Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

The lights are all blinking red.

You cannot shame the shameless.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Books are my comfort food!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

You are here: Home / WTF? THIS PLACE LOOKS LIKE SHIT? I HATE THIS!

Reader Interactions

230Comments

  2. 2.

    kdaug

    Not too shabby. Not too shabby, at all.

    ETA: Minor point – looks like all posters’ names are now in blue, as if it’s a link to a webpage. Suppose we can hover over each to see if it’s a link, but might be better the other way. All in all, though, no complaints from here.

  5. 5.

    Karmus

    A douche bag, you say, who must comment and be heard?

    On a blog? How very pointless and strange.

  6. 6.

    Violet

    Got so used to the previous theme, the three columns seem really strange. Looks good, though!

  9. 9.

    Peter

    On my phone there’s a huge white space to the right of the content. I could use the mobile site but…then I’d be using the mobile site.

  11. 11.

    Mike E

    Wow. I never would have imagined the mobile version would be much, much better than the full site.
    Mars, Bitchez!

  12. 12.

    Alexandra

    Tags and ‘Add Comments’ links at the bottom of each post are very pale, very hard to see on my calibrated display. Not an aesthetic comment, but more a potential accessibility issue.

  13. 13.

    cyntax

    This is the site upgrade? Seems OK. Given all the sturm und drang, I was expecting something a bit more… more–if you know what I mean.

    Upon reflection, I am disappointed that Cole misled me into thinking this would be some life changing event that I needed to gird my loins for. So yeah, now I am unhappy about it all and I must go in search of some adequate adversity.

    Also, Tunch pics.

  14. 14.

    Fluke bucket

    I have never watched hockey before. Is this considered a good match or game? 4-1 in hockey is the football score equivalent of what?

  15. 15.

    scav

    Recreational debugging is the favorite hobby of viscious jackels. Package deal. The gratuitous bitching is a free add-on.

  19. 19.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @John Cole bite me this looks good, but Obama should be impeached anyway.

    ETA: edit function works. Also I agree with whomever/everyone who says they miss the regular names vs. the names with blog links

  21. 21.

    Yatsuno

    Kwitcherbitchin’. The Pengies won.

    EDIT: SWEET!! Edit doesn’t kill my work browser anymore!

  22. 22.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Looks nice with 2 exceptions: the font on comments is a bit small, I guess I’ll have to get new reading glasses, and MisterMix was correct that there are now formatting buttons on IE10(Modern UI).

    Oh, of course, it’s worse then Watergate.

    Editing works :)

  24. 24.

    ? Martin

    I think you still have some room to put more boxes inside of boxes. Maybe you could box every word? At least put a box around the finger Cole is showing me.

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    Next and previous post links that come with titles instead of just ‘next’ and ‘previous’! Will wonders never cease?

  27. 27.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Oh, now I see formatting buttons, no blockquote though. That’s the most important one.

    Strong
    italic

    Oh there’s the blockquote

    ,

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    This is not a bitch. It’s not. It’s just a comment is all, okay?

    I have no formatting buttons now. Please give them back. (Safari, iPad2.)

  31. 31.

    Unabogie

    I can’t tell if this is the worst looking site in history or just as far back as the Wayback Machine will let us travel. I’m talking neon ticker, flashing title, 1998 Compuserve site bad.

    Feel better?

  33. 33.

    LeftCoastTom

    Why is there an empty box between the Balloon Juice stuff on top and the actual content? Is something meant to go there, or should I refresh again? (its a div with ID horizontal-outer-widgets-1, but apparently no widgets)

    Edit: Plus, just noticed…the garish-blue “Submit Comment” button expands horizontally on hover, I assume the intent was to just bold the text, maybe the CSS needs a width constraint?

  34. 34.

    ? Martin

    I like the big superfluous box at the top of the page with nothing in it. Good use of space. And the 10px margin around it helps make sure the emptyness of the box isn’t crowded by the emptyness of the box around it.

  35. 35.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    My Newsmax headlines are right up top. One of them says “Investors earn 600% buying, selling gold on same day.” Wow, that doesn’t sound like a scam at all!

  36. 36.

    Penon

    So, the new redesign moves the site posts RIGHT, into the CENTER. I suppose the next redesign will drop the pretense and move your views back all the way to the RIGHT, huh?

  38. 38.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Still feeling ill from that Biden piece. I mean, I love a good knob job and all but that was a little bit much even for this joint.

    Oh well, good job, it looks nice and seems to work.

  39. 39.

    pokeyblow

    Better functionality is great. Not sure why websites generally feel the need to redesign themselves so frequently. Please don’t take the previous sentence personally.

  40. 40.

    jl

    Blog looks nice to me. Nice restful blue and white color scheme…

    Whats bugging Cole, he all right?

