New Year's Top Six

 Top Six

of 2011

As the year comes to a close, Blogographer would like to present to you the top six blogs featured here, with the winner receiving a free bloglist link on the sidebar! I suppose we could think of it as a Christmas bonus to the big blogs that help make my blog a reality by posting awesome content. Keep it up, haha!

Here are the top six, starting from the bottom:

#6 - TheUniversityBlog

"As the name implies, TheUniversityBlog focuses on university and college. This blog's intention is to provide helpful information on a wide range of academia-related subjects, from "employability" to the secrets of success."

TheUniversityBlog has provided me with more than enough help on advancing through college- and university-level class and general school issues, so I recommend it highly as supplemental information.

Fitness Week: Tom Kurz's Weblog

Welcome to the second post of Fitness Week here on Blogographer! Here is a quick run-down of Fitness Week, as found in my post:

"So how are we going to work this weight off? Well, by exercise and fitness, of course! This week on Blogographer is going to be Fitness Week, and we will be featuring three fitness blogs on Wednesday the 28th, Friday the 30th, and Monday on the second of January."

Today's subject is number two on that list, and that subject is martial arts. Judo, karate, etc., all fit into this particular category, and Tom Kurz loves to write about it. He has been trained in all sorts of physical education and has had some experience himself in the world of peak physical conditioning.

Here is a bit about Tom Kurz:

Fitness Week: Leangains

Welcome to the first post of Fitness Week here on Blogographer! Here is a quick run-down of Fitness Week, as found in my last post:

"So how are we going to work this weight off? Well, by exercise and fitness, of course! This week on Blogographer is going to be Fitness Week, and we will be featuring three fitness blogs on Wednesday the 28th, Friday the 30th, and Monday on the second of January."

Today's subject is about "intermittent fasting and all things related," on the blog Leangains. Some of you may have heard about Leangains before, whether it be while casually browsing the internet or even because you were trying to improve your dieting or training routines. Many of you, however, have probably not heard of it, and hopefully by the end of this post you will at least give it a visit. ;D

Christmas Break, and Fitness Week on Blogographer

Christmas Break

Welcome back, blogographers. I hope you all had a very merry Christmas (or various other holidays, if that is what you celebrated over the break), and that your New Year's is happy. Over these holidays, I am sure all of your ate a good, large meal or two, involving perhaps roast, ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, biscuits, mashed potatos, gravy, and more. Surely many of us will put on a few pounds!

Fitness Week

So how are we going to work this weight off? Well, by exercise and fitness, of course! This week on Blogographer is going to be Fitness Week, and we will be featuring three fitness blogs on Wednesday the 28th, Friday the 30th, and Monday on the second of January.

The first will be the ever-popular Leangains, followed by Tom Kurz's Weblog, and finally Beast Skills. Some of you may recognize Beast Skills from a previous post I made on Blogographer. I am featuring it again as a "Revisted" post, to cap off the Fitness Week. Enjoy!

Chemistry for All: Revisited

Well, would you look at the time -- time for another Revisited post! Everybody, load up into our blogging time machine, and let us travel into the past to revisit those worthy blogs that deserve another mention. Then, we will come back to our own time, and see how they are now. We will even go into the future, to predict how they will turn out.

The Revisited feature today is all about Chemistry for All, which actually was not "Chemistry for All" back when I reviewed it here on Blogographer. Way back in the yesteryears of July 2011, this particular blog went by the name "Life in General," and though the name has changed, the look and feel have not. After all, why fix something that is not broken, right?

Here is an excerpt from the original post about this blog, on Blogographer:

You Want, You Lose

Uh-oh, watch out, blogographers: today's feature will be self-promoting! Ooooh nooo!

That aside, we can start in on the blog itself. Today's blog feature is on You Want, You Lose, which is a blog that I have been running by myself for some time now. In all fairness and to discredit those who might call me biased since it is my own blog, I will also point of those facets about it I did not enjoy, as well.

