Review 2251

“This is your ordinary weblog,” says Agnes, 14, Canadian. In classical three-column layout, snugly crammed into scarcely enough space between two empty borders, we are taken into her life and swamped with visual and textual information.

Unless Agnes had a different journal before this one, congratulations are in order, I guess. Plunk will turn one year old on March 18th, making it (as scary as this is) one of the older weblogs on the block. That’d also make Agnes 13, when she started writing, and quite frankly, it shows. Not that Agnes’ writing is bad, on the contrary, her topics however are those of a young girl. Which isn’t bad, either. Just different.

Speaking about her scribe – whow. Guys and gals, there’s many an adult out there who could use one or two slices of her style and elegance. I find myself often annoyed by the careless approach some of the webloggers I read, take. It’s “you”, not “U”, and it’s “there” and “they’re” respectively – thanks, Agnes, you somewhat restored my faith in weblogging humanity.

Content? We got yer content right here, bub. It’s almost all original (yes, I read most of her one-year-long postings, and found myself dragged into her life more than once), and pretty entertaining at that. Did you know that Chinese sounds like nasal speaking cats eating lemons? No? You should read Plunk, then…

After one year of Agnes, I’m having a hard time criticizing her. After all, I’ve been an invisible, yet close, companion to her in temporal retrospect. But what must be done, must be done, and one of the things I really have to pass judgment on, is her choice of screen estate, Agnes, Agnes, the best part about your blog are the entries – don’t diss ’em by giving only roughly a quarter of the page vertically to them. It’s better than those darned ‘iframe’ or ‘frame in frame’ blogs I so wholeheartedly detest, but not completely perfect, yet.

Agnes, too, seems to be a very talented designer and artist; I just loved her smilie artwork and some of the other things she made. Unfortunately artistry seems to have gotten the better out of her when designing the actual weblog, though – light blue on white makes for very unreadable text, especially when the chosen typeset is as tiny as hers.

What’s the verdict, Mr. Reviewer? I loved the content and style of her postings. The pictures she posts on the rightmost column might interest those “in the know”, personally I viewed them more as something taking away screen estate – they make for a nice layout, though. Her design is artsy, yet not very practical. It’s all in the eye of the beholder here, I guess.

Will I come back? Definitely. Daily? Most likely not, but I’ll keep this weblog in the back of my head, just in case I need some quality reading time.Plunk