Raise your hand if your blog is covered with cobwebs since Facebook, Twitter, and every other microblogging website came along!  Both hands high in the air, here.

With summer vacation comes plenty of time for me to march around the internet, visiting all of the blogs I rarely get to read during busy work months.  While Facebook and Twitter have kept me connected with people, I truly miss reading and commenting on my favorite blogs.  I miss the excitement I always felt when my email inbox showed a new comment on a recent entry, and I miss the exercise of writing.  I used to have so much to say, but I got sucked into the vortex of immediate gratification that social networking provides. 

In an effort to rekindle my romance with joeparadox.com, I decided to try to teach myself some semblance of blog design.  I wouldn’t dare say “web” design, because about the only thing I can do right now is some CSS and a little bit of functional coding.  So, I’m learning.  Over the last week or so, I plugged away at a new design and for the first time I was able to complete one that works in both Firefox and Explorer.  I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but it actually looks better in Explorer.  I figured out how to make transparent gifs for the first time, which was sort of a breakthrough in my understanding of how this all works. This new design isn’t perfect and it’s not professional, but I like it and I feel pretty good about what I was able to teach myself. If you want to see it, check out the “Slip me some skin” drop-down menu in the sidebar and choose “Blue Plate Special.” There it is.

With this new design comes new ideas for this blog.  Lately I’ve gotten really tired of all the navelgazing that pervades the internet.  Cryptic facebook updates meant to “intrigue” really just scream, “I need attention!  Look at me!  Notice me!” And I guess I’m just a little weary of the Dooces of the world and their macro photos of baby wipe warmers on their blogs.  Now I’ll totally contradict myself by saying that I love reading diarist blog posts of people I know and have followed for many years, and I enjoy writing them, too, but I really prefer the commenting and discussion that an interesting or entertaining blog entry can provoke.  That’s where I’m going here. 

A serious effort will be made, people!  To update!  Yes, from time to time, there will be pictures of the cats and stories about the various levels of destruction and havoc that they wreak on us and our home.  There will be TARCon stories and celebrity encounters.  But there will be more.  There will be more frequent trivia questions and games.  And prizes!  Everyone likes prizes, right? I’m going to try to review some of my favorite vegan (and non-vegan) products and recipes.  And, I’ll probably be talking more about interesting things in general, and I hope you’ll leave your thoughts in the comments.

If you’re still reading this blog, thanks for sticking with me.  I hope you find something here to entertain you, inform you, or at the very least, occupy you until you regenerate enough energy to do more jobs on your favorite Facebook game.