Layout stuff

Hi Everyone!

I'm slowly moving into Blogger.  I'm trying to make it look the same, or similar, as my old blog.  I have some work to do in the margins still, literally, and I'll have to accept some of the things I could control in MovableType but I can't in Blogger. 'Some pros and cons:

Cons:

For example, I used to have a spider image in my blog entry footers, but I couldn't bring the spider into the new blog because I can't seem to insert HTML wherever I want; I can only override CSS classes.  (and I don't think you can have multiple background-images for a given div!)  I don't like how it forces me to have the date above each blog entry (because the date is already in the footer, come on, it's just cluttering the screen to have it there twice!)  UPDATE!  I discovered the "Edit HTML" button.  It looks like I *can* do everything here that I could in MovableType.  But now, with syntax colouring!  Oohh la la!


By the way, the reason I like having the spider image on my blog () is that I like to watch them.  They sit still a lot (or hang still) and they make beautiful webs.  Although I am generally uncomfortable around bugs (I usually don't like bugs crawling on me, unless I am specifically interested in watching them), I do like to have the spider on my blog because it reminds me of "watching things".  Like simulations!


Movable Type let me control a tree of category types, but on Blogger I just have labels.  But I'll get over that.

Pros:
Anyway, overall, it looks like the new hosting service will be fantastic.  I'm really enjoying Blogger's layout options and "Gadgets".  I can't help but observe how much easier and faster things are nowadays than they were just a few years ago, when I started this blog in 2005!  The "Pages" menu bar is awesome.  Comments are going to be way, way easier, both on the moderation side and for anyone leaving a comment.  I also love the Translate button.  I have visited non-English blogs before and have appreciated the Translate button, so I like to have it on my blog too!  And it has a mobile version, too!

Hmm, now, I wonder if I can even get my phases of the moon script to work on Blogger!

To Do list:

• phases of the moon script
• creepy vines along vertical margins 
• margins
• delete the redundant date on top of each post
• find a place to put my pet spider
• do I want facebook/twitter buttons back? hmm
• put the stat counter thing back - but maybe I don't have to, as Blogger seems to have one built in
• put the creative commons thing back
• can I have a search box on here?