Ever since my first review by Gumphood, which turned out remarkably bad btw. I've developed a subconscious fear of being reviewed by a fellow male, I mean let's face it us guys haven't exactly cornered the market on empathy. Then there's the testosterone factor, alpha_male_big_dog_A is more likely to growl at and attempt to mark his territory around alpha_male_big_dog_B than he is to pay him some howling compliment.�

This is usually a non-issue since the majority of reviewers out there happen to be female and the majority of review sites out there allow you to choose from the list of their reviewers. The diaryreviews site is operates a bit differently however as the site owner has opted to distribute and assign diaries review requests (perhaps randomly) among the site's substantially large review staff, a staff that actually has several males in attendance. Really I wanted the opinion of someone like Lissy or Melody who aside from being of the female gender, are people who have a background in designing layouts for their own diaries and for other people and I tried requesting them as such.

It seems that the site owner and perhaps a touch of fate, has denied my request and has serendipitously paired me with one of the male reviewers who, partially to my surprise, has given me a decent constructive critique of my diary while at the same time not giving me a ridiculously low score. If anything being a guy who is perhaps in a similar predicament as I am in terms of "malesexdriveness" actually helped him relate to my content at certain points. It's probably best for me to let the reviewer speak for himself, so here is the review in it's entirety:

[http://liquid-mojo.diaryland.com |v.liquid-fade.1.7.3]

Contact: Guestbook, notes, email, guestmap, AIM. (5/5)
Errors: Zilch. (5/5)
Navigation: Navigation is simple; links all down the left, a few highlightable pictures that bring the reader to various places, and fade when the mouse is moved off of them; previous next below the entry. (10/10)
Updates: Gads. You started off okay for the first few weeks, and after that, your entries thin out quite a bit. You'll go long stretches of time without making a single entry, or have only two entries for an entire month. Starting April 2003 though, you seem to pick things up quite a bit, making pretty much daily entries, with a nice amount of multiples. Still, all the skipping you did earlier on is going to cost you, at this point in time. (9/15)
Layout Design: A self-designed template; this gives you major brownie points, especially since it isn't too harsh on the eyes. However (and there is a however), if a visitor is using a screen size of anything less than 1024 by 768 pixels for their screen size, your diary gives them the feeling that they've been pounced upon by something large and unpleasent, such as a Walrus or David Crosby. Everything ends up jumbled together, and one starts to feel a bit of claustrophobia; having to move the scroll bar at the bottom is one of my least favorite things, as the little roller on my mouse only goes vertical. Hey, at least you tell people this; it says right at the bottom that it's optimized for 1024 by 768. Isn't that sweet? Anyhow.. What's more, it still seems a little cluttered even on a screen size where one can see the whole thing; the banner at the top, and the woman's face forever seperating the links and entries seem out of place, particularly your banner. Perhaps changing the color would fix that- perhaps getting rid of it would make it better. Or maybe you don't much care for either suggestion. In any case, the time for fancy layout talk has ended; bring out the gimp! (18/20)
Content: Grammar, spelling, capitalization, and that whole pile is good. No problems at all, there; sex, sex sex, sex, sex. Sex! Sex? You talk about the trouble you've been having finding a girl to roll in the hay with you quite a bit; a man? Not getting as much sex as he wants? Say hello to every other man on the face of the planet. Sex is a constant issue in your diary, but it's not all you talk about; your past reviewers (well, many of them) seem to have taken note only of that, and skipped over the fact that you're an intelligent, often philosophical and introspective, and sometimes a pretty clever guy. Sometimes you seem a little arrogant, and that was a bit annoying; I'm pretty arrogant myself, and in most cases, arrogance doesn't enjoy company. Getting beyond that though, you've got a good diary, all in all, with straightforward content to boot. You don't hold back in your entries, you write what you're feeling and more importantly, you often write why you're feeling. So what if much of what your feeling is the urge to slip between the sheets with someone? I can handle that for the other things that you have to offer. (33/35)
Would I come back? The jury is still out. I probably will a few times, though mainly it will be to see your reaction to my review. (3/5)
Extras: Self-designed template, big ol' chunk of bio, notes, AIM, portfolio.(5/5)

Total Points: (88/100) Get a grip, man! Oh, too late..
Reviewed by: Adam

Recommended Reading: I seem to have crash-landed my rocket to Planet Derrick[TM] as well. Hi-larious!

http://diaryreviews.diaryland.com/liquidmojo.html

So now my response. this review is probably as fair and impartial as one can hope to get coming from a fellow guy. I got the plusses where it counted and I got points off where I slacked. I know I haven't been updating as frequently as I should have and he even noticed the sporadic-ness of my older entries so I got significant deductions there. I got points off for my layout as well. I guess size does matter especially those who have to view my diary under lower resolutions. This was one of my major concerns early on when I was initially designing the layout, but at some point I decided to sacrifice the lower resolutions so I could squeeze more content onto the page. I haven't received many comments about it until now, but part of the job of being a good reviewer is finding the "rough edges" that perhaps the casual observer may not catch. He even gave suggestions on how to streamline my layout which means he actually put some thought into the whole thing. If I ever have the energy to do a complete redesign I'll keep some of his suggestions in mind such as redesigning or getting rid of the banner and narrowing the layout enough to eliminate horizontal scrolling�at least for those viewing the page with and 800x600 resolution. Not the easiest of tasks because I'm attached to many of the elements of the current layout, but I do want to consider the usability of my diary.�

Being a guy, paying another guy a compliment is not the most natural thing. I'm personally more comfortable delivering a high-five and yelling "You 'Da Man!" than actually elaborating a compliment. With that said, Adam actually did a pretty good job at not only delivering a compliment, but doing so without losing his "guy-ness" and despite our mutual tendency towards arrogance, and he did it in a way that made me chuckle.� It made me curious enough to� click over to his diary to see what he was all about. He's a pretty good diary writer, I caught a few parallels with his situation and mine and he uses quite a bit of humor in his writing which I can totally appreciate. The layout is pretty simple, a tweaked version of one of the standard templates, but I guess it serves his purpose well enough. The main point I'm trying to drive at is that he appreciates the way I don't hold back in my entries. I think it is because he does the exact same thing in his diary entries. It's a good enough diary that I may glance over there on occasion when I'm not drooling over some female's diary. ;)

Lastly, I'd like to thank Adam for taking the time to review my diary and putting enough thought into it to give me a well-rounded critique. I've actually seen other reviewers review other diaries on the basis of the first few entries and subsequently be turned off to the entire diary akin to the clich� "judging a book by its cover", so I really appreciate it when a reviewer takes time to absorb some of the diary he or she is reviewing and look beyond what is at the surface.�

The egotist/perfectionist in me always cringes at any less-than-perfect score given to me. Part of me wants the reader to be so entranced by my writing that he or she is forced to read each and every page of my diary. The realist in me, however knows that kind of perfection is not always possible. There is always room for improvement and there are various degrees of individual subjectivity and objectivity when it comes to appreciating someone's diary. Even if I didn't get a perfect score, it was a good and honest review. Reviews like this help me measure how others perceive my diary and offers me a chance to improve upon it and it is one of the main reasons I continue to submit requests to review my diary.

-Peace