update: not only is it fairly ugly, it also made my archives javascript quit working. i can solve both of those problems, but hmm... on one hand, i'd just as rather ditch the javascript-powered archives links, but if the page will still depend on scripts, why bother?
update, pt. 2: i am an idiot. i had javascripts and pop-ups disabled. no wonder it didn't work.
update, pt. 3: well, commenting works with opera and mozilla. that's about all the testing i'll be doing, so if it doesn't work w/aol or ie or on a mac or something, let me know. in unrelated news, i'm not looking forward to moving this thing to a new host.