Tales From the Late Triassic

A study in light blue.

2007-06-12T20:16:36Z

I seem to be spending quite a bit of time customizing the colors of my main journal page. I had already spent quite a few hours setting up the previous look, and I thought it looked pretty nice (even if I do say so myself). However, I realized quickly that it wasn't very comfortable to read. After looking things up via Google, I decided that a change to a sans serif font and dark text on a light background would improve readability.

At this moment we see the results. Personally, I don't think it looks quite as, mm, cool as before, but it's much, much easier to read -- for me anyway. And I hope that it looks nice enough. I'm not unhappy with it by any means. Heck, I even somehow managed to get the exact shade of blue that I wanted for the background.

Heh. I've spent far too much time on this as it is -- especially I've discovered how easy it is to do something that resets the entire board to the default state. I've had to retrace my previous steps several times! Now I need to be getting much more done at work. I will probably continue to occasionally tweak the look of this page, and I may even do another overhaul, but right now I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Hip tip.

2007-06-11T21:59:12Z

I noticed my comment pages weren't displayed using the custom layout you see on the main page. Instead, the comments page displays using the LiveJournal default scheme (sort of what your profile page looks like). I asked about this, and got a reply the same day -- I was also referred to the relevant FAQ (strange that I didn't find it, since I was spent a good deal of time last night looking for the information -- oh well). It turns out that you can't customize your comments page if you only have a Basic account.

Try it. Find a person with a Plus or Paid account and read the comments to one of her posts. The page will be displayed in the style of their main page. Now do the same with someone with just a Basic account, and you'll see (bleh!) the page is in the default LiveJournal scheme.

So, if you were wondering this, or if someone else asks you the question, you now know the answer.

Now, being as anal retentive as I am, this is the sort of thing that may inspire me to upgrade my account!

News you can use.

2007-06-10T21:39:09Z

Good news for Hellsing fans. Volume 8 is due out on 4 July.

Somehow I missed this news on my usual anime news sites. I've been waiting for this for years (well, a year and a half), and I'm glad to see it out finally!

The obligatory first post.

2007-06-09T01:02:51Z

I'm not entirely sure why I signed up for a LiveJournal account; I more or less signed up on a whim. Perhaps it will inspire me to write a few essays on subjects about which I have been wanting to learn, maybe reviews of books and movies that I have read and seen recently, or maybe a brief comment of some current topic in the news.

I am interested in improving my writing. I enjoy writing. Not so much the composition aspect (although that is fun, too), but the feeling of holding a pen and watching the ink and words appear on paper. I've been told I have good handwriting, and I confess I do take a little pride in that. I keep a journal (an old fashion paper-pages-in-a-bound-book thing), and I enjoy writing letters (some of which get a little long).

That doesn't have anything to do with typing an entry onto an online journal, does it? When I was in school I wrote pretty well and received good grades, but I've noticed that the quality of my writing (the compositional aspect of it) has deteriorated. My letters tend toward kind of stream-of-consciousness, and I don't put a lot of thought into my journal entries; I just write as ideas come into my head. In other words, lately I just sort of write down my thoughts as they occur to me. The result is pretty unstructured, random, cluttered, and, when I reread the passage, important things are left out.

I'm hoping that if I publicly post some passages, I will feel compelled to put more time into the composition. I plan on revising and editing the rough drafts (most of which will probably be written long hand -- did I mention that I really like writing long hand?) before I post them here. If I can stick to this, I think that my writing will improve again, and that what will end up being posted will be readable. Whether the subject matter will be interesting to others is another question, of course.

But I really have no idea what this journal will turn into. My pen-and-paper journal ended up being very different from the initial vision I had when I started it, and it is possible that this journal will go in a direction that will surprise me when I look back on it later.