A Sigh of Relief ...

I am no longer Mac-less. I've just acquired a new G4 PowerBook - which, of course, is not new, but rather a mature and experienced model with a ton a of life left. I didn't realize how much I missed my iBook (and Mac life in general) until I cracked this one open. Now all is well again.

I'm on the hunt for an iMac for Elizabeth, though. Just a G3 that she can use to play games. She sat down at her daddy's PC the other day and calmly opened programs, deleted files, and changed the desktop image to a picture of herself. None of it was intentional, of course, but I think she's ready for her own machine. And my own inclinations notwithstanding, OSX will be so much easier and more fun for a child to learn than Windows. If anyone happens to know of a stray iMac looking for a new home, feel free to send it my way. iMacs of the Strawberry, Ruby, or Graphite variety will get bonus points for fitting in with Mommy's decor.

The Eerie Wisdom of Mike Judge

So I finally saw Idiocracy this past weekend.

And in related news, also this past weekend, Wild Hogs made 38 million dollars.

Anyone wonder anymore why Idiocracy got buried by the studio who made it? Studio execs aren't stupid, at least not in the money-making way. All other ways, I guess, are still open to debate.

Bowl for Kids Sake 2007

Two awesome people I know are participating in Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids Sake this year:

Todd, who is working to raise money for BBBS of Middle Tennessee (donate to his cause online);

And the lovely Amy, who will be bowling on behalf of BBBS of East Central Ohio (donate to her cause online).

Although I have not worked with the BBBS organization specifically, I spent many, many years in a local mentoring program, both as a student and as a mentor, and I know programs like these can make huge differences in kids' lives. A worthy cause if there ever were one, and if you can possibly donate a few bucks, I know it would be appreciated.

The Time Has Come

I have been making some bigger-than-usual changes to the website lately, but I have finally admitted that more profound upgrades are really what is needed. So - I'm completely overhauling DeliberatePixel. Here's what is going to happen over the next couple of weeks:

1) Weblog software change. With the release of Blogger Beta, it's now unavoidably clear to me that Blogger is more and more interested with the Blogspot-hosted audience alone, and us FTP users are a dying breed. Therefore - I am finally, finally going to be leaving Blogger. It hurts. But sometimes these things must be done. Instead of jumping on the WordPress train, however, I think I'm going to give Textpattern a shot, so that I can also solve some of my other content management issues.

2) Website hosting change. I think it's about time to leave GoDaddy, too. See, DeliberatePixel is all grown up now. We'll be moving on to A Small Orange.

3) Website redesign. I've been going through designs at a frightening pace lately. Style has trumped substance, and I find myself going too far with large images and invalid markup. So I plan to launch a clean, strong, fast design that will stick.

Ideally, there will be very little downtime, and I'll have the new site coded and ready to launch with the switch to the new host. Other promised additions - the Elizabeth redesign (done!), the relaunch of DP Design, the new prose portfolio - will proceed after that. Look for the new site with the new year.

UPDATE: I am currently building the test site and ironing out all the kinks. It's going to take a little while to get it launch-ready, though, especially because I'm also moving my daughter and myself into a new townhouse over the next couple of weeks. Should be up mid-February at the latest. Blog and companion RSS feed will continue that their usual blistering pace.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So February sucked, in a variety of ways, and as a result, no complete website yet. It's drawing closer, however. I'm itching to start actually posting again, and it's spurring me on to finish all the technical stuff and get the site launched already.

In addition to the changes I already mentioned, I've decided to completely restructure the site's content. I'll still have daily posts and weekly links, as of old, but I'm also starting a new section devoted to film reviews and essays. Much more content will be available on the front page, although I am excising a lot of dead weight in the other pages.

Textpattern development is moving along. Not quite as difficult to get the hang of as I anticipated, although I'm also pretty sure I'm not using it to its full potential yet.

I also will definitely be reviving my freelance design services, and my first project will be a new hub site for brandice.net. If anyone by chance has a web project they'd like me to work on, just let me know - the storefront is under construction, but I am again officially open for business.