The chronicles have just gone through another makeover - much as I liked the previous template, it reflected a part of my life that’s over, and so a change was imperative. This new skin is a courtesy of Jonathan, whom as you can see pinked his own revamped template to create mine. Still some kinks to be ironed out, such as the bottom-of-the-page image of Comet (in IE 6 anyway), but for the rest we’re pretty much there.

I like it, and hope you do too.

This blog’s not dead. I’m not at a loss for content, or words. I’m not over the whole blogging thing. Frankly I’ve never been more under it.

Thing is, there’s been more interesting stuff happening lately than pretty much anything I’ve written about in the past few years. Not just good interesting, either. Bad, sad, difficult interesting too, and that’s often when I feel like blogging about it the most, but unfortunately I really can’t. Not for a little while yet. But it’s also light-at-the-end-of-tunnel-exhilaration interesting as well.

Of course, there’s been the usual everyday stuff to blog about as well, but if I blog about Comet’s Scottish Halloween dress whilst ignoring the real stuff, I feel I’m really just making small talk. And I hate small talk.

But I miss writing, and cutting myself entirely off from the online community in order to avoid possibly having to skirt some issues, well, that’s overkill. So there you have it. I can’t talk about everything that’s going on, but I will eventually, and hopefully it’ll make for a good story.

In the meantime, not-so-small talk on other stuff.

After several late evenings of frustration and tweaking, and with a final little help from blog superhero Patrick, Jonathan has finally put his blog online. Go have a look!

Tomorrow will mark the 5th birthday of this blog.

Things have changed a lot since I started. It’s now routine for people, any people, to Google each other. I now work in a smaller industry, one where people know each other by name even without having met. Clients, partners, employers might any day find this site, and have. I always get a pang of paranoia when someone from the Montreal games industry recognizes me as lightspeedchick. This not-quite-conscious self-consciousness kept me relatively quiet for a few months.

Then, as my fifth blogiversary drew nearer, I started thinking about this state of affairs. Was this paralysis, which kept me from writing anything remotely personal or meaningful, the death of my blog, or just a phase we all have to go through before we take a new leap of faith, like the one I took five years ago?

I decided I wasn’t ready to stop yet; I took the plunge and wrote something real. Let everyone, clients, employers, employees, read it and react. I can at least say I was honest if the sky falls.

But it didn’t fall. You all reacted honestly and passionately, and despite a few well-deserved bitchslaps (allo moman!), it’s been a very engaging discussion. You made me think, look things up and learn. Most of all, you encouraged me to continue.

Thanks for supporting these chronicles, for showing up and participating.

About three days after I redesigned this blog the last time, T sent me a mockup for a kickass new design for it. Almost apologetically, he said he’d been inspired. Nearly a year later, I’ve finally gotten around to implementing it.

I’ve also switched hosts and content management systems (from Movable Type to WordPress), using Patrick’s excellent Move Your Blog for Free service. It was also Patrick, a CSS ninja, who converted the mockup into a beautiful, functional website.

So I can’t take any credit for the renovations this time, but I’m definitely enjoying my new home.

Thanks guys!

(Please update your feeds!)

Last night, we switched the location of Yulblog to the new local watering hole La Quincaillerie, a new place next to Montreal’s most famous poutine parlor, la Banquise. A lovely 15-minute walk through the Park from my house, La Quincaillerie (the “hardware store”) is hip and unpretentious, has extremely friendly staff, and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite haunts.

Perhaps it was the change of locale, perhaps the open windows spilling happy bloggers onto the street. But the monthly meet-up of Montreal bloggers, which had seemed to be losing some steam in recent months, seemed to breathe with new life last night, mixing lively newbies and veterans alike. One of the better parties I’ve attended recently. Well done.

It’s been four years this weekend since I tentatively made my first post on this blog, from a hotel room in Banff, March 2002.

Lots has happened since that fateful day. A career change, a change in personal status, my first house purchase, my first race, lots of trips and a new furry friend. An entirely renewed circle of great friends, too numerous to all link, but all of whom met through my blog. The realization that I’ve found the expressive outlet I’ve always sought.

As I pass this milestone, my concern these days is how my current and potential future employers feel about my blogging. It’s becoming less and less possible for me to hide behind the alias. Many people have associated me with lightspeedchick in the past months; I knew this would eventually happen, and it is just going to increase. I have no problem standing by my words and opinions as a person, but I am also part of a company that may feel differently about my writing. Luckily for me, there is precedent. Many well-known videogame producers blog, using their real identities. Also, I do not and will not blog specifics about my projects, clients or employees. Hopefully, this will be enough for two very important elements of my life, videogame production and blogging, to peacefully coexist for many more years.

But blogging would be nothing without people contributing, commenting, caring, reading, reacting. So thanks everyone for making this little experiment so rewarding!

I read this brilliant post while eating take-out Shish Taouk.

Welcome to the blogosphere, L.

If it were always this fun and easy to be interviewed, I’d be such a media whore. Thanks Sadia!

Spoke to Mom and Dad tonight, and they had some comments about the redesign. Like quite a few people, Dad misses the cartoon. He even suggested I might lose some readers! The cartoon, however, was one of the things that made it imperative (for me and only me perhaps) that I redesign the site.

But why did I redesign in the first place? Well, I’d been increasingly having people from the games industry and other non-bloggers coming to my blog, people around whom I feel I have to be sort of respectable. Call me silly, but I was a little self-conscious directing people I work with to a page that has a cartoon of me in a skimpy purple latex outfit.

I felt I needed something a little less sexy, but definitely wanted to remain feminine, and include the gaming angle more clearly. Wanting to avoid breaking completely from the design of the chronicles’ first three years, I kept the yellow exclamation mark. The other icons allowed me to get rid of the cartoon, but still have a fun and colorful graphical element. They reflect the fact that I talk of personal things (not just games), modern games, vintage games, and the star is a symbol that if you know me, you know I adore.

The initial pink redesign came from my desire to reflect the feminine aspect, but it was too over the top. By then I’d realized that there were enough elements to suggest femininity, without being so blatant with it. Having successfully brought the elements I wanted together (gaming and girl), I could bring the whole thing down a notch, and lose the Pepto Bismol.

Anyway, enough of this navel gazing. Thanks to all who provided feedback, with special thanks to Sadia.

Stay tuned for content!