makeover for raincoaster

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Me! ME! ME! ME! ME! MEEEEEEEEEEE!

Well? What do you think of my new look?

Aw, who am I kidding? I love it and don’t care what anybody else thinks, I’m sticking with it. This is a sentiment with which I am intimately familiar, having been a fan of olive green and iridescent purple nail polish since before Madonna wore black. Mind you, the only reason I wore nail polish is that I bought it to paint my lead D&D figurines, and figured I might as well do something with the leftovers.

This blog makeover, however, has a much more elevated history. The preternaturally gracious (and flirtatious) Southern Belle Stiletto Girl became possessed by the spirit of anarchy and empowerment and gave me the CSS upgrade for my birthday, so the look of the blog was mine to tinker with. With which to tinker. Whatever.

But I was a-skeert.

Cue the highly evolved, naturally talented, supernaturally generous and, apparently, workaholic devblog, who emailed me out of the blue, saying more or less, “Hi, I know you like dark themes, and thought you’d like this one I found. It won’t work on WP.com, but you’ve got the CSS upgrade and I don’t mind adapting it so it works perfectly with that, so how would you like me to do that for free?”

Uh, ch’yeah!

Et voilà!

Now watch me break it.

Template is the beautiful Dark Ritual (like, seriously, how fucking perfect is that?) by Arcsin.

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58 thoughts on “makeover for raincoaster”

  3. You’ll have to ask the resident CSS genius, devblog. Or you can click over to Arcsin’s site and copy some of his other themes. They be all pretty.

    G Eagle: I thought it was both octacular and spectacular. And look: feathers too!

  4. Love the new look! :D I was thinking of an upgrade but they said a paid ad widget is in the foreseeable future. So I rather wait and pay for that instead. 8)

  6. Thanks! I’m totally over the moon about it, myself.

    Paid ad widget? Are they going to offer a no-ad upgrade as well? I personally am hoping this new look totally borks the Adsense that WP.com runs on this thing.

  10. Given my interests, I’m always for a nice gray-green theme, and the sidebar green font is close enough to Sky to complete the effect.

    It has a good beat and you can dance to it . . . I’ll give it a 99 Mr. Clark!

  14. The new look is so stylish.

    I love the dark squiggly bits of the header. In addition to looking ever-so-cool, some of them are subtly evocative of tentacles.

  15. i really like the new format. the only thing that could possibly outdo it would be if there were octopi/squids involved in the appearance in some way

  16. Thanks, all. I thought the wiggly bits were kinda tentacular, and I can’t find anything more tentacular that’s also pretty, so I’m sticking with this. Kinda Cthluhu meets The Crow. But I’m already working on some of the fonts…I’m a bit of a serif snob, and I think that would work well here.

    Necromancer, you’re in the blogroll.

  17. Oh my god, I LOVE IT! Sorry I didn’t comment earlier but I haven’t been around! This is great! I am so glad you found something you liked! It took some time but it was definitely worth it!

  18. Again, this really is fabulous. Everything looks so organized, too, and it’s huge! Bigger is better you know. At least for my sorry eyes. Now what were you thinking? Oh, it is quite pleasing to the eye~! I may have to steal this one day!

  20. I’ll take that drink, although until I’m healthier let’s keep it to tea.

    SG, glad you like it. It could not have happened without you. 620 pixels for the main column is indeed huge, but I love it for pictures and such. I find this very easy to read. If you want it, the least I can do for the friend who bought me the upgrade is supply the CSS. I don’t think Devblog would mind.

  21. I’ll steal this for another blog – I’m quite used to the pink I’ve got going on (wow that sounds dirty but I guess if I said my pink works quite well for me that’d be even worse) – but I guess it couldn’t be an anonymous one because you’d know where it came from.

  24. I’ve seen all the online pix of me; believe me, that’s no goldmine! Besides, that was 25 pounds ago at least.

    I’ll put the CSS into a text file or something and figure out a way to upload it.

  25. Wow, I downloaded and tried to use this template a while back (without success). Funny because I use your old template now.
    I wonder if we wear the same shoes.

  26. I’m barefoot at the moment. But I wouldn’t wear those Cthulhu shoes, regardless of how well they go with the template.

    I wouldn’t have been able to use this template either if not for devblog’s inspired intervention. Check out some of the guy’s other templates; they’re all highly cool.

  27. Hey! I’ve been offline most of the weekend, so this was my first opportunity to see the makeover. I’m so freakin’ jealous. It’s gorgeous! I might have to steal the wrapper image…

  29. i DID steal devblog’s code for changing the wpcombar :D Much nicer than that damn ubiquitous blue.

    Using the background stuff would take a little more tweaking than i want to mess with right now (at least to make it look really good).

    I’m still totally jealous.

  31. Beautiful, stylish… I love it. And Dark Ritual just sounds so right. :)

    I’ve been meaning to have a go at a CSS style for my blog, but I’ve never got round to it, despite knowing a bit of CSS… I think you’ve inspired me.

  35. Hey, nice new look you have! It’s all dark and stylish and eh.. yeah, dark. The bigger font size (bigger than most WP.com themes) is good, and I like the layout of comments. The sidebar is still a little too crowded though, and I’m not sure about the dots around images.

    Happy blogging :)

  42. When I told you that your blog was perfect for you I forgot to congratulate you on your blogging job. They couldn’t have made a better choice. You really rock, girl.

  43. Thanks! I’m just DYING for Halloween to come around so I can post that pic of the toddler in the Cthulhu costume! Thank god they don’t mind me being demented.

  45. My avatar just switched back. Freaky! Is Turkey censoring my avatar now???

    You should see the Technical Help Forum; it looks like the Dionne Quints in there.

  49. I’ve just been admiring how cool blockquotes look in your new theme. It inspired me to find a quotation with an octopus to try it out:

    Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.
    H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  50. Thanks, don’t they look cool? I should do a quote o’ the day and use them all the time. In any case, thanks for handing me my first quote on a silver platter! Off to post it…

  56. As soon as I get another registrant in the blogging course I’ll buy one. And out of my own inborn courtesy and desire to get my shirt signed, I shall refrain from making the “Cheap” remarks that come to mind.

  57. Hi I stumbled on your site.

    I really like the background – its a bit like the wall paper at my Grandma’s house. Very cool and retro looking.
    Can you tell me where you got it from.

    Thanks

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