Category: Uncategorized

I liked the look of this blog when I first arrived. It is fairly stylish and put together well overall, with a colour scheme that works and an effective layout. There is a nice little sidebar section which covers various areas of the blog – a “cast list”, 100 things which is up to about 32 at the moment and some quotes which the author likes. There are also some extracts from previous blogs to give you a head start on this one which was started in March 2004.

Clearly some effort and thought had gone in to all this and I was impressed. In terms of content, the entries from the previous blog had a self-confessed “therapy” feel to them which I found somewhat indecipherable and over-analytical, but I didn’t let this put me off as I moved on to the main blog content.

Unfortunately, I quickly realised that this was a blog that I was not going to enjoy. It is a personal blog about the life and struggles of a female engineer aged about 30. And I mean struggles. There are a lot of entries regarding emotional or psychological issues which are currently concerning the author. I am sure these seem like very real problems to the person writing them and I don’t want to sound demeaning, but I found it hard to empathise with the things she had on her mind. They seemed like intangible issues to me- it wasn’t like she was in any physical, social or financial dire straits as far as I could gather, beyond being frustrated with her job. Oh yeah, and the author hates her job too. She hates it on the front page and on many pages prior to that as well. When TWR forms its own blogging police in the near future, persistently bitching about something on a blog will become a criminal offence. You have been warned. Either stop bitching or do something about it.

In the meantime, I had no other recourse but simply to get bored and depressed. There is little of much cheer to be found on the blog and ironically I seemed to learn very little about the person, (i.e. her interests, her world, her loves and dreams) despite their being 300 entries written on the subject. There are religious views (and as far as I am aware, she is only half convinced that religion has any answers), some day to day stuff, some weird dreams and some memes. In this ever expanding world of blogging, regretfully there is little here that can’t be found in a million other weblogs the world over.

Some blogs you like and some you don’t and for me this unfortunately fell in to the latter category, fair and square. It looks reasonable and has potential but the author needs to start writing about more positive, cheerful things and expand her horizons some more, for me to come back again.quo vado

mono[b]logue is a plain looking site. Somehow, however, I find the visual starkness appealing. Maybe its look makes me think of a newspaper with its absence of color.

The blog has submissions by a friend who is a military man stationed in Afghanistan. These entries are an interesting first hand account of life abroad in the Armed Forces. Clearly being abroad is emotional for the author, who seems to be becoming increasingly more disillusioned about being in Afghanistan, : ‘ how many more must die before we feel justice has been served ?’ The author seems interested in exposing the ‘truth’ of what is going on in Afghanistan. It seems in all levels of his experience in the Army he finds frustration. From the President right down to his immediate officers who are ‘clowns’. These entries from abroad add an interesting journalistic flavour to the blog.

One of the first things I found curious about some of the earlier entries was that a lot of details are [omitted]. I wonder if the author was doing the omissions or if the entries were screened… hmm.

The writing in mono[b]logue is very good. The author is intelligent and has some interesting insights into human nature and shares a lot of unique first hand experiences and observations. The tone is usually somewhat serious but considering where the author is, that is hardly surprising. There are also entries, well supported by links, about Art, computers, media, lots of politics and world events… many diverse and important issues are covered in mono[b]logue’s content. The blog is often more about issues than the author himself. You do, however, get a strong feel for the author’s personality through his commentary. There are a few entries that could use a little more commentary (the good stuff) but overall the majority of entries have a persuasive dialogue.

Going through the entries was a bit of a challenge however… you can only go to the previous entry not back. So…I had to manually enter every page since I wanted to read from the oldest to the newest. Just a little thing but…annoying as a reader.

Quite a compelling and impressive author. If you like reading real news this blog is a must. Highly recommended.
mono[b]logue

Mama’s Rants starts out with a nice layout, visually simple but effective. No amazing graphics of any kind, but appealing nonetheless. It’s a three-column layout, very tidy and the links include the usual recent posts and sites plus a long list of books she enjoys/reads.

The blog boasts a very complete “about” page with excellent writing regarding her background, her family and the purpose of the blog. Anne is a mother of two, married, ex-web content writer with a degree in journalism who is very much involved with “mom” work in her community plus some writing work on the side. Although she is now a stay-at-home mom, you can tell she is the intellectually restless type, looking for outlets to express her talent both as a person and mother.

