Conspiracy theories

You may note that I have made a few changes to the blog roll on the right. I've been meaning to for some time. I've always felt bad that I link to so few, but have always taken the position that I should only link to writers that I actually read regularly. I have a rather full life and just don't have the time to spend all my time on the internets, so those are only a few.

But there are so many others I like and read occasionally, so I added a second category to include those. As yet, the list is incomplete but I will try to grow it as I go along.

And sadly, I've added a third category. Favorite writers who somehow allowed their sites to become unreadable.

Putting TBogg in that category especially pains me. He is one of the few writers on the web who I would actually pay good money to read, but it is not worth the effort to navigate his new site. It is apparently designed to make visitors click as many times as possible. My guess is that he somehow gets paid based on the number of clicks. If that's true, fine, I wish him well. People who write that well should make money off it. But if not, if the new site is just a horrible design choice, someone please ask him to fix the goddammed thing. Then let me know and I'll move his link back up to the first team. Until then, I'm afraid he will just be another small hole in my life.

Tom Tomorrow is the other writer I put in the used to be great but became unreadable category. His site was taken over by some guy shilling a book called "The Prisoner of Trebekistan." Every third sentence on the blog was an advertisement for the stinking book. I understand that writers want to sell their work and am not opposed to marketing in general, but at some point it becomes too crass. Unfortunately, poor Tom's site turned into a cross between an infomercial and a RonCo advertisement. I had to stop reading.

You know what's odd? The guy who ruined Tom Tomorrow's site with the endless shilling of his book, Bob Harris, was mentioned in a TBogg post shortly before TBogg's blog disappeared. Hmmmmmm. Could he have them locked in a basement somewhere? Maybe someone should investigate.

On a positive note, I just scanned Tom's site for the first time in ages and didn't see any infomercials. Perhaps I'll get back in the habit of going there and move him back up the blog roll. I hope so. Can't have too many good writers out there.