diff --git a/blog.json b/blog.json
index aefbf05..a5e132d 100644
--- a/blog.json
+++ b/blog.json
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@
   "wslug-limit": 10,
   "slug-limit": 96,
   "license": "GPL-3.0-or-later",
-  "recent-title-trunc": 32,
+  "recent-title-trunc": 16,
   "server-host": "127.0.0.1",
   "server-port": 8080,
   "post-preview-size": 196,
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@
     "removal-domls-7-8": {
       "title": "removal of domls 7 and 8",
       "description": "i had to remove domls 7 and 8 due to a request",
-      "content": "i had to remove domls 7 and 8 because i was requested to, i am writing this to notify\nthat it happened and thts all lol, nothing more than tht\n\ncya in doml 7 ig, back to the future \ud83d\ude80",
+      "content": "i had to remove domls 7 and 8 because i was requested to, i am writing this to notify\nthat it happened and thts all lol\n\ncya in doml 7 ig, back to the future \ud83d\ude80",
       "keywords": [
         "doml 8",
         "doml 7",
diff --git a/content/critical.css b/content/critical.css
index 9687566..8fab1de 100644
--- a/content/critical.css
+++ b/content/critical.css
@@ -13,6 +13,15 @@
     word-wrap: break-word;
 }
 
+html {
+    background-image: radial-gradient(
+        circle,
+        rgba(249, 240, 194, 0.1) 1px,
+        transparent 1px
+    );
+    background-size: 20px 20px;
+}
+
 body {
     margin: auto;
     padding: 2rem;
@@ -63,3 +72,6 @@ time {
     padding: 0.2em;
 }
 
+br {
+    margin-bottom: 0.2em;
+}
diff --git a/scripts/blog.py b/scripts/blog.py
index 36fd9a8..7dd30cf 100755
--- a/scripts/blog.py
+++ b/scripts/blog.py
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ DEFAULT_CONFIG: dict[str, typing.Any] = {
     "wslug-limit": 10,
     "slug-limit": 96,
     "license": "GPL-3.0-or-later",
-    "recent-title-trunc": 32,
+    "recent-title-trunc": 16,
     "server-host": "127.0.0.1",
     "server-port": 8080,
     "post-preview-size": 196,
@@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ HTML_BEGIN: typing.Final[
 <link rel="canonical" href="{blog}/{path}">
 <style type="text/css">
 :root{{color-scheme:{theme_type};--b:{theme_primary};--f:{theme_secondary}}}\
-*,*::before,*::after{{background-color:var(--b);color:var(--f)}}{critical_css}
+html{{background-color:var(--b);color:var(--f)}}{critical_css}
 </style>
 <link
   href="/{styles}"
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ POST_TEMPLATE: typing.Final[str] = (
     <span role="seperator" aria-hidden="true"> | </span>
 
     <span role="menuitem"><time>{post_read_time}</time> read</span>
-    <span role="seperator" aria-hidden="true"> | </span>
+    <br role="seperator" aria-hidden="true" />
 
     <a role="menuitem" href="/">home</a>
     <span role="seperator" aria-hidden="true"> | </span>
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ INDEX_TEMPLATE: typing.Final[str] = (
     <span role="menuitem"
        >visitor <img src="{visitor_count}" alt="visitor count"
     /></span>
-    <span role="seperator" aria-hidden="true"> | </span>
+    <br role="seperator" aria-hidden="true" />
 
     <a role="menuitem" href="{comment}">comment</a>
     <span role="seperator" aria-hidden="true"> | </span>