"It's like the end of an era!"

Well, today's the big day. As of today, Outpost Daria, one of the most well known and longest running Daria fan sites, is closed. Thanks for all your hard work over the years, Martin.

Fanfic Update!

• The Amazing Adventures of Captain Invincible!, by Erin M. (part 6): "She looked over the food and stopped as she realized there was something else sitting next to her plate. Spike's journal. Twilight swallowed heavily, her appetite suddenly gone."


• Another Lawndale's Episode, by Silver (part 4): "The first thing Daria did upon starting her knightmare frame was to go careening backwards through the thin wall of the warehouse. Not intentionally, mind you. It was just a rookie mistake; the kind of thing that occurs when one is completely unfamiliar with how to control such a machine."


• ASPS, by PrecambrianStudios (part 17.5): "Ethan heard a rapping at his door. He quickly hid the brain he was poking electrodes into and stepped out into the hallway."


• Daria & Co. Watches the Girl's Generation Music Video for 'Gee' (Scenes No Daria Fan-Fic Should Have: MY EYES THEY BURN!!), by Shiva (COMPLETE!): "Daria: Ok so we're in a meatlocker. Quinn: Daaaarrreeeaaa! That's a clothing store! Daria: Like I said, a meatlocker."


• The Doctor and Sarah 00 – Destination: Gallifrey, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 1): "Sarah Jane Smith wandered through the TARDIS. Each corridor looked much like all the others that she passed through. She was in thought. The Doctor had just left her at the place that certainly wasn't South Croydon. However the TARDIS returned within a few seconds of leaving."


• Dylan, by J-D (part 21b): "Joey's presence gave Dylan's parents somebody to talk to instead of him, which might have counted as a plus, except that what they mostly talked to him about was his long list of extracurricular activities. That brought Dylan's parents back round to asking Dylan why he didn't participate more, turning the possible plus into an actual minus."


• Evil Thom (Scenes No Daria Fan-Fic Should Have: MY EYES THEY BURN!!), by Shiva (COMPLETE!): "'MUHAHAHAHA!!!' T(h)om Sloane cackled at the withering figures all nice and imprisoned in his super-duper SnarkerTrapp5000!"


• Fate/Lawndale Codes, by Silver (part 5): "'I cannot BELIEVE you tried to kill my best friend!' Daria snapped at Lancer, who was managing a minor miracle in walking in a straight line while looking straight down. 'I gave you one rule! ONE! What was it?'"


• Finding an Accord, by Lord Yellowtail (prologue part 2): "He leafed through the sheets, gesturing for Charlie to look at them. 'I'm sure you've figured out what this is.' 'An encoded secret message, sir. But not from one of our people?'"


• Guesswork, by J-D (COMPLETE!): "Best friends Lou Rose and Laurie Welch were the only teachers in the faculty lounge that morning when Anthony DeMartino came in. 'Good morning, Lou', he said pleasantly. 'Good morning, Laurie.'"


• Heroine (Iron Chef: Unusual Superpowers), by SacredDust (COMPLETE!): "The terrible smell of burning artificial cheese sauce spread through the Payday warehouse store. A moment later, all the power in the entire building went out."


• Left 4 Daria, by Charles RB (part 3): "The road remained clear, a few revenants in the distance but not noticing the survivors. Dozens of ghouls were crowded around the main entrance, focused on -- Daria looked again. Ghouls crowded around the main entrance which was still intact. If the horde had found a way in, why was this batch at the wrong entrance? That didn't fit what she'd seen before. Unless --"


• Mad Dog's Legacy Chapter 11: Wilderness Adverturers, by Hyrin (part 4): "Quinn sat in a daze in the waiting room. She didn't speak or move until, hours later, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. 'Aunt Rita?' she asked, confused, as she looked up."


• Mine, by Vukodlak (part 3.5): "'What do you mean you already know?' Daria was torn part of her was furious that Tom knew her deep dark secret but another part was relived he was still here. But mostly she wanted to know how the hell he found out."


