Category: Uncategorized

As a new reviewer, I’m not familiar enough with xanga’s blog templates to know if eeore’s is a standard design, but it is legible and pretty easy to navigate through. This is a very british blog: Jeremy is from the U.K. (his photos indicate a large metropolitan area) and writes with the slang and inside jokes unique to that side of ‘the big ditch’.
Jeremy writes openly and honestly of his vices and attempts to quit them, he’s apparently now giving up cigarettes after claiming to give up marijauna. He has not been blogging at xanga for too long, and there is a definate difference in his writing styles from his first posts to his last. Looks like he either quit smoking pot, or discovered spellcheck… Much of the space in his blog is taken up with ongoing discussions with his friends and readers. There seems to be a great deal of back and forth concerning feuds and other blogsites, which I found mildly interesting at first, then somewhat tedious. He has a close-knit clique, and without being part of it personally, the references and inside jokes were lost on the casual reader.
His sidepanels feature cartoons that I’m guessing he’s drawn, some quite funny. He is a self-proclaimed poet with links to his poetry, some of which is quite well thought out and expressed. The opening page appears a bit ‘busy’ or crowded, but not overly difficult to read.

Overall he seems to fill a niche with his readers, he’s quite prolific and opinionated about a lot of topics, and seems well liked by his peers. He’s listed as an artistic blog, but despite the cartoons and poetry, I considered this much more of a personal blog. It’s a peek into an Englishman’s life, not badly written, but not edge of the seat fascinating either.eeore’s missing tale

Opening this site I realized that it was done with the dreaded Blogger “Scribe” template. The template continually reminds me of someone’s Last Will and Testament or something a treasure map would be drawn on. After cringing at the template I saw a photo of a middle-aged woman and assumed that this blog would fit into the “Mom Blog” category. After reading only a few posts, I would be pleasantly surprised that I was wrong.

Laurie Anderson is the author of Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans. She describes herself as a “eternal optimist,” and in her blog she proves that a middle-aged woman who has been divorced for twenty years can still get her groove on. Laurie does an excellent job at writing many of her posts in story form. It makes you feel like you are reading a book as opposed to someone’s personal diary. Many of Laurie’s posts were witty and fun to read. They reminded me of the stories that the “crazy aunt” in everyone’s family tells.

Design wise the modest Blogger template is okay for now. Since many of the posts are about the great city of New Orleans, it would be nice to see a theme that includes in some way “the city that never sleeps.”. I see beads, Mardi Gras masks, and Anne Rice dancing in my head. The “Scribe” template is just such a downer, and the author’s posts are full of enthusiasm and charisma. Laurie is just too colorful to have such a drab looking blog.

It seems that Laurie has just started this blog. There were only a month’s worth of posts to read. There were no extras on the site other than a counter that was hard to read and a few misplaced buttons. I little bit of personalization could go a long way. However I always tried to remember that in many cases less is more.

I would recommend this blog to middle aged women who think their lives are over for one reason or another. Women who have not remarried after a divorce, raised their children, and all of the sudden feel like there is no longer a need to wake up in the morning. Laurie knows how to have fun, and she is also good at writing about it. I am assuming that this is the author’s first stab at blogging. I have a feeling that she will catch on fast and make her blog her own as soon as she figures a few of the blogging extras out. The quality of writing gives this blog great potential and something tells me that the author of Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans will never be short on stories to tell.

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

There’s nothing like stumbling onto a blog (well, in this case I had to stumble upon it) where the first post is about a recent night of passionate sex. I felt dirty reading it, but I couldn’t help myself but continue reading thinking that there may possibly be similar posts. Well, I didn’t find any more posts like it, but that’s fine. “This Anchor Song” though did keep my attention through several months of posts, which is a definite plus!

“This Anchor Man,” also known as, Joephet, is a gay, late twenty-something who lives in Manhattan. His blog tends to focus partly on being a law student which to me seems insane, but that’s only because I can’t imagine studying law. He writes about his experiences with school and also the stresses of life, such as relationships, losing someone and so on. He also talks about what’s going on in the news sometimes and interesting conversations or encounters with friends.

His layout is very simple and clean which I like. When you first come to his site, you are greeting with a little caricature of him you click on to enter the rest of his site. Once you enter, at the top of his blog is an image of him (I’m guessing) underwater with part of his face cropped out. His about page is fairly short and to the point, which has his interests, what he likes reading, listening to, etc.

