Procrastination and Progress

I've been a little bit distracted lately.  I would love to say it was because I was preoccupied with pondering solutions for the great mysteries of life or trying to better myself by enrolling in numerous courses that will finally provide me with a skill set that will set me up for life or even just busy constantly baking warm, mouth watering goodies in the kitchen, but I can't.  I've been busy shooting anonymous randomly generated humanoid creatures in the face.

I'm feeling a little bit guilty about abandoning my consumption of books for the pursuit of character levels/"Bad Ass" points and trophies that aren't real, but are.  It's like every time I pick up that controller I'm cheating on my growing pile of books stacked high by the couch and the sad paperback with the bright urgent red bookmark poking out on the top hasn't budged from its spot for the past week.    

But all hope is not lost, I did make some progress on something I really wanted to complete before writing my next review.  After 2 frustrating hours of trying to find or figure out how to write code that would enable me to add a rating system for my future reviews, I decided to make my own.  No messy code. Just good old fashioned Photoshop images and I don't care how archaic that makes me.  Before some savvy long time user points out the fact that Blogger has a built in rating option for posts, I made the silly mistake of using a custom built template and tweaking the coding myself.  I don't know what the original coder did or what the hell I did, but the rating system doesn't work no matter what I try.  But enough about my apparent lack of programming skills, my triumphant unveiling awaits!

Ta-DA!

I've created this by reworking a design from a lovely girl on deviantart called ~EchoingDroplet who creates custom screen icons/themes for desktops.  I've been sketching out random ideas for a more creative looking rating system, but I love the idea of rating books with books instead of stars.  A little extra advice on what typeface to go with from the wonderfully talented Greg Pye and voilà! My shiny new book rating system!  

Honestly, I can be really odd about the little things when it comes to organizing projects that I care about.  I can't go forward without obsessing over a tiny detail that doesn't really matter to the overall result. I just want things perfect straight off the bat.  Is that so much to ask?  While this blog isn't perfect and there's not much to it right now, what little content it has so far I'm extremely proud of.  This may only be adding a small decorative touch to an otherwise unremarkable little site, but I always like to think that it's attention to the tiny details that make the difference.       

With some luck and a massive amount of willpower, I'll pry myself away from the game console long enough to finish off the two reviews I've been working on and since we're in October there's another Beautiful Book of the Month to look forward to selecting.  I hope it'll be an eventful month for the site, but no promises. *smiles*