Blog 3.0

It's been a while since my last blog redesign.

Yesterday, Jess was working on updating the template to her blog. I remembered Blogger releasing some new templates and a way to edit them better, but I hadn't checked it out.

Until today.

Obviously.

You all can tell by now that the blog has been updated (unless you're reading from Google Reader... woot), but I'm posting this for historical purposes, more or less. I guess. I don't know. I'm kind of bored.


I know it's kind of corny, but the birds remind me a bit of Wilco's Sky Blue Sky. And that album inspired one of the last pieces I wrote for the FSView.

The literary Lebowski.

The Big Lebowski is very high-brow, by the way. If anybody questions the academic merit of it, you can discuss how Oedipal it is (among other things).

One of the major things in Freud's Oedipus Complex is the son wanting to sleep with the mother. Consider when The Dude is introduced to "Mrs. Lebowski" ("Oh, you're Bunny.") -- she immediately offers to do sexual things. He's a Lebowski, she's a Lebowski. But she's married to an older, father figure ("Go get a job, sir!"), so she is at least somewhat introduced as a "mother figure" to The Dude's "son figure."

And then recall how The Dude in fact DOES sleep with another Lebowski -- Maude. Even though this would play into a sort of "sister" in my theoretical setup, there is still much parental tension displayed ("I'm sorry your stepmother is a nympho..." "Please don't call her my stepmother.").

To stretch this aspect a bit more, all The Dude ever wanted was to get his rug back -- a yearning to restore the status of his home ("It really tied the room together") -- possibly a display of getting his parents back together or trying to mend a broken home from his youth.

Another powerful aspect of the Oedipus Complex is displayed through the film's threats of castration -- this was a major part of Freud's theory too. The father would fear that the son would castrate him, in order to render him useless so that the son may take the father's place with the mother figure. The Germans threaten The Dude with castration and The Dude in turn threatens Larry with castration. (Neither of these come from a "son figure" wanting to castrate a "father figure", but the mere inclusion of the threats ties it in together with Freud.)

Bam! New Blog look!

I finally got around to widgeting with all the gadgets on these new Blogger templates. They're really great. A real time waster. I can foresee hours of tinkering with this. At work, mainly.

Man, back in the OH-FOUR when I started up this bitch, there wasn't shit to fuck with. I was all writing in ONES and ZEROS tryin' to get some pictures to appear where I wanted them. Don't even talk about widgets. Nobody knew what a widget was back then. Now there's more shit to mess with in Blogger than you can wave a stick at.

(You see, with a new Blog look, there is necessarily a lot of cursing. Them's the rules.)

( . . . But maybe it's because there's a lot of crap going on now and I'm getting some nervous energy/stress out.)

(Either way, either way.)

(And here is an explicit thanks to Matt C. for starting a blog and for making me realize how bad mine looked. I actually spent the whole morning at work reading his posts -- catching up. Thanks a lot, dude.)

P.S. - Updating my template has undoubtedly altered the look of my older posts forever. Because, well, there are so many of them that I refuse to even think about going back to fix every single picture. So if you're browsing the archives, be prepared to see pictures cut off and things looking generally ugly. Which, well, they looked ugly anyway. If you're really curious, drop me a line and I can explain how things used to be in Blogger before Google took over and made it a lot easier and better looking for everyone.

ATTN: Comments Enabled

To add comments to my whimsical posts, click on the "#" sign below the post. (If I cared the slightest bit more I would try to find out how to add a direct "comment" link on the main page.)

Go Hog Wild.

*Edit: Wow, I guess I didn't realize my own strength... (0) comments.

(Did any of this make sense to anyone else?)