Hey, kids, you may have noticed that there’ve been a few changes to Simple Tricks and Nonsense. My webmaster Jack finally found the time to do that long-awaited upgrade on my blogging platform, so I’m now running MovableType v.5 (I was on 3-point-something before). The most immediate differences are a new back-end interface for me (which I’m still trying to sort out), and the rather minimalistic new aesthetic for you folks on the other side of the screen. I intend to do some tinkering over the next days, trying to get the hang of the new software and tweaking a few things, so don’t be alarmed if you see content coming and going, or rearranging itself. (I need to do something with these sidebars, if I can figure out how; I want my calendar back, and I can’t imagine that tag cloud thingie ever having much utility, and I’m even toying with getting rid of the categories, if I can figure out how.)

But the thing I imagine my Loyal Readers will be most interested in and excited by is the return of… commenting!  Yes, once again we can make this place a virtual salon of witticisms and fascinating back-and-forth… with one difference from before: you’ve now got to register in order to prove yourself real enough to talk to me, and not a worthless golmonging spambot. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure of how this registration process is supposed to work, although the system apparently accepts logins from a variety of blogging platforms and web portals. So if you’ve got a Google or a Yahoo or a LiveJournal identity, those things all ought to work here to get you into the commenting queue. Anyhow, give it a try and if you have problems, shoot me an email at jason at jasonbennion.com, and I’ll see if I can figure out what’s wrong. I hope this won’t prove to be an inconvenience for anyone, but I’m practically bouncing in my office chair for the joy of not having to deal with any more bloody spam…