• On the Ground (Scenes that should be: Polite Requests), by Charles RB (COMPLETE!): "It was a ritual since the invention of home video cameras: any and all baby footage would be played at the most embarrassing time for the adult child. The time and place: Daria Morgendorffer's wedding. The culprit: Amy Barksdale."


• The Punk and the Snark, by Shiva (part 10): "The suck reared it's ugly head two days later when Helen Morgendorffer became a perfect storm of having a reprise from work and a parental kick to boot."


• Shopper's Cramp, by SacredDust (part 3): "In her high school days, Quinn knew Jane only as her sister's weird friend who painted ugly things. On this occasion she was a partner in crime. They were, technically, trespassing. But the city clearly didn't care about this place, and with Jane's morbid artistic sensibilities, Quinn knew the older girl couldn't resist the opportunity to tag along. Unlike Jane, Quinn knew the mall inside and out--specifically, the best ways to sneak in."


• The Summer Back, by Shiva (part 6): "'So Daria,' Quinn said to get the ball rolling, 'Are you and Jamie official?' 'Define official.' Daria offered up as an effective dodge. Her little sister's eyes narrowed."


• Tom Sloane, Lax Bro, by Shiva (part 6): "Have I mentioned how much I fuckin' LOVE my Dad?! Because the trip in the private jet turned into a mofo party plane all the way ba-bay!"


• Unnamed story (The 1001 Humiliations of Quinn Morgendorffer), by SinisterExaggerator (COPMLETE!): "'"Daria,' Jane called, 'that smirk. What's our malevolent misanthrope done now?'"


• Unnamed story (IC: Tom Sloane, Lax Bro TAKEDOWN!), by LongSnakeMoan (COMPLETE!): "'Let me get the straight. Al is gonna pay us fifteen grand to shoot some little rich boy for cheating on and messing around his daughter?'"


• Unnamed story (Scenes No Daria Fan-Fic Should Have: MY EYES THEY BURN!!), by Brother Grimace (COMPLETE!): "'Jane - see what's checking you out?' 'Yeah. I see him.' 'Want to take care of this before it becomes a problem?'"

"I knew you guys would screw this up."

Wanna see what MTV's Daria website looked like exactly twelve years ago? Click the link.

The Beavis and Butt-head episode "Sprout" first aired on MTV fourteen years ago today. Daria gets a cameo role. B&B have to grow corn in their backyard (they're hoping for nachos) but they simply throw the packet of seeds on the ground and wait for something to happen. Daria shows up and utters the line in this posting title. She tells the boys to talk to their plant and says it works, but it is hard to tell if she's pulling their leg or if she believes it. I'll go for the former. She apparently just wanted to see how messed up the boys' project was, then insult them and leave. And a fine job she did, too. They still took her advice.

One of the better images of "early Daria" appears in the episode (see at left). Daria grows a flower for her own plant-growing project. Very feminine. I sort of expected a carnivorous plant, you know, but whatever.

Interestingly, the names of some of Daria's classmates are written on the Dixie cups used for the project. I notice these names in order, left to right: Kimson, Mike, Kate, Bill, Joe, Gina, Ben, Daria, Carl, J.P., Beavis and Butthead (used same cup), Dean, and Martin.

Where's Cassandra? Earl the gun-toting kid? Kimberly? The punk girl later called Kimberly? Dang.

Fakz & Figgurz 2 Maek U Happi

One thing I haven't done in a while is review some of the background facts and figures about this blog. Let's see what we've got.

Viewing: First, based on some testing I did, this blog appears to look spot on perfect with Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, and Apple Safari 4.0. For some reason there are more indents with IE8, but it all comes out nicely. Opera 10.0 is a little worse but still acceptable. The images degrade for some reason as you switch pages, and the Followers section won't show up.

Visitors: At the moment, 118,603 total hits have been recorded for the site. An average of 131 unique visitors drop by every day so far in October, with 154 per day average throughout September. The blog gets hit about 191 times per day, so some visitors (particularly me, checking up on things) drop in more than once.

