Seasons change, people change, Blogs change.

As you might know, I’ve been working on a redesign for this site over the last few weeks, whenever I’ve had a spare moment, but now that I’m ready to launch it, I find myself questioning something. The unspoken rule of my site has always been humor first, second, always and forever, but while I’ve been offline over the last few months I’ve realized that by limiting myself to ONLY humor I’ve been keeping some of my other interests in the dark.

And my other interests are really afraid of the dark, too.

So, along with the layout change I’ll be rolling out this weekend, I think it’s about time that I also made a format change. Don’t worry though, most of the time I’ll be writing my humorous stories here with the sole purpose of entertaining you, but every now and again I might just surprise you with something else; a new Photoshop tip, a CSS tidbit, some of my photography or maybe even a non-funny opinion on current events.

And so, be ready for some big changes around here.

I know most, if not all, of you don’t care about any of this, but I felt that explaining it here first was the least I could do for my loyal visitors who might just be thrown off completely by the changes come Monday. However, I’ve been writing here for almost five years now and I’m sure most of you just want me to get with the funny and make you laugh or you’re just going to find a younger, funnier Blog to spend your time with. I know how you people think. I know you don’t really care about me. I know you just need your “fix”.

I know you don’t love me.

Oh sure, you say you love me, that you’ll never leave me, but as soon as some young Blog stretches her supple body and bats her pretty eyelashes at you, or flexes his strong, young muscles as you click on by, you’ll drop my old ass in a heartbeat. You know it’s true. You don’t love me, you never did.

[sniff]

Don’t touch me!

[muffled crying]

I don’t want your pity!

[sobbing]

Why do you close your eyes when we make love?!

[GeekMan flees in tears]

Riddles within conundrums, Batman.

This site might be all new and improved behind the scenes, but from where you’re sitting I bet it looks pretty much the same. Well, aside from the stupid question mark diamonds all over my archived posts. If you’re wondering what those question mark diamonds are, well… so was I. But after a teeny-tiny bit of research I’m no longer wondering.

Instead, I’m frustrated and angry.

You see, it turns out that when the backend of this site was updated to my new and improved blogging software the text encoding of my posts changed from ISO-8859-1 to utf-8 which caused some individual character substitutions due to inherent differences between the two disparate encoded character sets.

What you talking about, GeekMan?

Basically, due to the differences in how my new versus old blogging software, any of my old posts that contained quotation marks, apostrophes, ellipses, or other special characters, will now display the question-mark-diamond instead of the quotation marks, apostrophes, ellipses, or other special characters.

Sucks to be me, huh?

The easy way to fix this, of course, is to simply change the way my new software handles encoding my posts so that it matches the way my old software did it. In effect, change it from utf-8 to the old ISO-8859-1. But I like to be difficult, so I say nay to the simple, easy and effective way! Instead, I think I’ll try to find a way to change all my old posts from ISO-8859-1 to utf-8! And if I fail, well then, I’ll just cross that bridge when it floods.

BTW, anyone know where I can get a cheap inflatable boat?

Solonor is a cool guy.

Not only does he play a mean guitar, he also sings better than a drowning cat, is more handsome than Marty Feldman, is smarter than Gilligan and is sexier than Margaret Cho in a thong. I could go on complimenting him, but he might kill me if I do.

Did I mention how modest he is?

Anywaste, Solly (as his close, longtime, personal friends like me call him) was nice enough to help me out last night by doing some background work here on the site. In truth, he upgraded TMG from its aging blogging tool to a more up-to-date and modern tool for blogging. What does this mean to you? Absolutely nothing, I’m sure.

But it means a whole lot for this site.

You see, now that I’m using newer blogging software all I need to do is update the look of TMG and I’ll finally be finished with reworking the site and can get back to the business of writing again. I know, I know. You’re all excited. Try to calm down. Breath… Breath…

Hey! Put that back in your pants!

One last thing… anyone out there really, really good at CSS? I’m pretty good with it and I’ve got my new design pretty much done, but there’s a few things that have me confuzzled. I’m sure I’ll figure them out eventually, but I’m getting a bit impatient with things that just don’t work no matter what I seem to try. So, if someone out there was willing I could send them the files and they could maybe lend a brother a hand and make some suggestions…?

Hey! Hey! Get your hand out of my pants!

Boy, am I ever late.

You know, I was hoping to have the new site design ready to launch today, but alas, my busy schedule and inherent laziness have once again conspired to keep me from making my grand debut.

Well, for a little bit longer, at least.

This week I plan on finishing the new layout and also upgrading my Blog tool from MT to WordPress. So, if you notice things acting a bit weird around here this week you can honestly say that it’s not you, it’s me. Now, I know some people out there have been wondering if I would ever come back, and looking through my comments (ignoring the 1,735 spam comments added in the last three months, of course) I see that many of you would have been more than happy to see me miss my self-imposed deadline and fail.

And yes, I’m looking at YOU Mr. Hentai.

But a pox upon you Mr. Hentai, and all of those others who didn’t believe I was coming back! Naysayers and disbelievers, all! Look and see, for I have not failed! I did not betray your trust! Gaze upon your screen and be awed, for lo and behold, GeekMan has come again!

Ahem.

Uh…

Stop laughing at me.

You know what I meant.

Stop… please?

No, I am not crying.

[sniff]

Dammit.

I hate you.

Sometimes life really does get in the way of my plans of world domination.

I’m not dead (yet).
I’m not taking a (planned) break.
I’m not trying to find myself/inspiration/a nice pair of slacks.
I’ve just been so fricking busy over the last three months that even HoBiscuit has forgotten what I really look like.

The sad thing is, it’s not over… yet.

However, it’s not all bad. Soon things will calm down and I’ll be able to once again regale you with my inane and idiotic stories. I’m hoping that one month from today I’ll be back and better than ever, with a new design here and even a new site or three to accommodate some of my other silly hobbies. It’s going to be a red-letter day for anyone’s diary so mark your calendars for the weekend of March 17th friends, because The Mighty Geek is coming back, baby! Bigger and better than ever!

And this time not even Bread can stop me!

Dear Geek Minions

Due to circumstances beyond his control, GeekMan will be unable to update this site for the next few weeks. Maybe not even until after the new year. He apologizes profusely for being unable to humor you at this time and he promises to be back again as soon as possible.

Thank you.

It’s getting’, it’s getting’, it’s getting’ kinda hectic.

Just so you don’t worry, I’m telling you now that the next couple of weeks might be a little busy for me, which means that this site might not be updated as often as it normally is. Even more important, I may not have the time to carefully craft a witty and humorous post for you until things calm down for me.

Awww… That’s sweet, but there’s no need for tears.

Now, if I were the kind of person who believed in good luck gestures I’d ask all of you to cross your fingers or something, but luckily (heh) I’m far more pragmatic than that and will simply ask that each of you send me a hundred bazillion shekels instead. No? Well, then, I guess the finger crossing will have to do.

Cheap bastards.

Happy New Year!

My nipples could cut glass.

I knew it was coming, I’ve known for almost a year, but even so I’m such a fanboy that I’m about to bust a nut over the official announcement that a Halo movie is in the works. And deep down I know that even if it’s worse than the worst movie of all time (Battlefield Earth) I will still plunk down money to see it in theaters. And then I’ll buy the HD-DVD, sit in a dark room and watch it until my eyes bleed.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need a towel…