Yuk

PPMB and SFMB both seem to be down at the moment. Rats. Post notes at this website in the meanwhile.


L8R: Okay, they're back up.

Live the Cyberadventure!

Fourteen years ago was the most awesome cyber-event ever (for a little while): 24 Hours in Cyberspace! All of 14 years ago. Primitive, man. They must have used tin cans on strings. Dinosaur era.

This is also the birthday anniversary of Jules Verne, famed pioneer of SF writing. He was the inspiration for this story.

MidnightStorm has pointed out that Glitter Berries is difficult to reach now at Freehostia.com. Could it have gone offline?

ART!

• Pinhead offers two new ones: Rembrandt's "Blessed Kevin's Destiny" and Jane Lane's "Portrait of My Brother." NEW! And "Divine Intervention." Wow.
  
• Minx presents the awesome The Third of May, by Goya. Look familiar? Jane was painting a copy of it in art class in a certain episode. Which episode was it? NEW! Plus, "Quinn (my style)", by Minx again!
  

FF.net

• The Prodigal Daughter, by a440 (Parts 1 and 2): From the Lawndale Sun-Herald: FAMILY FOUND DEAD AFTER BEAR ATTACK - What started out as a hunting trip in the wild turned into tragedy when Douglas Thomson, his wife Charlene, and their son Kevin were found dead as a result of a bear attack...

PPMB

• collar, by Jim North (COMPLETE!): Everything was delicious, as Sandi had come to expect it would be. Stacy often spent several hours in preparation for breakfast, more than she did for any other meal. She would work the previous night, preparing what parts could be set up and stored, followed by an early start making sure that everything came out perfect. (SFMB)
  
• NEW! Daria: Hunter—Strictly Business, by Jim North (continued): Quinn Morgendorffer was a predator, sleek and grinning, never stopping, and devouring everything in her path.
  
• The Dream of the White Darkness, by jtranser (continued): "When you're a small child, Reality is everything your mom says. Then you get older, and Reality takes on different meanings and aspects...."
• Fight Like Hell, by Shull Bitter (Part 1): "I'm sorry," Jake told Daria. "But there is something terrible I need to tell you. I swear to God I wish I didn't have to. I don't want to do to you what Mad Dog did to me. But it's either you or Quinn."
  
• NEW! Finn Morgendorffer 31: The Artist, The Boyfriend, The Bitch, and Her Brother, by HolyGrail2007 (Parts 2 and 3): “What did you do to get her help?” “The most horrific thing known to man.” “Sleep with her?” Jane’s eyes widened. “Oh God, it does get worse!”
  
• General Semantics, Private Angst, by Gwrtheyrn (Part 9): "Shot to pieces. Burnt into ash. I exercised my last option. I am dead, dead, dead, no two ways about it." (Daria/World of Null-A)
• The Glory of the Gridiron, by Roentgen (COMPLETE!): "After decades and decades of games, the history of sports competition has led up to this sorry spectacle. From Lane County Stadium, the Jane Lane Broadcasting Network brings you... JANE BOWL ONE!"
• Stacy X, by Sir (COMPLETE!): Stacy aimed the heavy chunk of black metal (guns were really unfashionable and ugly) at Sandi’s stunned face and pulled the trigger (breaking a nail in the process). There was a deafening BANG! and then a blinding flash of light (at this moment Stacy felt like God). Stacy looked on with a goofy grin plastered on her face as the 513th official Fashion Club meeting turned into scene from Hell.
  
• A Ticket to Ride, by Doggieboy (Part 4): Ted then opened the blouse and looked at her reflection in the mirror. He nodded and smiled. “Like what you see?” Linda asked and closed up the lipstick tube. “Very much so,” he said.

Elsewhere

• And Then I'll Make It Clear, by Minkhollow, formerly known as Cimorene (COMPLETE!): Jane sighs, and takes a few pictures of another gravestone. Even knowing what Puritan naming traditions were like, Daria still can't fathom why anyone ever thought "Increase" was a good name for their son. Daria lets her evade the question a while longer. Just when she's on the point of saying something again, Jane stops dodging the point on her own.

"You guys are never going to get any."

