Not to whiz in yer cheerios Ace, but it's a bit "Raider Nation" dontcha think? Which is ok if your target audience is a bunch of Mad Max wannabees from Oakland.

I guess it's a good thing I listened to George and didn't go with the eyepatch.

Raider Nation? Well, it is a pirate emblem. There are going to be some design similarities.

The only really distinctive jolly roger belonged to Blackbeard, and that looked, how shall I put this, gay.

I like the new death card, ace, but you're gonna have to work on the banner at the top of the site. The gray on the right hand part of the screen is lighter, and your blogads overlap the death card. (At least when viewed in Firefox.)

I know.... Riehl World and I tried to fix that, but it looks like I'll have to go back to Web-Diva.

A "+3 Flame Tongue?" Paging Hugh Grant -- ! :)

I liked the original droplets-of-blood thing.

Honestly, I like the two alternate skulls better too. This one just looks, well, puffy. Too big relative to everything else.

Plus the 'A' is teeny.

I agree with "someone" vis a vis the proportions. I think a taller skinnier spade behind the skull would balance better. I also prefer the stylized one in your first death card.

Glad to hear you're gonna lose the blood ... seems a little eighth grade to me ...

good job overall!

p.s. Glad to see the window title back. For a while there when I minimized (god forbid) the AceHQ window, it would read "no server found" even though it was there ..

Gotta have some blood....with droplets! If it ain't on the shirts I buy (and I will), I'm gonna add blood.

Just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth...

1) The coolest thing (to me) about the old death card was the A's made out of crossed bones. That's attention to detail! Have you considered incorporating that into your new logo?

2) The Army's Iraq Death Card is lame. Is it just me or does the skull make it look like we are killing "Alien Gray's" rather than terrorists? Calling Agents Scully ans Mulder....

Nice swords, Ace. What are they, 1d8s?

a Tampa bay Bucs fan?

seriously though, I'd lose the blood, and I was a fan of the crossed bones to make A's, of course that detail might not make it to a tshirt

and, of course, it's your website, so feel free to ignore this

The whole pirate/swashbuckling theme is simply fabulous.

I think it rocks. George and Riehl World did a great job.

Hmmm...

How about a set of crossed M16s instead of swords? High capacity magazines of course.

Just a thought. I enjoy your site, thanks.

I like the new skull.

1) blood gotta go

2) Skull is way too big, cheekbones are too prominent

3) bad swords, very Pirates of Penzance (they suggest farce) how about Roman Short Swords or Bastard Swords?

4) Lines are too thick, especially swords

5) Menacing is good, jovial is bad, SKULLS DON’T SMILE!

ACE - PS

Roman Short Swords with a glint of steel on one blade would be very cool!

(Find examples of Roman short sword at Galati International)

I LIKE IT!

Even with the upcoming edits, you done good.

Now, let's stop yappin', and let's start slittin' throats. . .

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!

In addition to everything else the shape of the card is not like that of a playing card, its too short and fat.

Glinting Roman Short Swords!

I like it a lot - I agree with removing the blood.

The overlap may be due to the fact that your banner height in the template doesn't equal the size of the graphic, if that makes sense.

The HTML is in your style sheet form - and should look like this:

#banner {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
color: #FFFFFF;
background-color: #999999;
text-align: left;
padding: 0px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
height: 148px;
}

At the bottom, just change the height of the banner to match the height of your image, and that might work.

If not, I owe you a beer.

Also, appropriately enough, your banner (background?) color is #666666

Heh.

I see, with relief, that you're going to lose the blood. Thanks. It looks, er, um, well, sorry, dorky, and not especially blood-like.

Now a trailing splatter, as from cast-off, that might work, but the swathe, no.

Like the new skull, more of a menacing face and all, though think the A's in the corner need to stay - makes it more 'cardsy,' which is more right.

But, somewhat OT, as long as Web Diva is gonna be doing a droppin by, how bout adding a little 'show comments right here' thing ala Wizbang, maybe having them pop up on the same gray background here, while your post remains in white? Maybe it's just me, but I really dig that feature. A lot. Makes it easier to skim and read the comments. Quicker to get to, and cause their space allotment is as wide as the post, just easier to read.

Also, width wise (and because you asked), what's up with the right 1/3 screen being blank white and all. Thinking of adding on a patio over there or something? (Sunroom?). Let's get a bit more hoizontal, webpage speaking. Again, I only offer my opinions because they're mine (and therefore super-geniusy) and they'd make commenting/reading em' (which is where a lot of the fun is here) smoooother.

Yeah, the blood... okay, I wanted blood because I liked it on the old death card, but it just doesn't seem to work here, and it really screws up the starkness of the black-and-white logo.

someone seems to want blood, but I tell you, it's going to be an obtrusive bit of red on a stark black-and-white logo, and it's not going to look right, no matter what form it takes.

Maybe later I'll do an alternate design where there's blood splattered on the card -- not as part of the logo, but as if the death-card were actually sprayed with blood during a firefight or something -- but not now.

