Sunday, September 17, 2006

Mr. Saturday Night Special

So let's talk about Bloggedy Blog, shall we? First off, it's by a gentleman named Andrew, a self-described "aging punk wannabe", whatever that may be. Although, he avoids the term "poser" (or "poseur" for our European friends), which pleases me. I hate labels like that.

Okay, first thing first. We're viewing this today in IE 6.0, SP1, with resolution set to 1152 x 864. This template, if you can call it that, is plain as plain can be. White background, black text, and everything is pushed left, leaving a vast expanse of white on my right. It's just plain as hell. I can't tell if it's modified from Blogger or not, but even centering it would make it a bit better in my eyes. Unless he's full-on Democrat (left-leaning, get it?), this thing needs some color or movement or SOMETHING to make me like it more.

However, the meat and potatoes of this blog is the fact that Andrew has unbelievably great taste in music, which is evidenced all over the place. He's apparently a pod-caster, so when I click the link into his podcast-centric blog, I'm as happy as a schoolgirl staring at the new Rolling Stone cover of Justin Timberlake in a wet wifebeater. Andrew's slightly older than me, but the funny thing is, I think he and I are scarily similar in our tastes in music, especially given his love of the 70's. There's a meme near the top, and despite my general loathing of meme's, I'm okay with it. See, the thought here is that if you have great content, you can overcome a rather pedestrian template. At least, in my opinion. More on that later.

He's got an insanely long blog-roll. I mean, this guy links to everyone and their brother. I'd like to see him roll this list up into dropdowns, but he also has a ginormous page that stretches 2 weeks back. Again, to me, the preferable length of time is a week's worth of posts on the front page, and rolled up archives. I also observe that his sidebar is a bit fractured, as something is causing the lower portion of it to be below the ending of his last on-screen post of August 31. My guess is it's the links to the album covers.

In short, this fine gent needs template work badly. But the content is out-of-this-world good. That's the constructive criticism I have for you, Andrew. Find a new template, fix the sidebar, and try to roll things up a bit for a cleaner look. Keep on keepin' on with the content though, because I'm thoroughly impressed with it.

for the content and the taste in music.

for the template. If you had a rockin' template, there wouldn't be enough stars.

Okay, editorial comment here. As you can see, we changed looks this week. While we are still refining a few things here, our new template, done by Nello Designs is outstanding. So, yeah, I'm pimping. So what, sue me. The blog I reviewed today is indicative of one that could soar to the heights of awesomeness with a template make-over. The content is already there, and is outstanding. So click the link if you're visiting, and see what Miss Nello has to offer up. You'll thank us later.

7 comments:

  1. Pimp on playa. Pimp on.

    I can't really say much for his template. It's a bit messy and his sidebars are ginormous, but it kind of all goes with this "I'm punk, fuck you" theme he's got going on.

    His musical taste is fantastic. FANTASTIC!

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  2. He's the man. I even read the non-punk stuff because it's so well written.
    ;)

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  3. Thanks for the review, guys. Kitty Kat nailed it: I'm so punk, I have a crappy template. That's how punk I am, gosh darn it!

    Courtney - You flatter. Keep it up. You know I thrive on it. :)

    AC

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  4. I was so believing it until you ended that sentence with "gosh darn it."

    DAMNIT! =P

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  5. Kitty - That's because I'm a punk wannabe, damnit.

    AC

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  6. I love this guy's podcasts. I listened to them all day yesterday.

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  7. Trouble - Thanks for listening. After that big 100-life-changing-albums series, I'm taking a bit of a break from podcasting, but I'll return before long.

    Fireballs - I forgot to comment you for the Skynyrd reference in your title. Well done.

    AC

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Grow a pair.