It is another night of listening to soothing jazz, specifically this live stream on YouTube, entitled, New York Coffee Shop Ambience. I turn to my companion and speak "of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings." In a deep discourse of sips from my elixir, we whittle the night away; the world's problems are discarded shavings...

It is a 2003 night: I'd listen to a jazz station in my 900 square-foot, Midtown apartment. I was surrounded by books, so much that I'd have to pull a TV out on a cart to entertain guests. It was a two-bedroom place for one. I kept a drafting table in one of the rooms so that I could express my thoughts in another medium. And when I wanted to spend the evening in shared company over espresso and perhaps shoot some pool, I'd head over to Republic Coffee on Madison and see my barista raven, Lauren, the music now WEVL.

Those nights numbered too few as 2003 slipped out of my fingers.

On the edge of 2023, I don't know what style I want to run my website. Structurally, yes, I've chosen not to return to Wordpress. I even put down a late push yesterday to the free hosting with Github Pages and the Minimal-Mistakes theme, but that theme is taking a step back for me—I had flashbacks of running down everything to convert it to my retrowave design! Last night, I thought I'd strip out all Javascript and yank CSS chunks to more of a barebones, get-out-of-the-way approach.

Going back to the default blue and purple with underlines feels like home to me...but, who are we kidding. These are the things that were. There's no Netscape Navigator gif here. It's not like my text is in Times New Roman and runs a mile long. I mean, I'm not looking for an elegant look like it's one big bridal invitation—just effective legibility! I'm absolutely certain that if they knew how to apply Comic Sans, the world would be overrun with that abomination.

I've known the Internet to be a place of reading, but most website seems to think it's about ONE HUGE GRAPHIC without a second thought about the text—AND we've TOTALLY ASKED for autoplay commercials since we're not huddled around the TV so much these days. And finally, just kick in some popups and ads in the text for funzies...I'm ranting, aren't I?

Last night, I finally got around to fixing a pet peeve of mine: smart quotes and ellipses—I don't know why Tech thinks we want these things. I added this to my _config.yml:

kramdown:
  smart_quotes: ["apos", "apos", "quot", "quot"]
  typographic_symbols: {hellip: ...}

Ultimately, this styling process is like the Property Brothers, the approach "We can put in the features you want" as I visit other sites. Like most my last theme was based on the color scheme between this FM-84's Atlas, and The Midnight's Nocturnal.

All I really know is that it'll be a remarkable achievement if this site stays online and unchanged in 2023—that's the goal. It's like that yeard goal of mine: all I gotta do is DO NOTHING!

Wasted away again in Margaritaville
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But, I know it's nobody's fault

Jimmy Buffet

There was once a time, maybe some 25 minutes ago, that hearing the constant crashing of water from the tub, a sound that cannot be fettered if I want to protect my pipes, just drove me batty. It's those Dad inclinations: it's like somebody is pouring nickels and dimes down the drain. But, instead of coiling away from my irritation, I embraced it. I plugged in the stopper, grabbed a foldable round chair, threw on Margaritaville, lit a candle and flipped off the lights. I put up my feet and sang along to No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems.

Further setting the mood, since I'm not on board with showering in what MLGW says I gotta boil first, I reverted back to my 2004 ways and did a rubdown with rubbing alcohol—BUT, this time around, I followed it up with coconut oil. I transferred a few tablespoons from the jar to a Ziploc so as to reach a liquid state through the use of a hot faucet. It was a decadent experience! "Quick! Somebody hand over a New York cheesecake!" The coconut oil completes this beach motif....well, as much as can be squeezed outta Memphis under a state of emergency declared by the mayor.

And so, this is the context for my framing tomorrow's blog post, which, by the time you find it, it's today!

"Some beach, somewhere..."

I've been toying with some changes to my website. I figure it's my last shot to get something in before the new year. Oh, I haven't done anything to the production side of things. But, I tried some stuff on my computer—I'm sticking with Jekyll and will be throughout the upcoming year, but I've been playing with converting an HTML template or grabbing a theme specific to Jekyll. Still, I just like this basic thing I got. Outside of plugging in a search feature, there's not much more I want out of it.

Now that Christmas is aside, my attention turns to New Year's Eve. I need to solidify my resolutions for some are still up in the air. It's an issue of time as a resource as to whether things are in play. Sometimes I drop ideas because I don't see how the what updates the who. The task just cannot be an end unto itself.