This means this blog keeps 130-150 people entertained every day. Not bad at all. We don't have the numbers that Harry Potter fandom has, but we do fine. Only 17 followers, though, so just over a tenth of all visitors can or want to get alerts for updates. Anyone else want to join the followers here? Come on in.

Nations: The country of origin of most visitors is not known. Of those that are known, the U.S.A. accounts for most (about 150 people at the moment), with less than a tenth as many each coming from Canada, France, Great Britain, and other places.

Linkage: Over 60% apparently have this site bookmarked and link directly to it. Links from DariaWiki, Outpost Daria, and PPMB account for less than 10% each, with the rest apparently coming straight from some Google search.

Browsers: About 60% of you use Firefox, 6.5% use IE, 4.6% use Safari, and almost 30% cannot be classified by browser, so who knows what you're using.

Monitor Size: I wasn't aware that the Toolbar Counter checked out your screen size. Lessee...

Unknown	444
1024x768	165
1280x1024	87
800x600	33
1152x864	29

For whatever that was worth. That's for October so far.

Moar l8r.

Blasting into the Past

Want to see what MTV's Daria webpages looked like about a decade ago? Now you can. Just click a link and you are THERE. Let me know if a link through the WayBack Machine doesn't work. Oh, Trent's duck phone is at left, Space Trent at right (coming this month!)

Leap Year Day, 2000

Space Daria's Page (NEW!)

Daria's Party Planner

Daria's Hall of Hobbies (NEW!)

The Net Nodule of Negativity (old version) (NEW!)

The New Net Nodule of Negativity

Daria chats from the movie set (NEW!)
(Hit ESCAPE key to prevent page from vanishing;
you might have to do this several times to get it right.
She has a body double?)

Ask Daria Archive

Pictures (October 1997)

Virtual Lawndale (old version) (NEW!)

Lawndale High School's Website

About Lawndale High School's Website

Ms. Li Welcomes You (Better image!)

Lawndale High School Sports

Students' Online Message Board

Helen & Jake's Page (simple)

Helen's Page (complex)

Helen's Date Book (NEW!)
(Note which county the Morgendorffers live in! Click other days for more.)

Jake's Page (NEW!)

Jake's Marketing Quiz (NEW!)

Jake's Business Page
(Note address of business!)

Quinn's Page (simple) (NEW!)

Quinn's Page (complex) (NEW!)

Quinn's Page (Space Quinn) (NEW!)

End of Reason Sale (for Quinn) (NEW!)

Quinn's Wish List (NEW!)

Quinn's Interactive Makeover (NEW!)

Quinn's Poetry #1 (NEW!)

Quinn's Poetry #2 (NEW!)

Quinn's Poetry #3 (NEW!)

Jane's Page (simple)

Jane's Page (complex)

Jane's pizza ratings

Jane's art gallery

Brittany's Page (simple) (NEW!)

Brittany's Page (complex) (NEW!)

Brittany's Advice Page for Guys (NEW!)

Brittany's World Cheer (NEW!)

Brittany's Cheerleader Advice (NEW!)

Trent's Page (simple)

Trent's Page (complex)

Mystik Spiral's Bookings Page

Mystik Spiral's Fan Club (FIXED!)

Mystik Spiral Music Sampler Page

ReBurb.com (Mystik Spiral) (NEW!)

Fashion Club's Page

Tiffany's Flaw Finder (NEW!)

Real Shopping vs. Internet Shopping (NEW!)

Fashion Club Mission Statement (NEW!)
(highlight text to read it)

Upchuck's Page (simple) (NEW!)

Upchuck's Page (complex)

Upchuck's Love Generator

Upchuck's Feistometer (NEW!)

Kevin's Page (simple)

Kevin's Page (complex) (NEW!)

Cyber Challenge III (NEW!)

Daria Store (early version) (NEW!)

Daria Store: The Goods (intermediate version)

Daria Store (later version) (NEW!)

Episode Schedule

Cool, eh? Enjoy!

Slightly over ten years ago....

... if you got into the MTV website to look for Daria stuff, this was your entry screen (missing two pictures I cannot restore). I was going to show this a few days ago on the 19th but forgot. The image was archived by the WayBack Machine on December 19th, 1998.

