It started innocently enough two or three hours ago, when I pointed my computer mouse at www.Maine.gov to see what makes it one of the best, maybe the best, state Web site in the country.

Now I'm hooked.

I'm long past the crystal-clear, zoom-in-and-out aerial maps of Maine that pinpoint where each and every moose and deer has been killed by a motor vehicle over the last three years. (Avoid Route 2 west of Skowhegan and any road north of Presque Isle.)

I spent way too much time on the Excel spreadsheet that told me I'm one of 306 residents of Buxton who are 55 to 60 years old. (We number 53,772 statewide.)

And as of today, I will be notified directly by Gov. John Baldacci whenever he wants me to fly the flag in my yard at half-staff. (I'm also on board for an array of emergency citizen alerts.)

In short, I'm impressed. And to all of you anti-government types who swear on your libertarian grandmother's grave that nothing good comes out of Augusta, I now have proof that you're wrong.

Maine.gov, in a word, rocks.

My head-first plunge into Augusta's cyberspace came after the news landed in my inbox Monday that Maine's ever-expanding effort to connect with its citizenry via the Internet has won national recognition – again – on two fronts.

The first was a study by Rutgers University and San Francisco State University that ranked Maine first in the nation when it comes to "electronic delivery of public service" and "citizen participation in governance" via the Web.

The second came from the Center for Digital Government's annual "Best of Web" competition, in which Maine's site placed fourth among the 50 states – the ninth consecutive year that we've been in the top five.

"I'm actually disappointed in that one," deadpanned Richard Thompson, the state's chief information officer. "Last year we finished second."

Thompson, to be sure, is not one of your better-known bureaucrats in Augusta. But as head of the state's Office of Information Technology since its creation almost five years ago, he has quietly led the crusade to put state government a mere click away from anyone who wants to get a hunting or fishing license, register a car or boat, drill down into an obscure database, reserve a campsite, plan a vacation, file for unemployment

And by any measure, he's done it well. Last year alone, Maine.gov received 180 million hits -- an average of 15 million per month. This year's total, if history is an indication, will be even higher.

Thompson's strategy?

"We've come a long way," he said, "but we've done it with common sense."

Maine.gov is operated by InforMe, a public-private partnership created by the Legislature in 1998 to provide people an electronic portal to public information.

The private partner, Maine Information Network, handles Maine.gov's day-to-day operations with a 19-member staff in Augusta at an annual cost of $3.1 million.

But get this. That money comes not from Maine's general fund, but from the small "transaction fees" that citizens pay when they renew licenses or registrations -- in other words, as fees for online transactions are funneled directly to Maine.gov, the Web site effectively pays for itself.

Thompson is the first to admit that Maine.gov "isn't quite as glitzy" as, say, Utah's Web site, with its slow-motion vistas and little icons that sprout balloon captions whenever you click on them, or California's real-time Web casts of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's every utterance.

Rather, Thompson said, Maine's site leans toward enhancements that actually help people: The videos on the recently added "Media Gallery," for example, include closed-captioning.

"I think that has real value for people who are hearing-impaired," Thompson said. "So that's the...