I suggest a “theme”, with 3-4 main colors, and a main graphic for branding. I would clean up the amount of plugins as this tends to bog down on some blogs.

The categories list is way too long, as well as the list of recent comments. Instead, I would show the top 10. May I suggest “Unique Blog Designs” for the job to do a makeover. They do excellent work, all css/xhtml compliant, work in all browsers. They did ShoeMoney, JohnChow, and many other high profile bloggers. You cant go wrong with them (www.unqiueblogdesigns.com). I’ll be using them after the new year to have a design done. Im sure they can also suggest a format that has worked best for getting a sticky blog.

We’ll, that’s my entry. My twitter is at: http://twitter.com/masterlesamurai

Thanks again for this opportunity to win!
– Wes

Well I looked at your site, and you’re right – it needs help. There’s a lot of “noise” going on all over the page. I think that a few changes could really make it not so distracting. My first suggestion would be to get rid of or change the color of the bright green bar. Actually, I don’t mind the bar as I mind that there’s actually writing in the bar. It really distracts from the overall appearance of your site. Also, I’d suggest maybe putting the two columns off to the right hand side in a very slight shade of gray. That would be enough to make your content stand out a little more. One more thing. I use Mozilla Firefox, and your google adsense is kinda messed up when viewing it. It runs into your right hand columns instead of staying aligned with your content. You may want to check that out as well.

Best of luck with the redesign- I’m sure it’ll look fabulous after you implement some of the suggestions

Rachel (aka AverageGal)
http://www.averagegal.com
Twitter: AverageGalDotCo