I hate writing reviews like this. How do you tell some nice people that you don’t like their weblog? Unfortunately I can’t just give them a 1.5 score and leave it at that- I have to say why. Oh well, here goes.
Firstly, this is a blogspot blog. Now I have reviewed some fantastic blogspot blogs before now, so I can’t let that put me off. Having said that, it does mean there is the portent of a looming advertisement bar at the top of each page to look forward to. So onwards and upwards in to the site. I soon discovered that a looming advertisement bar was the least of my worries however. Firstly, I had a Google search box blocking out the top of the author’s profile in the right hand sidebar. Begrudgingly, I switch from Firefox to IE6 and find the problem solved. Everything is now in its rightful place. When I say everything, I mean every single javascript possibility you can think of. And more. Yeah I know people like to put gizmos in their sidebar – I have gone through many a gizmo phase myself, but really, is a tic tac toe game and a portable calculator really appropriate? I have never once needed to do sums whilst reading a blog and I don’t intend to start now. Apart from anything else, it gives dial up users a terribly hard time loading the page up. Remember kids, javascript is not big and it’s not clever. And yeah, I know, I am a miserable bastard, but quite honestly, things sometimes just need to be said.
Before we move on from the technicalities, the archives can be found in a pull- down menu marked “Shok – Ives”. This can be found near the bottom of the right hand sidebar, below the “Recent Posts” and above the green “Recommending” section.
Ok so how about the content then. Now, as the title suggests, the author is German. But he lives in America. Not quite sure how that works and I could find no information to shed light on the geographical conundrum either. So moving on to the posts, I found some personal stuff, some links to other stuff and some cut and paste stuff. One feature I liked was the fact that the author had opened up his blog to members of his family and friends. There are also photos included in many of the posts and some poetry too.
I found the style a little hard to digest at times- it reminded me of SMS text messages I sometimes receive which lack punctuation and grammar to the point of obscurity – here is an example:
well … lydia and shok hit the road to willard, ohio in about 10 min … picking up the famed drew costen of toronto and fine member of the ooze … looks like rain for the day and the drive out of the black swamp here … got rain-x on the windshield though … c u all later on …
Now even once I found out that “ooze” was a Christian message board, the message could still use some further elucidation, I am sure you’ll agree. Maybe he does actually update his blog using SMS. Who knows?
Some articles made me think – there was one here about Postmodernist Christianity, which once you blank out some of the jargon, raises some interesting arguments.
I don’t want to write anymore. I have run out of constructive things to say and if I continue I’ll just end up sounding malicious and spiteful. Maybe other people enjoyed this blog more than me. I hope so. Unfortunately I found it inaccessible and frustrating.Shok the German … Schoch