First of all Journal of a City Idiot is hosted on Open Diary. When I first started blogging (or journaling as most people would prefer me to call it) I used Open Diary. It’s a great beginners tool but only if you’re used to the Open Diary format (or lack thereof). That being said, there can be no spiffy design as most users are limited to the choice of colours and background textures which are made available by the good Diary Master who heads OD. That being said, talking about the layout of the blog would be a moot point. The only thing I’d be able to say about it is that “Mousey”, as she is known, has used the better colours and backgrounds which makes the blog readable. There are no links out, no buttons, no pictures (well, one on the content page). Virtually nothing that makes this blog well and truly Mousey’s own.
I never thought I’d say this but I think she’d be much better off registering for a Blogspot blog – at least she won’t run the risk of losing her blog every month when she doesn’t post as I believe there is a certain time limit on that through Open Diary.
I think it’s obvious that my initial reactions to the blog weren’t especially good.
Now, whilst there are 191 entries (as of April 2 – and there hasn’t been a new entry since), posting is extremely sporadic and the blog actually spans – get this – three years. Yeup, it goes right back to 2001. Not a lot of posting considering it’s possible to post hundreds upon hundreds of entries in that sort of timeframe. Funnily enough, even though Mousey doesn’t post terribly often, she seems to have a fairly large readership.
In an effort to gain more background information about Mousey, I checked out the beginning entries, only to find more of the same sorts of entries that are posted throughout her blog. Sometimes funny, sometimes reflective, other times funny and reflective. But there was no information as to who Mousey was, apart from a very brief description as to the kind of idiot she professes to be:
“Idiot: is someone who fears dancing, matches, the opposite gender, Catch-22, and learning how to sing properly, someone who complains far too much, and is characterized by Other Things That You Should Read This Diary To Find Out About. (OTTYSRDTFOA.) “
The content of the blog is actually quite good. The entries are thoughtful and not the usual meanderings of society’s typically angsty youth who tend to write about who’s sleeping with who, who likes/loves/lusts after who, who has what expensive designer t-shirt, etc. The girl has something to say and says it well. Er… when she actually says it, that is.
This is generally not the sort of blog I would go back to visit again, though for what it was worth, the entries are quite interesting to read. Her regulars all seem to love her. I’m going to be a tad stingey with the points and give the blog a 2.5 out of 5, simply because it’s a pain to have to work with the limited features of Open Diary and the fact that posts are very few and far between, given the age of the blog.