Pimp My Blog!

I finally finished getting this site in some kind of order (if only the rest of my life was so easy to customise and keep tidy!) Despite my grasp of HTML being roughly comparable to my mastery of Japanese I've managed to replace the admittedly lovely 'lighthouse and rocks' design with some custom content. Hopefully the result is something that feels more like 'Shaun's web-space' and less like 'another one of those generic blogspot sites'.

While I can take full credit for messing around with the colours and photoshopping everything to fit together in a (hopefully) aesthetically pleasing fashion, there is exactly *nothing* (blue heading bar excepted) that I can take credit for actually creating. Accordingly, thanks and references are in order:

- Both maps are courtesy of the Sasebo tourism board, who are kind enough to make a large array of such navigational aids readily available.

- The ship in the lower right corner is the USS Kermit Roosevelt (pictured while moored in Sasebo harbor during the Korean war) courtesy of Robert Simpson and his excellent site dedicated to that vessel.

- The coding for the clock is from clocklink, the weather report (which is actually based in Nagasaki, but still close enough to be accurate) is from the weather network. Fine coding all round!

- Chiyo (the small girl in the upper-right with her stereo) is my small tribute to the work of Kiyohiko Azuma, the creative force behind the Azumanga Daioh manga and anime series, both of which have brightened many a dull or dark moment and deserve excessive praise. Go read/watch and then you'll know what I'm talking about when I start quoting! The image is from Mr. Azuma's own blog (which may be even cooler than mine, it's hard to tell since I can't read much of it)

- The text in the centre is hiragana (not kanji, ironic huh?) and reads 'arigato gozaimasu': 'thank you very much'. That's a sentiment I extend to everyone who visits here, because after all you're taking time out of your own life to sit down and read about mine!

Anyway, I hope you like the new look. It's been fun to put together!