    I don’t notice all these site changes redesigns revisionings revelantions transformations, spiritual rebirths, metamorphoses, rebuilds, foundation work, paint schemes, pest fumigations and weedings, and what not.

    But I appreciate the work that goes into it.

    Is that comment irritating enough for Cole? Well, I tried.

  41. 41.

    El Cid

    There’s a reason why I keep trying to bear in mind that these are just the fucking comments section of a blog named “Balloon-Juice” — it prevents all sorts of weird assumptions of seriousness I regularly see assumed by others.

  43. 43.

    DirtyAussie

    Looks awesome! Much cleaner and more professional. Does this mean we should start expecting professional and serious commentary? Because I have heard rumours that both sides do it and there is good money to be made pointing this out.

  46. 46.

    Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)

    If I might be so bold as to treat this as an open thread, there’s something I’ve been wondering about a few days. Everybody on the news is frothing and foaming about the I.R.S. looking into teabagger groups. Everybody all over the internets is frothing and foaming about the I.R.S. looking into tabag groups. But from what I understand, and, Lord knows, I could be wrong, aren’t some of these groups set u in a way that they shouldn’t be electioneering? And if so, then why would it be so bad for the I.R.S. to look into this? I mean, yeah, I know everybody’s scrabbling around everywhere, looking high and low for that Big Scandal that’s going to make Watergate look like a kid embezzling from his sister’s lemonade stand, and Benghazigate looks like a real dud, so now thry’re latching onto this, but, really, why is this bad?

  49. 49.

    YellowJournalism

    John just needs to replace the site with the dancing Jesus one Homer made on The Simpsons, and then he can really watch people go nuts.

  50. 50.

    mere mortal

    Unreadable.

    If you decide that all three columns must be in frame, you decide my font.

    Used to have an easy reading experience, now there are four words per line.

    Thanks.

  51. 51.

    ? Martin

    And what’s the giant empty box under the post about? I mean, it does nicely balance the giant empty box at the top of the page, or do you just like to keep a healthy distance between the front pagers and the riff-raff?

    No, I don’t have a web design meeting later this week. Why do you ask?

  52. 52.

    Comrade Jake

    What kind of code can we include? Is there any new functionality with this site?

  53. 53.

    AdamK

    I knew the font would be too small. Because to hell with old people. Well, you’re not getting any younger either, duckies. Bless your hearts.

  54. 54.

    Steeplejack

    @Fluke bucket:

    4-1 in hockey is the football score equivalent of what?

    Maybe 21-7 in football, since scoring in hockey can be much more “sudden,” if that makes sense. You don’t have to wait around to get possession, for one thing.

  57. 57.

    Yatsuno

    @Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.): I think what really got TE/GE in trouble was that the scrutiny had no real rules behind it. This would be both the fault of Congress and the upper leadership in the IRS. Since there were really no set guidelines, the office in Cincinnati (the fact that this was one office is your big clue this wasn’t a systemic issue) just decided to increase standards based upon…whatever. The poor teatards thought they were being singled out and bitched and the Repubs responded in true Pavlovian fashion. What is really interesting is the investigative arm of the IRS thought something smelled fishy.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    Is this a good time to point out that Matt Yglesias belongs in the “Blogs we monitor and mock as needed” category rather than the blogroll?

  61. 61.

    LeftCoastTom

    @? Martin: Mac OS X 10.7, FF…my version of the bottom empty box has an ad in it. Unfortunately, the box is bordered, and does not fit the dimensions of the ad, but it’s not empty.

  63. 63.

    TaMara (BHF)

    OK formatting buttons are back. This is fun.

    For those who think the font is too small, if you’re on Chrome, ctr+ will enlarge your page and keep that setting for this site only, so you don’t need to keep doing it.

  66. 66.

    ? Martin

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I already have one Newsmax feed on the right, right above the box containing the 2nd ‘your ad goes here’ which is above another empty box, above a box with recent posts, above a box with a categories pulldown, above a box with the contact pull down, above another empty box, above the final box with meta in it.

    Like I said, needs moar boxes.

  69. 69.

    BruceFromOhio

    You big-footed DougJ, you upgrading scumbag pussies.

    Looking good in Chrome on XP.

    Still miss the megaphone guy, but I was already burning in the lowest depths of the filthiest hell anyway.

    Benghazeeeeee!

  71. 71.

    PeakVT

    @AdamK: I’m still trying to puzzle out the CSS. I will try to have a Stylish style up in a few days with a larger font size.

    ETA: I’ll try to make the colors for usernames with URLs different, too.

  73. 73.

    ? Martin

    @LeftCoastTom: Ah, now that the page reloaded I have an ad there too. Ah, and more mis-sized ads in the other empty boxes. mistermix must be back there with the digital hot glue gun.