First things first: the content is awesome. If you ask me, no matter who you are, you can appreciate the value that the content has. Even if you never plan to buy anything listed on there (I certainly have not, out of financial security), it is still quite fun to peruse. The items are endlessly incredible.

On the other hand, the blog's look itself could use a bit of work. The layout and background are actually some of the default styles, which need to be updated to be personalized to their style of the blog. I would consider the banner a nice, customizing touch that is on the right track to getting it right.

The writing is usually more wild than that which I write here on Blogographer (though we all know my posts are not exempt entirely from bouts of eccentricity), but that is because the content is about a wilder subject. There is more room for silliness, in my opinion.

If you want to see it for yourself, you can visit at You Want, You Lose. Be sure to let me know you visited in a comment!

Hi.Def.Walls

I think that I should start off this post with a fair disclaimer: I am good friends with the writer of this blog, and the blog is fairly new. However, do not let you think that I am trying to fool you into visiting his blog; everything I say here is what I really think about the blog myself, as a blog reviewer and writer.

So, without further disclaiming humdrum, I present to you: Hi.Def.Walls!

First off, if you take a look at the URL on that link, you may have an aneurism trying to take the whole thing in! That is largely my fault, as when suggesting URLs, I noticed nearly all of them were taken. In an attempt to make the URL business easy and practical, I suggest that behemoth, and it worked.

That is not the only thing that worked for this blog; in fact, it is just one of many great features this blog possesses. The blog's background is quite eye-catching, and shows off taste in wallpapers. The format of the posts and blog are both quite simple, as well. There is very little fluff to distract the reader from the big goal: the perfect wallpaper(s).

I think that my favorite is perhaps the Tuesday posts. How can you beat out the gorgeous gals? If you want to see more wallpapers and categories (or just peruse the hottest women the internet has to offer), check out Hi.Def.Walls.

Drunkethics

Here is a post for you today, blogographers, of a blog that, in theory, matches that category of "Whatever I Want;" my ever-despised "random" group of blogs that seem to plague the internet. Naturally, I should have passed right over Drunkethics, since it seemed to have no truly specific purpose, but then I caught a glimpse of a chick in some chain-and-plate armor.

Workin' the chainmail!

Boy, do I have to say, that caught my attention.

It is not every day that you run across a genuine, homebrewed armor crafter. It is the internet, and there are people just like that out there, I know; however, I do not often run into them, especially since I tend to stick to my spheres of interest on this big, wide web. Roaming away from my internet comfort zone is... well, it's uncomfortable.

I am definitely not uncomfortable on Drunkethics, though. It is easy to fit right in with the posts, as the blogger seems to have a homey, cozy feel to his writing. While still retaining an air of professionalism and class, he keeps it on a friendly level, with writing more likely to be seen between two best friends in an e-mail rather than on a blog.

He even has some awesome armor sets in the making! His models seem to be a man, and a woman (the author and his girlfriend, perhaps?) with the chain-and-plate armor on, showing off his improvements as compared to the last post. I do not think armor has ever been so interesting to me, haha.

Drunkethics gets the Blogographer Seal of Approval!

ThisIsWhyImBroke

Hey there, blogographers. I have a special treat here today that, while perhaps not entirely meeting the exact criteria one may have for being a "blog," is still a very cool site with a vague blog structure.

This particular site is ThisIsWhyImBroke [sic], which is built up around the idea of displaying awesome things that the authors run across on the internet, whether it cost pennies or dozens of G's (the money kind of G, of course). While there are many practical purchase options on the "blog," it still features quite a few wacky items for ridiculous prices.

Ya know. In case you happened to be fabulously wealthy, of course. ;P

Going to their "About Us" page on the site has the following self-description for ThisIsWhyImBroke:

Carver PhotoCinema

"Carver PhotoCinema is a photography studio, based out of the San francisco bay Area, CA. Founded by Callib L. Carver, Carver PhotoCinema is dedicated to creating stunning artistic and alternative photographs. Using new media, we hope to capture the attention of people across the world."

