So, things have been in a constant state of flux down here at Press Herald Plaza in the last week.

The NXT Desk did not go unaffected.

Some of you may have noticed this morning that the two sections the NXT Desk primarily writes for – Monday Magazine and the iHerald – did not arrive with the morning's paper.

No, there was not a mix-up at the plant this morning. You were not shortchanged friends.

Let me explain.

Last week it was announced that there would be layoffs and changes to the newspaper resulting from the continued loss of advertising dollars and other revenue.

Also in that mix is the whole "the Interweb is KILLING US," argument, not to mention the whole question of why aren't the type of people who read this blog (i.e., young) not picking up a paper. (But that's a blog for a whole 'nother day.)

It's a story you may have heard before and seen in several papers in places around the country.

Around here the result was cutbacks, including people and pieces of your daily paper and two of the victims were iHerald and Monday Magazine.

I know it sounds like doom and gloom, but sometimes when you close a door you break a window, or punch a hole in the drywall.

You may have also noticed in this morning's paper that NXT landed on the bottom of the front page.

It's not the best circumstances to get a bump (and certainly not one I asked for or was expecting), but as the saying goes - it is what it is.

As I am told, the column will live there for the foreseeable future, so I'll have to step up my game and try to cut down on the four-letter words and ethnic jokes.

The other change is the iHerald, which will no longer have its own flag on Mondays. The stories won't be gone entirely from print, instead they'll be popping up in other sections of the newspaper.

But we'll also try to develop the iHerald online into what it was supposed to be originally - a place for readers and the newspaper to interact and feed off each other. I wish I could tell you what that means and what it will look like, but I don't exactly know yet. But that's part of what makes it exciting.

In the meantime I'm open to any and all suggestions on what to do with the future of iHerald and what you'd like to see, so feel free to e-mail me or find me on AIM (JustinNXT).

These are strange times in the ink-slinging game for certain, and that's from the perspective of someone who has only been in the business for about seven years.

But still, there's a lot of possibility, and with that, hope...I hope.

Feel free to sound off on the changes.

E-mail this entry to a friend