Our new theme is mostly done, so I went ahead and launched it. The goal is better use of screen real estate with fresh content – I was tired of the old theme’s standard fixed-width center column with stacks of archive/admin links on either side. Looking for something more sexy and less… texty.

There are a couple things missing (any kind of worthwhile content in the green social media box at the right, for one), but I’m happy with how this turned out. I used Colorschemedesigner.com to help pick bright, non-clashing colors for the extra content boxes. To save space and reduce the amount of repetitive text in the sidebar, I janked together some code to display a random post with a matching tag for each tagged post. That way if you’re reading a post on a certain topic, you can jump straight to another one instead of picking through the archives. As ever, the WordPress Codex made this less painful.

I’ll be adding links and stuff, but the whole point of the blue and red boxes to the right is that they’ll pull content based on what I share in Google Reader, favorite on YouTube, and listen to with Zune. What’s missing? Any suggestions for social media features?? Leave a comment – which you can now do with your Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID account! For the low price of all 10 of the old comments being eaten…

Yeah, maybe I’ll fix that next weekend!

I recently made some changes to the site’s template, thinking, “once these are done I’ll post an update on the front page” …and then I promptly forgot the update. To be honest, this post is more for my reference than anything. Months from now when I’m asking myself what the heck happened to such-and-such, I’ll check the archives page for the site updates category.

Classy segue! I added an archives page, which you’ll see now in the top navigation. This is something I meant to do a long time ago when the archives in the right-hand sidebar started stretching towards Antarctica and I cut them at 12 months. Basically, you can find what you’re looking for based on tags under the Topics heading at the right, based on publish date under the Archives heading at the right, or with the Seek box on the left. But if you’re wondering, “what were these guys up to in April of 2006,” or “what are all the different post categories,” the archives page is the place to be.

This may be useful to the handful of new subscribers I’ve seen registering on the site lately, assuming any of you are not spam-bots. Which reminds me – welcome, non-spam-bot subscribers!! The other changes you’d notice if you glanced at Before and After versions of the site are the result of overdue housecleaning. I removed the music and movies links from the top stripe and dropped them under the posterior section, to reflect the fact that they’re dated content we’re unlikely to mess with in the future. Last but not least, I added a book link, which points at the book I wrote in college and recently moved into WordPress.

Yes, when I was at Miami I tried to write a book. Overall I’d say it was a great exercise in wasted time and failed self-promotion, but I still hope the thing’s a worthwhile read for any random high school juniors or seniors – or even college freshmen – who stumble across it here. Details on the In Dependence page.

I just now realized that IMAO.us posted a few of the pictures I sent them for entry in their excellent lolterizt series, and can only assume HostMySite’s WordPress servers are crying a little as a result of this site having… you know, more than 7 hits. So if you’ve followed a link here in some sort of stupor and are wondering what the deuce is going on here… wander a little further! Thanks, Harvey, for the link.

While I’m on the topic of IMAO (now that they’ve linked us, at worst this will come off as retroactive butt-kissing instead of the usual link-begging), I should point out that if you’ve not visited their site a good place to start would be Frank J.’s Nuke the Moon essay, for which I’ll admit a troubling affinity.

For all of you on the edge of your computer chairs at home, you can relax now because issue 3 has been posted.  Just click on the thumbnail below or on the ‘comic’ link above, sit back, and enjoy the thrilling third installment of this heroic tale.

Here you go, the long awaited second installment to our new groundbreaking web comic!  Just click on the ‘teaser’ below to be magically transported (via the interwebs) directly into the lives of our three heroes!  As always, we hope you enjoy.

Here is the moment I’m sure you have all been waiting for, we are finished with the first installment of our brand new web comic. Just click on the thumbnail below to see it. Enjoy!

We are getting alarmingly close to posting the first installment of our new web comic “Simply Heroic.” We seem to have most of the issues ironed out at this point, so you will most likely see something within the week. Neither one of us is a professional at this by any means, but hopefully you don’t hold that against us too much. We hope you enjoy it. Here’s a little ad that I made real quick just for fun, think of it as a preview of sorts.

You may not recognize me from any previous post(s), and there is a very simple reason for that…this is my first post. I am not new to the site, I have been involved – at somewhat varying levels – since its birth. I will most likely not be making many posts here, but I hope that all of you can put up with my ramblings from time to time. I do plan, however, to stay active in the background. That is all for now, I just thought I would introduce myself to everyone. Enjoy your stay at thathero.com!

I’ve nearly finished importing content from the old version of thathero.com (and from the version before that), which you can find under posterior or – for disjointed, individual items – in the archives. For instance, if you’re headed to college in the fall or simply dying to know what my schedule was like my freshman year, have a look – this was a feature to itself that I failed to follow through with for the rest of school. If you’re interested in random dated essays or journal posts, skim the navigation on the right.

The old dated entries are accurate to the day they were written, but not the time. Come on, even I’m not that much of a geek.

I have a website, which you’ve picked up on if you read my last whiney post or if you knew me during my “hey I think I’ll write about that on my website” phase. The vision for the thing, originally and at most times during its lifespan, has featured reviews about music and movies in an effort to trick hapless surfers into reading my writing. There have been times I’ve thought it’s worthwhile, and times I’ve thought it’s not.

Lately I’ve been leaning more towards the latter. In part, because I know (as I’ve always known) there are not all that many people wandering the internet looking for music and movie recommendations from some random dude. Why bother with my crappy reviews when Rolling Stone, Yahoo!, and every local paper in the country is more than covering the crappy reviews beat? That’s a serious question in terms of whether or not the site is worth my time, especially since the chances are even slimmer that someone will like my music reviews and dig further into what I’ve got online.

Another serious question is “What part of my brain is broken?” Because no matter what big or little change I’m making to a page, I have to change a hundred thousand other things while I’m at it. I finally got around to adding reviews for a couple of Foo Fighters CDs I’ve had for… sheesh, going on a year now. And then when I was finished – I started messing with one of the other reviews. Then I noticed some bad grammar in the one before that. Then I decided to change some other completely unnoticable things. And here we are! Although I might make changes to the way Blogger works, the hands-off-ness of the system is what got me writing here in the first place. If I can type something up and hit a button, it’s a little easier to post without subsequently changing it over and over like a total whack-job nerd genius.

But just a little.