The New Template: Changes Around These Parts
If you’re one of my RSS or email subscribers, you might have missed that this blog has been going through a design overhaul. The old template was, understandably, very “old school,” and did not fairly represent the best of WISB’s potential. So, I set out to create a new template using Blogger’s template designer (a handy little thing, if you ask me), and came up with something I think works quite nicely. What’s new on WISB now that I have a different design? Here’s a list: One sidebar instead of two. That one sidebar is slightly wider as a result. A wider post body section. The previous section was a little thin. A sleeker look. You’ll have to see to understand what that means. A Formspring “ask me a question” box in the sidebar. You can ask questions anonymously, by the way. An updated header image. You should see it. The new text on the image is awesome. The image is the same, but instead of boring standard text over it with the title of my blog, I now have nice text that makes it look much more appealing. At least, I think so. Pages! The great thing about the pages feature is that it allows me to move whole chunks of text and links off of the sidebar. You’ll now find pages for The Skiffy and Fanty Show podcast, my fiction (including The World in the Satin Bag, free shorts, excerpts, and so on), my bibliography (including publications and conference appearances), Survival By Storytelling Magazine (which is still available for purchase, by the way), my review and advertising policies, ways to contact me, and info about the blog and me (i.e. the About page). Plus, instead of burying my contact information in the sidebar, it is now available in a handy location: the Contact page. Good stuff! Some things have remained the same, such as the color of the website, though some text colors are different. I didn’t want to change the color of the site primarily because that would require me to change the header image, unless I went with black. Blue is my favorite color, but the header image, which is one of my favorite things about this blog, only works with yellows and greens (or black). Feel free to let me know what you think. If something looks ugly, then I’d like to know about it. Otherwise, welcome to the new millennium of WISB-ness.
Video Found: Exodus (Short Film)
Alexander Lehmann, who worked as a digital artist on District 9, has released a high-octane science fiction short film called “Exodus.” It features some amazing visuals, a fascinating concept, and a very unique musical score that also doubles as a sound effects track–think of Disney’s Fantasia, but in the age of D&B, techno, and other electronic music forms. If I had some sort of ridiculous star system, but for Awesome Points instead of stars, I’d give this four and a half Awesome Points. But I don’t have such a system, so you’ll have to deal with me simply stating that this video is frakking awesome. Here it is (after the fold): EXODUS – Noisia & Mayhem ft. KRS One (Official Video) from Noisia Official on Vimeo. I told you it was awesome, didn’t I?