Review 2300

The first thing that caught my eye on this weblog was the quote at the top of the site: “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” Now, being originally from Missouri myself, it struck a chord with me. I was looking forward to what Jim might have to Show Me with his site.

There’s a link to Jim’s main website: http://www.hnb1982.com, which features a webcam and a tagboard for visitors to comment on. I visited this portion of the site twice. The first time, the webcam appeared to be honed in on Jim’s computer desk, and the second time, I found a message saying I needed a secret code to view the webcam. So, if you find yourself heavily indulged in this site, it might be to your benefit to request a password from Jim to view this portion of the site.

Off of the above mentioned site, I found three different links to three different weblogs – one hosted on LiveJournal, one powered by Moveable Type on his domain, and the Xanga weblog that was submitted to be reviewed. There were a few separate posts that could be found on each of the journals.

The Xanga weblog only goes back to December 2002. The site is updated somewhat regularly, about two to three times a week. Typically, you’ll read the latest in Jim’s personal life or his take on the world events that are currently in the news. The tidbits of his personal life that he shares are very personal and detailed, and the outside reader may be a little confused trying to figure out who is who. However, Jim also keeps us abreast with his take on current events and does so with an opinion and reasons backing up his opinion – a very important thing if you want people to take what you think seriously.

Design-wise, there wasn’t a lot to this site. Red, orange, brown, and black were the colors Jim chose for the backgrounds and different tables on the site. Yellow, white, and black were the text colors. I didn’t really feel like the colors jived together with the site very well. To Jim’s credit, he admits that he’s “learning a lot about web pages and HTML”. So with time, I would expect the appearance of this site will drastically improve.

After reading all of the archives at “Jim Howard’s Show Me”, I still felt like I missed out on a lot. Maybe it’s because I didn’t make a complete connection with Jim, or maybe it’s just because there wasn’t a lot to connect with.

It’s not a weblog I plan on returning to, but it’s not one I would ever have someone intentionally avoid. Stop by and maybe it’s something you’ll find that certain connection on.



Jim Howard’s ShowMe