    I hate the design, but I should thank mistermix for doing a good job feeding the squirrel and not hosing the transition effort. He’s not the messenger I’m trying to shoot here.

  74. 74.

    BruceFromOhio

    Click to edit no likee me, says “YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO EDIT THIS COMMENT YOU NAZI COMMIE FASCIST OBOT”

    That must be a new feature.

    ETA: Oh, I get it. More space for Newsmax ads. I see what you did there.

    EETAA: .. and the edit comment function is now functioning. Splendid!

    EEETAAA: I feel like I’m registering for next years health plan. Did you guys lift this design from Kaiser Permanente?

  76. 76.

    magurakurin

    Definitely agree with the feedback saying that the font size is too small. I have a 19 in. monitor but to fit the entire page on the screen requires very small text. Even just keeping the center column in the screen ends up with a smallish text. And using a decent sized font requires shifting the screen to the left to center the column I want to read. I realize everyone’s preferred font will differ, but this does seem a bit small. And if a lot of people are squeezing out the side columns, then we won’t see the ads. No clicks, no money, no meaning to the ads.

    And just a general point to the people who complain about ads that bother them. Click the shit out of them. If you see some hosed-out, teabagger bullshit ad, click it as much as you can. They pay by the click. Little pin pricks for the pricks.

  77. 77.

    Violet

    @kdaug: When I went to see what version I had, I noticed it was downloading. Guess it’ll be active when I restart my computer.

  78. 78.

    mere mortal

    I can see a little less than the left half of that embedded video.

    And trying to watch it alerts me to an attempted clickjacking.

    Well played.

  79. 79.

    MikeJ

    Pretty.

    Mix, please feel free to yell at me if you need help with getting the CSS to work on the reply with quote plugin. I’m only moderately swamped at the moment.

  80. 80.

    danielx

    …. I AM A DOUCHEBAG WHO MUST COMMENT AND BE HEARD.

    Of course you are. But we love you anyway.

  84. 84.

    MikeJ

    I’ll do my own whining that I don’t expect to be heeded, because fuck you, I wouldn’t listen to your whining either, but why on earth did you widen the middle column instead of making it fluid and expanding to fill everything that wasn’t the outer columns?

  85. 85.

    Southern Beale

    Woopsies! Death of a meme:

    IRS Sent Same Letter to Democrats That Fed Tea Party Row

    The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure after admitting it targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups for scrutiny in recent years, also had its eye on at least three Democratic-leaning organizations seeking nonprofit status.

    One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

    Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

    Still, the media will continue to report this as a “Tea Party targeted unfairly” scandal because if it bleeds, it leads, and if it bleeds Republican, OMG OMG OMG

  86. 86.

    Scott Alloway

    @LeftCoastTom: Same here on Mac 10.5. Bordered but not filled. Otherwise, a very clean, readable site. I like the design. And I’m 63+ in age.

  87. 87.

    Calouste

    There is a link at the left bottom behind the (c) Balloon Juice that takes you all the way back to 2002. And to a different server.

  88. 88.

    mai naem

    I just want to tell you John that this is indeed the bestest blog evah and,well, you’re like the bestest blog host evah. Your kitty kat is the koolest kat evah. Your doggies are like OMG the greatest dogs evah. Also too, your co-host underlings are the bestest underlings evah. I would offer to suck your toes but seriously you said your toes were icky so, like, I would be willing to do a pedicure on them. Ok, I think I’m done sucking up. I wish I was this good at sucking up to the boss at work.

  90. 90.

    BruceFromOhio

    Dudes, this is functioning recklessly awesome. Hats off to all, especially on a fucking Tuesday night.

    Deal me in.

    @Calouste: That’s the TARDIS feature. Be careful using it, especially after +3.

  92. 92.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @magurakurin: This cannot be said enough:

    And just a general point to the people who complain about ads that bother them. Click the shit out of them. If you see some hosed-out, teabagger bullshit ad, click it as much as you can. They pay by the click. Little pin pricks for the pricks.

  93. 93.

    mai naem

    @Southern Beale: I am sure Morning Ho and his bitch oops I meant bimbo(I should not say that) along with Ron Fournier will be right on on that angle of the story.

  94. 94.

    Cacti

    @Southern Beale:

    Still, the media will continue to report this as a “Tea Party targeted unfairly” scandal because if it bleeds, it leads, and if it bleeds Republican, OMG OMG OMG

    Only about 1/3 of the total applicants flagged were Tea Party oriented.

    Who were the other 200 hundred or so that absolutely positively weren’t targeted?

  95. 95.

    Calming Influence

    Netscape browser; running Windows 3.1 on a chip from a Mr. Coffee; modem connected @2400 baud; Etch-A-Sketch monitor.

