Although the Annotated Pratchett File claims to have been last updated this past February, no new annotations have been added since September '04 ... the pace at which new articles are added to Beyond Hogwarts is slower than a crawl ... in fact, the only site in the "Books" section with any appreciable momentum is ALA.org, which is planning a redesign this fall ... Newsarama has undergone a redesign of its own, which is messy and unattractive ... continuing with the theme, DC Comics' site is also redesigned, with no impact on its performance one way or the other, though now it's more eyecatching ... Dilbert.com is now an independent beta website, much bulkier and slower to load ... speaking of which, Garfield.com just gets more labyrinthine and useless (except, of course, for the daily strips, which are non-useless only in a technical sense) ... Being Five has inexplicably taken a biiig step backward, both in terms of site layout and art. The writing, though, continues being excellent ... Web Sudoku now has forums, and is available also in French, German and Spanish ... remind me to write sometime about the time I babelized American Pie on Lost in Translation. What a hoot ... ICHC has expanded into "Celebrity" and "Lookalikes" sections in addition to "LOLdogs" and "News & Politics" ... This is True looks a lot nicer now without sacrificing the essential details that gave it a whimsily folksy look. ... Disney.com is now the movie equivalent of CN.com, so bye-bye! ... MBTN's relaunch is strictly utilitarian, and not as much fun to read ... FanIQ's become more and more cumbersome and less and less reliable, making using it a chore instead of a pleasure ... mental_floss got a redesign which I initially disliked but have since accepted

TODAY'S BOOK: "Profiles in Courage", by John F. Kennedy ((c) 1955)

TODAY'S WEBSITE: www.unkno.com Featuring hundreds of useless trivia, it's the incredibly random fact generator, Unnecessary Knowledge! (Batteries not included.)

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