That is a pretty bold statement for any sort of business to make, especially so for a photography studio. Every teenager and his/her uncle is a "photographer," it would seem, and you know what? That is most certainly fine by me. If you want to wield a camera and say you like to take pictures, more power to you. Who am I to stifle the artistic determination of anybody?

Then there are those that might consider themselves professional photographers by meeting the same requirements as I listed above. Here the typical checklist for becoming a professional photographer these days:

1. A Nikon camera

And you're done, it would seem. If only a cursory knowledge of computers made me a professional IT guy! Now that would be something, eh? Alas, the owning of equipment does not usually qualify one for professional work in that subject.

AniCompendium

Animals. The subject of so much controversy, from the personal lives of everyday people to the complicated ones of celebrities. Some people love their pets so much, you might wonder just how far they would go for them (and, if it came down to you or them, which would that person save?). At any rate, there is no shortage of discussion for both pet-lovers and haters, or even those floating around in the middle.

Along with all of this conversation (and perhaps, because of it), many misconceptions arise about how to take care of each pet. It is easy for these truth-lacking tips to proliferate as so many people look for answers to their problems, but we must be careful to take out those which are definitely true and backed by a professional medical or related opinion.

Videuphoria: Revisited (and Revisited: Revisited!)

Yeah, I bet you guys had forgotten about the Revisited series, huh? Letting it slowly sink away into the abyss of the post archives... Well, perhaps it's high time we revisited the Revisited series! Hopefully, if all goes as planned, you guys will be seeing a lot more of the Revisited series again, especially since the post number has now hit three digits and I am closing in on 400 followers! Thanks to you guys; I could not have done it without you! Well, maybe I could have. The world will never know...

What we do know is that today's Revisited post is on the blog Videuphoria, a blog that attempts to push your YouTube addiction to the edge like a knocked-up crack whore at a cocaine candy shop (can I even say that on here?). Fret not, though, young addict: Videuphoria will continue to intravenously pump video content into your bloodstream, so that you never have to go without!

So, without any further ado (and so that maybe you won't bite my finger off in your weird little videuphoric withdrawals), I present to you a video from the Videuphoria site itself!

If you wanted to 'revisit' some of the old Revisited posts, to see what you are missing out on, or if you are having a bit of Blogographer nostalgia (riiiiight), then here's a neat little list collecting all of them for you, so you don't have to spend countless seconds delving through the archive for them:

Bored Olives: Revisited

• "The blog, written by the affectionate Stephen Davis, is based on the supposedly true story of two star-crossed lovers (to use the perfect Shakespeare quote for the moment) who, when I first posted, seemed destined to skirt along the edges of passion and love eternally, their fates ever pulling them apart."

Geekologie: Revisited

•  "So, today I will be revisiting the hilarious blog Geekologie, which isn't exactly a tech blog, but it is a geek blog which features tons of gizmos and gadgets. There's also the occasional gorgeous fashion model for the purpose of... well, why not?! This blog was featured on Blogographer quite a long time ago, and it's time it's brought up again."

SDG Reviews: Revisited

•  "A while back, I wrote a feature on a blog known then as "Who Wrote This Crap?" (now known as SDG Reviews) by someone who is now a personal blogging acquaintance of mine. From you can see, I really did enjoy his blog overall and the reviews were top-notch (cinematically educational!)."

icycooL's: Revisited

•  "Almost three months ago, I reviewed a blog that was, at the time, new and upcoming that goes by the name icycooL's. The blog writer, the eponymous icycooL, is a close friend of mine outside of the blogosphere, and when he created his blog, I felt that I definitely needed to let people know about it."

100 Posts!

Well, there it is, folks. This post officially marks the one-hundredth blog post on Blogographer. I had 99 posts, but a hundredth wasn't one of them! Now, that's been changed. Post count will be in the triple digits from this point forward, an odd but proud thing to see.

What a long, strange trip it's been, but I could not have done it without you guys. Considering I received almost four followers per post up to this point, I think I would consider Blogographer a raging success. It may not be some Gawker Media bigshot, but I am glad to say that I feel accomplished.

Until the next hundred, blogographers!