Category: Uncategorized

On first view, Monadology is somewhat difficult to navigate – the main body of the blog is set into far too small a space, and the menus which pop-up are extremely fiddly, not to mention pretty unreadable without bumping up my browser’s font setting. It made me a little frustrated, which isn’t ideal as a first impression.

I didn’t make it through all 90 points of “What is a monad” either, I’m afraid, but managed to make out (I think) that Monadology.net where the blog is hosted is a collective of people who went to college together? The posts vary from personal memories to CSS positioning, and a lot of cultural references inbetween. I’ve termed it personal for that reason, as you could be reading a review of a film one moment, then the next have a description of some of the author’s childhood memories.

The Movable Type template used on this blog really doesn’t suit the purpose – I’d love to see it laid out a little more fucnctionally, as there are some interesting links to other sites and photo galleries that just get lost in the translation.

Overall, I found the design issues to be the main problem, and it really hindered my experience. There are lots of archives, and no doubt there are many gems, but having to spend several minutes finding them was too trying.

Monadology

I felt right at home when I first viewed Cattiva’s site. The colors, the graphics and the whole layout is extremely warm and welcoming. I felt like I should be reviewing her blog while sitting at home in my cozy leather recliner sipping cognac by a nice warm fire, with a golden retriever at my feet and of course some classical music in the background. Now that’s my kind of blog!

First, it’s definitely a woman’s kind of blog. What draws you in first are the fine graphics, colors and layout which create the ambience. Cattiva’s says “I laugh to keep from crying” and isn’t that something many of us women can relate to? Especially those of us over 30. Her title “Does this mean I’m a grown up?” is right on the mark too. You see she’s a wife, mother of three (including a newborn), student, entrepreneur and everything in-between. She’s at a point in her life where she means so much to so many and has so much accomplished behind her, it’s too late to go back, even if she wanted to. It’s all or nothing now. We all hit that point sooner or later. The great thing is that Cattiva’s blog isn’t just about one aspect of her life, it’s about all aspects of her life. Her blog has a little of everything mixed together to create a fine read. Normally if I don’t relate to a blog, it just doesn’t interest me and while I have no children (children seem to be a main focus in this blog) I can somehow relate to her life. That is because when you get into your thirties and forties you begin to wonder if you can ever go back to the way things were. And once you realize you can’t well then you dig your heels in and continue forging ahead

Overall I would highly recommend Cattiva’s blog to the thirtysomething/fortysomething female crowd. Now that’s without knowing how old Cattiva is but I am guessing with three children, being in graduate school and her experiences in life she certainly fits into that age range. And I think that many women in that age range can relate to the experiences of her everyday life, I know I can. Women in the thirtysomething/fortysomething crowd are among the busiest women in this country. They have to be adept at multi-tasking and still maintain their sanity, which is so hard. Cattiva is doing it and seeing her do it, encourages the rest of us to keep forging ahead too.

It takes a lot to make a person laugh out loud. Not just an inward chuckle, but an actual audible titter. And, I’m happy to say, Does This Mean I’m A Grown Up? has points where you pause working or whatever it is you’re doing with your other browser windows, to giggle maniacally to yourself.

You can usually tell when a blog’s going to be good by the title. So if it says something like “Me’n’U Stay Forever True’ it’s safe to assume you can skip it without missing much. But “Does This Mean I’m A Grown-Up?” is a question I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves at least once in our lives. That combined with Cattiva’s user profile [I’m a thirtysomething mom to two (the Prince and Princess of Wails)] is enough to keep you reading.

Cattiva blogs about her kids, #1 Son and the little one (her daughter), about her husband C and about her life in general. And it’s not all “Stay-At-Home-Mom-Who-Writes-About-The-Endearing-Things-Her-Kids-Do” either. In her archives I find her take on reality shows, her birthday present for her father, the Olympic Games and divorce. And with lovely little dialogues like:

“#1 Son (bounding home from school one day): Hey Mom, you’re going to die.

