Category: Uncategorized

My initial impression was of a site that is well laid out. There are relatively short posts, clearly distinguished from each other, usually accompanied by a small picture. There is an option to click to find a longer version of the post.

Band-Related, not altogether surprisingly, is about ‘life from halfway inside the Band’, the Band being Strûb, a Rocktronica band on the rise. If I had found this site randomly, I would have moved on. However, it is worth lingering. The posts, telling stories of day-to-day life, are well constructed, with an introduction, followed by a narrative, and an ending, sometimes as reflection on or analysis ofthe narrative. The spelling, grammar etc are of a high standard, with the few errors being obvious only to pedants. The writer has the potential to be very good. He has strong observational skills. His metaphors and similes are well thought out – perhaps too well thought out – and he tells an entertaining tale of life on the road with a band. He writes as a disinterested observer rather than with the emotion of somebody involved.

This is a well designed weblog, pleasing to the eye. The first thing you see is a Band bus, sleek and gleaming, with ‘band’ written across the front, and ‘related’ across the side. The sidebars contain a wealth of logically organised extra material – links to polls, photographs, cast list, feedback, forum and so on. They were all working when I tried them. External links are mainly band-related.

If you are curious to know what happens to a rising band on tour and in practice, I would recommend this site. If that doesn’t interest you, you will still enjoy the well-written narrative and an insight to a different life. I suspect that it would generally appeal more to men than women. In his latest post he hints that he will be ending his involvement with the band, but does not say what will happen to the blog. I hope he continues blogging about his new life.

I rate this a 4, because, although it is an “About My Life” blog, the life described is radically different from most.Band-Related

The first thing that jumped out at me on this site was the picture of a completely naked man with his entire body painted exactly like Spiderman’s outfit? Attractive? Hell no. Funny? Absolutely! So, as sick as it may sound, this weblog instantly made a big hit with me!

Even though it’s quite simple to get to know Kevin through his amusing weblog entries, I was really craving that “about” section. When the link didn’t work, I was sorely disappointed. But reading Kevin’s daily words are certainly a treat all in their own, without the typical informative biography section of the site. And you do get to know his feelings and thoughts towards different topics, which lead the reader to form your own little “about” section.

Design-wise, it’s a standard Movable Type template that’s slightly been altered to the author’s liking. The alterations made it a bit bolder then the typical MT format, and it’s a nice improvement.



NadaBlog has been around since November 2001. Up until the beginning of August 2001, Kevin has each month’s journal entries set up as one big entry summarizing the entire month. With the birth of a new baby in January (and a very cute baby girl, I might add), it’s easy to empathize with Kevin only summing up each month with one entry.

The majority of the entries and posts at Nada Blog contained the little known intelligence that sometimes gets lost when people have their own websites. Kevin’s past concern of “derection” while visiting the doctor and his recently invented “weblog creed” are just two examples of entertaining reading you’ll stumble upon at this weblog.

A new addition to Nada Blog has also just been announced. Lance, it seems, has joined the posting frenzy, and made quite a splash in my opinion with his first post listing “9 Things You Won’t Hear At Your Neighborhood Block Party. Between Kevin and Lance, there’s nothing but good things that could happen with this weblog.NadaBlog

The word bumptious has me a bit curious, as I had no idea if it were a real word or not. The author of this weblog quickly satisfied my curiosity with this explanation: “The dictionary defines bumptious as ‘crudely or loudly assertive; pushy’. Let’s get to it.” And now let’s get to the review.

Right away, I knew I’d like the attitude of this site. The author’s entries cover the hottest current events around recently ranging from the controversial couple of “Bill and Kathy”, the potential parents incapable of producing naturally so they’re deeming it necessary clone the lovely Kathy, to the escapades on the latest make-me-famous TV show, American Idol.

Other than the author’s undying love for L.A. Laker big man Rick Fox and secret (or not so secret) obsession with Matt Lauer, readers aren’t really invited into the personal life of this entertaining writer. The lack of personable writing is made up to everyone by the author’s witty repartee and intelligent banter directed towards the major happenings of our society.

Something I would normally be disappointed in is the lack of the “about the author” section. And while there’s no information for readers to try and connect with, I don’t think anyone will have a problem connecting with something that’s been posted over the course of the month or so this weblog has been up and running.

The design is one of those standard Blogger templates. I would love to see something a little more unique for this site just because my opinion of the Bumptious is that it’s much, much more than the average weblog and deserves the same in a layout.

Call it your daily news with a bite, or call it some pent up aggression spilled out onto the world wide web. Whatever you decide to call it, this site comes highly recommended if you’re asking my opinion of it.

Bumptious

“There’s no moral to this story, it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.” And isn’t that what the best weblogs are all about? That’s exactly what jeanhank.com is about, and Jay, the author of this weblog, even uses those exact words to describe it.

Jay is a college student. And while some of the entries you’ll read do involve the college life, they’re more than just the typical “he said, she said” and “oh my god, i hate this class” type of entries. Personally, I felt like I was just listening to a friend or acquaintence talk about his day and what he felt was worth sharing. The conversations that Jay writes about, with their accuracy and details, often left me actually “hearing” the conversation as it took place.

I immediately liked the menu bar at the top. It appears as a strip of negatives, with each different image leading to a clearly defined portion of the rest of the site. A very neat idea, and one that’s carried out splendidly.

The archives go all the way back to February 2001, with each entry being just as entertaining as the current ones.

Jay writes in a very straight forward fashion. His writing leaves an impression of a very down to earth, likeable guy who really knows how to have a good time. And that knack for having a good time is yet another thing that makes reading this weblog fun and entertaining.



I would highly suggest visiting jeanhank.com, especially if you’re looking for a website to live vicariously through.

jeanhank

I liked reading through this weblog for several reasons. The main reason, I think, was that it was simple to read. The author’s entries were short, but they were fun to read. He has a sense of humor that he applies towards current events or just random images and/or links he’s found on the internet.

Most of the entries posted are based upon links found throughout the internet. This has its pros and cons. The main pro is simply that anyone can jump anywhere in the site and not feel like they don’t have an idea of what’s going on. The main con is the fact that you don’t get to know a lot about the author through this type of posting. Luckily, that doesn’t affect the outcome of this weblog, and is still one that I would recommend visiting for a good laugh.

The site design is the only thing average on this site. The different shades of blue that are used all look very nice together. It’s a standard three-column layout – the first being a column full of external links to different websites, the middle column is where you find the weblog, and the column to the far right of the site seems to be the start of a novel of some sort. There’s a ton of words throughout the site and sometimes it gets a bit tedious to focus on one particular column of words.

I would have loved to read more at Made in the Dark. With the author and his wife having seven kids, I would imagine that even posting once a month isn’t the simplest task in the world. The posts that have been made, however, are definitely a treat to read.

Made in the Dark