Oxymora, the plural of oxymoron, means “contradictions in terms.” Quite often (much, much more so than is healthy), HDS is either a contradiction in terms or his actions and speech bring about one. This little Wordpress blog is many things, from update log to rant pad to musing place, but all are likely to contain their share of contradictions.

As I am a fan of anime and manga (Perhaps an Otaku of some sort), I may have something to say on the subject, perhaps even a rant or three, and perhaps said something will be accompanied by pictures.

I also have taken the plunge into photography of the very amateur nature. With my weapon of choice (A Canon Powershot S3 IS), I shall provide pictures of the world around me, both natural and man-made, along with pictures of my own merchandise as I review it.

Aside from that, I have few attributes of note. I enjoy designing layouts for my several websites and am constantly on the lookout for any sort of niftiness to include in any of my sites. A few more tidbits about myself lie at Shadows proper.

The layout here features a scan taken from an artbook of mine, Kuroboshi Kouhaku “the Beautiful World”, together with font Scriptina for the title in the header image. This layout, codenamed Balmy Blizzard, is the second layout to grace this site, made from the foundations up with a few important exceptions. I borrowed elements of the layout, mostly PHP tags to insert Wordpress content, from the famous Kubrick layout that ships with Wordpress. I am indebted to its creator, Michael Heilemann, for all I borrowed from it. I also owe credit to DarkMirage and HappySoda, both of whom I took inspiration and ideas from for different elements of the layout (DarkMirage, for instance, provided the inspiration for the onfocus and onblur elements of the various forms). The creator of Lightbox 2.0, Lokesh Dakar, also deserves enormous credit for the delightful Javascript image loader that you see when clicking on many images here. Thanks also goes to the creators of the following plugins: randomimage by Justin Watt, Post Teaser by Jonathan Leighton (Turnip), IP 2 Country by Priyadi Iman Nurcahyo, Flexible upload by Antoine Choppin, Exec-PHP by S&oumlren Weber and Bad Behavior by Michael Hampton. A final thanks to Martin NH for his ever-useful snow-in-Photoshop tutorial.