Just found out the State Department finally launched online passport renewal and honestly it's a mixed bag. The good news: you can actually do it from home now instead of mailing everything in. The catch? It still costs $130 to renew an expired passport, same as always, and they're not exactly rushing it through.

So here's the deal if you're thinking about doing this - you gotta be at least 25, actually live in the U.S., and your passport has to be from roughly 2009-2015 or between 9 and 15 years old depending on when you're applying. If you can wait 8 weeks, the online option works. Need it faster? You're back to the old mail-in process.

The whole thing happens on MyTravelGov where you set up an account, upload a digital photo (finally, no more getting those printed photos taken), and pay the $130 with a card. They say processing times have gotten way better lately - like a third faster than last year - so maybe it'll actually show up in reasonable time.

Not exactly revolutionary but beats going to an office. Curious if anyone's tried it yet?