diff --git a/PBot/Logger.pm b/PBot/Logger.pm
index a338d069..064f21bc 100644
--- a/PBot/Logger.pm
+++ b/PBot/Logger.pm
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ use strict;
 
 use feature 'unicode_strings';
 
+use File::Basename;
 use Carp ();
 
 sub new {
@@ -18,19 +19,24 @@ sub new {
 
   my ($class, %conf) = @_;
 
-  my $log_file = delete $conf{log_file};
+  my $logfile = delete $conf{filename};
 
-  if (defined $log_file) {
-    open PLOG_FILE, ">>$log_file" or Carp::croak "Couldn't open log file: $!\n" if defined $log_file;
-    PLOG_FILE->autoflush(1);
+  if (defined $logfile) {
+    my $path = dirname $logfile;
+    if (not -d $path) {
+      print "Creating new logfile path: $path\n";
+      mkdir $path or Carp::croak "Couldn't create logfile path: $!\n";
+    }
+
+    open LOGFILE, ">>$logfile" or Carp::croak "Couldn't open logfile $logfile: $!\n";
+    LOGFILE->autoflush(1);
   }
 
   my $self = {
-    log_file => $log_file,
+    logfile => $logfile,
   };
 
   bless $self, $class;
-
   return $self;
 }
 
@@ -40,8 +46,8 @@ sub log {
 
   $text =~ s/(\P{PosixGraph})/my $ch = $1; if ($ch =~ m{[\s]}) { $ch } else { sprintf "\\x%02X", ord $ch }/ge;
 
-  if (defined $self->{log_file}) {
-    print PLOG_FILE "$time :: $text";
+  if (defined $self->{logfile}) {
+    print LOGFILE "$time :: $text";
   }
 
   print "$time :: $text";
diff --git a/PBot/PBot.pm b/PBot/PBot.pm
index a544708b..940639b2 100644
--- a/PBot/PBot.pm
+++ b/PBot/PBot.pm
@@ -62,8 +62,25 @@ sub new {
 sub initialize {
   my ($self, %conf) = @_;
 
+  $self->{startup_timestamp} = time;
+
+  my $data_dir   = $conf{data_dir};
+  my $module_dir = $conf{module_dir};
+  my $plugin_dir = $conf{plugin_dir};
+
+  # check command-line arguments for directory overrides
+  foreach my $arg (@ARGV) {
+    if ($arg =~ m/^(?:general\.)?((?:data|module|plugin)_dir)=(.*)$/) {
+      my $override = $1;
+      my $value = $2;
+      $data_dir = $value if $override eq 'data_dir';
+      $module_dir = $value if $override eq 'module_dir';
+      $plugin_dir = $value if $override eq 'plugin_dir';
+    }
+  }
+
   # logger created first to allow other modules to log things
-  $self->{logger}   = PBot::Logger->new(log_file => $conf{log_file}, %conf);
+  $self->{logger}   = PBot::Logger->new(filename => "$data_dir/log/log", %conf);
 
   $self->{version}  = PBot::VERSION->new(pbot => $self, %conf);
   $self->{logger}->log($self->{version}->version . "\n");
@@ -79,22 +96,6 @@ sub initialize {
 
   $self->{refresher} = PBot::Refresher->new(pbot => $self);
 
-  my $data_dir   = $conf{data_dir};
-  my $module_dir = $conf{module_dir};
-  my $plugin_dir = $conf{plugin_dir};
-
-  # check command-line arguments for directory overrides
-  foreach my $arg (@ARGV) {
-    if ($arg =~ m/^(?:general\.)?((?:data|module|plugin)_dir)=(.*)$/) {
-      my $override = $1;
-      my $value = $2;
-      $self->{logger}->log("Overriding $override to $value\n");
-      $data_dir = $value if $override eq 'data_dir';
-      $module_dir = $value if $override eq 'module_dir';
-      $plugin_dir = $value if $override eq 'plugin_dir';
-    }
-  }
-
   # make sure the environment is sane
   if (not -d $data_dir) {
     $self->{logger}->log("Data directory ($data_dir) does not exist; aborting...\n");
diff --git a/log/.gitignore b/data/log/.gitignore
similarity index 100%
rename from log/.gitignore
rename to data/log/.gitignore
diff --git a/pbot b/pbot
index d3d1798a..1a090d9e 100755
--- a/pbot
+++ b/pbot
@@ -33,9 +33,6 @@ my %config = (
   # Path to directory containing loadable plugins
   plugin_dir => "$bothome/Plugins",
 
-  # Path to log file
-  log_file   => "$bothome/log/log",
-
   # -----------------------------------------------------
   # The bot can export the latest factoids and quotegrabs to an HTML
   # document.  If you run a webserver or something similiar, you may