1) Why have you redesigned the Les Pages aux Folles Web site?
My Web Goddess is a harsh and cruel mistress. It was either redesign the Web site or recruit minions to help her carry out her nefarious plans for world chocolate sales domination. If I had wanted to recruit minions for nefarious purposes, I would have become a corporate headhunter, so that didn’t leave me much choice.
2) Why did you add navigation bars?
Because chocolate bars may make a nice, light snack, but they really don’t help you find your way around a Web site.
3) You know, I always seem to regret following up when you give a non-answer to a question, but I just can’t help myself. Seriously, why did you add navigation bars?
Before the change, you had to click through navigation arrows to get to the articles you didn’t want to read. Now, you can get to the articles you don’t want to read much faster. Just one more way that I serve you, the reader.
4) What are some of the other ways you serve your readers?
I don’t post videos of cats playing the piano on my Web site and I rarely demand blood sacrifices.
5) What happened to the index page?
I, uhh, had to have it amputated. I got a little…behind in my payments to my Russian bookie – do yourself a favour and never bet on kishke races! – and he gave me a choice: pay up or lose an index page. The funny thing is, it hardly hurt, and now, except for a few phantom tics when I’m uploading new material to the site, I don’t miss it.
6) Is that really what happened?
Naah. My Web Goddess explained that *NEW* *NOW* *HAPPENING* *HIP* Web pages didn’t have index pages any more. The trend is to throw readers directly you’re your content, because lord knows that in these busy modern times of ours, nobody can afford the three seconds it would take to scan the content of an index page. Then, when I said that I liked it anyway, she threatened to give me the names of the odds-on favourites of that afternoon’s kishke races, and I immediately buckled.
Well, you know, Pa’s bursitis has been gettin worse since Babe ran off to the big city, and Aunt Mamie ain’t been the same since Sex and the City done went off the air –
8) No, I meant what else is new with the Web site?
Honestly, I think you’ll find Aunt Mamie’s bursitis more interesting…
9) I know. And, I hate myself for insisting. Still, what else is new with the Web site?
We’ve gone from flat files to a database.
10) What is the significance of that?
Nobody really likes flat files, because they just don’t fill out a bikini. Expanding your flat files with extra silicone satisfies some readers, although others find the Web pages less jiggly, claiming that they just lie there on the screen not moving, which seems to defeat the whole purpose.
11) I’m sorry I asked. You know, it’s a fine line between clever and offensive.
You be sure to let me know where exactly that line is when you’ve found it.
12) Are you going to add an RRS feed to your Web site?
Only if I get really, really, really, really, really hungry (and that’s five reallys, so you know I must be very hungry, indeed), although, even then, I prefer an IV drip.
13) You have no idea what an RRS feed is, do you?
Only my proctologist knows for sure.
14) Are you going to add podcasts to your Web site?
That’s a cheap way to publicize Nicole Kidman’s new movie, don’t you think?
15) What, are you referring to The Invasion, a remake of the 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, about two lonely people trying to find happiness in a world where everybody is replaced by emotionless zombies grown in pods, also starring the latest James Bond, Daniel Craig?
Okay, now you’re just milking it.
16) Actually, podcasts have nothing to do with any incarnation of the film. They are Internet broadcasts meant to be listened to over people’s iPods. So, are you going to add them to your Web site?
Oh. I could consider it, but I don’t think people are ready to listen to 20 minutes of rustling paper. That’s so Andy Warhol, don’t you think?