skins

Gareth: Heh. You will use the holiday skin and like it.

Amy: Can I quote you on that when I post the entry about all this?

For those of you who used your best StrongBad “Holy crap!” voice when you showed up here, relax. ‘cat.net hasn’t been taken over by aliens yet. There will be no alien takeover until December; until then we’re free to make merry and taunt the cats.

(There is, however, a growing rumor that the cats are in collusion with the invading horde. Remember the April 2003 ‘Takeover’ series? Be afraid…)

Nevertheless. I digress.

Two quickie changes: now that it’s late April, I think we can declare the holiday season officially over with, and move ‘mint’ back as the default skin for this site. Sleigh bells is still around, and you’re welcome to stick with it if it’s what you like, but the distinct lack of snow in north Alabama suggests that I move on to something that’s a little less…snowy.

I’ve promised for a couple of years now that I would someday do a holiday skin. ‘Sleigh bells’ is as close as I think you’re going to get. Just a wee bit of holiday, and no pink (you’re welcome, Geof).

Some major changes to cat.net today - I’ve completely changed the navigation. I’ve had the same three-section navigation (words/pictures/etc.) for about a year now. In that time, cat.net has become even more focused on words instead of photos, so I’ve changed the navigation to reflect that.

New setup should hopefully be a bit more intuitive to new folks:

In yet another maddening case of my finally making a skin available after having the design completed for half a year, I’ve finally gotten around to posting the latest (if you can call it that!) skin, trompe l’œil.

Long ago, when I got started on this bizarre skinning odyssey, I’d had the idea of creating not just skins, but groups of skins. With not much thought, you’ll figure out that pazdziernika (fall) and glacial (winter) are intended to be part of a series.

Bad things are bound to result when friends bring digital cameras to my house. In this case, many cute kitty pictures were taken. My original intention was to make a skin based off of an interesting road sign near my house, but as usual, the creative muse doesn’t always listen to sound advice.

Instead, I present a fluffy pink skin based off of one of the cutest pictures I’ve ever managed to take of Edmund. He’s incredibly skittish to most people, but around me he’s quite the opposite.This is what Edmund looks like when he’s both trusting and curious. (The camera makes interesting whirry noises!)

Stats on the design: it’s a three-column design (rare for me) with customizable sidebars. I’m virtually certain that it’s not going to play properly with IE for Macs, so those of you using that browser are warned…