...why is it always two in the morning when I update things?

Remember that picture of Sceptile I added to the gallery last month? You'll be seeing a lot more of it from now on, yup. This new layout has a little less "chicken" in it but a lot more sexy, and actually looks like something a web design student would not be ashamed to say that they'd made–it isn't mind-blowing, but it is definitely pretty damn hawt and I'm proud of it. It even has alpha transparency and rounded borders. That's right, biatches, you heard me. If you are using something lame like a really old version of IE then you won't see any of these fancy new pieces of layout eye candy, but that isn't my problem. Go upgrade your browser.

For those of you who were astute enough to notice the absence of the "Valid CSS" link in the footer, that, like several other validation errors I've experienced, is totally not my fault. The properties needed to display the rounded borders may or may not be "valid", okay, I'll give the W3 that, but the validator's complaining about the rgba values (even in CSS3-mode) and totally shouldn't be because I'm sure did it right. So I axed the link until the validator gets its act together and lerns2read its own specifications.

Back to matters that the non-nerds among you will actually care about. NaNoWriMo is fast approaching and so I'm going to do my best to ignore the website entirely for the month of November. I reached 50,000 words last year and am hoping I'll be able to pull it off again, and that means minimizing my work on other projects, so... yeah. I'd like to try and get at least one interesting new piece of content up before November hits, though. We'll see what I can finish before the first.

EDIT: Why didn't anyone tell me that there was an unfinished section in the ASB for Beginners guide? D: I started adding something to the end but apparently stopped in the middle of the paragraph and forgot about it, and no one said anything about it... huh. Anyway, the section has been finished. Good thing, too, because recently I've been seeing quite a few examples of what it talks about. >>;

I finished NaNoWriMo, whoohoo!

To put a slightly more relevant spin on it, that is a good thing because the basic framework for the story is finished. It's going to require one hell of a total rewrite before it's ready for public viewing, and I'm rather tired of it at the moment and so won't be taking an axe to it until January at the earliest, but hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult and I'll be able to start posting the story sometime next year.

You've probably noticed the two new layouts. Actually, they aren't "new" at all; they were the first two layouts I was working on when redesigning the entire site, but I swapped the colors and images around at the last minute so that they used the more simplistic ones instead. What possessed me to do this when these two layouts are perfectly good and a little more interesting (and not as garish-looking on Macs) I do not know, but all that matters is that I got sick of the previous look and switched back to these today. They still need some minor aesthetic tweaking, but they should be entirely presentable and functional as they are now. If you experience any problems with them or something looks odd, email me and let me know so that I can fix it.

The fall quarter of school is over next week and I have a comparatively long break ahead of me until winter quarter starts in mid-January. Hopefully I'll have time to add more actual content to this place. I haven't added any right now (aside from the layouts), as my current obsession with creating fake Pokémon–and, by extension, the project site that goes with them–is eating up a lot of my attention span, but I hope to get something substantial done over the break. When I've finished the fakemon project site (who knows when that will be) I'll probably move the requested fakemon over there, but they'll stay for now; I might upload some of the artwork of my own and the newer requests later, in addition to anything else I happen to finish or semi-finish.

I did add a shiny Golbat to the sparklies page, though, so if you want one then go ahead and make me an offer.

Most of my dcNET design time has actually been focused on the other sites that will eventually be a part of the network, which means that this one's been left alone for a while. I haven't forgotten about it, certainly; I've just been preoccupied. Hey, it's still progress, right?

Anyway, what I'm actually here to say is that I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, which started today, and since I actually intend to finish it this year I will not be able to update the site for the month of November. The upshot of this is that, should I actually finish the story I'm writing, I will be able to post it in the Fanfiction section here. So... consider the NaNo progress a bunch of updates to the site that are just a little delayed. Or something. And wish me luck!

So I don't leave my two semi-regular visitors hanging completely, however, I have added some more pictures to the Fanart page, two of which are actually *gasp* recent! I added another section to that page for artwork I've drawn for other people: requests, gifts, stuff like that. So, uh, go look at it, and be envious of the people who were lucky enough to get artwork by moi! But look at it slowly, so it'll last you until December. Cool? Cool.