It's finally happened! This site has been redesigned. Oh happy happy joy joy! You can finally let go of your breath now.

This site is now centered on my Rambles, weekly stories on random topics published on Sunday nights (usually, although if life gets busy, I may miss a Sunday). I decided to make my Rambles the main attraction because that's what the vast majority of you seem to want.

(And if not, please let me know what you DO want!) (And no, I'm not going to give you free porn.)

I'm using WordPress to power this site now. If you're not familiar with WordPress, it's a popular blogging tool that comes with many pre-made features so site owners like me don't have to build them all ourselves.

The most significant features and changes from WordPress are:

  1. Comments: You can now write a comment to any Ramble and share a story of yours.
  2. Categories: Each Ramble is now associated with one or more Categories. Gone are the "Related links" after each entry; instead, you can browse an entry's categories to find related stories.
  3. Different URLs: My sincerest apologies for any inconvenience the change in URLs may cause you; there was no easy way to preserve the URLs from the old design.
  4. New design: Well, this one is obvious. The new design is not my own; I took elements of existing designs out there and created this conglomerate. The elements are:
    • WPThemes.info - Specifically, the Fast Track theme, which won the Pixel Perfect Award from the WordPress 1.5 Theme Competition (congrats!)
    • famfamfam.com - Some from the Silk Icons set
    • graphicPUSH - Some from the Blog Icons set
    • ChinaRed - The background image from this theme
    • SF MOMA - I took that photo myself of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

I have to give props to the designers who created these elements. Awesome job! Thank you for creating these and allowing random people like me to download and use them!

In the next few weeks, you'll see more changes coming. Like any good ole' site, this design is a work in progress. I would put up a "Under Construction" sign right now if I could, but then I'd need to accompany it with a spinning logo and flaming skulls. And I'd never be able to forgive myself for that.

The About section will definitely change. The list of Categories and Monthly Archives is a bit unwieldy, so I'll need to rethink that a bit too. I liked how my old design gave me room to show the current books I'm reading (which is probably more interesting to me than it is to you), so I'd like to find a way to work that back in somehow.

Even though I'm using WordPress, I'd like to stress one point: this site is not technically a "blog." Of course, you're free to call it that if it floats your boat. To me, it's not a blog because a blog is more personal, more journal-like, and is updated daily (or semi-daily).

These Rambles are writing experiments and exercises that I make sure I do just about every week. While many entries encapsulate my actual experiences and opinions, some are entirely fictional. As such, I've gone back and revised a few old entries (and have entirely rewritten others).

Here's one way to look at it: Just as a muscle can't get stronger without exercise, these entries are my way of exercising my mind. Otherwise, how can I be a better writer?

Here's another way: Everything here is just practice. So if it sucks, it's just, um, practice. Yea.

WordPress removes much of the chore and behind-the-scenes code maintenance that goes into this site every week, so I can concentrate just on writing. (Thank you WordPress!) I hope you like this new design. And of course, thank YOU for reading!

And now, for some free porn.

. . .

What do you think of this new design?