Other problems:

2) Skull is way too big, cheekbones are too prominent

-- eh. It's a handsome skull. I don't have good cheekbones, so I will compensate with a very Nordic skull.

3) bad swords, very Pirates of Penzance (they suggest farce) how about Roman Short Swords or Bastard Swords?

-- Get out of here. One is a cutlass, the classic pirate weapon, the other is a sort-of cutlass/saber with an Arabesque tip. Maybe you can't see that now.

One of Riehl world's early suggestions was a pair of what were either 18th century short swords or maybe 19th century dress cavalry sabers. It looked okay, but the swords aren't from the right period.

Obviously, neither are Roman gladii or bastard swords.

4) Lines are too thick, especially swords

Eh... I don't think so. I kind of like it. But I understand tastes may differ. You have to bear in mind that this has to look clear and good at differing resolutions.

5) Menacing is good, jovial is bad, SKULLS DON’T SMILE!

-- Hm? Many Jolly Rogers featured a smiling skull. The Happy Dead and all.

Re: Taller, more slender ace

I'll ask Riehl about this. That's what I originally wanted, but I have to admit that the fat, short ace actually seems to work with this particular skull.

But, somewhat OT, as long as Web Diva is gonna be doing a droppin by, how bout adding a little 'show comments right here' thing ala Wizbang, maybe having them pop up on the same gray background here, while your post remains in white? Maybe it's just me, but I really dig that feature. A lot. Makes it easier to skim and read the comments. Quicker to get to, and cause their space allotment is as wide as the post, just easier to read.

-- I want Web Diva to make some changes, and I'll ask her about this one. Some things are difficult to achieve on Moveable Type, though.

Don't ask me which ones. Although I do know about one...

Also, width wise (and because you asked), what's up with the right 1/3 screen being blank white and all. Thinking of adding on a patio over there or something? (Sunroom?). Let's get a bit more hoizontal, webpage speaking. Again, I only offer my opinions because they're mine (and therefore super-geniusy) and they'd make commenting/reading em' (which is where a lot of the fun is here) smoooother.

-- Okay, I want to have a right sidebar. But it's hard to do with MT, I'm told.

The reason there's so much wasted space on the right side of your screen is because you're viewing it in a higher resolution, bigger screen I mean, whatever, than the design was made for.

There's no very good way to avoid this, I think. Either I will make the site look good for your resolution -- but there will be a buttload of wasted space -- or else people viewing it at lower resolution will have to use the bottom scrollbar to move across the full page (which won't display in full at a lower res), and that, I think, is a bit worse.

I don't know. Maybe at this point the bigger-screen readers are a big majority.

Are you? I don't know. I could try polling, but it would be unscientific.

As far as the 'show comments right here' thing, I just realized you already kinda have this. When you click on 'view' of a comment over under 'recent comments' the comments all pop up for the thread pretty much exactly as I was hoping for. I'd just use that, except you can't really tell which comment thread is gonna be opening unless you're able to figure it out from the snippet of their comment shown. In short, if you can make that exact thing open by some button underneath the particular post (keeping the rest of your posts scrollable on same screen), that's exactly what I'm looking for.

As far as the width thing, yeah, I think I'm using a higher resolution. That's really not any big deal to me. I was probably just more curious as to why the right part was blank to me; don't seem to run into that on other political sites I visit. I wouldn't blow any of that big blog ad money to fix.

Well, first of all, I could use the space for a premium ad or whatnot, as others do, and then put the comments underneath it so they're not so far down the page and stuff, so I don't mind spending money to get it done.

But I'm told that 3-column on MT is a bitch, almost impossible, and maybe there's no way to do it without having low-res viewers have to scroll across the page.

Which is something advertisers don't want either, of course, because everyone will just scroll their ads off the page entirely.

ACE - There is something dorky about the Pirate motif, it does suggest farce, (a long way from the Death's Head Skull and Runes of the SS - no fooling around there).

I just don't understand why a website dedicated to the proposition that all Liberals are created equally defective would want a goofy, pleasant, smiling Jolly Roger schtick?

Ann Coulter is right: it really is all Liberals' fault. They don't deserve smiling, welcoming, "inclusive" skulls, they deserve the spirit (and parody) of the SS!

Nazi Death's Head and Glinting Roman Short Swords!

uhhh... Nazi SS death-head you say?

Ummmm... well, look, there's little question that history's bad guys usually have the coolest uniforms and iconography, from the Nazis to, you know, the Galactic Empire, but... uhhh...

Nazi SS death-head?

How about "No"?

My take: three columns are ugly. I mean, look at the mess that is O-Dub's site. He's cleaned it up recently, but I think the site would look better if it were two columns. It tends to make a site look cluttered.

I think the drop-down comments on Wizbang are the coolest thing ever. Okay, maybe I don't like them that much, but they are rather neat and most importantly, they keep readers on the main page of the site.

