very simple

making a few changes around the blog. I still liked the old theme, but it had gotten cluttered up with a bunch of stuff in the sidebar that was slowing down the whole thing, so I wanted to start over with something pretty stripped down – and when I saw the min theme, I thought it would be perfect. I’ve spent the morning cleaning things up and making a few tweaks under the hood, but the essential sidebar stuff is now down at the bottom, and I’ve included links to things like goodreads, flickr and the like, but I’m no longer putting the resource hogging plugins down there, since they cause the site to take forever to load.

In addition, I’ve finally figured out how to bring back comment registration (I had apparently unchecked a box somewhere, and it made everything disappear), so now you’ll have to register to comment on the site. You, being, of course, the three people who have commented in the last year, even without registration. But it should help slow down the torrent of spam comments that I seem to get on a daily basis, which is just annoying. Particularly if I don’t check in for a few days.

This may be my favorite sign at my local post office branch. Because you know that it is the result of someone smashing their face into the giant pane of glass.

We got more snow today. Not anything approaching last week’s blizzard, but a few inches. Just enough to (a) be annoying (b) be slippery, and (c) cover all the dirty sooty leftover blizzard snow so that it doesn’t look quite as disgusting here.

With my perfect timing as always, I managed to go out to grab a cup of coffee during the heaviest part of the storm.

Missed a picture yesterday, but thanks to our new, flexible format, I just took two today (well, more than two, but I’m just posting the two).

On my way home from the torture of fancy-dress shopping at Macy’s (I’ve got a wedding to attend in a few weeks), the bus had to skip a stop due to this…

the aftermath of a lovely van fire on Broadway, right at the bus stop (what is it with bus stops and out-of-control vehicles recently?).

At least it gave me fodder for something interesting to take a picture of. I read something recently that noted that vehicle fires are apparently very common in wintertime in the city, when the salt gets into the already dirty engine and related car parts and proceeds to corrode everything.

Apparently, this is what happens when a taxi jumps the curb and hits a bus stop. Now it just seems like a trip-and-fall lawsuit waiting to happen.

It was announced months ago, but today was the day that the Lincoln Square Barnes and Noble officially went out of business. I was hoping to just get a picture of the “closed” sign in the window, but when I wandered down, they were dismantling the giant signage from the front of the store, so it seemed more fitting to get a shot of the disassembled giant letters.

I can’t even count the number of hours I’ve spent in the cafe and wandering the aisles of this store. Even after getting my nook, I still like to browse the physical bookstore to get ideas of what I’d like to read next, and I was in here at least 2-3 times a week.

Not to mention the fact that, after the closing of the Tower Records across the street a few years ago, this is the last place in the neighborhood that had a decent music department. Sad.

Woohoo!

Two days in a row. I’ll see if I can actually keep this up or if I revert to the “52” part of the project over the “365” part of the project.

I’m normally not one for pet-blogging, largely because I don’t have a pet, but since I’ve been dogsitting for a few weeks, I figured I should get one in before he goes home tomorrow. Here’s Ollie, playing with his stuffed rat.

I finished two more books before 2010 came to a close, and they were both part of the same series, so I’ll tackle them together.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The second and third books in the Hunger Games Trilogy, these books certainly lived up to their hype, although Catching Fire was a bit more engaging (only a bit!). Mockingjay seemed to take longer to get where it was going, and Katniss, the protagonist, spent much of that book essentially sitting on the sidelines – I understand why it was necessary for the story, and she had her own demons to wrestle with even away from the front lines, but the big, world-changing stuff essentially happened off-page until near the end.

But the end… really fantastic. I think my favorite part of all three of these books was that, despite being in the “young adult” category, Collins wasn’t afraid to show relationships as messy and complicated. It’s a nice change of pace from the “one true love that stands in the face of all challenges” that’s been presented to teenage girls in books like the twilight series and even Harry Potter.

My only regret is that there isn’t going to be a fourth novel. I suppose I’ll have to content myself with waiting for the inevitable movie (which I believe they’re already casting!).

Happy New Year everyone. My final reading tally for 2010 was 35 books. Not quite hitting the 50 book challenge target, but certainly more than I’ve ever read in a single year in my adulthood.

Some of the 365 folks and I have kept in touch via twitter and flickr, and we decided to try again beginning in 2011. Meaning today! We’re doing things a little differently this time. Rather than having to take a picture every single day, you can take up to 7 pictures a week, but they can all be on the same day, or you can continue to do the one-a-day method. This will hopefully reduce the feelings of failure everyone inevitably got last time around when they missed a single day. It will also reduce the need to “cheat” when seeing something awesome to photograph after you’ve already posted your daily photo (which happened to me once or twice).

So, on that note, Happy New Year everyone!! This was taken in the three seconds between when the fireworks started and my parents’ dog (who I’ve been dogsitting for a few weeks) had a total meltdown at the noise and dragged me bodily (he’s a tiny jack russell terrier, FYI) back to my apartment, even skipping the treat-laden doorman to book it directly into the elevator.

It looks like time for snowpocalypse 2010. Although, given that this seems to be happening with more frequency, I’m not sure “snowpocalypse” is really appropriate anymore. Perhaps just “winter” would suffice.

I was actually looking forward to the snow today, largely because I didn’t need to go anywhere, I don’t celebrate Christmas so I didn’t get caught in today’s travel onslaught/nightmare, and the absolutely best part about snow in New York City is the first few hours, when it’s still white and pretty, before it gets polluted by exhaust fumes and turned into a giant slush pile.

The one downside? I’m watching my parents’ dog, Ollie, so I do have to venture out periodically. Luckily, he’s old and has no interest in playing in the snow, so the biggest struggle is to get him to stay out long enough. Truly a dog after my own heart. I decided to grab my camera to snap a few shots on our afternoon walk today (which consisted of walking to the end of the block and back). Ollie was very determined to get home, but I managed to get a few pics of the beginning of the storm. This is only a few hours in – they’re predicting a total of between 14 and 18 inches by the time it ends tomorrow.

(As always, click on the thumbnails to get the full image)