Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition

Welcome to the new look. For now, anyway. This font is kind of painful to read. It's all compressed, and I haven't yet found the mechanism to fix it. So we're gonna call this a work-in-progress.

Since the last time I made radical changes to my blog, the Blogger people have made all kinds of changes. They've made it a little easier to customize, with color changes and different fonts and whatnot. It was kind of a kick trying out different looks. Of course, I shouldn't be decorating a cake, let alone a piece of HTML. So, if this looks like some kind of color swatch train wreck, that's because I was given free reign.

Something Blogger hasn't changed is the choice of available templates. There still aren't very many of them, they still don't look all that different from each other, and they're all immediately recognizable as Blogger. I wonder if that's something they sit around arguing about. The web is based very heavily on inidividuality, but there's a desperate need to establish brand identity, and look has everything to do with that. As Jay Leno, in his last funny joke, said when he heard a radio commercial inviting people to the new McDonald's in El Segundo, "Gee, I wonder what it's like?"

Am I even allowed to talk about this? I feel like the Blogger police are going to throw me in blog prison for committing blog thoughtcrime.

Most of the blogs I've linked to (and you'll notice that's been updated, as promised) are Brothers in Blogspot, and I guess they show the range of designs available. I mean, in the end, it's a lot of text, and it'll either be a light font on a dark background or vice versa. No one complains about books all looking the same. Of course, since no one reads anymore...

Anyway, I'm still tinkering. I'll stick with the basic design, but colors and fonts will likely change over the next few weeks. Hope that doesn't bug you.