What are you waiting for Web Diva for? Just go steal some code!

Yeah... like I would know what to do with this so-called "code" you speak of once I'd stolen it.

So what'd I miss?

(apparently everything)

So to start with, the neww skull is OK, ace. Losing the blood is a great idea, but I'd think about keeping the "A"s and just moving them to opposite corners or something, to retain the "card" iconography.

I've always been good at drawing human skulls (mainly from the ones I stripped and boiled the flesh off of as a child), but my skills with MS paint are a bit rough.

In all hinesty, the "rusticness" of the original logo holds a great deal of charm, but no one wants copyright problems.

Maybe I'll try my hand at something along the same lines if you want, and email ya. Or just tell me to go to hell.

I missed all teh flamewars and hatred, so I'm feeling a little left out.

If you are gonna entertain the 'show comments' ala Wizbang thing, just a few things. Please try to keep the 'post a comment' thing directly underneath like you are doing with 'view' under 'recent comments' already. Never liked how in Wizbang you have to go the extra step of hitting 'comment' and make the little box pop up, and add there. Small thing.

Again, the nice thing about the 'show comment right here' thing is how the comments become wider, and less lengthy. Those 200+, thin spaced comment threads you've had here lately take a while to scroll through.

And 72Aces: Nazi Regalia? Sure the Nazi's had the coolio uni's and all, but still.... Nazi stuff? Why not go straight to a little clansman and a burning cross? Those white hoods are pretty spooky too.

That's me above again. Not sure why I'm forgetting to sign everything. Fix that for me somehow too.

Yeah, I think in the history of bad blog suggestions, the Nazi SS death-head suggestion has to top the list.

There's a horrible joke about Auschwitz and a tourist t shirt to be made at the virgins' expense that I'm not going to make, seeing as this is the new, respectable ace of spades hq.

Yeah... like I would know what to do with this so-called "code" you speak of once I'd stolen it.

Uh...sell it for cheap whiskey and the company of loose women?

Actually, any javascript code goes between the top tag and the tag. You may need to put something in the stylesheet as well, but I'd have to check on that.

You realize you're talking to a moron, right?

You vill use the SS Death's Head und NOW! Pirates are verbodden!

The Nazi Death's Head was but an easily found example of a no-nonense deaths head, v. the current "jovial" death's head which, for the third time, has a dorky farcical quality to it as does the whole Jolly Roger schtick.

Ok, instead of the Nazi Death's Head or the Jolly Roger Death's Head, how 'bout the Jolly Himmler Death's Head over glinting Roman Short Swords?

um, 72nazis?

"verboten"

/grammar nazi

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest (not that there's anything wrong with that) Yo - ho - ho and a bottle of rum! Eye mattie, even us pirates think that outside of Gilbert and Sullivan, the swashbucking schtick is as lame as it can be.

Dammit. Just realized how confusing my last comment was because the comments got rid of the "greater than sign."

I'll replace the usual HTML tags with brackets. And...

Actually, any javascript code goes between the top [home] tag and the [/home] tag. You may need to put something in the stylesheet as well, but I'd have to check on that.

OK, how's about a menacing Death's Head like the kind used by troops in Iraq but without the big Area-51 eyes? The proportions are just right and the A's tie in the ACE theme and it doesn't look like something from a gay bar.

Also, the beauty of the straight-bladed Roman Calavry sword is unmatched so:

HOW ABOUT A MOTTO IN LATIN?

E Plurbis We're Gonna Fuck You Up!

Glad you're gonna make the blood gone. As soon as I got on the site, I went "Whoa!" and was afraid someone slasherlike had taken over your site.

A Pirate theme? Barbary pirate cutlass, this is the one.
http://www.iloveswords.com/images/pirate/PIR_barbary_md.jpg

How about officer’s sword, replica from 1492, Columbus fleet. Golden deeds??? but hmm.. a quote?
http://www.iloveswords.com/images/pirate/PIR_columbus_md.jpg

This is good one, but it’s rapier, Circa 16th.
http://www.imperialweapons.com/swords/mrw/1-161.jpg

Don't get me wrong-I understand perfectionism but you're bordering on gay interior decorater here Ace. "No! That's the wrong shade of puce on that throw rug!"

Don't you have bids on original signed mint condition Paul Anka records to be monitoring or something?

WSK,

Well, I am very particular about my t-shirt logos.

I don't deal in shoddy material.

Except, of course, for this entire blog.

Loose shit alert: Ace, get the banner image updated. That dithering around the text looks horrible and ass cheap. Maybe a GIF will get a nice, small size without the dither?

The new logo kicks ass. Don't be afraid to play with the spacing of the A's relative to the main image when designing your swag.

*pardon the accidental cross-post to the Ummm... thread.

They're scimitars!

Are you getting all Drizzt on us, Ace?

The new logo is awesome! Do any of you people know what an 'ultra' is? Weird question but i'm just curious if they exist in your part of the world.