    Looks good.

  96. 96.

    kerFuFFler

    “You may use these HTML tags and attributes: .. . . . . .. . . . “.
    Is it expensive to offer these options the way the site used to? This seems like a pain in the a$$.

  100. 100.

    BruceFromOhio

    @kerFuFFler: Nice. You broke gravity. How the hell are they supposed to fix shit when you broke it like that? Now I’m setting your house on fire I’m testing different tags because I can, bitchez.

    Link this!

    OH NOES ITS AN OPEN TAG

    ETA: Chrome on XP still rocking the matrix.

  101. 101.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    OK, I just went to the dreaded RedState.com to compare that site to this, and boy howdy I’ll tell ya what — EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU WATB’S got NOTHIN’ to bitch about compared to that site. You know what’s plastered all over RedState — THE RAG’S BLOG’S PROPRIETOR’S FREAKIN’ PICTURE, INCLUDING A GAWDAWFUL “TOASTER-POP-UP” FEATURING HIS IMAGE. Yes, Erik, Son of Erik, in his jauntiest sports-coat pose, staring at ya from all friggin’ corners of the page.

    Can you imagine having an image of Cole plastered all over the place AND creeping up on the screen each time you came here? And you KNOW it’d be him in his bathrobe, because if he owns anything besides a robe and t-shirt and baggy shorts, it sure as hell ain’t a blazer.

    Also, too, my formatting buttons have also disappeared (had ’em in the last thread), but that’s ok because IT STILL BEATS THE BLOODY HELL OUT OF THE ALTERNATIVE.

    (Hoping my ALL CAPS have helped hit this issue home for all my fellow BJers.)

  102. 102.

    MikeJ

    mike@malawi ~ $ links -version
    Links 2.7
    mike@malawi ~ $ uname -a
    Linux malawi 3.5.0-17-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 9 19:32:08 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux

    Looks fine here.

  103. 103.

    poptartacus

    Its fine, it dosn”t have any annoying bs. TPM had a ad at the bottom of the screen that had to be clicked out. I despise that. Freemeium is the only way to go now. Give us the basics for free and we will pay for more. In example. Its free for you to call me one kind of motherfucker, but I have to pay if I want to hear you call me 9 kinds of motherfucker. So you like to call us stupid motherfuckers. that’s free. But then theres Dumb motherfucker, Lame Motherfucker, Sorry Motherfucker, Idiotic Motherfucker, and on and on. Its a win/win for you.

  104. 104.

    poptartacus

    Its fine, it dosn”t have any annoying bs. TPM had a ad at the bottom of the screen that had to be clicked out. I despise that. Freemeium is the only way to go now. Give us the basics for free and we will pay for more. In example. Its free for you to call me one kind of motherfucker, but I have to pay if I want to hear you call me 9 kinds of motherfucker. So you like to call us stupid motherfuckers. that’s free. But then theres Dumb motherfucker, Lame Motherfucker, Sorry Motherfucker, Idiotic Motherfucker, and on and on. Its a win/win for you.

  106. 106.

    LeftCoastTom

    @? Martin: OK, something’s broken with the Reply link (even after refreshing yet again)…I hit reply on your response, and got two “a” tags with hrefs to your comments followed by my text that you quoted – and none of yours, and no blockquotes surrounding.

    I agree, mistermix must be working like crazy now fixing stuff.

  107. 107.

    PeakVT

    @Martin: Almost everything is in its own div, except the post body text, which I would like to increase independent of everything else.

  108. 108.

    GxB

    @BruceFromOhio:

    Did you guys lift this design from Kaiser Permanente?

    Try posting on another site and see if you get a massive surcharge for posting “out of system.”

    ETA: Interesting – checking out the edit and got to ask does the redesign make my font look big? cuz it looks like I’ve got a font at least two points bigger than all the other posts.

  110. 110.

    ? Martin

    @poptartacus: Do you need to pay for Cole to choke you with a motherfucking strap-on? I’m wondering if the $19.95 subscription I paid extends beyond nouns.

  111. 111.

    MikeJ

    @MikeJ: (BTW, that’s actually Linux Mint, not really ubuntu (except the kernel). I don’t want you to start calling me a fucking sell out.(and I got all my parens nested properly(as a lisp lover would.)))

  113. 113.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    @? Martin: Gaahhhh — and here my editing window just closed! But thanks for the terrific idea, anyhoo. I’ll keep it in my back pocket for next time.

  114. 114.

    A Humble Lurker

    I dig it! Great job everybody. New and improved, but still with that same Balloony Juice flavor.

  115. 115.

