Category: Uncategorized

This site opens up in a very simple layout, a simple navigation menu to one side, and turns out to be an entirely simple site.

There’s a nifty section under archives called “farewell messages”, which holds scanned samples of handwritten goodbye letters and notes Al received during his last days in high school. It’s a neat way to go about remembering those types of nostalgic things.

Al lives in England. Burl’s his nickname. That’s all I found out about him through his “bio” section, and that’s pretty much all I found out about him even after reading all of his archived news section.

There’s a link to an AlBurl.com forum, and a link to some funny graphics that have been uploaded to Al’s server for your viewing enjoyment.

Another clever little touch to his weblog is the “on this date in history” fact that he posts alongside each entry. But sometimes that’s absolutely all that’s posted. It’s hard to justify coming back to visit time and time again when there’s nothing to really “connect” you to the author.

I could really connect on a few of the things Al writes about – the way people that dial the wrong number can’t ever admit to themselves that they did make a mistake in dialing, and people who have the automatic security lights on their houses that flash on with the slightest movement. Unfortunately, though, those were the only two real personable entries that I found.

“AlBurl.com – for when you’ve run out of decent sites to visit” – that’s the author’s tagline at the top of the site. At first, I thought Al was probably being a little harsh on himself, but as I continued to read on, I could see how some people might feel that way.
alburl.com

Admittedly it was the Blog’s name that first managed to grasp my attention, the feeling that this person may, in all of his piglet kicking glory, be a kindred spirit (alas poor Pooh). Even upon clicking to enter the Site, much managed to hold my normally short attention span.



Unfortunately it is only recently that Evil Dave has commenced posting once more having risen out of a depressive mire that would appear to have been brought on by England’s defeat by Brazil in the World Cup (at least it is there about in time that his postings ceased), but thankful we may be at the resumption of his humour filled banter.



Attractive (assuming that you will not enter into an anaphylactic shock upon viewing the colour purple in all of its royal glory), well laid out and easy to navigate, filled with entertainment from the mouse-over effects of the logo to the navigation features to the instructions as to how one may play paper/scissors/rock by ones self.



Well worth a visit for the entertaining read, quiz and games that his evil mind has managed to conjure from its depths.


evildave

A.J.’s a Criminal Justice student in Arizona, and from the originating post to this weblog, readers can experience the drama and escapades of living in a college dormitory. The things that go on in A.J.’s life are interesting, and he does a very nice job of making readers seem as if they’re really right there. That makes this a fun site to read.

Ruminations is a very casual weblog. Reading through the archives, I felt like the site was very friendly and that A.J. is generally the type of person who can make conversation with anyone. The posts that you read here are almost like you’re hearing A.J.’s side of the conversation talking about the particular happenings that are being written about.

Summer posting is a bit sporadic, but A.J.’s got a yardwork job that’s been filling up most of the summer days. As evident in the entries made during the school year, the posting will probably (or at least I’m assuming) become more consistent as the school year rolls around once again.

As far as the design goes, it’s another one of those convenient Blogger templates. But I think A.J. puts it into some very plain and simple words that explain the point of his weblog quite clearly: “This blog has a simple layout, no flashy colors, no links to “MUST SEE WEBSITES”. Nothing to give it a flashy appearance, ‘cause I’m a down-to-earth guy most of the time, and like the words to speak for themselves.” Mission accomplished. A.J.’s words do speak for themselves.
Ruminations

Drugs Make Me Cool is the blog of Sharon, comedy reviewer for The Comedy Lounge. I wasn’t sure if I should expect drug-induced lunacy or a news-type site – Drugs Make Me Cool is a very plain template Blogspot site.

Sharon, a self-proclaimed “television cynic,” is absolutely media-obsessed. She is currently working on a project to list and write about every TV show she watches “thereby exposing what a restricted social life I have.” There are some interesting things here, even if you’re not interested in television or comedy acts. There is a particularly funny chronology of breaking in new Doc Martins, which I can relate to, as well as a comical job hunt saga.

Drugs Make Me Cool would be better served by a new design. Sharon makes it perfectly clear that she doesn’t really know HTML and makes fun of herself for barely being able to install a guestbook. Still, Sharon’s stories are entertaining and a design more suited to her writing would give the site some punch. The only real problem with Drugs Make Me Cool is the occasional broken graphical links.

Drugs Make Me Cool is really a no frills blog. To make it a more user-friendly journal I would recommend a good About Me page or even a 100 Things list. Expanded navigational links might also be a good idea – an entire month of posts is listed on page and readers must continually go back to the Archives page to navigate to each month. This is just a personal preference type of thing, but I heartily recommend making a special entry page specifically for meme entries [Friday Fives, Monday Missions, etc.] – meme and quiz entries tend to break up the flow of reading for me.

Overall, Drugs Make Me Cool was an entertaining read. I would likely go back for another visit.

Dreadful Nonsense

Weblogs that are classified in the New/Links genre are often hard to review. Authors and creators of these sites just slap any random link into their site with little or no explanation of their own, and often just copy word for word text from the aforementioned link. This is a mindless activity that anyone can accomplish. The author of Filter Coffee takes his weblog containing the news links from current events several steps above that notch.

Such as the way things work on the World Wide Web when it comes to linking to another site, sometimes that link is no longer valid or has moved to a different URL – especially with news sites. My favorite entry was one that sent me on to a site where I could find a printable flowchart on how to respond to telemarketers when they call. I almost took offense to another one of Mahesh’s posts regarding the overworked, dumbed down call center employees. When not reviewing weblogs, I just happen to be one of those “deprived souls”. Then I followed the link to realize Mahesh was really referring to the call centers going up in India and the absurd way of Americanizing things that they’re forced to follow. Yes, I learned something from this weblog. Big points there!

The layout at Filter Coffee is very nice. It’s simple, the images used in it stay with the concept of the weblog’s title, it’s easy to navigate, the colors go well together, and anything else that makes a weblog look nice that I can think of is done here as well.

Filter Coffee is a relatively new weblog, but I would certainly consider it a unique and refreshing way to add to your daily national news intake.

Filter Coffee