Today we’re launching a long-awaited new design for our blog. Besides the visual changes, we’ve added a few new features we think will keep you reading throughout 2009 and beyond. Among the top new features is a Picture of the Day area in the sidebar where we’ll daily link (Monday-Friday) to a recent photo from our own library. This was, of course, inspired by A Teague of Their Own who have faithfully been posting a new image daily for the last three and a half years. Below the Picture of the Day thumbnail, you’ll find an enhanced “Recent Comments” section that offers an excerpt from recent comments around the site.

There will probably be a few kinks along the way in the launch — for instance, right now there’s no way to go Back to view a previous Picture of the Day. Hopefully by the time the new year rolls around we’ll have that worked out. Until then, the ice-skating image alone will carry us through.

Please let me know if you find anything odd around the site that isn’t working. I haven’t cross-browser tested this, so it’ll probably be totally busted in Internet Explorer.

Merry Christmas to you all, and a happy new year!

Hello faithful readers:

Just wanted to let you in on the latest addition in the sidebar over to the right. We’ve added a “Recent Comments” area so you can follow comment dialogue in a much easier fashion. Of course, if you want to continue to check comment updates in your own way, that is still possible. Thanks again for reading, even though our posts have become a bit more erratic. We’re working to improve that. =)

This post is also an attempt to get that beautiful toilet photograph further down and ultimately off the front page.

Quick technical update. For those who subscribe to this site through an RSS reader, please update the location of the feed to:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thefairskinneditalians

If you’re not sure what all that means, don’t worry about it… But if you read a lot of blogs and sites, RSS might be helpful to you in keeping up with sites without having to reload them every day to see if there’s updates.

10 measly days. Wow!

So Lauren prepped you for a story that she wanted me to relate . . . but before I begin that I must attempt to explain Lauren’s deeper motives. Those motives: Visitors. Stats. Hits. PEOPLE. Lauren should really just come clean with you all.

Alright, so we have this little stat counter down at the bottom of The Aisle that tracks you each time as you visit. Creeped out yet? It tells us how you got here, what search terms strangers may have used to get here, where you’re from, etc. We don’t know your name or anything, but it does provide us a good way to track our regular visitors.

Lauren watches that thing like a hawk.

Just about every day, I watch her as she anxiously clicks on that graphic to see how many hits we got for the day. Her tiny head moves in closer to the monitor as the page loads. Scrolls down . . . “only 20 hits!! . . . (scrolls down more . . . .smiling to see the regulars) . . . Josh? Do you know anybody from Madagascar?”

“Nope.”

Lauren – “Oh . . . Ok.”

Then I see the all-too-familiar look on her face after such a finding such a disappointment. That face is referencing the time months ago when I placed our little blog onto a design website in order to get people’s feedback, input, etc . . . and quite honestly to get “hits” for Miss Lauren.

I just didn’t think it through . . . and little did I realize the aftershocks that would wreak havoc.

That day we got close to 300 unique visitors to TFSI. On an average day now we get around 35 or so.

I text Lauren while she’s at work: “We’re getting about 25-30 hits an hour now.” She knew what I was talking about . . .

Text reply from Lauren: “What? What is going on?”

That day at work I was fairly useless just because I was watching the stats roll their way up the charts all day. It was amusing to see where people were from and to watch our little site go internationale.

I guess I just completely forgot that the site is a personal site . . . not a portfolio site or something that you’d usually put up on that design blog where I posted.

Lauren’s great at creating suspense. She’s great at keeping me listening to her . . . she’s just a fun girl to converse with. But I’m afraid this time she could be using it for personal gain.

And don’t even get me started on the whole Comments thing. She used to kind of joke with me when I got excited at my humble little blog’s gaining of a comment or two. So so sad, I know. But she’s nuts about getting comments.

She’s really become quite the little geek with TFSI. And though I’m eating it up, I thought others should know what she’s up to behind the scenes here. Keep visiting. Keep reading (as long as we’re posting stuff).

Bring it.