Maine sites

Among the websites I look at most days for news are four based in Maine: VillageSoup (Knox County), DownEast, Portland Press Herald, and MPBN. Each has its charms.

VillageSoup http://knox.villagesoup.com/ : local news in all its glory; the weather (every day when we're resident and some days, out of longing, when we're not)

DownEast http://downeast.com/ : trivia (today's answer is 611 miles - see the site for the question - or if you're reading this later than today, see below*); blogs; (for everything else I get the magazine)

Press Herald http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/ : general Maine news; Bill Nemitz

MPBN http://www.mpbn.net/ : news stories that I as an effete liberal snob am likely to like.

The sites are especially useful when we're not in state, useful for crying and moaning and wishing and hoping, that is. Do we use place-based websites differently depending on the place in which we access them? I think so: I'm especially hungry for information when I'm elsewhere. It got bad enough the other day that I clicked on the Ultimate Maine Wedding ad on DownEast just to see the pretty pictures of the coast I figured would be there. It's like carbo-loading: I've been out of Maine for more than a week; and tomorrow I'll load up on eye candy and facts fat and empty trivia calories especially greedily, for in the evening we're going to France to visit our daughters, and except for the coast of Britanny, which apparently resembles Maine, I expect to go cold turkey on the sights and sites of the Pine Tree State.

*the length of the Maine-Canada border