Fourteen years ago today, Daria made a guest appearance on Beavis and Butt-head in the episode, "Spare Me." She walks up as the two lamebrains are trying unsuccessfully to fix a flat tire for two young women who have promised to "give them a ride" when they are done. Daria changes the tire herself, with no help from anyone (the jack dent in the car was created by Butt-head, using the jack improperly), then puts all the tools away. Beavis and Butt-head tell her to go away now (thinking they are about to score), but the two young women drive away laughing. Daria looks at the stunned B&B and utters the title quote.

Now, this means that Daria, at age 15 and in ninth grade, not only knows how to perform auto maintenance by herself, but also knows enough about sex and human relationships to make the title quote and know exactly what she's talking about. Hell of a kid, that Daria. This incident is repeated in a different way in a recent fanfic ("It Slipped Through My Hands, Like a Shadow, Like a Dream").

PROBLEM? Speaking of that, I seem to be unable to get into PPMB or my stories at www.theangstguy.com. If you are having the same problem, click here and make a report. Maybe we can get someone to help out. (HELP!) Problem has been resolved. Thank you!

Once the problem is fixed, check out "Daria's Parents: Good or Bad?", new thread sliced away from an older one by Kara Wild. The title explains everything you need to know about the controversy. Weigh in and make your thoughts known.

Today also happens to be the starting day of a very peculiar and amusing crackfic, Bacner's "Diary of a Lawndale Student," from 2002. It is well worth a look. I love it.

N00Z: The original Jane Lane, Anne D. Bernstein, has begun blogging with some of her art and photos again. This pretty well answers the question of what would Jane be doing right now.

Does anyone know of any other active blogs about Daria?

While reading through a post on PPMB, I came across this fan term: FanDumb. Do you think this blog is in any danger of this? I have nothing else to worry about and so thought I might worry about something new for a change. Thank you for your cooperation.

PPMB

• Another Normal Day in Lawndale, by JPAGC (Part 1): As she made her way to the bathroom, she could hear the usual sounds in the house. Her mother was downstairs, already busy with breakfast for the family. She could hear the water running, so her father should be in the shower in her parent's bathroom, preparing for another busy day. No sound emerged from her sister's room, which was just as well.
• Falling Into College 70: Is It The Future, Yet? by Richard Lobinske (Part 2): Hearing the voices, Michael came in from the library, "Hi, Amy. What brings you here?" "Prurient curiosity," she said. "But not about our trip," Daria said. "Come on, give. You're here alone."
• Pigskin Caduceus, by HolyGrail2007 (COMPLETE!): Sentinel University was a pretty fantastic place when I took my trip to see it. Although the skeletal trees didn’t make it look appealing, the fresh snow on the ground with the mountains in the background actually made it look like a nice winter paradise. (FF.net)
  
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part III), by jtranser (continued): "Jane, I don't think I'll ever get used to all the variations of alternate universes. It's one thing to talk about them as abstract possibilities over breakfast and quite another to actually experience them.' 'You just have to hang on for the ride, Daria. As long as you have a firm grip on what's in your universe, you can glide through whatever comes your way." [Continued here with devious future plans afoot!]
  

Milton Turns 400 on National Brownie Day

Yes, it's National Brownie Day, and poet John Milton is 400 today. Congratulations, and have a brownie.

Speaking of brownies, Daria shows us the marvels of snow globe collecting at left, and a Dariacon is still being planned in Hong Kong. Please save the brownies and snow globes by going to the Hong Kong Dariacon and partying with John Milton at the Paradise Lost Casino.

Alert superfan UU, whose name if you haven't noticed forms a palindrome, which is a kind of snow globe, I forgot what I was saying..... oh!

Alert superfan UU has discovered something in the debris of old Daria websites on the WayBack Machine, something that is way cooler than the Daria MUD I found. It is a chat room thinger in which the Fashion Club discusses, need we say it, fashion. This is the best. UU is hereby promoted to Sergeant at Arms for all Daria fandom for his discovery.

IMs from the FC

It will be difficult to top that one. Thank you!

I am sort of tired and not completely with it from sleepiness so I will stop here and think of something else to do, like maybe sleep. Keep on keepin' on, King Kongs, and remember that the palindrome you save might be Milton's, and if there's a reward you could be in for some big-time brownie points.

LAWNDALE ONLINE LIVES! It's back up, folks! Whew! Go here!

BONUS: Wouter's 2008 Christmas comic has been released! And now for the fanfic. Need to update the big list soon.


PPMB

• Daylight: Falling From Grace—The Road to Nowhere, by Disco316 (Part 11): “See, there’s always a silver lining, even in necrophilia.”
• Hell on Wheels, by Roxanne M (Part 2): “Have you lost your senses? She is in there at death’s door. Do you have anything to say for your self?” Helen roared.
• Welcome Back, Daria, by Napalm Kracken (Part 9): "I’ll call Trent, we’ll get the Tank and haul the body off discretely once the sun is down."

SFMB

• Size Does Matter, by BlackHole (Part 33): On Ms. Li’s face formed a smile that everyone knowing her feared. (FF.net) (PPMB)

The Keys to the Internet Kingdom

While driving around tonight it occurred to me that if, for example (and this is only an example, as I do not use buses), I were to be run over by a bus unexpectedly, no one would know how to access all that Daria stuff in the WayBack Machine. So here's a crash course in how to do it. You're getting the keys to the kingdom. Take them and party hard.

There are basically three major ways to dump it all out, and they are listed below. Each is based on a specific URL that MTV used over the years for the Daria site. Each URL is then formatted in such a way as to make the WayBack Machine empty its pockets of everything it has that MTV ever produced and the WayBack Machine was able to capture. Capture does not appear to have been perfect; I'd guess that about 90% of everything put online was saved somewhere. (Note: This method works with almost any website not blocked by robots or whatever.)

To my surprise, some things were saved you wouldn't have expected, such as audio (WAV) files, which you can right-click on and save to your hard drive right from the webpages where they were featured. Some are corrupted, but some work. I even saved screensavers, wallpaper, and more with varying degrees of success. That "MUD" game came through perfectly. Try to save everything, that's the key. You can sort it all out later.

• http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_1nr_10/http://www.mtv.com/mtv/tubescan/animation/daria/* (this was the original URL for the first Daria sites, but later stuff was put here, too: 4,660 pages worth)
  
• http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_1nr_10/http://daria.mtv.com/* (produces only two links, but each link connects to about 136 capture dates, so try them all)
• http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_1nr_10/http://www.mtv.com/onair/daria/* (produces 2,034 more pages of stuff, so good luck)

MAKE SURE THE ASTERISK IS AT THE END OF EVERY URL, FOLLOWING A SLASH. For some reason, the asterisk gets clipped off at times, I don't know why, but you need the asterisk following a slash. It's like a wild-card search.

Now, here's how to troubleshoot. Some of the pages that come up, particularly from late 2000 and 2001 onward, somehow connect to the actual MTV site operating now (probably through ads), which causes an error and results in the desired webpage appearing for .25 seconds before an MTV "oops" screen appears and replaces it. To defeat this, you have to keep a finger hovering over the ESCAPE key to smack it once the desired screen appears, BEFORE the error screen appears. You can do this over and over again (it gets to be a game of its own), testing your reflexes against the Internetz. Once you get the screen, it might not have loaded everything but you can run your cursor over the links and find out what they are (or were). Copy the link location, then put that into the WayBack Machine to see if the specific image or object was saved. It gets taxing but if you are really into it, you can blow hours and hours digging through stuff. I sure can.

You might be tempted, as was I, to reconstruct some webpages using Paint, Irfanview, etc. Go for it. It can be a pain, particularly if the colors go wrong (not sure why), but the results are often quite interesting. I learned a lot about Jane and her weirdo family by going through her Lane-Bay (e-Bay) website, which ran over many pages. I can't believe Jane ever slept, she did just about everything.

Also, you have to be tricky with the WayBack Machine itself. Don't be afraid to mess with the URL. For instance, I could not get anything out of a URL that read:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010611070810/www.mtv.com/sendme.cgi

However, once I cut off the "sendme.cgi" at the end, the WayBack Machine gave me the MTV front page from 06/11/2001 (you learn to read the capture dates quickly), and I could click through to the Daria site in moments. You might try this and just get the MTV site first, looking for the links to the Daria section along the way. You might even recover more stuff this way.

From about 2001 onward, the MTV Daria site took on the appearance it has now, with assorted changes, so there's not much new but you can see how it evolved over time as stuff was added to it. The Daria sites before 2001 are far more interesting and colorful. My favorite was the 2000 "space" site.

Oh, and don't forget to right-click on a webpage you get and click "View Page Source." You can quickly discover by looking at the actual code for the page what else was supposed to be on there. You can take a completely featureless page and discover all sorts of hidden stuff. I managed to get everything off the missing flipbooks except the pictures, and it turned out I didn't need the pictures at all. The valuable stuff was in the text. I got every single flipbook that way. Do you know that the bulldog Daria almost ran over in "Through a Lens Darkly" actually has a name, and it is NOT J.B.? (I prefer J.B., but it's an AU story anyway so screw it.) I also got a picture of Brittany's car, which I don't recall ever seeing before. It's red, of course. And Quinn's poetry is hysterical; I laughed and laughed. A lot of old rumors about Lawndale High and Mystic Spiral were proven true. And some of the wallpaper is actually pretty cool.

I will start dumping some of this stuff here. You want to get there first, be my guest. This one's for everyone. Dig in.

P.S. Just found out some other URLs that might work. Try these. Some have asterisks, some don't.

• http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.daria.mtv.com/
• http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/daria.mtv.com/
• http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/http://daria.mtv.com/*
• http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/daria.mtv.com/robots.txt
• http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/http://www.mtv.com/
• http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/http://www.mtv.com/*

The last one produced over 64,000 pages of stuff, simply anything that ever appeared on MTV's website. Probably has some Beavis and Butt-head stuff, too.

Enjoy!

Virtual Odds & Ends

So it occurred to me that one thing that could be done with this blog to perk it up would be to bring the Lawndale experience to you. No, the blog will not suddenly fill your life with idiots. You probably have enough problems with that as is.

With the flood of Daria Internet stuff off the WayBack Machine, which is so great that it would take a week to properly sort through, enough unusual items were recovered to make a sort of mini-Virtual Lawndale possible. This would not be that marvelous interactive map from the MTV website. This is something else. The idea came to me when I figured out how to recreate "Radio by Daria" from the old websites, which was really just streaming music (alternate rock) you could play which surfing.

It might not be anything big. It might be sort of fun. Rather than say more, we will let time decide if the experiment works. Party on!


SIDE NOTE: Anyone else delving into the Vortex of Mysteries of Daria stuff through the WayBack Machine? Cool, isn't it? You could build a dozen mega-websites out of it all.

Oh, and I recovered the text contents of all the missing flipbooks, if not the pictures. It turns out the text was the important part after all. Some surprises to come. (They surprised me, anyway.)

DariaWiki's latest addition: Arrivals and Returns (thank you, Richard).

Lawndale Online is still offline. Is it pining for the fjords?

"I've been workin' on the website, all the live-long day...."

Did some updating of the blog, think it's getting closer to being cool again. Still needs more cowbell. Monster trucks and naked models....

Fanfic update for PPMB on the way tonight. [later] And here it is. Some great stories are going on this week.

PPMB

• Dancing with the Devil by the Pale Moonlight, by Lorenzo Sauchelli (Parts 2 and 3): “What are you talking about? What happened to Janey?”
• Daylight: Falling from Grace - The Road to Nowhere, by Disco316 (Parts 8 thru 10): Just as Sandi was about to reach for Quinn, the man swung a sword at her, and it came down on her shoulder, ready to slice her in half.
• Daylight/Legion of Lawndale Heroes: Erebus, by Roentgen (Part 5): "The tenth battle against some lunatic calling himself 'Mindbender' resulted, sadly, in casualties...."
• Falling into College 65: Arrivals and Returns, Richard Lobinske (Part 5): "You got here fast. How many stop lights did you run?" "Stop lights?"
• LATIFA: In the King's Navy, by SoCalledGoodeGuy (Part 1): "I already have your suggestions on which current students should be inducted into Starseed and Starsword, so if you’ll just send the pertinent DNA samples down to Sub-Level 9, we can get started.”
• Rah, Rah, Daria, by CAP (COMPLETE!): “The first one who laughs dies,” Daria snarled.
• Turnabout Confusion Part II: All The King's Horses, by Dennis (continued): "I can only think that there's some administrative inefficiency at Lawndale High that doesn't exist anywhere else."
• Welcome Back, Daria, by Napalm Kracken (Parts 5 thru 8): "Hey, at least the current husband I presented to you unused."

The Blogger Mulls Over the Current Direction of His Hobby

Mull, mull, mull, oh.

It has long been a pet peeve of mine that the Internet is perhaps the most radical change in media since the invention of alphabets and printed books, finally bringing about Marshall McLuhan's "global village" from the 1960s, but few people take full advantage of its possibilities. One of those people, unfortunately, is me. My surface reason for maintaining a blog is because it is my only hobby (I can stand having only one hobby at a time), but secretly I do it because it allows me to teach myself HTML and all that other stuff, so I don't look and sound so ignorant when everyone else is spouting buzzwords. I am woefully behind everyone else but am puffing along as best I can.

This blog is a work in progress, like all good blogs. My thought was to turn it into the best-ever one-page Daria fan site, offering all sorts of goodies and possibilities to visitors. I'm doubtful that goal has been achieved yet, so the quest for Win and Awesome presses onward.

It turns out that having the date and time on the blog (at left) is sort of pointless, even though it took me all day yesterday to figure out how to do it, so I'll take those off. I'm sorta ticked that the time won't update itself, and it dawned on me that everyone already HAS the time visible on their monitor in the lower right corner (at least on Firefox), so there's no point to it. The buttons thing, though, I like. Nice of MTV to offer so much useful stuff on the extinct versions of their Daria website that could be recovered through the WayBack Machine at Archive.org.

Thinking out loud (yes, I know, I'm typing out loud), I'm trying to find other stuff to add here. I've already got a shopping mall for Daria stuff, links to almost everything on the web that's Daria-ish. . . . there could be more Beavis and Butt-head stuff because of Daria's presence there, I suppose, but the focus here is still on Daria. I could learn how to create animated GIFs and create little cartoons, I guess, but I'm not an artist. Maybe I'll just take a break and add more pictures and stuff to DariaWiki, or update/fix my older fanfics so the titles aren't so whacked out.

Anyone got any ideas for stuff to add here? Brainstorming is always helpful. Moar l8r on this topic.

P.S. Oh, one thing. I use a monitor with a very wide screen, and I am not always sure what I'm designing works with screens that are more square in shape. Let me know if there is crowding. Showing me a screen capture or two would help, if you (meaning anyone, like you) can do that. Thanks.

Yo, Computer Monkeys! This Is Your Day!

Today is OneWebDay, the day when we celebrate having, um, One Web! So, like, you know, celebr8!

Today is also the birthday of Joan Jett, who is so cool she gets mentioned here even if she has nothing to do with Daria.

And, according to Wikipedia, it is the 57th anniversary of the "first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast in the United States, a college football game between Duke and the University of Pittsburgh," seen on NBC. Pigskin Channel, wahoo! Kevin would definitely celebrate that.

Surfin' the Net

Wish I could find a larger version of this summertime image. It came from a TV Guide cover some years ago. Daria was enjoying the ocean with Hank from King of the Hill and some other cartoon person.

In the realm of weird threads, more bits were added to Things Students Are No Longer Allowed To Do At Lawndale High. Goodness, I don't remember my high school having these issues. Shame, really.

S.C. is taking requests for fan art. You know what to do. Any other artists taking requests?


FF.net

• Daria: The Door to Safety Is Shut, by MrPowerpuff (up to Part 12): "Sandi grunts in pain…as the blood bleeds from her wounds slowly…"
• Daria vs Abraham Lincoln, by Smileyfax (Part 1): Daria's in Lawndale, at a party alone . . . until she meets her first friend. (Hang on for this weird AU.)

PPMB

• The Cynic and The Defender, by Doggieboy (Part 1): Taking up where "A Little Vacation" leaves off: Daria and her super-boyfriend.
• Long Trek Home, by Ranger Thorne (Part 1 complete!): “However, even that would only give us an extra two days before this universe collapses in upon itself.”
• Red Centre, by TheSecretSharer (continued): This story cannot be described. It must be experienced. OMG.
  
• Reign of the Darias: Life as a Corpse, by Lorenzo Sauchelli (Part 5): The best ally Daria could ask for in Chicago was the one person she'd rather never knew that she had turned into an undead.
• Stacy Rowe, Seeker (Part II), by jtranser (continue): "Daria, I have to tell you that some of the alternate realities I've been to are just wack." PLUS: Kitchen utensils that can destroy the Earth!
  

More soon.

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.

In the Realm of Improbable Politics

While surfing the 'net I found the poster at left, which was actually used in New Hampshire recently when a Republican named Jane Lane ran for office. Hmm, probably not the Jane Lane we know. Her being a Republican from New Hampshire would be a stretch, even for a cartoon.

Brother Grimace and Roentgen have sent some website addresses to me that might be of interest to Daria fans. More on those later. First, some updates.



PPMB

• Could Have Been, by legendeld (fragment): An accident in a science lab, and Quinn and her husband suddenly have two little daughters. Only they aren't their daughters.
  
• John Lane 34: Barbeques and Gridiron, by Richard Lobinske (Part 3): Nothing says togetherness like the ritual consumption of burnt animal flesh.
• A Little Vacation, by Doggieboy (Part 19): Daria was a cartoon character in Robert's world, but in Daria's world, Robert is—
• My Sons, by legendeld (Part 16): When you care enough to send the very best, send fire.
• Untitled Fic, by MMan (COMPLETE!): Locked up in jail! Denied a phone call! Forced to eat meat loaf! And then . . . OTIS!

More tomorrow.

Daria Discusses the Internet

Oh, what the heck, one more before going out to dinner with the family.

Daria's webpage from 2001 or so has the usual SF-alter ego, the usual stack of link buttons on the left, and the usual ranting we expect from her. The rant follows.

*

In cyberspace, you can be male or female, young or old, left-handed, right handed, or ambidextrous. (But be prepared for people getting the wrong idea about ambidextrous.) Freed from mundane physical reality, your virtual self can soar like an eagle through distant universes (or, if you still have dial-up, limp like a three-legged dog to the middle of the block).

Fueled by curiosity and free trial memberships, I left behind my mundane incarnation as a bespectacled suburban teenager to enter a digital miasma of ever-shifting identity where one can take on the role of wise druid, alien life form, or crabby old man ranting about the New World Order.

I was intrigued by the possibilities. For about five minutes. Then I realized that I had entered a world where people waste thousands of hours trading imaginary gold pieces and finding new ways to make faces out of punctuation marks.

What else did I discover? That people are willing to discuss their most intimate feelings with strangers they would cross the street to avoid in real life, and that an awful lot of guys choose to believe that a comely vixen's first choice in Saturday night entertainment is typing on a keyboard in hopes of meeting someone who can see past their looks.

Conclusion? Roleplayers are in danger of shutting out the real world entirely and retreating into a warped, subjective mental landscape. Cyberspace anonymity encourages antisocial, antagonistic behavior without the deterring fear of getting your ass whipped for real if you offend someone.

So maybe it's a good thing after all.

Future Trent Speaks from the Past!

A little something salvaged from the old Daria site on MTV, rescued courtesy of the WayBack Machine. Thought it might be of interest. This was on the Mystik Spiral page.

I'M WITH THE BANDWIDTH
An online musical odyssey
By Trent Lane

Yo. I gotta admit, I'm not a high tech kind of guy. I like my music raw and authentic -- the product of passion and commitment, not slick studio gimmicks. I prefer lo-fi distortion to cold digital accuracy, so delivering music over the Internet never really appealed to me. Then I learned that music sent over the net can be lo-fi and distorted, especially when you play it back through your bass amp with the blown speaker.

What's really cool about the Web is that it lets a band like Mystik Spiral speak directly to our fans. Who needs a giant corporation to promote your group, overexpose you when you make it big, and pay for your rehab when you lurch out of control? Nicholas did fine when we locked him in his house for a week and slipped Fruit Roll-Ups under the door.

Music should come from the soul. It's not about tours sponsored by pseudo-cool sodas or posing in leather pants for glossy magazine covers. It's not about groupies or partying or tossing TVs out hotel windows. It's about delving into the deepest depths of your being and channeling your emotions into art. The groupies and partying are just icing on the cake. The leather pants, too. (And with those cable mounts that go right into the wall, tossing TVs is just a hassle anyway.)

Mystik Spiral is using cyberspace to build a worldwide fan base, independent of the corporate machine. (Except for the corporations that make our computers and instruments and the one that owns our web provider.) We hope that by giving away our music, we can forge a bond with the international musical community. Some guy in Guam already invited us to crash at his place if we want. He's even got an air mattress.

Check out the Mystik Spiral Page on REBURB.com. Help us achieve our new goal: building up our international fan base in Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, and Tahiti. We need a vacation bad.

[More to come! - TAG]

Lost Treasures Found!

At left: Daria waving from the future. At right: a nifty logo. Both came from this link to a place only the longest-term fans here will remember: The original MTV website for Daria. And I mean original, back to 1997. The site changed a lot in a short time, but it had class. Check it out. It is loaded with goodies. NOW I know where everyone got those cool pictures I've been seeing around for years.

The only bummer part is that I got Daria down to her hips, but her legs and feet came in two other images that I can't fit together. I'll work on this. Damn.

One other bummer is that the WayBack Machine is kind of iffy at times. Have to keep working with it.

Daria Returns . . . to the BBC!

A new live-action Daria show will soon appear on the BBC!

For details, click HERE!













Okay, okay, it was just a joke. Don't get your shorts in a wad. It was an old joke, in fact, one that I found using Archive.org's WayBack Machine. I saw it on PPMB ages ago, too. Here are some other good spots on Is this really Daria Morgendorffer? (an old website no longer in operation).

• Daria's Dream
• Oh my God it's Christmas
• Saint Daria — The Miracle of the Halo
• Church of Daria

It took a mighty sick sense of humor to come up with these. Someone after my own heart.

All seriousness aside, I've been looking through the "Blasts from the past" section at left (way down near the bottom) and am exploring some extinct websites. Amazing stuff there. I've always regretted that I missed almost the entire run of the show and all of the fandom until April 2002, when I finally joined in. Feel kinda stupid about it now, but what can you do.

So, exploring old fandom sites is my thing now. I've found Katherine Goodman's Daria portfolio, four different versions of Lawndale Commons, and some intriguing artwork. The holy grail would be to get the original "Planet Daria" site, but there's some kind of screw-up preventing it from showing up on the WayBack Machine. If you want to try it, the old link was:

http://www.geocities.com/~planetdaria

Using the WayBack Machine, you can get only one hit from 1999: here. But clicking on the link says the site redirects to itself, which the Archive.org people say they can fix, but I've e-mailed them and they haven't gotten around to it. Oh, well.

More news on my time-traveling later. Enjoy your day, and don't get fooled. Too much.

"The Glasses Are You"

Was there anything to what Jane said in "Through a Lens Darkly" about Daria's glasses having symbolic meaning? Perhaps there was. An interesting online essay looks at what a simple pair of spectacles can stand for, both in the Daria series and in real life.

This is not the only time that eyeglasses have been said to have symbolic value. Lord of the Flies is frequently cited as turning the glasses of one of the characters (Piggy) into a powerful symbol, particularly when those glasses are broken in the course of the story.

Remember when Daria takes off her glasses at the end of "Quinn the Brain," and what she is trying to accomplish? It brings to mind Dorothy Parker's comment about men seldom making passes at girls who wear glasses. Is that true? Obviously not in Daria's case. Furthermore, there are loads of commentary on the Internet about this very issue. See the following websites for wall-to-wall coverage of the looking-glasses issue. (Note: Some sites have adult commentary on the issue, so be warned.)

• Dr. Blogstein
• Mocha Momma
• The Fashioniste
• Suburban Kamikaze

This topic has even came up on PPMB, time after time after time after time after time after time after . . . well, you get the idea. If anyone ever has to write a term paper about glasses and self-image, your work is completely done.

Me? I would never get rid of my glasses. My glasses are me, too. They say NERD, that's exactly what I am, and I like it that way.

Food for thought.

LATE ADD: Speaking of food for thought, peek at the latest offering from Fortress CINCGREEN on Stacy and Upchuck, warts and all.

Nothing New Under the Sun? Not Here!

Looking for more Daria weirdness on the 'net? You've come to the right post.

First stop, the cast helps explain a peculiar urban legend with religious overtones: Daria In... "Beware Of Smurfs"

Next, we have a page from The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present, 8th ed. It's a PDF file. As you read over the entry, do you notice anything glaringly . . . odd about it? How could they screw that up?

