Rolling it to you in 2009...

This Blog: A Year in Review.

Here are a few updates on some of the topics I've blogged about

in my 100 posts this year!

• Coachella was awesome.
• I still love my iPhone.
• Records are still cool. I bought some in April that I still haven't listened to yet (I'm saving them).
• I still like this pink blog template.
• Navy blue nail polish – still cute.
• Springfield Punx website? Well, I haven’t been back since I posted about it. Let me go now. Ah, now they are featuring Inspector Gadget, Link from The Legend of Zelda, and Edward Scissorhands.
• Things I want to buy from Urban Outfitters? I actually ended up getting one of these – twice!
• The Sims 3? I got kinda burned out on it.
• Kitchen Appliances? Did I actually blog about kitchen appliances?
• Disneyland. Yeah, I went there.
• Twilight? Yeah, I read those.
• Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre? I read those, too. Jane Eyre rocks.
• RIP Geocities: I never did anything to save my website. RIP “Lori Was Here”
• "Lucy in the Sky": RIP Lucy Vodden
• French Veggies. Did I blog about French veggies?
• Guy in the shirt who is not impressed by the Paul McCartney concert: still sucks.
• Slurpees? I never had one all year.
• Torchwood: Still sucks!! Totally sucks! Ianto!!!!
• Eric Bana: Still sucks, too.
• Hipsters: I’m still not really one.
• Dibs: I only ate them once. They are not that good, but they are honest.
• Mr. Donut: still the world’s greatest pink donut.
• Organic apples: I never actually bought any – they are clean, but expensive.
• Bento: I never really made one.
• Phoenix: I still don’t really like them as much as I would like to, in large part due to the fact that my record was defective.
• Wear Sunscreen: Still good advice.
• Book clubs: I only went to two. They were good.
• MGMT: AWESOME.
• The Emmys: my first live blog!
• Film Club: I went to two.
• Best Andy Samburg quote of the year: “Happy Birthday to the Ground!”
• Bridesmaid’s Speech: I thought this made make me an Internet sensation. Still waiting for that to happen.
• A painting of your personality: Sometimes finding something to blog about was a little difficult.
• Meetup.com: is pretty cool.
• "Flume": Still a great song.
• Random pictures: Still random
• Paranormal Activity: Still not scary.
• MASH: Still a game I used to play on the bus in 6^th grade.
• Jim Carrey: Still ruining Christmas.
• Netflix: I now have 181 movies in my queue.
• Halloween Costume 2009: Thanks for the help with costume ideas, but I went as Joan from Mad Men (my hero).
• Haircut: I got bangs!
• Glee: Next to Mad Men, the best show of the year!
• Calorie Counter: I didn’t stick with it, though.
• Garfield Websites: Better than Garfield. That’s not saying much.
• Blue Bag: Still using it.
• Iexpensit: I’m not using this anymore either.
• Neopolitan Dynamite: I only ate this once, but it is still the best ice cream flavor.
• Eat No Animal: Still a good idea, and too big of a T-shirt.
• This Week in Pop: I only did this once – I don’t know how Whit does it!
• Literary Tattoo: I decided not to get one.
• Pumpkin Soup: I made it twice! So easy!
• Christmas presents: I gave some, I got some.
• Pandora: good radio.
• Etsy: still sells ugly craft stuff.
• Random band names and album/book covers: a fun waste of time.
• Pancakes: are good.
• iPod speakers: are cheap.
• Show Choir: Glee is about one - I was in one – SNL did a funny skit about one.
• Jersey Shore: The Situation kind of looks like Dave Gahan.
• Album Covers with Trees: More of this in 2010!
• Scarves: Still warm.
• Festivus: It really was bad news about James and Bethany. Now I feel bad about it. Stupid Festivus.
• Movies I want to see this holiday season: Still haven't seen any of them.
• Meat Free Monday: Make your new year's resolution one that will save animals AND the Earth!

Best picture from my blog this year:

It's a tie between me deciding not to get a tattoo and Plastic Jesus.

Words from this post the spellchecker said were spelled wrong: Coachella, Punx, Scissorhands, Wuthering, Geocities, Vodden, Slurpees, Torchwood, Ianto, Bana, Bento, MGMT, Emmys, Samburg, Meetup, 6th, Carrey, Netflix, didn't, Iexpensit, Neoploitan, Etsy, ipod, SNL, Gahan, Festivus.

Blog Templates

After three weeks and three posts, I've finally changed my Blogger template from the one that came with the blog. What do you think?

I like to have a cute blog template (I also prefer white words on a black background), but there are downsides. If you still have your original template and are looking for a change (or if you want to start a blog) here are some things to consider.

The blog templates that come with blogger are pretty boring, and they can make you look like a beginner. Experienced blog readers will get a bad first impression. Other free blog templates often have advertising on them, however, which can get annoying. Pyzam offers some really cool and easy to use templates (especially if you are a teenage girl who thinks she is into "punk") but they come with an ugly orange bar at the top of the page.

Pyzam

Another good place to look is here:

Blogger Buster

I was using the one called "Notepad Chaos" for a while (I know that blog layouts that look like pieces of paper are cliche, but it was pretty!) but I couldn't get the things on the side to display the date correctly. If you know a lot about HTML, etc. you might be able to fix the minor bugs yourself, otherwise you'll be stuck with an attractive but imperfect blog. You can see a picture of it at the top of this post.

One other helpful tip is to go here:

Remove the Blogger Banner

This site shows you how to get rid of the blue Blogger navbar at the top of all Blogger pages, if you want to.

Have fun!

Update (7/18/09): I changed my template again to this one with the pink stripes. It WAS black with pink flowers on the side before.