Yesterday I was roaming around MoFi and I came upon the breathtaking CSS Zen Garden. After studying the various templates, I decided I had avoided the dreaded <div> tag long enough. I set out determined to understand those damn things if they killed me.

Fortunately, I found MaxDesign's excellent Floatutorial, which does an excellent job of providing step-by-step help for layout in CSS. (The Zen Garden leads to this tutorial, which was a little over my head.) Also of great assistance was Marek Prokop's page on styling <hr>, which is also available in Italian.

So whattya think? Pretty kickin', if I do say so myself. I'm especially proud of the little faux borders on the sidebars (nesting layered <div>s -- oo fancy). And make sure you peep the bonus graphic at the bottom. Yeah, what!

UPDATE (4:00 PM):

I had to take out the faux borders, since IE doesn't like 'em. I just spent two hours tweaking everything so it works on Mozilla and IE and Safari. So if the new layout doesn't work for you, please let me know, and then get a new browser. Also, IE apparently doesn't like my Google search machine on the right there. So all you throngs of IE users who have sent me email demanding the ability to search my blog -- just click the "search" button and you'll go to a page that'll hook you up.

And Safari seems to have some kind of weird problem with wrapping text around images. Anyone know what that's about? Anyone else having problems with it?

UPDATE (7:00 PM):

Screw it. I've taken the search engine off completely; it's causing too much trouble. (I'm probably the only one who uses it anyway.)

Bleah!

HalliBush Wars, Inc.

You know all that new, specific information we've been hearing about, relating to possible al Qaeda attacks in the US? Well, it turns out it's not really new at all.

Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

Whoops! Well, you should still be very, very afraid.

I don't want to seem insensitive here; but I'm really frustrated by how wantonly officials from the government keep sounding the alarm of a possible terrorist attack (a real problem, which we shouldn't shy from) when it's not necessary. It's like a kid in third grade who pulls the fire alarm -- it's a form of crying wolf. What's going to happen when there is new, real data about such a possibility? Will we take it seriously, after being hoodwinked so many times?

Meanwhile, some American Muslim groups are criticizing the 9/11 Commission's report, since they weren't asked for any input.

"Why would they fail to consult a key group who could help them understand what's going on in the Muslim world?" said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Good question.

Random

A drug sniffing dog has died of an overdose.

Todd, a 7-year-old Springer spaniel, had been looking for drugs in a field and car in Preston, northern England, when his handler noticed he was looking unwell. He was taken to a vet and then rushed to an animal intensive care unit at Liverpool University, displaying symptoms of ingesting amphetamines, a Lancashire police spokeswoman said.

He died shortly afterwards.

TPCQ: "I wanna be a drug sniffing dog / so I can snort coke all day long!"

TimeWaster™

MoFi linked to The Incredibly Evil Machine, but I think I prefer The Friendly Cheese Song. Happing Smashy is also pretty cool.

Today I'm listening to: John Coltrane!