Anyone remember what the picture was for the RealVideo link?

Anyway, just thought you'd like to see it.

Still looking for places to post your stories?

While updating the Daria Directory at left, I discovered a new place to post your fanworks: the newly revised Fanfics.org site. No Daria works have been posted there yet! I haven't checked the procedure, but I figured you hardcore writers might want to know about this ASAP. (The old site is here.)

Perhaps someone can report back about the site. Do it to it.

LATE NOTE: Two other fanfic sites that might be open are the famous (infamous? in a good way, sure) Lawndale Leftovers and Lady Cosmos's Fanfic Library. Interested parties should e-mail the webmasters involved and find out what's up.

Daria Fan Club now up to 1,049 members. Man, that really jumped in the last few months.

I've cleaned up a lot of the links at left. Hope it works for you all. If you are looking for interesting images, definitely click on some of the lesser-known and smaller sites, which have all sorts of stuff on them from the Olden Days. Just found more of it tonight.


FF.net

• John Lane 37: Crysalis, by Richard Lobinske (COMPLETE!): And the great saga continues.

PPMB

• Daylight: Hunter Gatherer, by Legendeld (COMPLETE!): Jennifer Ash felt like she had a target painted on her back as she stood in the open field.
• Falling into College 65: Arrivals and Returns, by Richard Lobinske (Part 4): "Morgendorffer's Mobile Meat Market. We bring the butchery to you."
• Tales of the Ringbearers: New Dead, by Legendeld (COMPLETE!): Four hundred people were all he had managed to find so far.

Forsooth & Five-sooth! Get Thee Hence & Get Thyself Published!

Time for some good news.

I've been corresponding with some of the webmasters/webmistresses of Daria sites that have gone dormant for a while, and some of them could be coming back. That being the case, there is ample opportunity to get your fanfiction and fan art out and about on the Internet. Redundant postings are best, as we have already discovered, so if one website goes down, your work is still immortalized for future generations of ner--um, fans.

Here is a rundown on which sites are now or will be accepting submissions, with links or information on their guidelines. I will avoid publishing e-mail addresses for anti-spam reasons, but you can find their e-mails on the relevant pages.

The Daria Shrine
Robin said she may be able to reopen the site after the end of the year. Get your stories in beforehand, if possible. Click on the "Fanfic & Fan Art" button in the frames version or go to this page (to the bottom) for details on sending stuff in.

Dariaverse.com
Now accepting stories, art is possible. Format: HTM or HTML, so they are easy to upload. This means you can tinker with colors and stuff, which is fun. Address is at the website, front page. Because the DAYLIGHT page is hosted here, definitely consider sending all stories set in this shared universe!

Fanfiction.net
Now accepting stories only. You need to have an account and log in. I believe this site still takes only text files, nothing fancy, no links or scripts allowed. I haven't posted there in a while, so someone else can correct me. Site is here.

Lawndale Sun-Herald
Eccles is considering reopening the site. If you have art or stories to send in, go to this page for information on how to do it.

Lawndale Online
Always open for self-submitted fanfiction and art. Read the submission guidelines, then go to the fanfiction submissions page or the fan art submissions page.

Outpost Daria
Open for fanfics and fan art. Read the fanfiction submissions rules and, if needed, the page about Converting MS Word Documents to Plain Text or HTML. Also read the artwork submissions rules.

Sick, Sad World
Wraith is also thinking about reopening this site for submissions. See the fanfiction submissions rules and/or the fan art submissions rules.

If you have your stories already posted in your own website, fixed up the way you like them, you can still send the links to your stories (each with a title and synopsis, please) to many of the above sites, which will happily link to them in order to save bandwidth. Plus, if you're like me and constantly re-edit and fiddle with your stories, you won't drive the webmasters insane. Also, if you can track the number of hits your stories get, you can see which ones are most popular, which websites garner the most attention for your work, etc. Big fun for your ego!

Let's get this mother off the ground! Go, go, GO!

And the second oldest Daria website is found!

