UPDATE 3:18 p.m.: And now I’ve replaced the whole thing with plaintxtBlog. Screw the colors. Clean and simple is the way to go. The only thing I may have to change now is to figure out how to make the “asides” separate from the basic posts. I may have to run them through del.icio.us and catch them as an RSS feed in the sidebar, but we’ll see. Anyway, I think this is it. White. Clean. Text only. Focus on the words.

D’OH! 3:30 p.m.: The theme seems to be a little broken. There’s no “single page” where you can leave comments or anything. I have an e-mail in to the theme developer, so hang on for me, would ya? Thanks.

!HO’D 3:34 p.m.: Never mind :-)

UPDATE 11:58 a.m.: I’ve played with the colors a little bit, using Alex’s suggestion to pick three colors and stick with them. I’ve also settled on a header image, and the colors I selected came from it, rather than the other way around. I’m still not entirely sure about the color of the text (not here, but below). I think the yellow may vibrate a little on the blue. Before I tweak it, I’d like your take on it, so let me know if it’s difficult for you to read. Thanks.

Well, as you can see, I’ve changed the look of the site again. The last design was decent enough, but the sidebar was getting a little too full. I really wanted to change it up into a three-column design to fit all the good stuff, but the theme I was using (Tarski) didn’t come in a three-column flavor, and I don’t have the coding skills to make it happen myself.

So, out with Tarksi and in with Crayonworld.

Now, before you freak out on me, know that this color scheme is probably going to change a little bit. I’m still trying to figure out how I want to do the text and link colors, and I can almost guarantee that the yellow background is going to go away very soon.

I’m also going to put together a nice banner for the top of the site, but I need to get my hands dirty in Photoshop for that, so it’ll take a bit more time. And speaking of photos, I still need to add the Flickr feed to the site, as well as the little doo-hicky from Last.fm that tells you what songs I’ve been listening to.

There are a few bugs that I should mention. First, the archive page is almost unreadable at this point, thanks to the yellow background and white text. It’s a relatively simple fix, and it may even be gone by the time you read this, but if not, just know that I know about it and that it’ll be fixed soon. Second, when you venture over to the page of a single post (like when you want to leave a comment or when you click on the title of a post), the first sidebar doesn’t bring up the list of recent Asides like it should. I have no idea why, but I’m looking into it. Besides those two things, though, the site should work as advertised.

Finally, you’ll notice that I put the post-ratings thingy at the bottom of the posts now, which should make the process a bit easier for all of you. Instead of having to scroll back to the top of the thing to tell me how much you loved the post, you’ll be able to do it where it feels most natural, at the bottom, where your eyes and your attention are. So don’t be shy. Click a star.

And that’s it, I guess. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of Fluid Imagination’s new (work-in-progress) theme.