And now,, a study of the many promises made by me in a previous newsletter, and an explanation of why those things haven't happened yet:

PROMISE: "I'm going on a big vacation/tour in October..."
REALITY: No money. Trip postponed til 2003. Maybe a trip to NYC late 02/early 03, but the cross country thing is on hold.

PROMISE: "It's time to move on."
REALITY: See above.

PROMISE: "...Notebook is going to turn into a countdown to forty...what it's like to be a guy - a writer - at the tail end of his thirties."
REALITY: Actually, I spelled tail "tale" in the newsletter, but beyond that, this is really true. It's coming, either as the new Notebook or as a new column. Look for it next month.

PROMISE: "I'm updating Pop Culture Guy, which I've neglected."
REALITY: Next question.

PROMISE: "...updating the book page for publication of the book at the end of the summer..."
REALITY: Um...yeah, about that. I think I promised the book in the spring of 2001, then the summer, then the fall, then the winter, then spring 2002, then the end of this summer. Now I've learned my lesson. No more promises, except a general promise that it's coming. Yes, it's coming. It will make the perfect Christmas gift!*

PROMISE: "Free gifts will be mailed out this week..."
REALITY: [cough...ahem]

And I haven't even gotten into the magazine. And more fiction. That's all coming too. (Promise or reality? You decide!)

Oh, by the way: Welcome to Web Site Redesign #5, 627. Brought to you by Advil and Diet Pepsi.

OK, it's not so much a redesign as a tinkering around the edges. A new opening page, some new logos at the top of certain pages. Trying to get some consistency to the page design. That's the theory anyway. I don't know if I completely succeeded. It really gets crazy, if you obsess on this stuff too much. I can't even walk into the cereal aisle of my supermarket without thinking, "hey, that's a neat font! I wonder what that is! Can I use it on my site?" When I'm watching television, and the scroll at the bottom has some terrible news about war and death, my only thought is, "if they used a Times Roman there..." At night instead of counting sheep, I'm wondering if a bold Comics font would be better than italic. As they flash the scores of the U.S. Open matches, I'm thinking they should put them in the corner instead of taking up half the screen with a frame. Nice logo though. And I like that color! What's that font? I bet that would look good on the Notebook page! I'm a geek!

To paraphrase Dr. McCoy, dammit Jim, I'm a writer, not a web site designer.** But, hey, I like it.

Played tennis this weekend for the first time in over a year. Body aches galore, but lots of fun. Message to Geoff: not that I want the whole world to see or anything, but I won 6-1, 6-1, 6-1, right? Just wanted to double check on that. Heh...

Anyway, he and I agreed that the time of year that we should look at for renewal and resolutions and getting a fresh start on things is not January, when the media forces all this stuff on you, it's the fall. Kids are going back to school and college, the staggering humidity of August is gone, the new TV season starts, the better movies start to appear. The holidays are approaching. There's a snap and crackle to the air, and you can sense it in people's attitude. So, in that spirit, some changes to the site:

News: This section on the main page is self-explanatory. Look here first.
Notebook: updated every two weeks now, instead of every week. More essays, less "look at what I had to eat today" news. Unless, of course, what I had to eat that day happens to be really interesting.
Fiction and Books: my main focus now.
Non-fiction and essays: as always, something new just about every week.
Professor Barnhardt's Journal: weekly web mag launches late Sept/early Oct.
Explanations to what changes are happening to the site: will now be kept to a minimum.

After today, of course.

* Seriously, I apologize to those who pre-ordered. But please note that not only will"Book, With Words and Pages" be bigger and better than originally planned (that's what I've been doing for the past month), it will now involve 99% more chocolate. Details soon.
** See what I mean? Total geek.

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