Here's a funny coincidence: Monte Cook just redesigned his Web site too, and started a new blog as well. Just like me!
Well, okay, so Monte really redesigned and restructured everything on his site, while I just tinkered with my home page. And what Monte is doing is more like a real blog, while my "blog" is just a thrice-weekly update on my Web site.
Of course, since we're making comparisons, note that Monte's site has won a couple EN World awards ... and looks way more professional than my site ... and is also the online presence (and store) for his wildly successful d20 game house, Malhavoc Press. But that don' discourage me none! No sir! That Mister Monte Fancy Cook's got nothin' on me! Ya know, I got plans to win some of them there awards, too! And get some of them jay-peggy Web arts for my site! And jump start me a "wildly successful d20 game house" too! See! Great minds! Monte and me, peas in a pod!
And by the way, did I mention that Monte co-designed the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons? And wrote the Dungeon Master's Guide? Huh. Kind of hard to top that one.
Seriously, though, put Monte's site on your daily links list. He's a brilliant guy, and fun to read. Buy his stuff, too, while you're at it.
But I was sad, however, to see that in the redesign, Monte seems to have taken some of his old content off line. He used to have a "DMs Only" section on his site with some really good stuff in it. For now, you can still access that content on his site if you know the URL for the DMs Only archive. But what if he takes down that page?
Fortunately, nothing is gone forever! Thanks to the Wayback Machine, you can still chew on all the crunchy goodness of Web pages otherwise lost to the dustbin of history! Here is a link to Monte's site as it was on Feb. 25, 2004. The problem is that the links are not easy to use -- you have to go back to the WayBack machine for each and every page. But it can be done, for example, to access Monte's wonderful and insightful two-part essay on designing prestige classes. Here are a few links, good for so long as we have the Wayback Machine, to some of my favorite things from Monte:
Returning to the present, I do think it's a funny happenstance that Monte and I have both started blogging at the same time. But like I said, my "blog" isn't really a blog. It's just me ranting three times a week. I do want it to be more than just "Ate eggs for breakfast; listening to They Might Be Giants; here's a link; wow, those Republicans!" I want to give you something valuable and original in every screed. I even have some structure for my three posts a week. One post will be a look at the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. One post will be wemic-related. And one post (like this one) will comment on something happening on the Web, hopefully with more than just "here's a link."