    Hungry Joe

    @kdaug: Minor point – looks like all posters’ names are now in blue, as if it’s a link to a webpage. Suppose we can hover over each to see if it’s a link, but might be better the other way. All in all, though, no complaints from here.

    Agree — you can’t tell by looking if someone has a link to his/her website, says the guy with a link to his website.

    And the goddam block quote didn’t work. Probably me, but still …

  116. 116.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @? Martin:

    FWIW, I like the font size. Retina display FTW.

    Wait 10 years, you won’t. Retina display or no retina display.

    Hey, where’d the formatting buttons go?

  117. 117.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    WILL YOU KIDS KEEP THE DAMN NOISE DOWN!!!!!! I’M WATCHING THE SHARKS-KINGS GAME!!!!! Damn the Spurs are sure spanking Warrior ass.

  118. 118.

    LeftCoastTom

    @LeftCoastTom: I clicked “Edit” here, edited, and submitted…and my name changed to “unidentified”. Refresh, my name is correct, but my edits are gone.

    Anyway…Martin hadn’t actually quoted my text that was appearing, I wonder if it was just left-over text in the edit window that hadn’t been cleared properly from a prior post.

  120. 120.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Calouste:

    There is a link at the left bottom behind the (c) Balloon Juice that takes you all the way back to 2002. And to a different server.

    Does that mean I’m 42 again?

  121. 121.

    The Dangerman

    Toni Tennile, background singer on The Wall. Before her Captain and Tennile days, I assume.

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    At least the gilding-the-lily word ‘says’ after commenter names in no longer capitalized.

    Baby steps.

  124. 124.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    Damn the Spurs are sure spanking Warrior ass.

    Joey, do you like movies about hockey games?

  126. 126.

    scav

    And, I feel someone should shout out to the army for stepping up, thinking outside the box and coming up with a way to take a little heat off the Air Force. The Army’s guy in coordinating sexual assault went beyond the army of one on one and selfish abuse and seems to be accused of pandering as well. Luffly luffly Gentlemen we’ve got Officering there.

    anything else I feel like testing??? no clue

  127. 127.

    dance around in your bones

    Are you going to bring back those lovely curvy comment numbers? These ones now are so plain vanilla.

    Also not crazy about all the vertical lines. Don’t box me in!

    Not bitching, just remarking…..

  129. 129.

    BruceFromOhio

    Jeebus, I need a cigarette after all this excitement. I’m going outside.

    That’s it. Break a bottle on the prow and push this bitch into the channel already. It’s high tide.

    ETA: @Anne Laurie: This blog now goes to 11.

  130. 130.

    ? Martin

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Retina has definitely helped my eyesight. It’s dramatic how much easier it is for me to read with this laptop. I no longer have to strain to get the letterforms – I read much more naturally.

  131. 131.

    gnomedad

    Very nice. Here’s another vote to bring back Megaphone Guy. If Doctor Who can go retro in its titles, why can’t BJ?

  132. 132.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @scav: Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail, and the Pimp-ride went rolling along!

  133. 133.

    ? Martin

    @scav: Yeah, that was a nice touch. Can’t wait until the Marines come in and decide to show up the other branches. Dildos and 3 wetsuits for sure.

  134. 134.

    Frank

    Maybe someone else has said this, but I will say it anyway.

    John, it’s your blog.

    Make it look whatever the hell you want it to look like.

    Anyone else can pound sand.

  135. 135.

    Redshift

    Looks pretty good to me. I forgot what I was planning to complain about.

    Next/previous post links at the bottom of the page, yay!

  137. 137.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @? Martin: That may well be true, however I’m a few years older than you. I even need reading glasses for physical text, when I’m wearing my contacts(near sighted).

  139. 139.

    Amir Khalid

    Testing:

    First line of test quote
    Second line of test quote

    Test strike-through
    Acronym title

  140. 140.

    scav

    We are getting academic if I’ve now got to disentangle these:

    Given HTML’s roots in the academic wrld, it should be no surprise that quoting is well-accommodated in the elements (blockquote) and (q), with their optional cite attribute. In addition, there’s the (cite) element, which over the last nine years went from ‘semantic orphan element made good’ to one of the more contentious elements in HTML5. Let’s power up the endoscope and examine the scarring, starting with (blockquote).

    Eta. Some of these looking more xmlish than typesetting tags. . .

  142. 142.

    PeakVT

    Okay, here’s a new style you can try if you have Stylish installed. It increases the comment font size, makes usernames without URLs dark gray, and fiddles with the vertical spacing on the comments. It does cause the “reply” button to obscure some text if the last line is long, which is a compromise with more compact spacing.

  143. 143.

    Suzanne

    On my iPad, the center column is the narrowest of the three, and is only about three words wide. It cuts off the video. Looks ass-tacular.

