Blogkeeping

It's a  new year, so it seems like a good time to do a little bit of housekeeping on the old blog.  You've probably already noticed a pretty significant change in the coloring and layout, and I'm glad to have the ability to adjust the widths and individual elements on the new template.  There's not going to be a lot news on this post, so if it bores you, don't bother reading on, but it might be of interest to people.

For archive's sake, here's the old template, used from the blog's launch in March 2008 until now.  I'm thinking of making a new header that's not quite as tall.  We'll see.

There's something funny about this poll.  It's like it reset itself after it was up for a few months, because I was quite sure there were more voted on there back when I posted it.  Anyway, it's woefully outdated, having been posted in fall 2009.  *sigh*  LOST.

And now is as tradition after the list on the right gets too long, here are the last 100 movies I've seen with their accompanying rating.  Oy.  This list doesn't include movies I had already seen, but at least it spans from fall 2009 until now.

Ghostbusters *** 1/2 / Daria (Season 2) **** 1/2 / The Manchurian Candidate (1962) *** 1/2 / True Grit *** 1/2 / Better Off Ted (Season 1) *** / Daria (Season 1) *** 1/2 / The Sorcerer's Apprentice *** 1/2 / TRON: Legacy ** 1/2 / The Other Guys ** / 17 Again *** / Mrs. Brown *** / The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader **** 1/2 / Lady Jane ** 1/2 / The Twilight Saga: Eclipse * 1/2 / The Other Boleyn Girl (BBC) ** / Tangled **** / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 ***** / RED *** 1/2 / Bright Star ** / The Queen *** 1/2 / The Young Victoria *** 1/2 / Project Runway (Season 8) *** / Hereafter *** 1/2 / Letters to Juliet *** 1/2 / Valentine's Day ** 1/2 / Elizabeth: The Golden Age *** / When in Rome *** / Moonlight Serenade ** / The A-Team *** / The Back-up Plan * 1/2 / Survivor: Micronesia- Fans vs. Favorites **** / Survivor: China *** 1/2 / Survivor: Fiji ** 1/2 / Inception *** 1/2 / Survivor: Cook Islands **** / The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas *** 1/2 / Diary of a Wimpy Kid ** 1/2 / Survivor: Panama-Exile Island *** 1/2 / Children of Men *** / Shutter Island *** / Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure ** 1/2 / The New World ** 1/2 / Toy Story 3 ***** / Gremlins 2: The New Batch ** 1/2 / The Stepfather ** / Big Trouble in Little China *** / Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ** 1/2 / The Fourth Kind *** / Nine ** 1/2 / An Education *** / Robin Hood *** 1/2 / LOST (The Final Season) ***** / 24 (Season 8) *** / Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains (Season 20) *** 1/2 / Poltergeist *** / The Office (Season 6) ** 1/2 / V (Season 1) *** / Iron Man 2 *** 1/2 / Lorna Doone *** 1/2 / Fame ** 1/2 / How to Train Your Dragon **** / Project Runway (Season 7) *** 1/2 / Shear Genius (Season 2) * 1/2 / The 39 Steps *** 1/2 / Scary Movie 3 ** 1/2 / Clash of the Titans **** / Sixteen Candles *** / Sherlock Holmes *** / Launch My Line (Season 1) * 1/2 / TMNT *** / Battlestar Galactica: The Plan *** / The Twilight Saga: New Moon * 1/2 / Lost in Austen *** / Battlestar Galactica (Season 4) ***** / The Lovely Bones *** / Alice in Wonderland *** 1/2 / The Lady Vanishes *** 1/2 / Mirrormask *** / Battlestar Galactica (Season 3) **** / Leap Year ** 1/2 / Northanger Abbey *** 1/2 / Last Holiday *** / 2012 *** 1/2 / Emma (Masterpiece Classic) *** 1/2 / Battlestar Galactica (Season 2) **** / The Pregnancy Pact ** / (500) Days of Summer *** / Little Dorrit **** / A Christmas Carol * 1/2 / Avatar ** 1/2 / Hellboy II: The Golden Army * 1/2 / Battlestar Galactica (Season 1) *** 1/2 / Survivor: Samoa *** 1/2 / Where the Wild Things Are ** / Obsessed *** / The Princess and the Frog ***** / Vacancy *** / The Uninvited *** 1/2 / Surrogates **** / Sunshine Cleaning *** 1/2

Now, here are the last 50 books I've read.  Embarrassingly, this list covers almost 3 years (since I came home from Wisconsin in March 2008), but again, I didn't include books I reread:

The Incredible Journey (Sheila Burnford) *** / The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) *** / The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) *** 1/2 / Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) *** / Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (Jeff Kinney) *** 1/2 / Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (Jeff Kinney) *** / Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (Jeff Kinney) *** / Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney) *** / The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux) *** 1/2 / Miss Potter (Richard Maltby, Jr.) **** / Beauty (Robin McKinley) *** 1/2 / The Scarlet Pimpernel (Baroness Orczy) *** 1/2 / Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan) ** / Fantastic Mr. Fox (Roald Dahl) **** / The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells) *** / The Girl Who Could Fly (Victoria Forester) ** 1/2 / The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) ** 1/2 / Boy (Roald Dahl) *** 1/2 / Coraline (Neil Gaiman) *** 1/2 / My Cousin Rachel (Daphne DeMaurier) **** / A Separate Peace (John Knowles) **** / Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons) **** / The Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy) **** 1/2 / The Tales of Beedle the Bard (J.K. Rowling) **** / Under the Greenwood Tree (Thomas Hardy) **** / Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton) *** 1/2 / Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Robert C. O'Brien) *** 1/2 / The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) ** / Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) *** / The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) *** / Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) *** 1/2 / Regarding the Fountain (Kate Klise) *** 1/2 / 1984 (George Orwell) **** / Setting the Record Straight: Mormons and Homosexuality (Dr. A. Dean Byrd) **** 1/2 / Animal Farm (George Orwell) **** / Lord of the Flies (William Golding) **** 1/2 / Breaking Dawn (Stephenie Meyer) * 1/2 / Chased By an Elephant (Janice Graham) ***** / The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) ** / Mostly Harmless (Douglas Adams) *** 1/2 / So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Douglas Adams) *** / Life, the Universe and Everything (Douglas Adams) ** 1/2 / The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglas Adams) *** / The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) **** / Eclipse (Stephenie Meyer) ** 1/2 / New Moon (Stephenie Meyer) *** / Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) ** / Book the Thirteenth - The End (Lemony Snicket) **** / Captain of My Soul (Me) rating declined / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling) *****

Phew! I think as of the start of this year I'll start rating everything I watch and read, instead of just the new things, just because I think it's fun to keep a record.  And now that this is archived I'm set to clean house and blog for real when something worth blogging about comes around.