but no more!  i'll be taking matt's advice, and fixing things up.

the screenshot doesn't really explain the new ads as well as it needs to. unfortunately, i lack the technology to take a screenshot which shows you the next 4 pages full of feeds boxes with 1 or 2 posts, and a full screen height of advertising in between them. It probably wouldn't be so bad if the posts weren't excerpted. That's weird, because on their own, the AJAX-expanding-collapsing-excerpts are actually really cool. But the auto-clearing boxes that make sure the floated ad block on the right shows all the way to the bottom isn't cool. I could be okay with having that many ads on my feedreader if, you know, it didn't interfere with my ability to read feeds.

At the same time, i've been really enjoying the wp.com friend surfer. There's no 'mark as read' button, which i thought i was going to miss.  turns out, being able to load posts by how long ago they were written pretty much makes read/unread irrelevant.  it's not like bloglines and google reader, where once i've glanced at an article, it's marked as read, and then dissappears forever.  And the 'latest posts' view, which shows exactly 1 post from each feed, elimanates that 'nagging feeling'  i get when i've been neglecting my reader.   The multiple view options and the speed make it better than i was expecting.

Previously, my gold standard feed reader was akregator, because it shared konqueror's cookies and allowed me to read livejournal/suicidegirls feeds that required authentication.  Then i got fascinated by john zeratsky's read this! concept.  now, i think i want a friend surfer for non-wp.com blogs.

with, you know, a better name.  preferably one that doesn't involve cheesy 90's california lingo.