For the most part, I liked “This Anchor Song.” There is something about it that makes me want to continue reading. It might be Joephet’s writing style, his experiences in life, or his free attitude and thoughts about whatever is going on at that moment in his mind. My only request is it would be cool to see more of his photos since he mentioned his interest in photography on his about page. The only downside I really found to be a problem was viewing the archives in FireFox and Mozilla. You’ll have to use Safari or IE to see them.

Needless to say, I think it’s something worth reading at least once.

The Anchor Song

Not being a fan of the sport of Soccer, I went into this site with an open mind. I expected the site to be about the world of soccer, what is going on in each of the leagues, and that sort of thing.

The first thing I noticed about the site was the design was broken in my browser. I am using Safari on the Mac and the posts were all below the double column on the right. At first I thought it was a blank page, until I scrolled down. This isn’t a good start, but still I kept on.

Now since I do not know much about soccer I am a little baffled by the info that is posted here. Being a football (US) fan, I know that the teams all play on Sunday or Monday (for the most part). I was expecting updates on the author’s favorite team. Things like team standings, player ranks, goals scored, awesome shots, etc… Instead I found a non regularly update blog about random topics within the world of soccer. Just to give you a clue as to what I mean by this, there are 23 posts total. 1 about NCAA soccer, 3 about FIFA, 4 about Major League Soccer, 8 about English premier league, and then some random topics.

Probably the most annoying thing about this site was from the time I got there, I felt like it was just a scam to earn money. Maybe it was the ad asking you to advertise, or maybe it was the big skyscraper ad, or maybe it was that after each post was a “related items on Amazon” ad. That got annoying quick.

Overall the site has news about soccer. While it could not be a daily read to update yourself what is going on, it might be a good weekly stop. By fixing the design problems, and making it more soccer oriented, than I want to earn money oriented, I think this weblog could really take off and do well. Till then, I give it the weak score that I did.Soccer Weblog

I had no idea what I’d find on Blue Penguin Killer, so my mind was open to just about anything. The first thing that caught my eye was the black background, which I generally dislike. Black is hard to read. At least these guys are using a decent font.

This blog is written by a “staff” of two, BPK and Evil White Guy. Evil White Guy has recently started writing here. After reading a few random posts, I was convinced that these guys are a couple of 14 year olds based on their rampant use of profanity. There is no “about” section, so I had to dig a bit to find out for sure. Evil White Guy mentions his wife, so I guess he’s at least of legal marrying age.

There is a rather recent post that attempts to explain the blog. The writers are attempting to satirize events much like the writers of South Park. Even in the early days though, the profanity in South Park wasn’t as prevalent as it is here. As BPK explains, “If myself (BPK) or Evil White Guy thinks that you, your thoughts, your ideas, your writing, your movies, your actions etc. are stupid, then you can expect to get verbally treated as if you were a 12-year-old redneck that was [doing] his mom when all of a sudden his jealous redneck father walked in on the scene after drinking too much moonshine at the still hours before.” Yes, that’s pretty much how all readers are treated. That is frequently the level of writing proficiency as well.

BPK goes on to tell the reader that the blog’s purpose is to make people laugh. Unfortunately, there is not much that is comedic here unless you are a young teen who giggles at curse words. I’m sure the authors are trying to be irreverent in an “angry guy” kind of way, but it comes off as them trying too hard. Let me also say that I am no prude. Profanity can and is used effectively on many blogs. Unfortunately when it’s used constantly, as in almost every sentence, it’s just boring. An interesting example is the post titled “To All Of Those,” (April 17, 2004) where BPK basically tells everyone and everything to f-off. I guess you have to have a certain sense of humor to find this stuff amusing.

The blog itself is functional and the design is minimal. The archives go back to February 2004, though the posting is pretty light. Some months only contain one post. It is not until October that BPK begins posting on a regular basis on this site. November posts are nonexistent, so I assume Evil White Guy was brought in to keep the site regularly updated. There is no common thread to any of the posts. The “staff” just spouts off about whatever comes to mind.

This blog is not for the faint of heart. If you are looking for humor, you should probably look elsewhere. I can only imagine the interesting words BPK and Evil White Guy will use to describe my review. Then again, how many times can you call someone an m-fer before it gets old? In October BPK posted about a blogger he particularly dislikes. He bashed her because as he says she, “has a low self-esteem problem and can’t handle a negative opinion geared toward her work.” I wonder if he can?
Blue Penguin Killer