Again, while putzing around at home, I discovered an interesting site that appears to be the second oldest Daria site archived. This version of Alex's Daria Homepage was last updated on April 18, 1997, just a few days after "The Lab Brat" and five days after the other oldest known Daria site. The designer might also have created the oldest known Daria website theme stuff (see text on webpage).

Internet archaeology is a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

In other news, I missed a few anniversaries for the fandom. PPMB is 9 years and one week old today, having been created October 13, 1999. Sh33p's Fluff MB is 5 years, 2 weeks, and one day old (October 5, 2003). It was about a year ago that the Comedy Central show Drawn Together showed Daria with a nail stuck in her eye (eww). Sarah Drew (a.k.a. the voice of Stacy Rowe) was born October 1, 1980. MTV Animation closed on October 9, 2001. I promise to get these right next year, more or less. Sorry about that.

P.S. Oh, forgot one: Artie shoots Angier Sloane two years from now with an alien weapon. That's about it.

P.S.S. LATE-BREAKING BULLETIN! Kara Wild has discovered more news about Glenn Eichler's latest project! Click and read! AND THANK YOU, DEREF AND S.C.!! (in addition to Kara)

New Daria Fansite Coming?

Lorenzo Sauchelli, prolific fanfic author and true-blue fan, has announced on PPMB that he's considering the start of a new Daria fan website called Dariaverse. Actually, he's already got the website started but needs advice on content and features. Any ideas? Click here to get to the thread, and add all the advice you can muster.

The content issue came to my mind several times in the past, wondering what a new Daria website might offer, but I never successfully resolved it. This blog is really just a bunch of mental misfirings, whatever happens to go through my head on a certain day. There are very few other Daria blogs that I know of, but their content is quite different from this one (discussing the show in other countries and languages, in-depth insightful essays, etc.). Attitude always helps. Someone with strong opinions about the show could surely create a popular (or infamous, or both) site. It's happened before.

A new fansite could specialize in its direction, too, such as collecting only fanfic that is post-IICY?, or fanfic and art about the Fashion Club. I don't know if a new art website would go over, as deviantART seems to have gobbled up the market for fan artists, but who knows.

What do you think a new Daria site could offer?

When MTV Poked Fun at the Fans

Does the image at right look familiar? It's found in one of the little side corners of the current MTV Daria website: "Guy vs. Guy: The Trent/Tom Debate." This is the opening page to two others in sequence, in which two imaginary Daria fans debate which was Daria's true soulmate, Trent or Tom. It is reminiscent of the infamous rant by William Shatner on Saturday Night Live in which he said Star Trek fans should get a life. I think that's what MTV was doing here, too, giving us an unsubtle hint to get over it. In a funny way, I could see Daria doing that. It would be like her.

The two pages of "debate" do indeed skewer some of the long-ago screaming and shouting that went on in the fandom over T 'n T. Given some of the discussion that went on between fans on this issue (based on what I've seen of the rubble left over), perhaps this tongue-in-cheek debate is closer to the mark than some of us would like to recall. But hey, it was fun, wasn't it? It meant we really liked the show. It hit a chord with us, and it hit it hard enough that years after the show is over and gone, we're still hanging around waiting for it to come back. That's not especially pathetic, since that very tactic worked to bring back some shows like Family Guy. And Star Trek. We can always hope.

Ah, what the hell. If Daria doesn't come back, it doesn't come back. It was a hell of a show, though, wasn't it? A show about smart people who don't fit in, who don't go along with the rest of the herd. That couldn't possibly be the situation with any of the fans, now, could it? If MTV wants to make fun of us, it can do its worst. It had its bright and shining moment, and we saw it, recognized it for what it was, and cherished it when it was gone. We weren't the ones who let it die.

And, I have to say, Tom and Trent both completely sucked as soulmates to Daria. She should forget about getting married and just get some cats. It's a better move for her in the long run. 'Nuff said.

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.

Broodbeat.com, Keeping Dysfunctional Families Functional, Sort Of!

[Here is the Morgendorffer family webpage on BROODBEAT.COM. The page redirects quickly. TAG]

*

[Family portrait went at top, but is not available for some reason. TAG]

We are a family of four: Jake, Helen, Quinn and Esmerelda. We enjoy wholesome activities like quilting, raising border collies, and reversing the earth's gravitational pull. I guess you could say we're a happy, well-adjusted family. You could also say that every spring a gigantic hare travels around the globe hiding chocolate ellipsoids in people's yards.

[This sounds like Daria wrote it. Perhaps she broke into the website and tinkered with it. TAG]


MESSAGES
Fashion Club Meeting (2 replies-- click here!)
(from Quinn--Today!)
The Fashion Club will be meeting in my room this evening for our "Avoiding Lash Clump" Clinic. No loud noises, please! They can cause serious mascara wand accidents.

Where are my lucky socks? (4 replies-- click here!)
(from Jake--Today!)
Need them for my consulting confab. The ones with the lucky hole in the big toe. Anyone seen them?

Anyone for Lunch? (2 replies-- click here!)
(from Helen--Yesterday!)
My client lunch was cancelled (sentenced to house arrest--LONG STORY!) so I have an opening from 1-2. Any takers? My treat.

Eerie faces (3 replies-- click here!)
(from Daria--Yesterday!)
Just wondering, is anyone else seeing ghostly apparitions in the storm windows?

[Replies are not available, damn it. TAG]


UPCOMING
Allowance Re-Negotiations--Today!
"Togs for Togo" Drive-Tomorrow!
Colonoscopy Day-This week! Couple Therapy Accusathon-October 30
Click here to go to your family calendar.

[Calendar is not available. TAG]


POLL
What do you want for dinner tonight? Posted by Jake--TODAY!

• Lasagna ala Pomodoro
• Lasagna Originale
• Lasagna Festa
• Lasagna Tri-Colore

[A "SUBMIT" button was included here, but we don't know what happened when you chose dinner and clicked it. You could get a damn funny story showing some of the family communications going on here. TAG]

Helen and Jake, Plugged-In Parents

[The following dialogue is from Helen and Jake's webpage. The words were colored in the original version to distinguish one speaker from the other, but the color also has an impact on the conversation, as you will see. The two rectangular buttons are from the same site. TAG]


With the demands of a two-career household (three, if you count the fact that I do twice as much work as anyone else at my firm) it's difficult to keep family lines of communication open, let alone find the time to truly share to each other's feelings and concerns.

Can I be purple instead of blue?

Jake! We've already wasted 15 minutes choosing colors.

But what about my feelings and concerns?

Alright, but don't change your mind again.

This is the last time.

Because I have due diligence that's due to do.

Hey! That's a tongue twister!

Anyway, we were truly relieved when we found a web site where you can set up a family homepage and access it 24-hours-a-day from anywhere in the world.

Not that we ever get to go on a vacation, damn it! Now I wish red weren't already taken.

With this new homepage, I don't feel so bad when I have to work through the weekend or leave the house before sunrise or when I recite docket numbers in my sleep.

I thought you were just counting a really big bunch of sheep!

I can parent on the run, without having to eat up a lot of time hanging around my husband and children waiting for them to say something worth paying attention to. Oh, that sounds awful, doesn't it? Is this just a way to shirk the responsibilities that come with choosing to reproduce in the optimistic bloom of youth, never imagining that someday you would find yourself shouldering the bulk of the difficult parenting decisions while your spouse remains blissfully disconnected from reality, lost in a dream world of his own making?

I didn't expect this purple to look so violet.

Click here to see our family page on Broadbeat.com

[Broodbeat.com . . . they misspelled it on the original MTV webpage, not the first mistake I've caught there . . . is yet to come. The original link to the Helen and Jake page left off the "index.html" thinger at the end, so the page link would not have worked without fixing. TAG]

Pep-Rx, Brittany's Favorite Website

[Much of this page will not load, and the images are difficult to recover. Plus, it redirects very quickly. Here's what little I could get. TAG]

*

Come on in and share your experiences with fellow cheerleaders from coast-to-coast, including France and Hawaii!

