A Most Unusual Flight

It is the rule to give the Wright Brothers their place in history for the first powered flight, but they were not the first to fly by gliding. There is evidence that as long ago as 215 years past, today, a Spanish inventor named Diego Marín Aguilera made a brief but amazing flight using a homemade glider. Flight in the 1790s! Good pivot point for an alternate-history story.

Today is an unusual day for sure, as it is also the anniversary of the 1919 general strike in Winnipeg, during which almost everyone in every job in the city left work and stayed gone. Now, that is just sheer awesomeness. Beats heck out of "Lucky Strike." And we wish Las Vegas a happy 103rd b-day, too. Keep on rollin'! ("I'll take the Vegas odds on that one." - Daria in "Quinn the Brain.")

Kara Wild is now one-third of the way along her quest to become both Amy Barksdale and Helen Morgendorffer in one body. Will there be room for party-girl Rita? Stay tuned!

Deref the Formerly Plague-Ridden Barbarian has now captured top-secret equipment that puts all England under his control. He says he plans to have the island nation dismantled and brought to Australia, where it will be reassembled in his backyard by the patio. Speaking of Oz, today is the birthday of L. Frank Baum. Daria had a number of Oz references in it (e.g., "College Bored," "Fire," "Lucky Strike," Daria's Inferno game), and fanfics have even more, though they are hard to find.

Fanfic author Brandon League has been convicted of necromancy and corpse thread abuse after resurrecting the three-year-old Iron Chef, "I guess it runs in the family." PPMB moderators ruled that Brandon's punishment will be to read the new postings there. An appeal will be filed.


PPMB

• Eyeshield Morgendorffer, by LSauchelli (Part 3): Somehow, it slipped from her hands, like a shadow, like a dream. Cute. Very cute. [snerk!]
• Infected, by legendeld (Part 2): "Are you telling me the world ended while we were camping?"
• Reaper, by Ray (Part 1): A Daria crossover with both the Marvel and DC Comics' universes. Could be good.
• Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Dawn of a New Nightmare: More horrors, some of them pretty good!
  

Back soon.

Viva Mack!

Why the MTV artists decided to have Mack Mackenzie pose as the Communist revolutionary Che Guevara, I have no idea. Today would have been Che's 80th birthday, but that didn't work out (bang). Know what? I bet if Daria poked through the attic she'd find an old Che poster from the late 1960s that her dad used to own. You know Helen and Jake must have worshiped Che while they were at Middleton College, for a little while anyway. What do you think Daria would think of that?

More importantly, today is the 166th anniversary of the day Alfred, Lord Tennyson published a book called Poems, among which was the poem "Ulysses," which served as one of the inspirations for this fanfic.

Fanfic writer JJXB is looking for beta readers. Got time? Drop him a note. More news later. Peace out, yo!


LATE ADD: The first alt.lawndale.creators fanworks interviews have been posted to both PPMB and SFMB. (I was mentally addled recently and forgot the latter.) You can read about Kristen Bealer and her work here or here, and Christ Oliver and his work here or here. Enjoy! And more interviews are coming!

LATER ADD: Want to watch the birth of a new Daria fansite? Check it out!

Indiana Lane and the Mystik Temple That's Thinking About Changing Its Name

Sixty-three years ago today, George Lucas was born. Thanks to him, we have more Daria/Star Wars crossovers than you can shake a lightsabre at. Thanks, man! And we can stop with the crossovers, there are enough now, please.

This is also, more or less, the 743rd birthday of celebrated medieval computer-game designer Dante Alighieri, whose greatest creation was Daria's Inferno, based on some other work Dante wrote a few years earlier that no one remembers now. u R0k, d0oD!

Also today in history, Israel was founded, Skylab was launched, and Jamestown settled. Go look it up.

Did Daria Join the Herd After All?

Here's a discussion question for you: Did Daria cop out at the end of her series and join the herd?

There are three basic elements about the Daria show we know and love.

1. Daria has a bad attitude about almost everyone else in the world because she thinks they're idiots, and she refuses to join them in doing idiot-like things.

