Category: Uncategorized

Tiffinbox opens to a black background with orange text. And no, it does not bring Halloween to mind, just in case you were wondering. There is a puzzling graphic of a man who looks like a short order cook leaning on a contraption that reminds me of a device my mother had for putting food in at picnics. I have no idea what a tiffinbox is and I went in search of the answer.

Our author has been writing here since November of 2003, and this is the stated purpose of his blog:

“Tiffinbox is a blog (for now) that is interested in exploring the cultural fabric of the South Asian diaspora through photography, writing, art and design.”

While that sounds like a VERY specific target audience, the entries encompass a much broader spectrum. He writes on an impressive array of subjects in a clear style. Photojournalism, art, writing, book reviews, photography, both still and film and he also keeps his readers abreast of current trends in Journalism and all things Artsy.

This site was submitted as a personal blog, but I would really have to say it is much more like a trade journal. He regularly posts links to photo contests and other art projects open to the public, but surprisingly I did not find much of his own work posted.

There is no About Me page here at Tiffinbox. I know many of you find it annoying that we here at Weblog Review care so much about them. But just think for a moment, if someone comes across your blog by accident one day, do you want to introduce yourself and invite them to stay a while? Or do you expect them to spend an hour or so trying to find out from your posts who you are and what motivates you, where in the world you live and whether or not you hate it or love it and why? Blogs after all are a way to put yourself “out there”. If you want people to come visit you, it makes sense to be friendly by opening up a little bit. You don’t have to tell your life’s story and give us your social security number, but I would like to have a little context for the things I am about to read in your blog.

In all my reading at Tiffinbox, I did not find out what that word means. Although the answer MAY be there somewhere. I was not fortunate enough to find it.

This blog would be a very good resource for photographers and journalists to check in for the latest news in those professions. And my suggestions are to please tell us what that little man is leaning on at the top of the page, and add an About Me link for the serendipitous reader.

Tiffinbox

Pewari’s Prattle opens to a rather confused color scheme. Blue, green, orange and yellow and are just a bit much all on the same page. It’s cheerful, but more than a bit confusing to the eye.

The newest entries are a fairly interesting list of questions to answer. Such as: What are your current views of the United States?, If you were to die, would you go to heaven?, and the more obscure, Monkeys or Pirates? Our author answers all of them in an honest thoughtful and humorous style that is quite readable.

She has been blogging here since April of 2003, but has a long history of on line interaction, via IRC, starting in 1992. This is almost ancient history in the computer world! This site is mostly what I could call a Mommy blog, but with a liberal smattering of other interesting comments on a variety of subjects. Enough so to keep our interest even if we aren’t still changing diapers.

There are some clever blogging ideas here that include the aforementioned questions to answer, plus she blogs about ordinary things like the purchase of a new stroller (pushchair in the UK) enumerating all it’s finer points and does contests like the 26 things photo project. She wrote a very complete review of the latest Harry Potter movie (which was spot on by the way) and not only did she participated in last year’s NaNoWriMo novel writing month, she posted her chapters for her readers to peruse.

As an American, I enjoy reading blogs from people who live in other countries. This author did a good job of giving me a little taste of life in England. Although maybe someone could enlighten me about exactly what a “dummy” is, and why an infant would need to stop having them “cold turkey” I am baffled.

All in all, this is a cheerful and creative blog with enough variety to be interesting. I enjoyed my visit and might have a pop in now and then to see what’s happening with this creative Mommy in the UK.

Pewari’s Prattle

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