Your Call, 2.4

Mornin', everyone. Well, there's a lot of housekeeping stuff to talk about today, starting with the changes in the Typepad blog format. I was caught by surprise myself yesterday, when only 25 comments appeared when I checked the site at around 6 PM. It took me a little time to figure out that Typepad had suddenly adopted a pagination format for its blogs, so that you only see 25 comments at one time, and then must click on the Next (page) icon and link (in blue, at the end of each set of 25 comments) for the next 25.  The least Typepad could have done is send an alert that this was about to happen, no?

Anyway, we're exploring all our options in terms of tweaking this new format, or even reverting back to our original "master list" format. This new approach is irritating to all of us, so let's hope we can change it back. However, I've noticed that many other websites/blogs also use the paginated format, and I guess I've always accepted that. We may have to adjust to a new system here, although there's no doubt that it may obstruct the habitual, easy and free-flowing communications we've enjoyed in the Comments. Bear with us while we see what, if anything, can be done.

Tomorrow, we'll have a free-ranging "live chat" group discussion here, starting at 11 AM. I'll have to take a break around lunchtime, but we'll continue from around 2 PM until 4. I was unable to answer many of your questions these past two days, so this will give us a chance to catch up. Look for a new YC post to go up tomorrow inviting questions, and then post your question in the Comments. I too wonder how the new format will help or hinder this exercise, but we'll have to wait and see.

Also, y'all are invited to a joint book reading by  El Jon (Wertheim) and two other authors at the Happy Ending Lounge on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Check out the link for details. El Jon, as many of you know, is publishing a new book on the Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal rivalry, but he'll be reading from and answering questions about a different kind of Ultimate Fighting  - the kind that takes place in the infamous Octagon. Here's a link to the book. All of you know that anything Jon writes is worth reading, and in this book he does a terrific job exploring the most extreme form of the always-strong martial arts subculture and its fans. Trust me, its an interesting and in some ways refreshing break from the niceties of the tennis culture. I am going to do my best to be there, and hope those of you who are in New York will come by.

Feel free to talk tennis while it's being played in Vina del Mar and elsewhere, and then when the action is over you can go OT.

-- Pete