All month long I've been thinking about this month's banner. I batted around many of ideas and sifted through tons of stock images looking for some inspiration. I kept coming up with zilch.

One reason is because of work. I've been pretty busy lately. That's not a complaint. Busy Brian is Creative Brian. But the problem with that is by the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is open Photoshop.

Whenever I ask my friends for tag line ideas they always latch onto the "theme" of the month based on holidays and traditions. That rarely speaks to me unless I can be a smart ass about it.

Krystyn had a great suggestion:

plain white, black courier font: "no inspiration for this month's banner"

I was this tempted to do it. Then, the elusive muse finally visited me. She brought with her the bright sun. And after all the recent entries posted in the Depression category, I think this place could use some brightening up.* Don't you?

Along with the new banner, comes a new mix of songs to get your toes tapping for May.

* I'll feel very differently about the sun when it's 122° out. Which will probably be any day now.

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Permalink | File Under: Banners

Happy April Fools Day! Here at cheapblueguitar.com, we celebrate being a fool 365. Or in this year's case, 366.

New month. New banner. You may need to bypass your cache to see the changes.

Check out previous banners here.

Enjoy your day!

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How is it that I've never blogged on Leap Year's Day? Oh right... I was too busy clawing my way out of depression and hopped up on delicious painkillers.

Silly me.

It is a gorgeous day here in Phoenix. Too gorgeous to sit at a computer under fluorescent lighting redesigning (yet again) the same project I've been working on for a couple weeks.

I ♥ clients. </sarcasm>

I'd rather be outside taking a walk and soaking up some pleasant sunshine. Maybe I'll finally fix my bicycle this weekend so I can take a ride around the neighborhood.

Of course, doing so will cause a sneezing fit and itchy eyes. Damned if I do. Damned if I don't.

*sigh*

I'm putting up the new banner today. Those of you on Internet Explorer may see some random wonkiness in the header graphic. I started to tweak the CSS to see if I could fix it, but then I decided to not bother because you SHOULDN'T BE USING IE! Get a real effin' browser already for chrissakes.

Geesh!

Comments (7)
Permalink | File Under: Banners, Life

New month, new banner. Can't see it? Bypass your cache.

I don't have much to say right now, so enjoy this photo of Elliott.

Check out previous banners in the archive.

Comments (7)
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I started moving some stuff in to my apartment today and I noticed the cord for the cable modem.

Hrm... I'm not liking the looks of this.

Since it is possible I may be without internet when I move in tomorrow, I'm going to go ahead and post January's banner tonight. You may need to bypass your cache to see the changes.

Enjoy your weekend and ringing in the New Year!

Comments (3)
Permalink | File Under: Banners, Life

Every once in a while, someone will ask me why Thomas and I aren't dating. Usually this comes from a straight person. For some reason some straight people think the only thing two gay men need to be a couple is to be gay. Once a coworker told me her roommate wanted to set me up with someone she works with.

Co-Worker: She says you two are perfect for each other.
Me: I haven't even met her. How would she know?
Co-Worker: Well, she's heard me talk about you.
Me: And what about this guy makes him so perfect for me?
Co-Worker: Well... he's gay.
Me: I'll pick out the china pattern immediately.

It's funny how they never apply those terms to other straight people. You're a guy and she's a girl. Isn't that enough? For their own, they know it takes common interests, attraction and lots of other stuff.

But Thomas and I get along famously. So why is it we aren't boyfriends? Simple. There are two main reasons.

Reason One: I am not Matt Damon.

If I were Matt Damon, I would probably be blissfully in love with Thomas, have a restraining order against him or be locked in his basement. It could really go any way.

Reason Two: Thomas is not a masochist.

If Thomas and I were dating, a typical conversation would go like this.

Me: What are you wearing?
Thomas: What? It's a vest.
Me: You look like Tyne Daly.
Thomas: It's very warm. I got it at the Renaissance Festival.
Me: Oh. My. God! Where's my camera? I need to blog about this!

End scene.

Thomas gets enough abuse from me as it is. I'm not sure he could handle it 24/7.

PS - I'm putting the banner up a few days early to ring in the holidays. You may need to bypass your cache to see the changes and not see it all wonky-looking.

Comments (9)
Permalink | File Under: Banners, Thomas

Daniel has requested that I join him for something called National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), the bastard cousin of National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to do one post every day during the month of November.

Apparently Daniel hasn't noticed I'm a more of a casual blogger. And by casual, I mean lazy.

Normally a request to participate in something like this would have been met with a stern "Hell no!" But Daniel's a nice guy and he caught me during a weak moment resulting from a Halloween cupcake sugar crash.

Plus, he offered sexual favors.

If you feel so inclined to join us, please do so. Also, if you have a blog that dare not speak its name, feel free to join us in the Gay Boy Bloggers group where we will pontificate such topical subjects like, "Kylie Minogue: Lounge Act or Poor Man's Madonna?"

Discuss.

PS - New month. New banner. You may need to bypass your cache to see the changes.

Comments (6)
Permalink | File Under: Banners, Blogging

If you are reading this via an RSS reader, then you aren't seeing the fruits of my web design labor this weekend, so do me a favor and pop on over the the site proper and take a gander at the new site template.

When I redesigned the site last time, my intention was to change up the cassette tapes in the header with new music and spruce up the logo graphic every once in a while to mark the seasons.

Obviously, that never happened.

The problem with the old template was it wasn't a blank enough canvas to ever inspire me to change it much. It was just so...blue, which has been the overall theme for four of the five previous site templates. There just wasn't enough there to really work with. That and I had a lot of Doctor Who to watch.

White is a pretty blank canvas, wouldn't you say? I drew inspiration for this layout from a few designers I like who do very clean design. Looking for the side bar? It's waaaay down there on the bottom now. The biggest improvement is one you won't see directly. Instead of nasty tables (which I secretly love), this layout is entirely built in CSS. Can I get an amen?

As for the current banner, I used these awesome Photoshop brushes for the design. With Dia De Los Muertos just around the corner, I thought it would be a nice theme to start with.

PS - If you see something that doesn't work or looks screwy, let me know.

Comments (9)
Permalink | File Under: Banners, Blogging