[Thursday, Apr. 14, 2005][14:50]

reivew: color-me-odd.

first impression: [ungraded]
glitter! but is she supposed to be crying? this design is gorgous in color, but there are some things miss alaska doesn't like about it...

layout: [thirty-eight points]
the picture is spectacular. it is great quality, and clear. it is what miss alaska's eyes were first drawn to when looking at the design, and it is by far the focal point of the piece. all of the colors spread from there, very eloquently matched and functioning perfectly in the design. when looking at the overall design, miss alaska notices that there is a title ("the quiet things that no one ever knows," titled after a song by brand new) for the design, but no title for the page. what miss alaska means is that there is no splash of big words, screaming "the quiet things that no one ever knows." (as a quick note, miss alaska turned on the tv and the title song was the music video that came on--how creepy is that?) while miss alaksa has done her research and sees that this title comes from the designer, and not from color-me-odd, it still doesn't quite fit. perhaps you would add either this title or a title of your own liking to the design, so as to tie all of it together. the links are all functioning, and miss alaska thinks that it is all she has to say on that.

content: [eighty-three points]
miss alaska sees that you have over one hundred entries, and thinks that unfortunately, she has not nearly enough time to read all of them. so, taking a bigger chunck of your recent past, she begins at the [first entry of february]. goodness, does miss alaska feel swamped in an overload of well-written entries. she now presents you the almighty title of being self-aware, and quite unlike your peers for it. your entries are self-conscious, often ending on the depressing notes of wondering why you wasted time talking about yourself. while the diary is about you, and of course you should write about yourself, you do write well about everything else too.

your entries about other people, characters or real people, are astonishing. they're powerful, and miss alaska is truly moved that you can write so freely and so gracefully about other people. you are often introspective and contemplative, something that miss alaska has found is a key tool in interesting your reader. when the writing is inspired by thought, it inspires in return. your entries are also deeply emotional: you let your feelings sit on your sleeve here, even if you are not so free in the rest of your life. that is powerful as well, showing that you trust the venue and audience of your writing, and that you find it useful. miss alaska is deeply disappointed that you haven't been writing recently (see the consistency section), and she wishes that you would begin writing again. she would certainly subscribe if you did.

when it comes to making suggestions, miss alaska finds herself fishing around for something that would be valuable to say. interestingly, there seem to be two types of your entries: those in which you are deeply introspective or contemplative, and those in which you are more detail oriented. while the latter are rather few-and-far-between, is there anyway that it would be possible to create a harmonious melding of the two? miss alaska can say that you do a relatively decent job of this currently, but she (being a day-logger) does enjoy hearing about people's "boring" days. especially when they write about them as eloquently as you do.

upon contemplating further, miss alaska has but one final suggestion. run a spell and grammar check on your entries (via microsoft word or some other word program). you often have very simple mistakes that such a program would find and correct.

frequency: [thirteen points]
not nerely as frequently as miss alaska would like (as she is a daily writer). looking again, she sees that you have not written in over three weeks. while you mention in your most recent entry that you are indeed busy, three weeks with pending reviews is highly unadvisable. before your partially explained absence, you were updating roughly two or three times a week, and while that still detracts from consistency, at least it is something. please begin updating again, miss alaska enjoyed your entries.

bonus points: [two extra points]
miss alaska finds that your "caution: parental advisory" sticker is an excellent idea, and one that she has never seen before, in the five hundred+ diaries that she has seen. it is especially helpful in warning the audience that the content may not be suitable, and that they read at their own risk.

judgement: [ungraded]
by far, you are among the most excellent diaries that miss alaska has read in the last few months. the only thing that is really worth mentioning again is that consistency is the key to keeping your audience. if not for your low consistency score, you would have scored quite a lot higher. when consulting with master biased (as this was miss alaska's first review), he says that the score given indicates that your site is above average. miss alaska agrees whole-heartedly on your content and design. it's just that updating thing that is getting you.

[one hundred thirty-six points of one hundred fifty-eight points]
[eighty-six percent]
[miss alaska]

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