Well, there have certainly been some changes in nusach-land around here. It’s been a long journey; when I first started embracing Judaism, I prayed from the UJC’s standard Conservative siddur; I then found ArtScroll’s Interlinear Ashkenaz and switched to it; subsequently, I discovered the beauty in Nusach Sefard and again made the switch; during this time I was exposed to Chabad and really couldn’t stand davening from Tehillas Hashem, so I stuck with Reb ArtScroll’s Nusach Sefard.
Well, add another strange twist of a chapter to the story. After speaking to my Rav about it, he initially told me that it was fine to daven Sefard. I then started asking him questions about what turned out to be an interesting paradox in ArtScroll. At least in the all-Hebrew Nusach Sefard, ArtScroll often will have words or phrases in parentheses. I asked my Rav whether I should say what appears in the parentheses. He then asked me to show him what I meant. I then proceeded to show him that ArtScroll often has words or phrases in parentheses throughout the siddur. Immediately, he recommended that I switch to Nusach Ari Zal, which is what he davens from.
Apparently, these words in parentheses (which come with no explanation, by the way) significantly alter the prayer service, as they correspond to different variants in Nusach Sefard. By adding one thing and leaving out another, you really mess with the gematrios and word counts of paragraphs, which isn’t too good. At least in the Baal Hatanya’s siddur, things are straightforward and clear, no parentheses attached.
I had first heard of Siddur Torah Ohr on judaism.stackexchange in a response to a question I had about dikduk and vocalization in siddurim. (If you pay attention, Tehillas Hashem and ArtScroll differ a bit in pronunciation and vowelization.) Siddur Torah Ohr is very faithful to the original text of the Baal Hatanya, and so I decided to get it in lieu of a Tehillas Hashem (for now).
The siddur is very simple looking. It kind of looks like a sefer Kabbalah or something, it just exudes mysticality.
Let’s just say that this isn’t your father’s trusty ArtScroll siddur. Instructions are in Rashi script. There is no seder for Minchah or Maariv. You must find the right parts of each service and put them together in the right order to daven properly. It’s not typset, it seems to have been written by a skilled sofer and copied. Wow. This thing is going to take a little getting used to.
Man, does this make me miss ArtScroll.
The siddur does make you feel like a super-Yid, though, as you have to work incredibly hard to assemble a seder tefillah. Shacharis is the one service that comes more or less complete.
If you’re ever looking for a way to really test yourself on your knowledge of the siddur, this siddur will definitely do the trick. On the one hand, it’s incredible; it’s faithful to the Baal Hatanya’s original siddur. On the other hand, it’s quite difficult to navigate. Something tells me that you can, indeed, have the best of both worlds, I just hope I don’t have to get into the publishing business to see it happen 
Just after 7am. I’m stove-topping some oatmeal before Tyler gets home from minyon. Now I have a strange tendency to try and never keep pantry foods in their original bags and containers. Awhile back I got the idea into my head that it looks cluttery and distracting in all the different store packages with their whirl of colors and letters and prefer to keep things in reused glass spaghetti sauce or peanut butter jars and clear bins.
Well, it’s been nearly twenty-four hours, and I’m still alive and sane. It’s been a little weird, but I’ve been sticking to the Dymaxion Polyphasic Sleep schedule and it seems to be working, at least in baby steps. If anything I write in this post doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’m kind of tired, having only slept 2 hours in the last 24.
Well, it seems that we are off to the races, or rather the, um, not sleeping. The best opportunity for starting my new sleep schedule recently opened up, and so as of right now, I’m starting my first real cycle. I’ll be using the Dymaxion sleep pattern, as mentioned in 
On a tangent of inspiration, late last night I typeset Tikkun Haklali in HTML to be readable. There are a few other versions available on the internet, but I’ve yet to find one that is actually readable. Seeing as that I’m a spoiled Artscroll fanboy, it’s hard for me to deal with less-than-awesome typesetting. In any case, the entire text of the prayer can be found