No Longer Recommended

When 'net surfing was still completely new to us, we had a few faves that really did the trick. Discovering The Onion for the first time was like a revelation, and they still know the funny, although the move to New York killed a little bit of the outsider nature they had.

Anyway, we went back to a few old reliables recently that have been allowed to die ugly deaths. Now shadows of their former selves, they are propelled mostly by inertia, still good for display ad income or egoboo but not so much for entertainment.

Granted, this smacks of Bobcat Goldthwait's best joke:

"At this point in my career, people feel obligated to come up to me and say 'I used to like you. You used to be funny.' So I say 'Oh yeah? Well I just met you and you suck.'"

Still, it's our blog. Here's the No Longer Recommended:

Disturbing Auctions
Once upon a time, the moderated and original writing on Disturbing Auctions brought the pointlessly odd on a daily basis. Then they put the patients in charge of the loony bin by setting it up as a message board. Posts now are inevitably of the been there, done that, workaday lame variety, without even a nod to the writing that made the original site great.

Salon
Oh what a little success will do to you. Back in the day this was one of my true daily must-read sites. Smart writers, a seemingly endless base of topics and opinions to draw from, Keith Knight's The K Chronicles, nearly weekly articles from my beloved Cintra Wilson, what wasn't to love? It was political without being preachy, intelligent without looking down, and not afraid to laugh at stupid jokes. But then they started charging admission for the second half of articles, and suddenly what started as a daily news magazine on my computer became an ad-riddled password-entering obstacle course that was more work than anything else.

The Best Page in the Universe
Maddox was the guy who was better than your kids. Perhaps he still is, but now he sounds like every other hothead on the 'net.

Ain't It Cool News
This used to be geek central. Now it's ground zero for hate speech and trolling. Not to mention patently uncool news.

How about you? Leave us a comment and let us know what sites you used to love, but can't stay with anymore?