It's a place for you to be yourself, even if that means feeling cranky or angry! Just because you're a role model for your school doesn't mean you have to smile all the time. Only when other people might see you!

*that means I'm in charge but not pushy or anything!!!

P.S. Attention Guy Cheerleaders: You are a valuable part of the sport even though we can't borrow barrettes and certain things during "ladies' days" from you. So nothing personal, but please leave now. We need a little privacy here!!!

[The asterisk'ed comment refers to an image I cannot recover. TAG]

The 1999-2000 MTV Daria Webpage

The image at left is actually fairly large. It is a PRINT SCREEN snapshot of the Daria webpage on February 29, 2000. A few sections did not load as they had not been saved through the WayBack Machine. There was also some loss of color information, for some reason, and the bottom of the screen was clipped off. To view the actual page, which does not redirect (so far), click here.

Nice to see all the things I missed. Hope this tour down memory lane is enjoyable for you. Much more to come this weekend.

Trentisms, Part One

Well, here are a couple of unusual button graphics rescued from certain doom by the WayBack Machine. These came from Trent's Mystik Spiral webpage on the year 2000 edition of MTV's Daria website. Both graphics look like they could be improved with a visit to Irfanview or the like. "Reburb.com" is supposed to be a special website where groups like Mystik Spiral could post their music for the world to hear. Does anyone at all remember this stuff?

More images and text to come. By the way, I think I've also figured out what Radio by Daria (a.k.a. Radio Daria or Daria Radio) was.

"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.

Mad Marchness Munches Muchly

1,400+ views, whee!

Right, enough of that.

Below are some more "adoptable" webpages about Daria, as discussed in an earlier blog post. All are in English. Take your time, look them over, then maybe pick one out and make yourself the resident expert there on Daria. Post pictures, comments, essays, chat, fresh links, messages, anything. Have fun with it. None of these are exclusively fanfic sites; most are informational and allow for reviews and opinions.

• DMOZ Open Directory Project (might be difficult to get)
• Episode World
• Everything2
• Experience Project
• Fan History (an interesting wiki, someone already posting heavily there but more is better)
• Google Directory (might be difficult to get)
• Hot or Not

A side note: Looking for good Daria screen captures? Try this page in StarPulse. More soon, mebbe.

March Madness Madly Marches

I think I wrote something about basketball a few days ago, but I can't be bothered to go back and look. I mean, who cares, it's just a game. We have Daria to talk about.

One of the nice things about the Internet (which is spelled with a capital I by all literate, sophisticated, civilized adults who can properly spell) is the appearance of encyclopedia websites like Wikipedia that anyone can edit, even complete doofuses who spell Internet with a lower-case i. Daria fan sites and informational entries are no exception. Anyone can adopt a webpage about a favored topic and wax eloquent about it to the exclusion of all else, and if there was ever a topic worth waxing about, it is Daria.

We have the beloved DariaWiki, of course, but it never hurts to have more, more, MORE. Below are some adoptable webpages concerning Our Heroine (Jane Lane) and her sidekick Daria Morgendorffer. I have no idea exactly how adoptable (and adaptable) these are, but some note that you can add links, pictures, essays, message-board posts, and whatnot to them, even correcting descriptive information and adding your own. It's worth a try, and if you have some free time over lunch or after work to fix things the way you like them to be fixed, give it a shot.

But why do this, you ask? Because these links keep coming up on search engines, that's why. Any person researching Daria will always find one or more of them. And the more people we co-opt into supporting the DVDaria campaign, the better. True? Be an activist and go for it.

Note: This is the first installment of adoptable pages. There are quite a few of them out there.

• Animated Lust
• Cassiopedia
• Classic TV Hits
• Daria Fan Club (I've added some things to this already, but please join in)
• DooYoo (mostly reviews, maybe other stuff possible)
• SideReel

Take your pick. As I said, more to come.

P.S. If you want to use some of the Daria pictures from this blog, feel free. I messed with a few of them to improve quality when possible, or to make a point (Quinn with pi on her shirt, for instance). Use 'em if you like 'em.