Cold Hard Palay

Before there was Hot Steamy Rice, there was the Chornicles, pardon me, Chronicles of a Reverend. The first post I made was on September 28, 2002. This makes me a blogger for almost four years now. And four years ago, Kingdom Hearts (the first one) was my total obsession. My first layout consisted of images of Kairi (for my banner) and Riku (background) manipulated in Photoshop. I lost my original format due to dead online photo hosts, but the general look (without images) is still saved in my original blog archives. Sifting through my hard drive, I managed to find the images on the left which formed part of my original blog (since I lost the original html as well) and screencapped them.


The second version of my blog was a breakthrough for me and also the most controversial. One, it was the first layout which had me using an html editor and Photoshop hand in hand in laying out the images. Controversial in the sense that it was a vision of the "Third Impact" with a nude Rei Ayanami overseeing the destruction. And ofcourse the infamous copycat incident. Online friends will be very much aware of that and I intend to keep it contained within that circle. ^^



After the Third Impact, I introduced the power of the GIF image format on my layouts. And the GIF has been one of my most abused tools since this layout for two reasons: low file size and transparency. Along with CSS, I was able to make this rather crude html photo-stationary desk layout. I used photos of Parn and Deedlit from my favorite anime, Record of Lodoss War, almost like how a lover would write letters to his beloved who is very far away. I am quite proud of this layout and I'd make a much finer version, hopefully in flash, so it'd be cleaner, in the future.


Using more of GIFs and CSS and liberal use of Internet Explorer's CSS filters, I made my fourth layout from my current obsession at that time, Metal Gear Solid II - Sons of Liberty. Using fine lines, semi-transparent windows, and a monochromatic blue overtone; I achieved another breakthrough for myself. This one I considered the best of my layouts so far, until a computer manufacturer called Apple gave me a Clothesline from Hell from the toprope. I realized at this time that Internet Explorer may have the most number of users when it comes to Internet browsers. However, there are a large fraction of people who use Mozilla (and Firefox), Safari, Netscape (my first browser which I discarded after IE 4.0), and Opera (which I'm currently using now). Keyword of the moment was "COMPATIBILITY". My layout was compatible with no other browsers than Internet Explorer. Which kind of sucked. Still, I stuck for a time with this layout until I switched to my fifth and last Chronicles layout.


My fifth layout can actually be compared to my first one. It has practically the same format. I made this as a cheap answer to the compatibility issues bugging me at the time. The main concern was that the div overflow=on statement only worked on a few browsers and it destroyed my layout in other browsers. I used the main character from Brain Powerd as layout posterboy. Mainly chosen due to the artist's use of clean lines. And then Apple's Safari gave me a 619 and a West Coast Pop. My layout still did not work in that browser. Coupled with visitor comment issues (I did not want to use shoutbox or haloscan at that time), it was a clean 1-2-3 pinfall for The Reverend's Chronicles on pitas.



I realized using free blogging services is actually for good to the health. lol. Takes a huge chunk of coding away from you (does not count the fact that Chevs created this Blogger layout for me, thanks hunny bunny! ^^). I switched to Friendster's blog service (Hot Steamy Rice was born) and then we realized the format and layouts are totally limited for free users. It kind of bites when ten thousand people use the same layout as you do. And we have to pack our bags yet again..

You can still visit my old blog complete with all the entries on http://deacon.pitas.com and my friendster blog on http://thechronicles.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/.