2. Everyone else in the world really IS an idiot, and this is proven over and over and over again.

3. Daria's bad attitude and refusal to be a joiner are thus justified. She is clearly on the right course.

The first two seasons of Daria basically validated the above premises. The third season muddled around, then we had the fourth and fifth season and the movies. At the end, Daria admits her parents aren't entirely stupid, she is worried that her lifestyle will lead her to be a lonely old woman in a houseful of cats, and she is every bit as capable of being thoughtless and mean and stupid as everyone else. She doesn't live up to her high expectations and is encouraged not to continue doing so. She is on her way to joining the herd, and all that attitude she had as a high-school sophomore turns out to be kid stuff.

Or is that true? Your thoughts next in Comments.

Birdbrains

One of my most very favorite movies of all time ever, so much so an incredibly beloved favorite that I even have Tom and Elsie Sloane mention it in a Daria fanfic ("A Midsummer Nightmare's Daria"), is Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. This ultra-mega-classic horror movie was based on a short story by Dame Daphne du Maurier, who was born 101 years ago today. Thank you! What a great movie!

This is also the 64th birthday of Armistead Maupin, author of the Tales of the City novels, which had a pronounced effect on the writing of the Pause in the Air fanfic series. Thank you, too!

Christ Oliver has a striking new crossover artwork: Futurama with Daria and Jane. Enjoy!

PPMB update time at last!


PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 21): The war against Avalon does not go well for the U.S.A.
  
• Big's Jake's Harley-Davidson, by Ranger Thorne (continued): A classic unfinished fic gets a new chapter! HOORAY!!!
• The Cynic, The Fashionista and The Jackass, by Doggieboy (COMPLETE!): Hands down, the best Daria Western ever, and possibly the best crossover this year. Read it!
• Death Takes a Holliday, by The Angst Guy (Parts 1 and 2): A visitor arrives in Lawndale through the back of a restaurant, during a holiday. See what happens next. (SFMB version)
  
• Falling Into College 62: Run It Up the Mast, by Richard Lobinske (Part 3): Dancing, drinking, cute boys, drinking, dancing. More power to you, Jane.
  
• Infected, by legendeld (Part 1): Daria and Quinn have a little problem: everyone on earth is trying to kill them. Literally everyone.
  
• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Part 23): Quinn soothes the savage beasts.
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): The long-awaited update on Lord Manglepunk's delicate condition. Also, Tom Sloane speaks out on the obvious economic advantages of slavery.
  
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): "Shakespeare really can be fun," said Quinn to herself. "Of course, Machiavelli can be more fun."

. . . and . . .

• The 1,001 Deaths of Tom Sloane (continued): More crimson goodness.

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat — eww!

Today marks the 68th anniversary of one of the better speeches in the English language: Sir Winston Churchill's first address as Prime Minister to the House of Commons. Part of this speech appeared as a chapter title in the fanfic "A Hard Days' Night."

This is also the birthday of so many famous people that listing them would be a bore (Stevie Wonder, Stephen Colbert, Roger Zelazny, Carl Linnaeus, Joe Lewis, Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan, etc.), so you can click here and see them all. I have a few favorites to mention later.

The Daria Fan Club has hit the 800-fan mark. Nice work. Now if only someone would actually DO SOMETHING THERE, that would be perfect.

While lying plague-ridden on a pile of artwork stolen from the Louvre, Deref the Barbarian has been admiring the phallic symbolism of the Eiffel Tower and has posted photographs of the same captured from unlucky tourists who crossed his path. The Darian Horde might move on into Germany without him, but Deref is still the Supreme Oz Darian Commander-for-Life of Greater West Europa. Crom bless him! dErEf r0OlZ!1!!!!11!!!

Update, part the first. Sorry I've not kept up with the Big Fanfic List Project, but hope to do it soon.