  147. 147.

    tofubo

    hot frikken air in a new envelope is still just gonna raise you up, jus like afore

    this has only been a test of the emergency bullshit reply system

  148. 148.

    dance around in your bones

    @PeakVT: Hey, thanks!

    That was really quick and the font size is much better – now I don’t have to turn NoSquint up to eleventy.

    Jeez, there are some talented people around here!

  150. 150.

    scav

    so blah blah pretend quote
    this is a q quote
    cite just fakes out pretending to be a link in this world
    is footer supported at all?

  151. 151.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Hey the formatting buttons are back!!!! :)

    On my tablet, all the ads, blogroll, etc are at the bottom of the page.

  155. 155.

    NotMax

    @scav

    Here’s the list as it is currently showing for me (brackets deleted here for obvious reasons):

    a href=”” title=””
    abbr title=””
    acronym title=””
    b
    blockquote cite=””
    cite
    code
    del datetime=””
    em
    i
    q cite=””
    strike
    strong

  158. 158.

    mistermix

    iPad users – I activated an option in the mobile theme to use it for iPads.

    See if that’s any better.

  159. 159.

    lojasmo

    Oh. Buttonz show up in the comment field at the bottom, but not in a “reply to” box.

    Bother.

  160. 160.

    Suzanne

    @mistermix: I hate mobile sites. The iPad site looks good only with the iPad turned to landscape. In portrait orientation, the regular site looks crappy. The iPad site cuts off too much on the left.

  162. 162.

    Steeplejack

    @magurakurin:

    What browser are you using? In Firefox, at least, you can go to View | Zoom and click “Zoom Text Only,” which allows you to bump up your font size without also embiggening the whole page. That might help.

  163. 163.

    Suzanne

    Also, if I try to scroll before the page is done loading, it jerks back to the top or my last comment.

  165. 165.

    scav

    @NotMax: thanks, was hoping I could order off-menu, but apparently not! It’s not as though I’ll really need all this for blog posts, honestly, but fun to work out in the brain.

  167. 167.

    dance around in your bones

    This is kind of weird – the comment buttons only show up for me if I hit the Shift+reload. If I only hit the reload arrow on FF “awesome bar” the buttons disappear.

    That never happened to me before. Dagnabbit, another key to hold down! It’s so onerous! ::::smile::::

  170. 170.

    Suzanne

    Also, this design looks SOOOOOO corporate and dull. It is actually very similar to United Healthcare’s. I’m sure functionally it’s fine, but every redesign has lost a bit more style. And we still don’t have megaphone man or the pretty post numbers.

    I guess it’s true….you really do get boring as you get old.

  171. 171.

    MikeJ

    @Steeplejack:

    Oops, dunno if it’s available for Chrome

    You can make it run greasemonkey scripts, and you can always force a userstyle into a script. So you can make it happen eventually.

  174. 174.

    mistermix

    @Suzanne: The design issue here is that most computer screens are much wider than they are tall. So we’re designing the main site for the average computer screen circa 5 years ago or newer. 1200 px wide. Apparently that doesn’t look good on iPad – I don’t have one so I can’t tell.

    So I guess I’ll leave it at this for now: iPad users have two options; landscape mode or the mobile site.

    The third option is a better mobile site that is optimized for iPad. I’m hoping that our mobile site plugin, wpTouch, will have something for that in the future.

  176. 176.

    Suzanne

    @mistermix: That’s weird, because most sites don’t wrap text or images differently when turned from landscape to portrait mode. All that happens is the site adjusts to the narrower width and as a result shows more of the page below. This one doesn’t want to do that….the first and third columns want to stay the same width, but the center column gets very narrow.

  177. 177.

    scav

    mmmph, first comment I tried in ipad specific world. Does at least work in vertical format, although I think I prefer the general format style — so, back to horizontal. Lots to play with this trip. hee hee hee I smell the blood of a frustrated typesetter geek!

    nb can’t edit in ipad world, but not that bad.

  180. 180.

    jnfr

    The comment font size is still small in relation to the post size. I admit this is a problem for me because I am old and can’t read small fonts any more, but when I bump the comments up, the post font is huge, so I feel even older.

    Feel free to ignore me. I know you do.

    Very much like the alternating colors on comments though. Helps me feel like I’m oriented, even if I’m not.

    ETA: Oops, someone is playing with the font sizes even as I post. Continue ignoring me. That is all.

  181. 181.

    dance around in your bones

    @Suzanne:

    I’m sure functionally it’s fine, but every redesign has lost a bit more style. And we still don’t have megaphone man or the pretty post numbers.

    Someone (scav?) the other day said the old style (megaphone guy, fat curvy numbers, floating horizontal comment platform) had a steampunk feel to it, and I thought that was a good description.

    It had a funky retro cool style that I miss nowadays.

