the actual weblog content of the site. Once I found the beginning of the site, that is.

As with any site hosted blog (Blogger, LiveJournal, et al. ), users aren’t really allotted a lot of freedom when it comes to layouts and organization of the archives of their site. Readers have to click through about four pages of archives before being able to find out where and when Taylor, the author, first started blogging here, which was April 4, 2004. Without much introduction or a very extensive “about” page, it doesn’t appear that Taylor just jumped on the blogging bandwagon in April.

Taylor writes very well. Quite often, I forget that I’m reading the blog of a 16-year-old. In fact, it sometimes takes posts spelling out the fact that this author is still in high school to remind me. “I know the skills are there they have gotten me awards, but that is another story that involves going through my life in the 6th and 7th grade,” he writes in a post about wanting to sit down a write a song. In the same post, he writes in detail about The Who’s Tommy album, which again isn’t really typical teenager blog fodder.

There are posts that are filled with typical teen angst, but instead of what could be deemed as a whiny post; Taylor expresses his angst via a song/poem that he’s written himself. These bits of expression can be found throughout the weblog, and do a nice job of breaking up regular entries.

Of course, his current entries have been dealing with a harassing person or group of people that have been leaving comments of sorts on Taylor’s site that he’s found offensive. Unfortunately, in the weblogging world, that will always be something that happens, and hopefully Taylor will be able to find a way around ignoring the harassment and continuing on with this weblog.

While this weblog probably isn’t one that the average web surfer will stumble upon and truly enjoy, it is one that is probably best fitting for readers around Taylor’s age and a bit older. Readers that are older than Taylor will be able to enjoy a few posts, but will then probably run out of commonalities or interests, just as they would outside of the weblogging world.
ModBlog – Thoughts on paper

I needed a Flash plugin, so the first thing I saw on this page was a fullpage popup. Closing that, I get on with Schmutzie. The layout is big and red and beautiful, and apparently Schmutzie designed it herself. It’s one of the best layouts I’ve seen – mostly text, clean, and eye-catching.

The blog is called “Milkmoney or not, here I come,” but the page itself says “Sticking One Toe In At A Time.” Both are sort of the average, cutesy titles you could expect from almost any site, which tell you nothing about the author or the content of the site. Personal weblogs, however, even though mostly solipsistic, cover such a range of topics that in most cases it’s good to be ambiguous to a degree.

It turned out to be a fluke, but I thought it was a bad sign that the first entry was one of those lists of 200 things where you have to bold the ones you have done. Schmutzie, a married Canadian woman, has never touched an
iceberg. But she’s milked a cow. Her sitemeter tells me she’s only had 7,400 readers since August, but it seems often that far-inferior weblogs with better networking skills get ten times the hits with 1/10th of the content.

Her entries are essay-long, and always contain plenty of information about the lobes of the brain, freed lab rabbits, and the French word for dandelion (³pissenlit²).

Some gems:
“Brown twine is comforting and right.”
“When I found myself absentmindedly etching a caricature of myself into the side of the tub
during a bath, I knew that I had let that one go too far. I mean, I was actually naked and soaking in hot water inside a container I would not have fed a dog out of.”

I’ve found this blog fascinating, and I can’t usually swallow personal weblogs. Most make you feel like a child that’s wandered into the middle of a movie theater. The author is intelligent, and her writing makes her seem approachable and friendly. The mistake most personal weblog authors make with friendliness is that every entry reads as a
continuation of a story, without exposition or reference. I could read Schmutzie backwards, entry by entry, if I wanted (and I just might) and still get it.milkmoney or not, here I come

Very small text was my first impression when I opened DelightzNET. I have 20/20 vision and I found myself squinting on a few occasions. Also every time I attempted to click on a link in the blog’s menu the whole thing moved on me. I’m not sure if it’s a glitch in the layout or if it serves a purpose I am unaware of, but I felt like a cat trying to swat at an unreachable piece of string. Other than that the layout is clean, basic and done in WordPress. It freaked me out a bit to see a young person holding up a Bush/Cheney sticker in the author’s pic, but to each their own.

The blog chronicles the life of a college senior attending Mason University in Virginia. Since this reviewer never attended college, I take note that it is always interesting to live vicariously though others. Learning about the stress of managing real life, midterms, and a job is always worthwhile. It seems that Stephanie, the author, has just recently decided to breathe new life into her domain and is not at all a stranger to blogging. She has only been posting again regularly for the past two months, but does a great job in her initial post of getting her readers caught up on her life.

The posts are in diary form, with a few reviews and rants mingled in here and there. Like so many young Americans, Stephanie seems to be on the path of attempting to find herself. In one of her posts she says, Is it possible that I’m realizing where I always thought I needed to be – is no where near where I really to be? , this seems to sum up her current state of mind.

The design of this blog is fitting for the type of entries it contains. The entries are written well and allow you to get to know the author on the surface. It is one of those blogs where you feel like you are ease dropping on someone’s life with one eye closed. I personally think that diary type blogs should contain a bit more depth to them. It seems like there is so much more that Stephanie could be telling us. Readers yearn for those things that lie beneath the surface. Speaking of surfaces, there are no extras involved with ths blog. It is categorized by topic which is always nice, but nothing out of the ordinary or different from all the other basic blogs out there.

The author categorized this blog as “Teen.” I would think that in would fit better in the “Personal” Category. This blog is about one person and their struggles, their loves, and the decisions that face them. The great things about blogs is that we are allowed to peek into people’s lives. We get to see how different we all are and how similar we can all be. It’s not a blog that I would revisit, but it seems to be a needed outlet for its author. It serves it’s purpose for her and her life. When we get down to basics, isn’t that what blogging is all about?

delightzNET

The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon has 31 entries that span over the time of about 11 months. This is the entire site. The posts are extremely lengthy and if the topic at hand isn’t something readers find interesting, they may not make it from one entry to the next.



Tony’s former strategy and current thoughts on giving handouts to charities and to beggars is probably one of the most entertaining posts of the weblog. The majority of the posts deal with his political views and opinions of the current economic and social status of America.



Tony lists his site in the News/Links category, which is probably the only one that fits this weblog. While the author does a fine job of relating facts, he also does a good job of relaying his opinions on different world and country related issues. He’s never been found of the current President, and isn’t shy to share that with readers. Instead of just bashing the President for one thing or the other and leaving it at that, Tony goes on to explain in detail what makes his distaste for the President so prevalent. He does this with generally any opinion he holds, thus making his opinions more valid to those that may be reading.



His writing style will not appeal to just everyone. Tony’s writing is very eloquent and professional. The posts often read more like an editorial letter to a local newspaper then something casually written to a weblog.



Thanks to Blogger and its new format of having authors fill out an “About Me” section, readers can learn more about Tony. In short, he’s a well-rounded guy with several different interests living in Dallas, TX. While his President Bush-disliking may not go over well in his home state, other bloggers will certainly be able to relate.



The layout is a simple Blogger template, with the standard About Me, an option to sign up for a mailing list, outside links, and the latest archived posts.



Only in the last few months of the weblog’s existence has Tony implemented the use of comments. This has spurred lengthy discussions between readers and Tony, discussing the posts in great detail. Through this, it’s obvious that he has a great deal of followers that enjoy conversing about the same topics.



Overall, this is not a weblog that will be enjoyable for just anyone. Those who do find it as a site where they can connect will stick around for a while.
The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon