Starting the Week Off Right

A.E. van Vogt, a writer best known during the Golden Age of SF, was born this day 98 years ago. His work is commemorated in a current Daria fanfic by Gwrtheyrn, "General Semantics, Private Angst," based on van Vogt's null-A universe. Yee-haaaw!

Today is also Old Permic Alphabet Day (look it up, I won't explain it), Richter Scale Day (if you love earthquakes, which no one does), and World Intellectual Property Day, which I probably shouldn't mention for obvious reasons having to do with the subject of this blog. Nonetheless, it is a legal thing and Helen Morgendorffer likes legal things, so here it is. And I am proud to say that Daria has to be one of the best intellectual properties in existence, in my own humble opinion. Yay!

If you took a photo of Jane Lane, would she look like this? See also these two threads on real-life Jane Lanes, still in progress!

BRAKING GNUZ! DariaonDVD.com is now open through MTV! (Only for USA, sadly, but still...) Get your free T-shirt while supplies last! As it happens, though, I have too many T-shirts and have already ordered through bn.com, so... oh well!

ALSO! Ticknart has a special message to all fanfiction fans in Comments, below. Help the contest out!

ALSO! I was reliably informed that today is the first BoobQuake Day. This is only peripherally related to Daria, but, hey, it's for science.

Breaking News

If you know of any Daria fans in southern South America, please contact them NOW. There has been a severe earthquake in Chile with widespread damage. Check on your friends as soon as possible.

LATE ADD: PPMB thread on the disaster, with fans reporting in.

Stuff with Fanfic Potential Out the Wazoo!

Let's see, let's start off with angst. Today is the 197th anniversary of the biggest earthquake ever known in the middle of the United States, the New Madrid Quake of 1812. I live rather close to this region, so if my writing gets jiggly one day, you'll know why. I'm sure someone can stick this into a story and kill and injure lots of characters.

Comedy is hard, everyone says, but today three very excellent comedians were born, and you can steal their jokes for your fanfics, or at least figure out how to make jokes like theirs. They are Emo Philips, Eddie Izzard, and Chris Rock. Now you can write a comedy fanfic and it will be easy. Start here.

Let's talk adventure. Today is also the birthday of aircraft designer Oleg Antonov, whose company (named for him) built the biggest airplane ever, the An-225, which I have been trying for years to figure out how to work into a Daria fanfic. I blew up a C-5 Galaxy in one story, but I always thought having some Daria characters as aircraft crew in a big plane that didn't blow up right away (kind of like a starship crew, get it?) would be awesome. Except I can't figure out how to do it. Damn.

Today is also the anniversary of Charles Dickens's birth, but nothing he did is worth writing about in a Daria fanfic, so I'll skip over him. Bleak House, my ass.

Any thoughts on the above three ideas? Any thoughts of your own? Do I have to do all the thinking around here? Apparently so. More later, then.

Newest DariaWiki entry: Bobby Stuart, by Disco316. Remember Bobby?


PPMB

• Falling into College 66: Christmas in White, by Richard Lobinske (COMPLETE!): "None of us want your crutches flailing around while you try to catch the bouquet. But I'll make a deal with you. If that thing comes my way, I'll swat it over toward you."
• Snuffed Animals, by Disco316 (COMPLETE!): Daria smirked at that. “Trust me, Mom; if I was pregnant, you’d have to prepare the guest room for three kings.”
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continued): "Esper Command reports have to be both pretentious and mind numbing, so I'll use correlation of forces. I'll also use i.e., e.g., ibid., op.cit. and q.v." "What about viz.?" "The idea is to numb the mind of the reader, not permanently damage it."