FF.net

• Apocalyptic Daria, by Doggieboy80 (Part 44): What about Tom? (Heh heh heh heh heh)
• Embers, by Sailor Ranger, a.k.a. Angelboy (Part 18): Quinn has a valuable learning experience about dance partners.
• Falling Into College 61: Latitudes, by Richard Lobinske (COMPLETE!): The epic saga is done! Shame about Jane and Mack, though. They so ruled together.
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy80 (Part 19): “Tom Jones? That’s an odd name to choose.” “Oh, it’s not unusual." (Such an awful pun.)
• Someone Set Up Us the Bomb, by Smileyfax (Part 1): Hell evidently hath no fury like a cynic scorned.

Fortress CINCGREEN

• Private Dicks, by CINCGREEN (Part 1): An accurate but misleading title for an intriguing premise. Moar, pleez.

Lawndale Online

• Falling Into College 61: Latitudes, by Richard Lobinske (COMPLETE!)
• Yes, Quinn . . . ., by NightGoblyn (COMPLETE!)

SFMB

• The Cynic, The Fashionista and The Jackass, by Doggieboy (COMPLETE!): IT'S THE AWESOME MEXICAN STANDOFF SCENE! (“Can we get this over with? I have better places to be!”)
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Epilogue 2): Daria gets hers, so to speak.
• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Part 23): Too many cooks almost spoil the broth until Quinn saves the day.

Moar suun.

"Wanna hear my operating room cheer?"

It's International Nurses Day! Hooray! This happens to be because Florence Nightingale was born 188 years ago today. Give a nurse a hug, unless you might be arrested for it. Brittany the Brain Surgeon is our mascot for today, though there is also Ken T's notorious and award-winning portrait of "Nurse Janey" (on SFMB, no link to it, like duh). Not appropriate, however. 'Nuff said.

Being a fan of higher education as well as nurses, we also mark the 457th anniversary of the founding of the oldest university in the Americas: the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, still goin' strong.

Deref the Barbarian has reportedly been struck down by bubonic plague while attempting to scale the Eiffel Tower. He has scaled back his looting and pillaging to include only the outer suburbs of Paris and not downtown until a witchdoctor is found to cure him. Father Martin the Civilized Barbarian has meanwhile posted etchings of his adventures with the Darian Horde (European Division).

Slobbergoat has posted new rantings and ravings at Lawndale Online.

The 1,849th article posted at DariaWiki is on the legendary BG's Barbeque Brew Hall. If you can guess which fanfic that came from, you win TEH INNERNTZZ!!!!111!!!!1!! Thank you, BG.

MMan is asking for beta-readers on PPMB. Got spare time? Give 'er a go. The story's great.

By way of new art, the immortal Beatnik Shaggy has posted an "Outrageous Crossover" on his deviantART site. (The title is a hint as to what the crossover is.) Love it. Praise and adoration may be left here.

Fanfic update soon.

It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Given Daria's appreciation for a clever turn of phrase, it is appropriate to celebrate the 83rd birthday today of Baseball Hall of Fame great Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees, whose Yogiisms have entered the English language and immortality. You've almost certainly heard some of Mr. Berra's malapropisms, but it's great to go down the list and find some new ones. You might not know, however, that the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi Bear was named for him, bringing us full circle to animation fandom again. Furthermore, Daria quotes Yogi Berra in Peter W. Guerin's "The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Debacle," and Yogi Bear is mentioned in Patrick Moore's "Beavis, Daria, and Butt-head" and CAP's "Daria in Pink." Thank you, Yogi Berra!

There are a few other important historical notes for the day, but we'll get to them later when fanfic updates are done. Peace out, yo!

Happy Mother's Day!

Party on. More later, busy day today.

Mother's Day +100 and Goin' Strong!

I can't shoot my own mother. Not with paint, anyway.

—Daria Morgendorffer, "The Daria Hunter"


Yes, Daria's fond thoughts lead us into this happy weekend celebrating the joy that is Mom. Though tomorrow is the official time of Mother's Day, today is the actual 100th anniversary of the first real Mother's Day in the U.S., which was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia.