Me: We’re all going to die someday.

#1 Son: Yeah but you’re going to die soon, the President says so.

Me: He does? How would he know? I wasn’t involved in Whitewater.

#1 Son: Because you smoke. We saw the President’s Message on Smoking today.

Me: Oh yeah? Well, he inhaled! Humph.”

The design is one of Blogger’s standard templates and if I had to grouse about something in this blog it would be the fact that her links to previous posts that people have enjoyed don’t work and instead keep displaying a 404 error. You’ll just have to trawl through the archives to find them. But they’re worth it, I promise.

I could tell from the name of this blog that it was written by a parent. (I suppose it’s sort of a private joke among Gen X parents to say cliche things like this.) A thirty-something mom from Virginia writes this blog and has since June 2004. It is a standard blogger template (Dear Blogger, when are you adding more templates? Please add more soon because everyone’s blogs are all running together because you only offer 10 templates.)

She writes in her profile “Friends say I have a humorous take on life’s happenings. The sad part is that what I write about is true. I laugh to keep from crying.” Not really knowing her sense of humor upon coming to the blog, that last part seemed a bit sad. In her sidebar she has a list of her previous posts called “Stuff People Liked,” but none of these links work. (I’m fairly sure the extra back-slash at the end of the urls is the culprit.) She also has the standard blog rolls and other links she visits in her sidebar.

Her posts are very heartfelt and frequent. I found more of the posts to come from the heart than the funny bone. And I found many of the posts went on far longer than necessary to convey an idea or situation. She does interesting things like refer to her son as #1 Son, even though from what I can tell he is her only son (she also has a daughter). And she loves hockey.

To me her posts are pretty standard blogging fare. (Nothing too original about going to a friend’s wedding or a son’s birthday party or most of the other things she posts about.) But she does have a good following of readers to comment on her day to day life. Perhaps the BA in History she is pursuing will serve up more interesting posts for her readers.

Does This Mean I’m a Grown-Up?

Pulling up On Second Thought I thought to myself, “Ah, something visually different”. The main page of the blog isn’t your typical blogger, typepad or Livejournl layout at all. The design is simple and easy to navigate. The blogger has his business card right there for everyone to see and everything was what it says it was. I tried the blog out in three different browsers and the only thing I was uncomfortable with was the lack of space between my tool bar and the top of his layout. It just sort of looked out of place. Other than that I was very excited to see what this blogger had to say.

The author of On Second Thought is Dano. He has a very comprehensive “About” section that gives the reader just enough on what brought him to blogging. Dano’s posts are all very short, but are also to the point. His posts range from movie reviews to his lack of financial stability. He has a great post entitled The Green Menace that had me laughing for quite some time after I had read it. Dano is clear and to the point. He seems to have a rather original and refreshing view on his world and he works hard not to blend into the blogging masses.

The design of this blog is based upon the author’s own tack board at home. The template is CSS based and XHTML coded. Dano admits to having OCD so I am sure there will be many tweaks before we see the final layout. He also made mention of a new layout come Christmas. The design is very original and user friendly. There are no hidden surprises nor are there an unsightly amounts of useless extras. The layout in this case is a perfect image of this blogs author.

On Second Thought is a well put together, utterly original, and an altogether well written blog. This blog is a perfect read for those in their early twenties attempting the struggle of getting out of their own small town. This blog is also great for those with short attention spans that like to get a laugh in a small about of time. There are no epic meaning of life posts here I assure you! Dano even succeeded in not blogging about the US Presidential Election, which was almost impossible for thousands of fellow bloggers. This blog is a great example of working really hard to make things look really simple.

On Second Thought…

Sharon Brogan’s blog is entitled, “Watermark- A Poet’s Notebook.” When I first read the title I thought to myself, “Well, that’s just great. I think I’d rather be stabbed in the eye with a fork than read somebody else’s poetry.” I have had bad experiences with poetry in the past, and was not looking forward to reviewing this blog.

