Instead of Packing
Instead of packing for Otakon and getting a good night sleep so that I don’t crash too early, I decided to install a new theme for HappySoda. Of course, it’s never a one button press operation. It’s 2AM. I started at 10pm. Still not done, the links and archive pages need some code to work how they did on my previous theme, so for now those are down. Search page is a mess too.
One of the widgets I wanted to install in the previous theme, but didn’t have the room since there wasn’t a footer, was Community Cloud. Basically, if you comment here the plug-in puts your online name and site for people to click. It’s sorted to appear randomly. Even if it winds up being useless, it at least does provide some linkage until I get the blogroll page straightened out. Check it out in the footer.
I swear blog maintenance itself is an obsession sometimes. I meant to shoot Ringo before leaving. Oh well.
Anyway, I’m probably going to skip taking a lot of pictures or doing any reporting down at Otakon, even if I am setup with Twitter. There’s so many people doing reportage that it doesn’t feel special to do it, so I’ll spare myself the hassle. Instead, I’ll see how fast I can spend the bag of loose change I cashed in for $213.52 this morning. Something tells me I need a Lucky Star coaster set.


BZou
on August 8th, 2008
Heh you were not kidding about wanting to constantly change themes. I want to change mine yet again despite only recently doing so.
I like the new layout, its very nice. I love how the sidebars kinda reminds me of parchments. Keep up the good work!
Sasa
on August 8th, 2008
Hehe, I’m the exact opposite - I’ve always been on the search for the perfect theme that I never want to change, and now it seems I have arrived at the point where I don’t want to change any of my blog layouts anymore
But yeah, good job on this one so far! Personally I like it a lot and hope it’ll stay longer.
IcyStorm
on August 8th, 2008
Really digging the new layout.
I just hope that Community Cloud thing doesn’t encourage spam x]
lu-k
on August 8th, 2008
Woho lovely theme man
Sometimes I think about changing mine… but considering how I have already customized it, I am a bit affraid of how long it would take to change. I have already enough trouble each time I want to upgrade wordpress and/or theme ^^;
rafiq
on August 8th, 2008
Thanks for using the Community Cloud plugin
Panther
on August 8th, 2008
Nice theme, great work on the community cloud plugin. Hope you have a fun time at Otakon.
blissmo
on August 8th, 2008
Whoa! Such a pretty theme, plus it’s really unique!
Zeroblade
on August 8th, 2008
Whoa, great theme :O
And enjoy your Otakon, Jam Project, etc.
otaku dan
on August 8th, 2008
nice new layout and good luck at otakon
Kozta-Boom
on August 8th, 2008
Nice theme man!! b^^
Edward
on August 8th, 2008
I like this new layout… It’s one of best I have seen anywhere lately. Nice to see you on twitter.
Blowfish
on August 8th, 2008
Woah i was shocked for the first few seconds when i arrived at your blog!
You always choose quite unique themes for your blog.Its looking good!
I hope to hear about your Otakon loot
Len-Vesper
on August 8th, 2008
Awesome new theme, makes me want to hurry up and finish mine. ._.
Also word of caution, but you have someone ’somewhat’ plagarizing your site. I don’t know if you authourized it or whatnot but this dude at http://www.otakuden.com (not to be confused with otakudan.com) is spamposting stuff you put up before.
There’s a single small link to you at the bottom but otherwise does not show the source of its post. Seems like a scrape-n-spam site.
Danny Choo
on August 8th, 2008
Awesome design change.
Whats that 9rules thing doing on your blog?!
BZou
on August 9th, 2008
Oh btw my only suggestion would be to make the RSS feed sign less predominant. Maybe its just me but that’s the only thing I don’t like. But I am not sure how others view it.
BladeXian
on August 9th, 2008
Love the new layout!! Looking forward to hearing what you’ve purchased over at Otakon. Keep up the awesome work!!
JC
on August 9th, 2008
At least, you don’t waste your time, the new theme is splendid
moyism
on August 10th, 2008
Sweet new theme dude! Too bad we all couldn’t hang out longer but it was great to finally meet the man behind the photographs.
rain
on August 10th, 2008
reminds me of the old times. nice to see most of the stuff working already. when will the time come when you can actually do a one click change. *thinks it never will happen*
super rats
on August 11th, 2008
Glad people like the theme. It is pretty graphics heavy, so can be slow to load for some people.
Keonyn
on August 11th, 2008
I like it, I wish I was good at this sort of thing. I can do the graphic bit as I completely reskinned my own blog when I set it up. Unfortunately the coding bit I’m not too good at, and it took me a week just to find out how to make the minor changes to my theme that I did make. I can handle HTML, but unfortunately that doesn’t help much in modifying modern scripts like Wordpress and the themes.
I do love the theme you’ve got going though, especially since Haibane Renmei is my favorite, tied with E7. The one thing I miss is how your comments stuck out, due to the big yellow number, on your old theme but you just sort of blend in with this one. In a way your comments stick out less since people providing a URL get bolded names.
Saku
on August 12th, 2008
I love the site design. It’s lovely :). How long did it take you to design this theme ?
super rats
on August 12th, 2008
Saku, I didn’t design it. Sketch’d,was designed by Liam McKay. Check his designs out. The guy rocks. All I did was change the header.
Len-Vesper, thanks for the heads up. I think I’m okay with it. If it were being used for Ebay or something like that, I always ask them to stop using my stuff. How many of us use artists images without asking just to use for our blogs? They link back, so it’s not like they’re taking credit.
Keonyn, that’s a pretty good critique of the theme. When I get time I’ll try and style my own comments so they stand out more.
radiant
on August 13th, 2008
Sweet theme! I love it! Although I have to admit, that your previous theme’s layout was a lot more unique. This one’s layout looks a lot more like typical blogs, but the style of the skin is very nice. You built the theme yourself? How did you get that line-art Haibane Renmei?
super rats
on August 13th, 2008
The layout is a bit more bloggy than the last one. I personally like dark background themes better since it increases the viewer’s perception of color. Didn’t design the theme myself. Theme author didn’t code his link in this theme, which is http://www.wefunction.com.
I found a scan of this at MoeImouto.net, I think. Not sure at this point as it’s been in my folder for a while now.