Thursday, November 20, 2008

I was dancin', with my darlin'...

If you are anything like me, you would nearly soil yourself with the thought of a blog about a country music singing Jedi knight.

If you were anything like me, you’d be misguided.

Tennessee Jed is the blog of, well, Jed from Tennessee. Obviously.

At first look at it had me ready to go to town. The site loads slowly and all but killed my ancient machine the first time round.

You just about save your bacon with the template, it’s hard to make black not suck, but you just about escape thanks to the text background. Barely.

Navigation is an arseache. All your posts from 2008 are on the front page, and although you have many short posts, the pictures and videos you have make it heavy loading.

You can’t select an individual entry, which is why you miss out on links here. Beyond the last year which is all on the front page, you can only navigate by a monthly archive. It's like being in a car with no bloody door handles and it irritates me greatly.

Please tidy the navigation, standard blogspot options are much better, and cut down the posts on the front page, if only to help with the speed.

Now, I don’t like taglines. You usually need to be really bloody good in order to carry one off. Jed’s tagline is ‘Trying hard not to make matters worse’ and I like it.

It’s a personal blog, added to regularly, if not over frequently, for more than 3 years. He talks about his family a little, his daughter’s health, and a lot about the state of the world through his own eyes.

No great declarations, no demands, and no over inflated sense of self importance, does mean that the blog lacks a certain amount of the ‘ball grabbing’ that’s needed to get people’s attention these days.

Just a very articulate Jed, balancing a dry sense of self deprecating humour with enough confidence to write as he likes, and say what believes needs to be said. Not pushy, not overbearing, but convincing.

When someone believes what he writes, like Jed seems to, you tend to believe along with him.

In all, after a bad first impression, the more I read, the more my stereotype led mind was tapped on the shoulder, and the more I liked.

I could be friends with Tennessee Jed.

13 comments:

  1. He's likeable.

    Initially, no. But first impressions don't always pan out, I suppose.

    Looks like you dug deep on this one, Padre.

    I'm impressed.

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  2. Awwww, are Joe and FG going to make nice?

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  3. DPH, knowing him as little as I do, he'll find a way to take offense or be offensive.


    Being defrocked can do that to anyone. Even Gene.

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  4. Must I? It reeks of Gold, Incense and Myrrh.

    You've been playing by the Christmas Crib already, I imagine. And it isn't even the season yet.

    Either that, or, you've been humped by the three kings.

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  5. he should go dig himself then

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  6. I used to play bass for Slut Heap

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  7. Its the place where my exes are buried.

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  8. I always assumed you just left them dead wherever they fell.

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  9. Hey Now Father Gene, thanks for the review! You call it like you see it and that can't make matters worse.

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  10. I can't read it. Even with zapping the horrible background and font, the line spacing makes everything run together. Damn.

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  11. Good god, Jed, is it so hard to write on a plain pale blue background? Your graphic behind your text is so pixelated that it is indecipherable anyway. And, your song lyrics in the righthand column are such a dark gray that I can't even see them against the black. Please fix that so I can actually read your blog, and then I'll be back, maybe.

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Grow a pair.