AELEOPE

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Blog Being Reviewed: AELEOPE (Anecdotal Evidence Life Exists On Planet Earth)
Reviewed By: Diva Dee

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At First Glance: Holy cow-- the two times I have clicked on his site today, I've seen two different templates. YIKES!

Template/Design: Before I get started, I will preface this with a comment this author made when he submitted his site:

...I change my template the way a woman changes shoes, so don't waste your time telling me my template needs or wants anything.

After reading this, I will refrain from picking apart his color scheme and header graphic d'jour. However, the one thing that remains constant is his layout, so that my friend, will be what I will pick apart like my toothless great-grandfather eating BBQ ribs.

This site is just way too freakin' cluttered for its own good. You've got so much information and fluff crammed into your sidebars, its just terribly overwhelming. I actually feel a tad bit claustrophobic from it even. Get rid of one sidebar, give yourself more room to WRITE, and make separate pages for all the shit-ola you've got going on here. You're favorite posts, blogroll, and just about everything else could be linked from another page. Do you want people to read the shit in your sidebar or your posts?

Content: The content is all right, but about 75% of the posts are just fucking God-AWFUL long. Seriously, we're talking about 15-20 paragraphs long. You lost me after the first couple paragraphs because I wasn't sure where you were going with most of your thoughts. Like I said before, removing a sidebar would help widen up your post body area, and hence, your posts wouldn't seem a mile long. Adding pictures to your posts is not altogether a bad idea, but shrink them down a bit. It's not slowing your page load down any (at least on my computer), but its taking up space.

Most of the posts were not tripping my trigger today, but not every blog is for everyone. What I did enjoy the most, was reading the stories about his childhood. He wrote about them in almost a "Wonder Years" fashion, lots of flashback and nostalgia. I got a good laugh reading about him peeing his pants all the time, because I have a cousin that was the same way. Hilarious!

What would be the first thing I would change about this blog? Clean up the sidebar.

What is the best feature of this blog? Reading the stories about his childhood. Some of them are keepers.

Rating: 4 -- your sidebars were too much for me, and had I been an average blog surfer, I would have dog-paddled right past this one.