See that menu bar on the left?
<-- over there.

Well I want it to have a full blue bar (that dark blue stuff under the menu), all the way down the left of the page at a percentage width of 16.5%. And I'll just stick the menu on top. So far it resists all attempts to be subdued and it lashes out violently and makes the page scroll a million miles or something. I'd like to remove the stupid javascript that happens to crash all browsers when it can't find the css.

Any outrageously useful solutions would be much appreciated. Just leave me a comment if you think you have it solved and I'll think of something as a prize.
Maz