Did you ever wonder what kind of teenager named Mother's Day goes to Holiday Island High School? I have. She's a pissed-off sarcastic pregnant teen (think Juno) whose jobless boyfriend, Father's Day, drinks a lot and sees other girls. If you have a different vision, post it in the comments below.


IT'S TIME FOR NEWS!

Now for some news and cultural references. While surf-skimming the interwide cyberblog webnet, I discovered an amusing editorial making reference to Our Heroine (not Jane, the other OH) on the student website for Vanderbilt University. You might like to read, "TOP TEN: Most Awesomely Bad Cartoons of Our Youth" and travel down Memory Lame a moment. Ah, the vast TV wasteland, you gotta love it. Too bad they didn't list Q-bert, but that was from the '80s.

You might also wish to read a student editorial on the state of MTV today from the website of The Roanoke Times. Where have those good days gone? (Maybe I shouldn't talk, since I missed Daria almost entirely when it was on.) See also an editorial on wrestling (no, seriously) on 411mania.com, a website about pop culture; you may have to search for "Daria" to find the reference, but it hits home. Where is that bright and shining light that was Daria? Oh, well.

The best is last. If you're into irony (and we all are, I know), read the opening lines of this entry from MTV's Movies Blog. Forget that it's about Speed Racer (barf!); just look for . . . well, you'll know it when you see it. Made me smile. Maybe she's out there in a spiritual out-of-body sense, making sure no one at MTV forgets her. Gotta love it.

Is That the Morgendorffer Choo-Choo?

Just 139 years ago today, the Golden Spike was driven in Promontory, Utah, completing the first-ever Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S.A. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the locomotive alter ego for Helen Morgendorffer was all about. Maybe she has loco motives? She likes to railroad her decisions through? Nah, awful jokes. If you have a better idea, let us know. (Not the about about pulling a train.)

It is less well known that today is also the 122nd birthday of one of the greatest science-fiction writers in all history: Olaf Stapledon, author of Sirius, Odd John, Last and First Men, and Star Maker. The latter is a future history of intelligent life in the universe covering billions of years to come, one of the great mind-blowers ever. Sirius, about an intelligent dog, gave me the idea for "A Hard Days' Night."

LATE ADD: Paris is in flames as Deref the Oz Barbarian and his Daria-crazed henchmen trample the French capital beneath their vegemite h—oh, wait, I've used that metaphor already. Uh, okay, skip it. If you want to read about the Daria-spawned chaos engulfing Europe, click here and be entertained.

22,500 hits! Here, I mean. And most of them aren't me!


PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 20): “It’s going to get nasty, amiga.” Well, that was an understatement.
• Crouching Monster, Hidden Magic, by Lorenzo Sauchelli (Part 6.2): "Aunt Amy? What are you doing here?"
• D.A.R.I.A., by Greystar (Part 1): It wasn't such a good idea for Jane to go through Daria's sock drawer after all.
• Falling Into College 62: Run It Up the Mast, by Richard Lobinske (Part 2): Michael screws up once again. Could have been worse, though.
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Epilogue 2): Robert's return . . . is not what you'd expect.
• The Other Side of Time: Witness to the Monkey Show, by The Sidhe (Part 2): The life and times of First Sergeant Jakob “Dutchy” Morgendorffer.
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): "That's the last time I go to an orgy at an accountant's home." Plus, Daria considers the proper way to administer corrective spiritual development to traitors.

SFMB

• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Epilogue 1): Once bitten, twice dead . . . unless higher powers get involved.

All the News That's (un)Fit to Print

Lots of recent news to catch up on. Here goes:

Martin Pollard wants to know: Where are all of the Outpost Daria submissions? If you've written anything at all lately that has the faintest mention of Daria in it, send your stuff in to OD right now! (Read the rules first, though, plus this update from MJP.)

Lawndale Online is looking a little thin on submissions lately, too, so read the rules there and get on the stick!

Want to know what Daria fanfic writers think? Oh. Well, some people do, so go read the very first alt.lawndale.creators interview, with Kristen Bealer!