  182. 182.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jebediah:

    Can we assume that Juno is still the boss of the household?

    Also, too, sitewise everything looks fine to me on my MacBook. Though I did just spot a typo: in the “Leave a Reply” section, the L in “URL” is lowercase, which looks bizarre: URl. Either that, or it’s a tribute to Uri Geller, I’m not sure which.

  184. 184.

    FlipYrWhig

    I’ve never gotten the mobile site before… Using iPad. Oh, BTW, everything sucks and fuck you all. That’s the customary greeting you fuckers favor, right?

  187. 187.

    MikeJ

    @catclub: Check my #102. I actually did test it in links (didn’t have lynx installed). Hang on:

    mike@malawi ~ $ sudo apt-get install lynx
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    libjs-cropper libjs-prototype libjs-scriptaculous libphp-phpmailer libphp-snoopy tinymce
    Use ‘apt-get autoremove’ to remove them.
    The following extra packages will be installed:
    lynx-cur
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    lynx lynx-cur
    0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
    Need to get 1,037 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 2,446 kB of additional disk space will be used.
    Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
    Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates/main lynx-cur i386 2.8.8dev.12-2ubuntu0.1 [1,033 kB]
    Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates/main lynx all 2.8.8dev.12-2ubuntu0.1 [3,780 B]
    Fetched 1,037 kB in 4s (243 kB/s)
    Selecting previously unselected package lynx-cur.
    (Reading database … 240712 files and directories currently installed.)
    Unpacking lynx-cur (from …/lynx-cur_2.8.8dev.12-2ubuntu0.1_i386.deb) …
    Selecting previously unselected package lynx.
    Unpacking lynx (from …/lynx_2.8.8dev.12-2ubuntu0.1_all.deb) …
    Processing triggers for mime-support …
    Processing triggers for doc-base …
    Processing 1 added doc-base file…
    Registering documents with scrollkeeper…
    Processing triggers for menu …
    Processing triggers for man-db …
    Setting up lynx-cur (2.8.8dev.12-2ubuntu0.1) …
    Setting up lynx (2.8.8dev.12-2ubuntu0.1) …
    Processing triggers for menu …
    mike@malawi ~ $ lynx balloon-juice.com

    bad html! use -trace to trace.

    Obviously nobody tested on a real browser.

  188. 188.

    Jebediah

    @Mnemosyne:
    Can we assume that Juno is still the boss of the household?

    It’s still a developing dynamic – right now Juno is asserting authority over Chuckie but I think they both still recognize Otto as boss.
    Wait a minute – I am boss of all of them except Juno pretty much has me wrapped around her tiny paw, so yes, Juno is still the boss!

  190. 190.

    Steeplejack

    @? Martin:

    I’ll post my Stylish mod when the new format stabilizes. Larger comment font, different comment font (with serifs!), tasteful wheat color behind blockquotes, possibly racy color and different font on the comment numbers.

  191. 191.

    Comrade Mary

    Elegant! (Also: the mobile site crashed Safari on my iPad, which is why I’m crawling to the desktop well after bedtime, but hey, everything crashes Safari.)

    If I ruled the world, I’d ask for a few tweaks, but really, it looks pretty nice so far.

    I promise to bitch tomorrow, if you like.

  192. 192.

    Comrade Mary

    Hey, my comment font is larger than everyone else’s comment font. Is that because I’m so wonderful?

    (Rhetorical question. Please don’t answer.)

  193. 193.

    Steeplejack

    Just want to repeat that I am pleasantly surprised, in that the new format doesn’t look as awful as I feared it would—it looks pretty good, in fact—and I should be able to fix my niggling complaints with a new Stylish style. Thanks to Mistermix, MikeJ and whomever for their work on this.

    Still think “[Commenter] says” is stoopid, but whatever.

  196. 196.

    Suzanne

    @dance around in your bones: Someone (scav?) the other day said the old style (megaphone guy, fat curvy numbers, floating horizontal comment platform) had a steampunk feel to it, and I thought that was a good description.

    Concur. Of course, I am fine with ANY style, as long as there is one. You want Eurotrash sans-serif lowercase extreme typesetting? FINE. Grunge copy-machine Beach Culture aesthetic? FINE. Letterpress look? FINE.

    This style says “I couldn’t POSSIBLY shop at Walmart. That’s too FASHIONABLE for me.” Reminds me of my grandfather-in-law, who only likes to eat at Golden Corral because everywhere else “uses too much spice and the food has too much flavor.”

  197. 197.

    Steeplejack

    @Comrade Mary:

    Actually, the font on your comment will be larger until the five-minute edit timer expires and you refresh the page. (It may be and/or, but that’s the gist.)

  202. 202.

    ? Martin

    Woot! 90% of the boxes are gone. Much more legible now.

