THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME
As you might have noticed, we've changed a few things around here. But don't
let the new design fool ya - the layout's pretty much the same: same placement
and number of ads per page (actually, fewer on some pages); same basic layout
on the homepage (two newest articles at the top, other recent articles below),
same width and format of the articles themselves, etc.

So what's different? We beefed up the content on the tabs, and - my favorite
part - we now have the ability to "tag" articles. So, for example,
if you're reading an article about The L Word and want to read
more about Kristanna Loken, you can just click on her name in the pink "Tags"
field at the bottom, and you'll see all other
articles about her on the site.

The caveat to this is that we have about 2,500 archived articles on AfterEllen.com, and only about 50 of them are in the new site yet (we have to enter them manually, one by one - oy!), so a lot of the articles won't show up in the search results yet (that's also why you'll get the "old" design on these pages). But little by little, we'll get them added, and in a few months, it will really be easy to find more articles on the topics you want!

Other cool new features? Once you register (it's free, of course, and pretty easy), you can comment on articles, and "bookmark" articles and forum topics, which will put it in a list called "My Bookmarks" for easy access later. Go ahead and try it by registering and posting a comment at the end of this column - if you can't think of anything to say, tell us what L Word character you're most similar to. I dare you to say Max.

IT'S LIKE PROJECT RUNWAY WITHOUT THE FASHION
This Sunday is the premiere of the new MTV reality series I'm From Rolling Stone, about six young journalist interns duking it out over a summer for a contributing editor job. The group includes 26-year-old lesbian journalist/poet Tika Milan from Buffalo, New York, who likes Nina Simone and The Color Purple, and says about her childhood, "I used to play football and basketball in the streets all day, run around fighting – I was very much a tomboy. I never had any girls’ toys, never did none of that s**t." Eagle-eyed lesbians will notice she appears in the black house-party Hanifah Walidah video I included in my column a few weeks back.

I'm not convinced this is going to be gripping television unless you're a big music fan, but it's cool to see an openly black lesbian on reality TV, especially one who's not on the femme-y side of the scale. From the promo, Tika seems to be the only one not screwing up in a major way, but maybe she's just edited that way. Or maybe she's benefiting from TV's Golden Lesbian Rule, which holds that lesbians are always portrayed as more moral than than their straight counterparts (see Nip/Tuck, The Wire, etc.), and that being gay is enough of a differentiator that the writers/editors don't feel compelled to create another "story" for their character.

Then there's the Cubic Zirconian Lesbian Rule, which says there can never be more than one lesbian on a show at a time, but that's a whole 'nother topic.