Notorious Daria raconteur Quiverwing has started her own blog. Check it out, and demand more Daria news. Or not.

Deref the Barbarian has crossed the Channel and invaded France in his epic quest for the longest-distance Dariacon ever. The damage to the Louvre alone is beyond calculation. He was last reported in the sewers of Paris.

A quickie report has come in (with pix) of the Portland Dariacon (in Oregon, not Maine) a week ago. And, yes, our fandom is small enough that a meeting between any two fans counts as a full-fledged convention.

798 fans registered on the Daria Fan Club, plus a new poll. This site definitely needs more activity. Someone please add a few more images or chat threads or new (funny) polls.

1,848 articles on DariaWiki, with excellent recent efforts by Nighthawk, Dr. Mike, Brother Grimace, and Quiverwing. Thank you!

SFMB is showing very little activity lately. What up? I need a sad smiley here.

A beta request has been posted on PPMB by Dennis, looking for readers for the fourth GTS story: "Closets Are For Hang-ups." If you've got the time, he's got the story.

To everyone's great surprise, the Thread of Dread has been continued anew! Go to Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Dawn of a New Nightmare.

Mike Xeno's PPMB thread, Irredeemable Daria Characters, keeps on going. The debate continues, and the evil (?) Dr. Shar enters the fray.

Which Daria story was the darkest one you ever read? Check out the Darkest Fanfic thread on PPMB and vote.

And the hits just keep on comin' in The 1,001 Deaths of Tom Sloane. Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'! Plus, yet even more Things Students Are No Longer Allowed To Do At Lawndale High, and extra Scenes That Should Be: Brains for Rent.

Iron Chefs currently at large (thanks to Prince Charon and Greystar for some of these):

• Unusual(ly Gross) Superpowers!
• There are no laws, but there are rules!
• Everyone over a certain age suddenly dies. What happens next?
• Pranksters: What if Daria and Jane had liked to play practical jokes on people?

Wanna play around? More Daria Alphabetics is for you, then.

LATE NOTE: I just posted my 10,00th post to PPMB! I are a Darian!

And now for . . .


FAN ART!

• Wouter offers some Daria sketches in the PPMB thread, From the vault...
• Horas de Ocio (Leisure Hours), a marvelous color work by acidgirl. YES!
• Don't Mess with Them, a dual portrait by Lorenzo Sauchelli of Daria and Jane from his Dresden Files crossover tales.
• S.C.'s magnificent Cast Portrait (WIP) continues to progress as the Fashion Pu-uh, Pretties get a makeover.
  

More shortly, or not shortly, depending. Still trying to catch up.

Happy Birthday to Reno, Nevada!

Upchuck reminds us that today is the 140th birthday of Reno, Nevada, which is probably where he works today.

Today is also Europe Day, for those of you of a European persuasion, and the 115th birthday of William Marston, a psychologist who co-invented Wonder Woman. (This is not the same William Marston as appears in "Forgotten but not Gone.") Interestingly, Marston worked for a time at Tufts University, which is thought to have been the model for Raft University, where Daria Morgendorffer went off to college.

By a curious twist of fate, today is also the day when, in 1961, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minow, called TV programming a "vast wasteland." My, that was prescient of him, wasn't it? Good thing Daria was there to balance it all out.

More soon.

Back Again, Mostly

Um, I'm back. [cough] Why was I gone so long? Uh, well, um . . .

Well, thanks to a combination of bad diet, bad sleeping habits, and no exercise, I kind of sort of maybe in a way put myself in the hospital for four days, but I'm back and mostly okay, I think. I need to catch up on what's happened in the fandom this weekend, plus eat better, exercise more, and get a sleep study done, but other than that I'm fine, if a little woozy.

Sorry about that. Let this be a lesson to you all: don't eat salty potato chips and burritos and cheese crackers and soda all day while sitting on your butt and getting bad sleep. It doesn't work for stupid dopey old folks and it doesn't work for anyone else, either. Trust me on this.

