Reviewed!

I’ve officially been reviewed, thanks to the Weblog Review.

Unfortunately, it’s not the glowing review I had hoped it would be. It wasn’t the “five-stars out of five!” or “100% — changing the way we blog!” review that would cause my popularity to skyrocket to the reaches known only by Google and Yahoo.

What did I get, you ask?

This humble little site, the one you hopefully read on a daily basis, received a score of 3.75 (out of 5.) Not bad, but not great. I did the math – it equals an 85%. A solid B grade – well, a B-/C+ if you’re using the new grading system. It’s a rough little review, with it’s own faults (at least I see them as the fault of the reviewer, not the reviewed.)

In order to be considered for Weblog Review’s attention, I needed to first submit my site. Once submitted, the site goes through a series of tests and views by the Weblog Review staff. I first put my blog “in the ring” around March 2005. After no response, I submitted it again a few months ago. I was annoyed by the length of time it took to get my site reviewed, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected much – it’s a free site with volunteers doing the reviews.

A few weeks ago, though, I noticed that people had started coming to my site from the weblogreview.com reviewers’ page. I assumed that they had begun the research necessary to begin critiquing the masterpiece you are currently reading.

Of course, when I noticed that the review was actually done and up, I rushed to see what was said about me. I have a lot of pride pent up in this site. I figured I’d get a very high mark – both for the design (which I borrowed and slowly adapted from another blog) and the content. I don’t think I’m too boring, though I’m writing about what concerns me so of course I’d feel that way.

Anyway, here’s the review:

black marks on wood pulp

Black marks on wood pulp… I was thrown for a loop when I read the name of this site. I was not sure what to expect. When I finally got the site to load, it had a deep red background with a very classy look. And I still didn’t have a clue what the site would be in regards too. I started taking my general glance down the site and noticed a few things: at the top there is a picture of books and on the side bar the author has posted the book he is currently reading.

I began reading through the posts. The author posts regularly and enjoys blogging. The site is a personal site that talks about many things with the majority of posts being about different books he is reading or books he would like to own/read. He spent numerous posts talking about the Penguin collection that he really hopes to purchase in the near future. The archives take a while to get to because you have to move through them by the month using his calendar option on the side bar.

The site is laid out in a 2 column style and has a classy burgundy color background, with white and yellow text. The font is easy to read and there is not a huge contrast of colors on the site. My only concern with the design of the site was the time it took to load. I am on a cable modem connection and the site took well over 20 seconds to load. I can only imagine what it would have been like on my 14k dial up connection.

Overall the site was nice. It was not offensive just provided the reader with thoughts or the author. I feel the site is a personal site and would appeal to the author’s friends or family. I did enjoy reviewing the site, I felt connected to the author due to the detail in the writings. I rate this site as a 3.75.

This site was reviewed on 2005-11-29 by mrmaggoo.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
mrmaggoo felt that black marks on wood pulp deserved a rating of 3.75.

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This was lovingly handwritten on November 30th, 2005