Greetings! It's time for a poll.

Polls and lists, it's Christmas in my little world. I wanted to put up a creepy picture of me on this post but I figured, what could be worse than a poltergeist gif of me?

As part of following The Husband's one rule with regard to this website - document the changes as you go - it's time for another Blog Update. Because unlike He Who Does Not Follow My One Rule of "Clean as you go", I'm good at following his rules. Okay, I admit I slacked this time because this post was supposed to go up early last week. Or the week before that. Bottom line: I almost suck as much as he does. So without further ado, here are four new things you'll find at 22 Nelson Street.

  1. We have a new commenting system. We still use Disqus as our primary commenting tool under each post BUT here's the thing. Sometimes, my posts are really long and I dwell on a bunch of different things at the same time. Some of my posts are braindumps that go off at a tangent and by the time you get to the end of the post, you won't remember where you'd started off. So with this new commenting system, you can select any given sentence on the post and write a comment for that one sentence. Does that make sense? Take a look at this.

    When you see a sentence that resonates with you or makes you laugh, you can select it by clicking anywhere on it. And then click on the option "respond" that immediately pops up:

    Then, you can go down there and add your comment.

    The Husband (who found and installed this, by the way) absolutely loves this new feature. He feels that it encourages greater interaction especially with my style of writing. Although I think that his ulterior motive is to comment on certain sentences just to embarrass me, I'm not complaining. But my Brother-in-law on the other hand absolutely hates this new commenting system. He tells me that he usually selects the sentences as he reads them and the comment pop up gets on his nerves. Then, there's me. I neither love it nor hate it. I'm Switzerland. Which is where I need your help. Could you guys please spare one second of your time to click on any one of the options below for my poll to determine whether this new commenting system should stay or leave?

    Because at the end of the day, you are my users and I like to keep this website as user-friendly as possible.

  2. Speaking of user-friendly, I have cut down on the number of ads on this website. I felt that lesser ads will render a cleaner website, hence making the overall reader experience better. And yes, that means I suffer some loss in terms of pay but that's okay. Also, it would be a massive help if you could please disable adblock on this website. Pretty please with a cherry on top?

  3. Which brings us to our new "Buy me a coffee?" button. Many of you have formerly asked me how you could contribute to the hosting of this website in a "pay it forward" kind of thing. Some of you offered design help while others offered contributions as a show of goodwill for the time I spend maintaining and updating this blog. To all of you, I want to say THANK YOU. Big, BIG hugs to you guys. Because now you can buy me coffee by clicking here, or on the "buy me a coffee?" buttons that you'll find on the navigation toolbar and below the sharing toolbar of each post.

  4. Finally, the biggest new addition to the blog is The Husband. When I mentioned in this post that he has been maintaining a list of my peculiarities for some time now, a lot of you asked to see the list. While I was sitting in the living room, responding to your comments, he was sitting in the bedroom typing out his very first piece. I had no idea. It's only after I read it that I realised how affected he had been by the loss of his uncle. He wrote this on the day of his funeral. I'm not sure how often he plans to write or if he'll write again at all, but this is a start. He's come a long way, from having no interest whatsoever in the blog to actually penning down his very own post. All his posts will be filed under the tag 'The Other Half'. I hope you enjoy them :)

Additional note: I'm working on a secret project that I can't wait to share with you all (so please excuse my occasional absence while I try to kick things off). You'll hear all about it in September if things go according to plan. I can't dish out a lot of details at the moment but I'll tell you this: it's been taking up A LOT of sleepless nights (seriously, I will be using the bags under my eyes to kidnap cute dogs) and it involves my spending an unusual amount of time in our closet. The Husband is understandably concerned (about the closet thing, mostly).

On that note, have a fantastic week ahead!