Makes you wonder how Daria and Jane are doing these days if their eating/sleeping habits never changed from high school. There's a fanfic idea there, but I don't feel like writing it, having lived the adventure.

Cinco de Mayo! Olé!

It's Cinco de Mayo, the Fifth of May, a day to celebrate Mexican heritage. This would be a cheerful student at Holiday Island High, I think. Good day to eat candy and chocolate, too.

More shortly. Back!

An artistic Iron Chef: Create a Daria stamp! Some good entries have already come in.



[Post was unfinished. See next post for details.]

Go Ask Stacy Alice

Today is also the 156th birthday of Alice Liddell (rhymes with "fiddle"). She went on a boat ride as a young girl with the Rev. Charles Dodgson, who told Alice a story that she begged him to write down. And so he did, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was born, and later Through the Looking Glass. Both stories have had an impact on Daria fanfic.

UK Derefcon 2008 is in full riot for a second day in a row. Dublin is in ruins and the Daria Horde is rampaging across green and pleasant England once more. Molly Malone seems to have had a good time with the Horde, however.

More news after I wake up.


LATE ADD: Sort of awake now. Um, updates . . .


PPMB

• Mission: Ridiculous, by Doggieboy (COMPLETE!): A Daria/Mission: Impossible crossover in which a spy's cover is, um, blown.
• The Other Side Of Time: Witness To The Monkey Show, by The Sidhe (Part 1): More history lessons are learned while rummaging through the attic. (SFMB version)
  
• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Part 22): What good is a phone if you have no one to call? (SFMB version)

The Green Revolution

A 1995 drawing of Daria, from the MTV website, shows her wearing a Greenpeace tee under her open jacket. Greenpeace itself was founded 36 years ago today from a Canadian environmentalist organization.

This picture supports the idea that Daria's politics have always been to the left of center, paralleling her parents in their youth. What do you think her political angle is? DariaWiki has a page on the politics shown in the show. If someone has an opinion to add (supported by facts), by all means, put it down. A few people have argued she could be right of center, but I never saw proof of this.

Any thoughts here?

Hurry, While Supplies Last!

Believe it or not, today is Free Comic Book Day, probably because of the new Iron Man movie, and you can get a free comic book at participating dealers. You know Kevin will get Ratboy and share it with his new friends at the retirement home. (Not the movie called Ratboy.)

A pity Daria never got her own comic book, though Beavis and Butt-head did. Still, fans have given her some comic-book time of her own.

Ratboy appeared in a couple of stories by Galen "Lawndale Stalker" Hardesty: "Blood Oath of Patriots" and "Blood Oath of Patriots II: By Any Other Name." Ratboy got to meet Melody Powers. That meeting didn't go well at first.

What if Ratboy was a real superhero in Lawndale's universe? He's never appeared for real. He could also crawl through the wormhole in the back of Good Time Chinese. Could be fun.

Yeeee-haw!

Amazing what you can do with computers nowadays, isn't it?

Ahem.

On PPMB, Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Dawn of a New Horror has some new horrors there, all right.


Lawndale Online

• Holiday Kombat, by Richard Lobinske
• Misery's End, by Richard Lobinske
• One Step Forward, by Dennis
• Saving Hope, by Richard Lobinske

PPMB

• Avalon, by legendeld (Part 19): Quinn is having a tea party. I won't say more than that.
  
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): Okay, this is carrying the "arms race" entirely too far.
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): Evan does his fair share to stir the pot of chaos.

More soon.

It's Discoflux! Yay!

Yes, today is the Discordian Holyday known as Discoflux! And no one, not even the Discordians, knows how to celebrate it! You gotta know that this kid is one of the weirdest at Holiday Island High School. I picture Discoflux as looking like the character at left/right, though I have no idea which episode featured her. I got the image from MTV's Daria site. Anyone know who this is? Fanfic, people, fanfic!

UNESCO says today is also World Press Freedom Day 2008, which Ms. Li most assuredly does not celebrate. I bet this kid works on the Holiday Island High School student newspaper. "Halloween, X, where did you and Guy Fawkes Day go last week? Do the three of you have something going on?"

