There goes another four-day weekend. As usual, I have very little to show for it.
As I threatened earlier, I did start trying to poke around and figure out a new design for the ol’ blog. I’m pretty much drawing blanks, however, and the few actual ideas I’ve had are just basic things I’d either like or like to avoid. (Though I may sound down on certain sites I link, I actually think all the sites I point at look damn good; their look, however, just may not be my look.)
I Like:
Simplicity. I’m not the type who maintains a three column layout that brims with links. A second column of stuff—be it “briefs” or links or whatever—is probably too much for me.
Image Rotation. I first really noticed this at Anime Blog Muyo! (which sadly seems to have fallen silent), and I think it works wonderfully. Keeps things fresh even when they’re a bit stale, etc. A catch is that spaces that are either too vertical or too horizontal are difficult to fill (I’d say my current sidebar is somewhat approaching the “too vertical” limit), yet the general shape of a web browser window is such that a more-reasonable block takes up a lot of space that might be used for actual content.
I’d prefer to avoid:
Centered layouts. It’s not that I don’t like them (though that may be hard for you to swallow, given the proximity to the title of this section), but they just seem to be all over the place these days. And though they all look different, I can’t help but notice how they all look the same. I’ve never been one of those people who had to be different (those who know me personally should be choking on that understatement), but too much of anything gets old. Even for me.
That said, if I could figure out a way to really differentiate my layout… I might be persuaded into a centered design, despite my reservations.
And that’s pretty much the sum-total of my thoughts. (I wasn’t kidding when I said “few.”) Another option I have would be to work on modifying this design more, rather than scrapping it altogether; I am partial to this setup, but that may well be due to the fact that it’s the first somewhat-modern layout I created.
…
In other news, I hear that Canon has finally made a camera for me. You may be aware of the fact that I have an essential tremor (and if you were not—you are now) that adds just enough shake to my hands to be annoying. Given that fact, you might surmise (correctly!) that I have difficulty shooting a decent picture. I typically need extremely good lighting, total darkness save for the flash, or an insane amount of luck to take a photo that has any sort of focus.
Image stabilization has long been a feature of video cameras. But I hadn’t heard of such technology in a standard camera—until now. This is the camera for me… or, rather, it will be once it either drops in price or my current camera explodes in a ball of flame.