Then, there's Mii Plaza, a site that offers various custom elements for your Wii system. In the Cartoon Mii section are various images of Daria sent in by Wii gamers. Interesting gallery.

And now we come to The Daria Test, an online dating exam on OKCupid. I don't see how this is related to dating unless you only want to date Daria nerds. Uh, not that there's anything wrong with that.

On Sleeps.com, someone describes a dream involving Daria . . . and a courtroom case, ABBA music, the singer Meatloaf, and a canoe. Further comment is unnecessary.

Daria as TV therapy. Okay, this one makes sense.

Daria is voted into Mensa, sort of. (Search for "Daria" to find relevant comments.)

And finally, the "Jane Lane" group on Last-FM. I have no idea what this is about. On the surface, it seems to be a "community" of Jane Lane fans who love music, but I feel like I'm missing something here. I think they regard Jane as their role model for life and are trying to live as she would. Maybe I should join.

Happy Easter.

It came from TEH INERNETZ!!!!

Want to hear the real Sick Sad World? It's a music show on WRUV, 90.1 FM, based at the University of Vermont, Burlington VT. The DJ's name is Erin, and the show (according to one source) was named for the TV show on Daria. It plays Wednesdays at 2 p.m. You can get it through the Internet*, of course. I haven't heard it; it showed up on a search engine and looked interesting, so . . .

The coolest Jane Lane fan art I have seen in ages: Jane Lane in Succubus Mode. Whoa.

Speaking of Our Heroine, Jane, remember that Jane Lane action doll that came out a few years ago? No? Here it is again. It was a one-of-a-kind, and all we losers can do is drool over the photo.

And a few more Daria-oriented webpages in dire need of adoption and expansion and elaboration and correction and completion (by any willing and determined superfan):

• SideReel
• Toonarific
• TV IV
• TV Rage
• TV Shows on DVD
• TV.com
• Wikia

Enjoy your adopted page and make us proud. Surprise us! Surprise everyone! Party on, it's Friday! More later if I wake up.

* With a capital I. Not to rub it in.

Daria's Magnum Look, Courtesy of Tom . . . Tom Selleck, That Is

The title sounds like a pun on something from Zoolander, but it's not quite that bad. One segment of Daria's dream in "Murder, She Snored" spoofed the 1980s TV series Magnum, P.I., which starred Tom Selleck as a Hawaiian private eye. (Tom is on the right.) Tom Selleck was famed for wearing brilliantly colored shirts on the show, and in the MPI segment Daria wears one, too.

What's funny, at least to me, is that Daria (in a cleaned-up screen-cap at left) looks pretty good in a bright Hawaiian shirt, with a white tee underneath, of course. Not the first thing I would have thought of for an alternative look on her.

Daria if living in Hawaii or the West Coast? Daria on spring break from college? You decide. And do some more fan art of Daria in some different clothing, we could use a break from that green jacket.

[Oops, I was going to post this yesterday but fell asleep instead. Here it is anyway, a day late. I'll add some more to it, then.]

In other news, Richard Lobinske, Brother Grimace, Roentgen, Ranchoth, and others continue to expand the ever-expanding expanse of the expansive envelope of DariaWiki. Richard added a new category that will be of good use: Canon Media. All the publications and mass media from the show can be listed here, though SSW is missing. Hmmm. Maybe "media" is print media only.

CINCGREEN has begun a new series on his blog, examining the "storytelling engine" of Daria. Excellent reading of the cerebral kind, what this fandom needs. (I'm not particularly good at doing this myself, so I love seeing it.)

Got a bunch of useless Daria screen captures and other images laying around on your hard drive, doing nothing? Upload them to the Images section of the Daria Fan Club.

Reese Kaine reminds us that the Daria Sounds Archive is still alive and well, with some of the funniest things NOT heard on TV. Check it out. The question-and-answer stuff is hysterical.

On PPMB, Wouter has posted a picture showing Daria as normally seen and Daria in his manga style. Nice work.

More "Computer Freebies" added at left, near the bottom: wallpaper, icons, etc.

Last, but hardly least, a new T-shirt that has appeared on the market . . . oh, my.