Blog housekeeping, Autumn 2009 edition
I installed a new theme a while back in an effort to move away from the initial one which was nice and minimalist but full of retina-scorching whitespace. For some reason it didn’t turn out nearly as well as I’d hoped so I’ve made a step backwards a bit and tweaked the layout to display the post text in off-white and lighten the blue in the sidebar. Other little details, such as the Georgia font for the headings and a centrally aligned main menu bar were lifted from the initial Yuki theme (which I was quite fond of, for all the whitespace), while the box-style post dates come from my old blog.
I took a leaf out of Epic Win’s book and moved the blogroll to its own separate page, to tidy up the sidebar if nothing else. I want to add subcategories to my links to make use of the extra space and organise them a bit better as well – it’s all in aid of looking classier and more readable (unless you read these posts solely on a feedreader, in which case my efforts will be lost on you). There are still the usual niggling details to iron out but as far as I can tell this theme looks the same in Firefox and IE, which is as much as I could hope for really. Not bad for something I threw together in the space of an evening.
To put it bluntly, CSS is a royal pain in the arse and no amount of Muse and Kalafina can sweeten the experience of misplaced semicolons and colours that refuse to behave themselves. The gravatars and comment quicktag boxes are next on my list so should make a glorious return as soon as I can sort them out; feel free to make suggestions and bug reports in the (currently incorrectly-sized) comments form as usual.
In other news, pretty much everything I’m currently watching is finishing so expect the last of Spice and Wolf (squeeeeee), Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ( T_T ) and even thoughts on Canaan, assuming the last ep leaves enough of an impression for me to actually have an opinion on it. Darker than Black is finally being released on DVD over here now so I can rewatch that before 2009 is out too.
During my week offline I was reliant on reading good ol’ fashioned books to kill time so expect posts on the Crest of the Stars and Haruhi novels – they’re damn good reads but the differences between the originals and the TV adaptations are interesting in themselves. There isn’t much in the new season that’s caught my eye but the DtB second season and possibly the second helping of White Album will be worth looking into.
The rest of my energies at the moment involve the upcoming replacement of my trusty old laptop with a new desktop rig, which I’m planning on putting together and fitting with a Blu-ray drive in the next couple of months. There’s a Top Secret project involved in this too (hint in the pic above)…well, two people know about it so far but I’ll post details when the pieces are in place.
Finally, I’ve never mentioned the subjects of the current banner images either, so here they are:
- Ryougi Shiki (Kara no Kyoukai) deskop; unknown source
- Screenshot from Byousoku 5cm
- A view from Tokyo Tower at sunset that I snapped earlier this year.
Looks better and friendlier indeed. I look forward to your posts. Btw, commenting is a bitch.
Meaning anything after the word ‘bitch’ I can’t see anymore in the text pane.
CSS seems very logical…but then again very counterintuitive, probably because I’m retarded and its system of defining terms is weird. wtf is float supposed to mean? your comment input text box is too wide!
also, you’re looking forward to aya hirano failsessions v2? I wanna see mizuki nana’s concert, then i’m out.
but i’ll probably watch it all anyway.
Have I ever mentioned that I rarely visited the site anymore while you had this black layout? I only read your postings on my feedreader during that time, haha. So yeah, props for the nice new layout! I hope it’ll stay for awhile, and in fact, it somehow reminds me of the very first layout I’ve seen of you (oh God, that must be about 3 years ago?)
I actually dislike blogrolls that are *not* on the sidebar, but I do understand that it clutters up the sidebar (also wow, my movie blog is still on your blogroll although I have only recently started to write for it again after several busy months of nothing).
Ah, soothing-on-the-eyes and darkly coloured, as usual. Good job! Can’t think of much else to say otherwise since it’s not obnoxious like a lot of blog themes are.
I’m liking the look. The text feels easier to read. As for blogrolls, I’ve never really understood why one ought to have them, apart from courtesy for friend bloggers. When I vist a blog I almost never look at them.
I’m looking forward to your thoughts on Crest of the Stars. I love that anime.
Liking the cleanup, too. But the original was never too bothersome to me to begin with.
@ghostlightning and lelangir: the comment box ought to be fine now. I just changed the width from 100% to 90%, which seems to keep it inside the content div. CSS makes me tear my hair out, hence the recycled code!
@Sasa: good to know you’re still around! Reading posts straight off the feedreader is pretty convenient when life’s hectic and/or internet access is limited so I can understand. But yeah, that old layout was really old! How times change…I’m glad you’ve started posting too – I watched the last episode of Time of Eve this week, and it’s wonderful. Expect posting on that too!
@Owen S: thanks! I prefer darker colours because they’re easier on the eyes but I didn’t want it looking too dull and gloomy. I think this is a happy medium that ought to last a while.
@Peter S: blogrolls for me offer the opportunity to list my personal recommendations; I’m not sure what the common custom is for them, but it’s basically a shortened ‘what I read’ list based off my feedreader subscriptions (which are one hell of a long list these days!)
@2DT: I loved the anime, but the novels go into even more detail – I highly recommend them. Watch this space!
I still don’t know anything about CSS, but I like white space. Your old theme was one of the standards I used when trying to find a good theme to switch to back in January. That said, I also like what you did here. I think I’m just easy to please when it comes to website design…
Definitely curious to hear more about your thoughts on the Haruhi books. Are you reading the official translations or the ‘net jobs? I’m really interested in giving them a once over, even if the anime is insufferable (particularly because the anime is insufferable – you’re not the first to say the books are quite different). I heard Haruhi is more of a MacGuffin than a main character in the novels, which can only be a good thing.
Darker than Black is being released over here now!? Interesting I guess I’ll have to say goodbye to some of my student Loan.
Hadn’t clocked that, thanks for the heads up.