The Big Fez, author of the TambuLounge blog states that he is the spawn of a pirate and a wench, thrown overboard and left to survive on an island with a word processor and an evil robot. Now that he is back on the mainland, he has created this blog to share his stories… mostly of his thoughts on entertainment/movies and the like. He thanks visitors for stopping by, because it was lonely on that island with the evil robot. I bet! Although I bet it was challenging to avoid getting killed or stomped or laserbeam-eyed by the dang thing.
The blog’s name comes from the bar at 2nd floor of the great ceremonial house at Walt Disney World’s Polynesian Resort. The blog author states this is his favorite place to retreat to in order to get a little time away from the Disney scene. Barkeeps are friendly and weave a good tale if they aren’t too busy drunkening up the tourists. TambuLounge.com has a very simple layout.
Archives stretch back to February 2007, and the blog is very much a classic “blog.” Snippets of current events news are posted and then sourced back with a link to the original story. Sometimes The Big Fez writes about his own opinion about something and then links out to a website related. (By the way, I agree — I love covers too and Coverville is a great place to go to get some. I don’t like myspace either and don’t get it).
There are some small complaints. First, the […] at the end of the longer entries isn’t a link to go anywhere. Usually, that is a live link to go to the full story. Luckily, I’m schmart enough to figure out that if I click on the blog entry’s title I can go read the rest of the entry. But it isn’t good to truncate with a […] that isn’t active. That should be rectified.
Second, the stub bits of entry on the main page for each month don’t have live links anywhere… and if Big Fez writes something like “I wish McDonalds still did this…” There isn’t anything visible. Again, must click on title of blog entry, go to entry… read it there. I am not positive what blogging tool is being used here, but it seems to leave a lot out for the entries that get displayed in the month list.
Another critique is that there isn’t a lot of real content. Yet. In May 2007 he picks up the pace and there are a bunch of entries, and June has a lot to show for… but prior to that, there are maybe 3 or 4 entries per month. That’s not a lot of content. It is a young blog, a growing blog, and I’m sure that as he gets into it he’ll probably produce more entries. At least I hope so.
But my final complaint centers around the core content (thus far) of this site… I’m not sure what the deal is with the payperpost content. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — yes, I know people are trying to make as much money as they can on the internet.
“Payperposts” seem to outnumber actual original thought, opinion and news posts in the blog. And that’s sad.
That sullies the TambuLounge and all tiki culture, methinks. Big Fez should tell more of those stories he culled during his adventures on the island, and not take five bucks from some Hawaii vacation outlet dealie or Reno 911 available on DVD. I’d rather hear from the Big Fez.
I give the site a 2.75 because of that fact. The overwhelming amount of “buzz” style entries that he’s most likely been paid to post disappoint me. The blog has a lot of promise, if he writes from his brain and heart and not his wallet. Without the amazing amount of advertising-like blog entries, I probably would have gone 3.25 here.
I hope the Big Fez writes more. I’d enjoy hearing from him. NULL