This blog is unlike other “mom” blogs in the sense that Anne posts about issues that interest her as a human being mostly. Not just the mother. There are no long digressions on what motherhood is like or rants regarding parenting issues. Anne posts from the top of head on whatever she feels the need to say, be it pictures, news articles, musings from her childhood and/or present life. You might want to call this an eclectic “mom” blog. More about the woman than the mother, or both in somewhat equal amounts.

Her entries vary in length and her writing style is intelligent, simple and direct. I especially recommend the early posts dating from March and April of 2004.

Overall, I very much appreciated the work done on her blog. You can see she’s put a lot of thought into building a nice appealing site for her own self-expression and those who wish to share it. A Mama’s Rant

Upon initial scroll-through, The Nomad Tavern struck me as a clean-looking site with a lot of links to trawl through. The name reminded me of all the deeply serious medieval-named chat rooms my Fantasy genre-reading friend Shelby used to frequent, and I hoped the site wouldn’t be an RPG nightmare.

I was glad it wasn’t, as I really didn’t feel like getting pelted with 12-sided dice today. In the most recent entry, “btm” (ben, tom, and mike, I presume?) make fun of “Tell Your Mentor,” a program that seems to serve, basically, as yes-man, toady-filled chat room, and blog all at once. As the “inspirational quote” at the top of The Nomad Tavern seems to promise “words as hard as cannon balls,” I was a little disappointed that the Nomads didn’t take full advantage of the ready cannon-fodder Tell Your Mentor could have been. Personal blogs have a habit of making apologies for themselves, a habit the modern world, so afraid of stepping on toes, has sadly encouraged, and the Nomads fall into this trap, chiding themselves for “being a little judgemental and perhaps harsh,” when there’s probably NO chance the creators of Tell Your Mentor will ever see their critique.

Props for even trying to decipher moral relativism, (“Raskolnikov, Napoleon, and Paul”) even though – and Tom must know this – it’s difficult to hold a surfer’s interest long enough to tell them the latest celebrity “news,” let alone breach their brainpan with words like “casuistry,” and “portray.”

The archived posts (from May 13 onward) are still mostly relevant, and it is geniuinely nice to read interesting analyses written by smart people, as most bloggers are duller than wood and as intelligent as a knothole. There are plenty of good links to explore, and a nice balance of personal and topical. The Nomad Tavern, though clean and easy to navigate, seems to be mostly geared towards the Nomads themselves and their circle of friends. But if you’re interested in current events, Japan, moral relativism, and Libertarianism (and too few are, really), there’s plenty to read. Special props go to this hugely entertaining entry, in which Tom ponders whether Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges in “The Big Lebowski”) actually does “abide.” The Nomad Tavern

The first thing you notice about Less Than Daily is the big monkey in background (the blog is named Less Than Daily, but the domain name is monkeysandpirates.com, hmm) which I found pretty funny. The faded background on the text boxes is also a nice touch.

The blog is written by mcphee (or just phee) a self proclaimed geek, roleplayer, ninja (no really, he is has a 7th Kyu ninjitsu grading – or better) who recently decided he needed a blog, the title he says: ‘ideally I’d update this daily, but that’s not going to happen, hence the title of the blog.’
Most of his entries involve his mates : Pixie, Mojo, Mark A and/or his girlfriend Claire. If you read enough entries you get a feel for the different personalities in his life. The content has an interesting assortment of material, such as: playing on Ebay, the Eminem gig, football (go Liverpool!), Ninjas fighting Tigers (or at least Monks fighting Leopards), his ever expanding DVD collection, incredibly shrinking chocolate pudding, Everquest, time travel, web browsers. Lots of geeky goodness. Occasionally you’ll see some funny comic strip monkeys (entitled ‘Monkeys Like Us’) with dialogue from his life. I thought they were pretty funny.

The author does put some time into this blog, the Monkeys Like Us strip has made it to V2.0 and the author mentioned several blog upgrades in functionality or design. The writing is good, the author has a good sense of humour and shares his many stories quite well. I enjoyed reading Less Than Daily, it wasn’t rocket science but I found it light and enjoyable.

Monkeys, ninja, ninjuries and good reads, need I say more? Check it out.
Less Than Daily