I mentioned loony's work on the more caffeinated version of the site, and it has now gone live, the reworked format now loads a bit more quickly than its predecessor. We will continue to examine ways to speed the site's operation, but hopefully you'll find the results of this round of tweaking noticeable to start with.

As you may be aware, there's an ill wind blowing through the Internet gaming community, as several gaming networks re-work their business models on the fly. Some stories on the situation as it stands are: Stomped's response to the CNET Gamecenter Alliance Breakup, one of the first indications of what's been going down, while PCShooter.com interviews CNET and Crossroads talking about the former's dissolution of the Gamecenter Alliance, which had been host to the latter, among others. Meanwhile, as mentioned in this story, CombatSim.Com has announced their attempts to overcome a difficult business environment by going to a subscription model. Finally, closer to home, UGO to Trim Affiliate Payouts on Gamers.com reports a shakeup at the network that runs ads on this very site. What does all this mean to us? I can't say for sure at this point, but in the meantime I am certainly interested in observations about this difficult situation.

Happy birthday Isaac! Today is Ted Lange's 54th birthday. Thanks Chris Morris. Grab Senator Gopher and let's all meet for a drink on the Aloha deck.

Link of the Day: Eternal Reefs. Thanks Rick Calero.
Story of the Day: Boy turned into a yam by witchdoctor (Ananova). Thanks Chris Johnson.
SoD Follow-up: Mysterious monolith reappears in middle of Green Lake. (5Kings). Thanks Likkit Pocinwong and theAntiELVIS.