If you are like me, and have struggled with poetry in the past, then Watermark is the place for you. Sharon Brogan’s work redeems all of the tacky, cliché, and downright boring poetry that I have been exposed to. Her poetry is honest and refreshing; it takes us to a place where we have all been, but frequently forget about. But to understand the poetry of Sharon Brogan, it is important to know a bit about her life.

In Sharon’s “About Me” section, we learn that she has lived in mostly rural places. She is currently in Montana, and has lived in remote areas such as Alaska. She has spent much of her life as a “career-focused workaholic,” and Sharon’s blog appears to be a place where writing fulfills her in a way that her work could not. We also find that Sharon struggles with fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by chronic fatigue (to my understanding).

All of these aspects of her life can be seen as themes throughout her poetry; themes that are at the same time universal to everyone and personal to Sharon.

The heart of this blog is the poetry. All of Sharon’s poetry has been neatly organized into a section entitled “Oratory.” The poems are listed alphabetically; from Abigail, to Winter Solstice. The poetry is at the same time simple and complex, full of pining and contentment, searching for the past and living in the present. Sharon writes with a sensual style, that makes her images easy to see and feel. She often writes about a desire to return to the comforts of nature, a lover’s arms, and childhood. Her ability to write about these things in a way that we can all relate to, makes her poetry accessible to even the most novice of readers. In my humble opinion, Sharon’s poetry, along with her blog, is an attempt to capture that single moment in time that “arises, still clear and bright, white against a blue sky.” (Pelicans feeding in the Slate River…)

My favorite part of the blog was the few poems attached with audio posts. I am assuming that Sharon was the one reading the poems. What a great idea to read these poems aloud! Poetry is meant to be heard, not read; and my only complaint (or rather, request) would be that there aren’t enough audio posts.

The layout really is beautiful in its simplicity. Nothing shouts out at the reader, and the feel is calm and relaxing; which is conducive to reading poetry. In the sidebar, Sharon has links to just about every blog and website in existence. There are also plenty of posts about things that she finds interesting, with plenty of links. This means that even if you don’t like poetry, this blog has plenty to offer. Sharon does a nice job of including plenty of pictures to go along with her posts.

Watermark is a great blog for poetry lovers, and poetry haters alike. Sharon has created a wonderful place to come and reflect on the things that matter in life. Her writing and poetry take us all to a place we long to visit and return to.
Watermark

This blog was submitted in the humor category, and after skimming a few posts I can see why. This blogger has the ability to write about daily occurences in his life and transform them into comical events.

‘Mindless Drivel’ is brought to us by ‘a guy in Texas with too much free time on his hands.’ This is a relatively recent blog with entries dating back only to October 2004. He chronicles things that happen as he goes about his life, updates often and his posts are insightful, detailed and of course, funny. Recent posts include his thoughts about how people from Texas act at Starbucks when it gets cold, his commute to work where he always seems to get stuck behind bad drivers who always seem to drive Toyota Camries, and one of my favorites, how squirrels enjoy “seeing us freak out and slam on our brakes, taking out mailboxes, flowerbeds, and pedestrians in a desperate attempt to spare the life of a suicidal rodent.”

The best thing about this blog was by far the entries. They really are entertaining to read, not too long and not too short. One thing I would have liked to see was more about the author in the ‘about’ section. He does give us the basics, i.e. age and gender, but it’s always good to find out a little about the person behind the writing.

This blogger uses blogger and blogspot, and he has added a nice design to a two column layout. In one column he has his blog and the other column has navigation, a poll, archives and links He uses creative headings for these categories such as “oldies but goodies” instead of archives and “blogs that are better than mine” instead of links.

Overall, I absolutely loved this blog. Did I mention he was a finalist in the ‘Best of the Rest Blogs’ in the 2004 Weblog Awards and it’s obvious why. His refreshinginly humorous writing style makes this a bookmark worthy blog. mindless drivel