A really great story idea was posted on PPMB by echopapa: "D.A.R.I.A." What if Daria was a robot? The idea has come up before, but see what you can do with it. Do it for Discoflux!

Not much going on with some of the other Daria sites. SFMB has been very slow for a long while, the Daria Fan Club has 791 members but little activity, no new Dariacons on the Dariacon website. Must be a slow time of year. At least Deref the Oz Barbarian carries on the tradition, though Europe will be reduced to rubble in his passing.

A good open-ended Iron Chef challenge has been called by JennaUsername: "Good Morning, Miss Morgendorffer." Gird your loins and jump on it.

GO, DISCOFLUX!!!

"Frankly, my dear Scarlett . . ."

Exactly 71 years ago today, Gone with the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The author, Margaret Mitchell, spent years researching the book, which was the only one she ever wrote.

On a subject much closer to Daria's heart, today is also the 539th birthday of Niccolò Machiavelli, for whom "Nick's Corner" on PPMB is named. His political treatise, The Prince, became the subject of Daria and Tom's first prolonged conversation, in "Fire!" On a closely related note, the city of Washington, D.C., was founded 206 years ago today. Happy Birthday!

More soon. The thunderstorms finally stopped.


LATE ADD: Congratulations to Dr. Mike and Quiverwing for outstanding efforts in filling out DariaWiki, and thanks to Brother Grimace, Nighthawk, Dennis, and Gouka Ryuu, too.

A Racy Day at the Races

You know, the more I look at this picture, the more disturbing it becomes. Just trying to image the kind of roleplaying that goes along with Jake riding his filly to the finish line at The Oaks, and the kind of celebration they have afterwards, and what Helen is really wearing (or not) under that costume . . . it makes me feel like I will never be clean again. Bad dirty! Bad dirty! Ugh! Eww!

But that's why I'm here, and that's why you're here, too. Bad dirty is good to share.

On DariaWiki, Brother Grimace has written about Defender Rings, which are not birth-control devices.

New art is out!

• Lorenzo Sauchelli has given the Legion of Lawndale Heroes new uniforms. Wow!
• MDetector5 has created a new Quinn & Daria piece!

London falls beneath the Vegemite heel of Deref the Oz Barbarian. Oh, the humanity!

And Mike Xeno has started a conversation about Irredeemable Daria Characters. I have some thoughts on this but have to go to bed. More soon. LATE ADD: I've had my say on the topic, now. Post your thoughts as well!


PPMB

• Falling Into College 62: Run It Up the Mast, by Richard Lobinske (Part 1): Daria goes job-hunting: "Would you like fries with that?"
• The Kid Stays Out of the Picture, by Scissors MacGillicutty (fragment): A fantastic story bit inspired by S.C.'s portrait of Daria as a "cleaner."
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Epilogue 1): Robert goes up against zombies and comes out second best, only moments before . . .
• Oh, That Smell, by thatLONERchick (COMPLETE!): This is about as unusual and nasty a superpower as can be.
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): I have plenty of time to crush them, thought Ms. Li as she watched her spy camera monitors.

May First, and here are the headlines. . . .

Today is May Day, a day so special that you may as well click the link to read about it, as it would take too long to rant about it here. Spring is in the air, at least in the Northern Hemisphere in this area, and soon Stacy will come out of her cocoon and be a Stacy butterfly! Just kidding. She'll still be a spineless caterpillar. Kind of a gross picture, yeah, but it's Stacy and no one really cares.

All sorts of important things happened today in history, but there's barely more than an hour left in the day and I was too busy to do anything online, so just forget it.

Tomorrow is The Oaks, which is so important a race that all the schools in town are canceled (not a joke, they really are), and the day after that is The Derby, which has a bit less class than The Oaks but is more popular and better attended. I am not going to either, because I live here and have better things to do.

More later once I think of more to say. Need something Daria-ish here. Hmmm.