    I’ll probably dick around with the font as well and see if I can tidy up a few little things here and there.

  204. 204.

    dance around in your bones

    @Suzanne:

    Ha! The Furr’s Cafeteria of my childhood. Grandparent’s always took us there when they came to ABQ.

    I liked the old style – it had class, it was a contender!

    (no diss on mistermix and his work) p.s. don’t yell at me, Cole…

  205. 205.

    Narcissus

    The site now does look like it wants me to upload a resume and set up a few job agents.

  206. 206.

    Steeplejack

    @? Martin:

    But now one of the vertical box lines is chopping off the left side of the comment numbers (Firefox on Windows XP, slightly embiggened with “zoom text only” checked).

  207. 207.

    MikeInSewickley

    I teach full time info sci at a Pittsburgh university as well as usability and design concepts and all that UX stuff. That doesn’t make me an oracle on all things web but I’ve been involved with a lot of organization and student site designs.

    I think the redesign is excellent and serves the purposes of the site well. It looks cleaner and less busy using the three column format with the primary content in the center. It draws the viewer into the important parts (the news and “bitching”).

    The use of a slightly off-white background surrounding the center column is far more important than many folks realize. It acts like the light bars you see in the Word menu bar separating functions. Not overwhelming or tiring for long stretches of reading.

    The spacing or kerning is very good. White space gives the reader more of a chance to scan rather than read because, believe it or not, most people don’t read line by line but scan. The limited but judicious use of Serif font is also a nice change and does a better job of directing to the article content.

    I’m glad the money makers are now on both sides of the site layout. It allows Tunch and Amazon to move up to the top (I always enter Amazon via BJ). It also means RSS and link boxes can appear further up the site.

    And this is my first post using the new layout and the posting areas makes it feel less like phone texting and more like writing with the use of more white space.

    Overall, it is a “less equals more”. And now let the bitching begin :-)

  209. 209.

    DPS

    Has anybody noticed that “Newsmax Headlines” box? I haven’t heard any discussion of that.

  213. 213.

    Steeplejack

    @Yatsuno:

    I was just checking the threads one more time and thinking that I might pack it in for the night; I feel like my eyes are extra tired from coping with the layout change and fiddling with all the dials and levers. Definitely will work on a new Stylish style tomorrow, because this Arial or whatever sanserif font just does not cut it for reading. But this site upgrade is nowhere near the clusterfuck that the last one was.

    ETA: I’m just now noticing that the “compose comment” window is only about four or five lines tall (in my current view), which blows.

  215. 215.

    ? Martin

    @Steeplejack: I did display: none on a mess of the boxes, and set border and background color to white for a mess more. Those two things alone cleaned shit up a lot. I got the recent posts up to where it used to be so I could stop clicking on newsmax headlines thinking it was the recent post box.

    Hasn’t done anything for the flow, but then it didn’t break anything either. It looks like with enough overriding of floats and negative margins I should be able to knock this back into a 2 column layout – a big comments column on the left and a few items on the right, and have main column flow properly as you resize the window. Unfortunately, without stylish plugin on the iPad I can’t fix that for other people.

  216. 216.

    Steeplejack

    @? Martin:

    That sounds like a good approach. I’m going to get under the hood tomorrow. As I told Y*ts*no, my eyes are fuzzed out from overload tonight. Oh, yeah, and it’s after 2:00 a.m. here on the East Coast.

  217. 217.

    NotMax

    @Yatsuno

    Maybe we should start calling you Muad’Dib, as FYWP apparently thinks your original name is a killing word.

  218. 218.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    “Even his name is a weirding word.”

    But now I can’t see Kyle MacLachlan in anything without flashing to Showgirls. Ngrr!

  220. 220.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    The lighting is too bright, the service is slow and the food tastes like cardboard.

    That’s all I gots.

  221. 221.

    qwerty42

    hmmmmm, let’s see …
    Bold?
    italic

    well, that’s here too

    no ability to embed pics?

  223. 223.

    cmorenc

    AAGH! Please, please PLEASE restore the comments to the same font size as the lead essay opening each thread! The change to a smaller font reduces the readability of the comments! Or was that the idea? It’s terrible ergonomics, regardless of what some web designer says.

  224. 224.

    Rob

    So far I like it. It has a time stamp on the front page posts so that’s good. The only thing that would be better is if the commenting box was at the top of the comments instead of the bottom.

  226. 226.

    Jay C

    OK: First comment at the new site…..

    Seems OK but the lack of formatting buttons for all the cool italic bold strike, etc. stuff is a PITA. For us lazy sorts who can;t be bothered to type all those s, that is.

    EDIT: “those s” was meant to be the little carets, but obviously they STILL don;t show up.

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