Lock Up Your Ritalin!

Seems there's a serious rat problem, and just in time for Ratcatcher’s Day! I think Jake qualifies for this holiday, because after all squirrels are allegedly just rats with fluffy tails.

If he does another combination trip for releasing a squirrel into the wild and going go-kart driving, he should invite Tom to come along. It's National Thomas Day, and that would be an excellent way to celebrate! Just don't tell Tommy Sherman, though. He ruins everything.

While everyone else deals with rats and squirrels and go-karts, Daria will just stay home and quietly celebrate World Brain Day by, well...being one. If you have a brain (or even half of one!) then have a great holiday.

Fandom News!

• R.I.P., Bob Newhart.

T-t-t-twenty Minutes into the F-f-future

This day is of course known for the JFK assassination in 1963, which I remember as a third grader, but it is also known for a peculiar event called the Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident. That was 22 years ago, when someone wearing a Max Headroom mask (at left) used powerful transmission equipment to interrupt normal TV transmissions in Chicago, Illinois. Max Headroom (a "real" photo of which is at right) appeared in a Daria fanfic by Ruthless Bunny, the title of which is borrowed from the original movie in which Max appeared.

Interesting: Here is a webpage detailing efforts to get various TV shows on DVD, and both Daria and the Max Headroom TV show from the late 1980s are on it!

More Interesting: The BBC's Channel 4 created a series of ads two years ago using Max Headroom to promote the switch to digital TV. The result was one of the most hysterically funny ads ever shown on TV. You have to see this. Also, Max Headroom's music video and Max Headroom's advice for macho guys.

NEWZ

• Richard Lobinske has updated the 2009 Daria Visual Fanworks list! Hooray!
• NEW! The earliest Daria story on FanFiction.net was posted 11 years ago today: Paperpusher's "Her, Uh, Cane." It was also 11 years ago at this time that one of the earliest and most extensive Daria supersites, Planet Daria, was taken offline.
• NEW! Tommy Sherman, by some esoteric mathematical figuring, won the state championship in football for Lawndale High about 15 years ago.
  
• NEW! The last story in Kara Wild's Driven Wild Universe was completed about this time four years ago: "Tomorrow Never Knows."
  

PPMB

• Finn Morgendorffer 16: Ambrosia Vinaigrette, by HolyGrail2007 (Part 1): "Daria, did anything interesting happen at school today?” “I wasn’t invited to anything, no one asked me on a date, I’m getting a cold sore, and I think someone threw a Life Saver at me.” “Oh, that’s horrible! Finn, what about you?” “I blew off my date with Ashley Beaker tonight to do this work, I’ve got two parties and four dates come the weekend, and I need to master these...tactics before my birthday next week. And today, someone actually gave me Life Savers.”

Stay tooned.

Mental in the Morning

"The Misery Chick" made its debut eleven years ago today, and "Jake of Hearts" nine years ago today. A lot has recently been added to the description of Tommy Sherman on DariaWiki of late, so you can look that up for your daily dose of misery.

"Jake of Hearts" is one of those third-season episodes that had a big impact on fanfiction set in the future (i.e., after Is It College Yet?), namely in introducing Jake's Final Heart Attack or Jake's Quadruple Bypass. What else did "Jake of Hearts" give us?

1. Ruth Morgendorffer
2. Bing
3. Spatula Man
4. Screaming puppets in a fiery plane crash
5. Bomb-sniffing dogs at Lawndale High
6. Taco Tuesday
7. Cedars of Lawndale ER
8. Bats disguised as flying squirrels
9. Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman
10. Z-93's raunch-a-riffic list of 101 words for sex
11. Thrombocytopenic Complications After Stent Placement Post-Coronary Artery Angioplasty
12. Jake telling Daria he think she will be in charge of the family after his death
13. Upchuck and the dark underbelly of passion ("Upchuck? Eww...")
14. Mental in the Morning
15. Mad Dog Morgendorffer and his razor phobia
16. Heart Smart lima-bean cupcakes
17. Door number three in the Morgendorffer genetic code
18. Jake and Daria bonding at last
19. Garden gnomes

Not bad for a third-season episode. Not bad at all.

ART! Got some new Jane Lane art from newcomer Jim North: Sharpgluer. Thanks, man! That rules!

MORE ART! Jim North has also produced . . . IT'S ART! (another magnificent Jane creation!)

Random Filler Stuff

The number of fans on the Daria Fan Club is up to 880, but the problem with the image server has not yet been fixed. The site is still fully functional.

Of the 1,894 articles on DariaWiki, the last two articles that were worked on were about Cassandra (seen at left in class at Highland High, in the Beavis and Butt-head episodes) and Tommy Sherman. I have a pile of notes to add about Tommy in the next few days. He's a very interesting character in many respects, and his death is interesting (and weird) as well.

Why isn't Cassandra in more fanfics? Weird.

On PPMB, the Mighty Deceleraptor has proposed a new Iron Chef: "Write a fanfic, ficlet, tome, etc., about any of the Daria characters on a trip to another country. It must be a country you don't already live in. Here's the inspiration: http://outpost-daria.com/art_daria_world.html. Extra points if you have the character 'in mufti,' as in the 'photos.' Just have fun and be creative."

thatLONERchick has gone and written a great new story again, entirely by accident, in the thread that is supposed to contain BAD stories. This is happening entirely too often. Can no one tell the difference between good fanfic and bad? Anyway, you have to read it.

More suggestions for potential villainous encounters in Daria fanfic have been added to the PPMB thread on Irredeemable Daria Characters. True, these additions are from Beavis and Butt-head, but Daria was there, too, right? They should count. Dervish used Dallas Grimes in "Something to Shoot For." If she can do it, you can too.

FF.net

• Mart of the Dead, by Smileyfax (Part 2): It looks like Andrea and Upchuck will have to repopulate Earth after the zombie virus kills everyone else. Where the hell are those Ringbearers when you need them?