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I’ve gone ahead and changed the name of my blog. I've griped before about how I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into my blog's original title, and I’ve grown increasingly unfond of Is There Anything of Interest? since then. I've settled on something a little edgier. The new name and the quote come from “9th and Hennepin,” one of my all-time favorite Tom Waits songs—about a bar where all the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes and the whole goddamn town’s ready to blow (full lyrics here, if anyone’s interested). The new name does sort of imply that I lead a much more gin-soaked boozardly existence than I actually do, but I like the bit about “spilling out over the side to anyone who will listen.” That seems an apt description of blogging—at any rate it’s an apt description of the way I practice the art and science of blogging.

Of course, I spent ages bozoing around, making the title into a piece of “art,” and then gingerly tiptoeing around in my Blogger template tweaking code, fingers and toes crossed, hoping I wasn’t going to louse up the template beyond redemption. Now that I see the final results, I’m fairly certain I created the title “art” in the most lame-assed way possible (taking a screenshot from a Word document).* I don’t have Photoshop on this computer, and B is busy doing my taxes on the computer that has Photoshop. It would have been extremely imprudent (not to mention self-absorbed) of me to disturb him. It’s rubbish, though. The type is not sharp. I’m assuming that I can fix it by re-creating it in Photoshop or maybe Quark. Does anyone know?

Update, Sunday Night: Oy! The previous incarnation really looked bad on the computer with the large monitor. I had no idea how awful the type looked until I looked at it on this computer! P.U. After another hour and a half of dicking around, I've come up with something I'm happier with. I had to dragoon B into helping me, though, as I've never properly learned to use Photoshop. I'm still a bit bothered by the fact that the photo is not flush left with the text block. I will continue to tweak until my Virgo self is 100% satisfied.

So. A new name for my blog.** I hope everyone likes it. I hope it magically inspires me write as evocatively as Tom Waits.

*I know I could have simply changed the title on my Blogger settings page, but it wasn’t working out as I had envisioned, so I decided to just make it into a graphic image so I’d have more control. Ha! Obviously, it’s still not quite what I had envisioned, but I’ll find a way to fix it. Just not this very minute.

**Note that only the name has changed; the domain name remains the same. I figured changing the domain would hurl me into oblivion. This way everyone's bookmarks and links will still work, even if they aren't updated.