An end and a beginning – an intro and an outro

This is officially the end of Respectful Defiance. Well, not exactly – the blog's not going anywhere; I'm keeping it online and available as an archive for anyone wishing to peruse it, but I shall no longer be posting here.

I will be keeping comments open however, and will respond to any received.

I became irked with the title itself for multiple reasons, plus the blog's template has become so hopelessly mangled (by me) that I cannot in good conscience keep using it as it is. And so, I am pleased to introduce you to my new haunt:

Preliator pro Causa

I hope to see you all migrate there as I have. It's really quite nicer, methinks. =)

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Closin' up shop – soon (hopefully)

I've been debating this for a little while, and I've finally decided that Respectful Defiance is coming at an end. Well, not exactly – I won't close the blog, it will remain open for any and all to read at their leisure, and I'll also allow you to comment if you wish – but meanwhile I'll be setting roots somewhere else.

I've had a nice run here at RD, but ultimately I've done all the customizing as a noob and now the template is so mercilessly mangled I can't do anything more with it without succumbing to crippling errors. And so, I'm just gonna spawn a new Blogger blog.

Keep an eye out for a brand-new blog with a fancy Latin name soon. ;)

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Movin' on up to bigger and better things: TypePad

It's official: I've decided to create a whole new blog over at TypePad. TypePad offers far more flexibility than I can get with Blogger – not to mention I can finally host my own damned files on their servers/my site instead of scrambling around to find image hosts, media hosts, etc. – and with just a reasonably small price ($12 a month or so I think?) I can get pretty much anything I ever dreamed of for a blog.

That's not to say I'm closing Respectful Defiance right here and now, of course. First I need to get myself a job (as soon as I find a good one in the newspaper), and with the starting salary in Québec currently set at a very pleasing $9/hour (imagine, after only five days I'd already have over $360!), it really shouldn't be all that difficult.

RD will continue to operate whilst I get a job and amass the money necessary. Once the new blog is opened and operating, I will then lock this place down for the final time. I'll keep it up and running, but only as an archive as I will not be posting to it (though you will still be able to comment on blog posts if you wish).

I'm also planning to change the blog's name for the future blog. "Respectful Defiance" just doesn't work as well as I planned it to: it's too long, it's awkwardly similar to a certain other blog, and it doesn't really seem to fit all that well with the blog content and purpose. The comments are entirely open to suggestions: anyone got any ideas? I'd love to hear 'em. =)

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Oh noes – we're being h4cked!!!

UPDATE (July 10, 11:20 PM): It seems the images are slowly but surely coming back online (example, the portraits to the left were unavailable before whereas now I can see them again). Let's hope this continues and that these "Anti-Sec" twits were serious when they said "no images were harmed". I really, REALLY don't feel like reuploading every single image I use on this blog. I'd lose my hair to insanity before I reached half of them, and that's when I realize I don't even have backups for half of them ...

As you will notice, the vast majority of the images from this site – and, in fact, many other sites across the Web – have been hijacked by this so-called "Anti-Sec" group or whatever the fuck they are. It seems to be affecting any website that uses Imageshack.us as an image hosting site, as we do at Respectful Defiance.

Remind me to wring the neck of any little hacker(s) I meet. Useless little shits.

Guess it's on to damage control now. Greeaat.

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No, you're not on LSD (hopefully)

Don't worry if the blog changes format and colors and such for a while (from a few hours to a day or two at the most); I'm trying to revamp the style of the template so it's a bit less ... plain and boring. It'll be done soon, so be patient. ;)

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New template update: give a warm welcome to Haloscan!

Or, as it's now known following the recent takeover, JS-Kit. Simply put, it's a whole new commenting platform I've integrated to this blog for much-increased functionality: rich text formatting, permalinks, etc.; and for us admins (me & Mel, that is), we can FINALLY edit posts, and if you prove pissy enough, we can just block your IP from commenting here altogether. :D

I've also added a recently-released customized Google search bar to the right sidebar, which allows you to search both blog posts, and the Web, and much faster.

Oh, how I luvs kewl new toyz.

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Few little changes, take 800

I've once again changed and tweaked a few little things here and there. I've changed the format of the Blog Archives for better convenience; I've added a "Websites of Note" section in the right-hand sidebar for a rundown of the websites I personally cherish and visit quite often, ranging from Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's insane videogame reviews to a complete database of Frasier transcripts; I've finally linked to me and Melissa's separate user profiles, at IMDb and YouTube (for her AMV-making channel – check it out, they're excellent).

And now it's 5:13 AM. (But don't tell Melissa. She'd murder me. Gruesomely, too.)

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Proclaiming my allegiance!

I've always been a Pastafarian ... at least now I've got the badge of honor to prove it.

Flying Spaghetti Monster: You Know He's Watching

... And for good measure, why not some celebratory gratuitous Jesus-bashing?

Tee hee hee. Now doesn't that taste ... divine?

(*Ducks*)

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Quickie site template update

Just a few tiny changes: moved the navigation bar to right under the header so there's more space for blog posts, and ... Oh, wait, that's it.

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More changes (will it ever end?)

I've made a few more changes to the site template, getting me ever closer to that mythical day where I'll finally have a website layout I'm entirely satisfied with. (Keep dreaming, me.) I've made a few small tweaks here and there, such as finally subscribing to Sitemeter.com (what took me so damn long, eh?), removing some of the clutter from the navigation bar, considerably shrinking the length of the left-hand sidebar by transforming the once-lengthy labels list and archives into drop-down menus, and a few other tiny edits not even worth mentioning here.

All my thanks go to Blogger Buster, of course, for those goddamn good articles. Magic, really.

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Quickie update: new avatar =)

I got tired of my old avatar in which I looked so dang grouchy. No, I wasn't on the verge of having a tremendous bowel movement; I'd tried to look "arrogant" and instead just looked stuck-up, which I assure you is as little like me as I can think of.

Anyway, now I've got this new one, which I actually took on request for Melissa as she was curious to see what I looked like without my traditional mustache:

Rather better, no? :P

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New color scheme & slight changes here and there

As you can see (hopefully), I've made a few changes to the template once again (hopefully it's final this time). I didn't like the overuse of blue – I mean, blue is nice, but there are limits – so I've made the template a fair bit more plain. I've also removed the RD Poll as I'd been the only contributor in three days (come on, I KNOW you're out there! ... Anyone?), changed this and that, and by now the site is pleasantly overhauled. =)

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