Never quite right, this index page.

This is the fifth version I’ve put up in two years. It’s the old problem of “too much information” – not in the oh-my-aching-urethra sense, but too many subsites. One of these days a hard rain is going to come down and wash them all away, as famous Human Interface Guidelines guru Travis Bickle once said. Until that day comes, though, I will continue to revise all the stuff that’s already done, and tweak this page until it’s perfect.

Yes, that will happen soon. The next version will be spot on. I should put up a gallery of index pages, really – in the old days I changed it monthly. It was rather basic – a graphic and some links – but that was the style in those times, along with wearing onions on our belts.

So: what’s new under the hood for '09? The Gallery of Regrettable Food will get a big update; the Engraveyard will see the conclusion of Curious Lucre. The overhaul of Coffee & Chrome, a site about pre-chain restaurants, will finish in January. There's a new site on Comics ads, folded into a new larger site called Comic Sins.

The Minneapolis section continues its interminable overhaul. Why? Because the old version was built for the 640-pixel-wide monitors of yore, and looks small on today’s monitors. Or tomorrow’s. Since I finished the site in 2001 or so, I’ve accumulated thirty-six tons of additional material. I’ll redo one building per week for the next few years. (Yes, there are that many sites buried in the Minneapolis section.)

At least I don’t have to worry about the Fargo and Motel sites; they’re done, aside from semi-annual updates to reflect new additions. (The Motel site is customarily updated in the summer, since that’s when families crammed into station wagons and set off across the land.) 

The Bleat chugs along as usual - updated Monday through Friday.

There is also Twitter.

That's it for now - enjoy the site!

Lileks 01.01.09