This blog is ugly.

It started off with one of the stock Radio Userland templates (which, I think, are pretty much universally ugly) and I modified slowly from there, working towards the rather utilitarian vision that I have for this site. I find the sight of frequently used templates - particularly the ultra-cliched common ones (like the typical WordPress templates) - really tiring after a while.

Nonetheless, I've been attempting to update some of the styles as I get the time and inclination, and hopefully it's at least marginally less insulting to your rods and cones. I can confidentally say that it at least passes as legitimate HTML 4.01 Transitional now.

Of course style is completely subjective, and to make the subjectiveness of blogs (or any content page for that matter) a subject of a rant, one of the hacks of HTML that I'm not a huge fan of is the fixed-pixel-width blog - someone made some sort of banner graphic, or had it in their template, so it is thus solidified - their blog is exactly 612 pixels wide. Here I am reading it at 1600x1200, with gigantic swaths of blank space on either side, with the actual content (supposedly the purpose of the blog) filling a relatively tiny panel in the center. Smaller still given that the 3-column format, such that you see here, is often shoehorned into that miniscule 612 pixels.

To add to the insult, the font is usually huge and line spacing cavernous.