Maron!

I don't watch much television. I consider most televised programming to be conceptually jejune, visually voyeuristic, and aurally harsh. The mass medium screams at me with blasting orchestral cacophonies, emotionally intrusive close-ups, and officious, pretentious, endless reports of a world gone mad. Why do I submerge myself in this noise? No comfort does it bring to my day.

I sometimes gaze at my television set when the power is off as I sip my morning tea, and wonder why I purchased the damn thing. Not only does it fail to engage me as any one of the books on my shelf can, it is exceedingly rude in its efforts. I am simultaneously proud and dismayed to declare that these thoughts of mine, enjoyed while staring at a blank, powerless screen, entertain me more than the vast majority of images I would see should that screen be turned on.

...I do enjoy a good episode of The Sopranos, however. A friend made in recent years confided to me that it was a pretty good show, and I concede that I have yet to find cause to challenge him on that opinion.

Every installment of this program is a delightful smorgasbord of human emotion, most of it fettered, unexpressed, and boiling slowly. The occasional scenes of violence cannot hope to stir me when there are so many moments of quiet rage and stabbing fear to digest.

It seems my sad fate that I should never gain a full understanding of the program's mythology. My interest was born during the show's fifth series, when the hapless, misguided Adriana was coerced into cooperation with federal investigators. Though I did not know the woman's beginnings, her pitiful end was nonetheless heartrending. It is an opinion I have simplified to describe my thoughts on many Sopranos tales: I may not know who is who, but by the time the music plays, I care about them all.

When people try to say that modern drama is inferior to more traditional, "classic" literature, they like to say "It's not Shakespeare." I believe that this silly saying is relevant to The Sopranos, but to a different, more subtle effect. In Shakespeare, whenever a character devises some plan to deceive or defeat another character, he announces it in a scenery-chewing monologue. In The Sopranos, the characters only hint. Evil events are anally, deliberately telegraphed over the course of many episodes, and the astute viewer will feel the pain before the bullets pierce the flesh.

I find it especially thrilling when Tony "puts people to the test," as he did to poor Paulie while the two floated gently out to sea last Sunday. The scene suggests violence of the gory, fleshy variety, but then it transcends that teenage titillation, and the depths of Tony's sensitivity and ruthlessness are darkly, horribly revealed. This scene alone is the product of many masters, creators who understand that sometimes the greatest display of power is restraint.

I admit that The Sopranos is not Shakespeare, but that is so I can assert that it is beyond Shakespeare. After hearing how much The Sopranos can say in but a few seconds of silence, The Great Shakespeare would be ashamed at the forced, unnatural dialogue that pollutes his body of work.

Don't think that my veneration of this outstanding series will lead to more inclusive interests. When the HBO Entertainment logo turns to snow and flicks off, I make sure that my television does the same. Then, it's back to the meshes with me, where I am free to lament that pompous young Pip's rejection of Joe Gargery.

I sometimes think about the masters Dickens and Chase, and question just how far removed their minds may be. I wonder if Pip and Anthony Jr. would bind in friendship, and if they would commiserate about the wide barren swath of desolation mowed so callously across their lives by the human controllers, The Money and The Power.

Pardon me now, I have to pound on my floor. My downstairs neighbor is chortling loudly at a show about some far less interesting Italians who have far less interesting problems. You know the program I mean; it's that one about the guy named Ray, and he's apparently very popular.

Honey, Don't

Have you ever had the prickly pleasure of being told by some supercilious, sanctimonious shithead that you'll be "prayed for?" Didn't you feel insulted? Didn't you feel irritated? Didn't you want to say to the person, "Listen, Fuckfart, if you want to help me, a prayer isn't going to make it. How about giving me some money instead?"

When will people figure out that offering to pray for someone doesn't sound generous? It sounds pretentious. It sounds proud. It sounds like you think your personal beliefs are so powerful that you can use them to save me. Well, listen up, Judas: the old adage "actions speak louder than words" is a lot more than just an old adage. It's a truth, and if you respect Truth, as you assert, then I say to get off your fucking knees and do something more productive than sending unrehearsed speeches into the darkness.

Besides, I don't WANT you to pray for me. I'd prefer it if you prayed TO me.

Serious, Critical, and Huge

Well, it looks like someone forgot to do something before I started workin' here, and now, because I didn't catch it, I'm takin' the blame. Shucks, I guess I should have caught it.

My boss says that things like this are critical. Boy, howdy, he sure likes to use terms like "critical." "Huge" is another one, and so is "I can't stress how important this is, Travis." And ya know what? I really don't know how to take it when he says things like that. Is he sayin' this stuff 'cuz he thinks I don't take my work seriously? 'Cuz I do. I really do! I'm always doin' my best to make sure my work is absolutely perfect, and sometimes it's like he doesn't think I care or somethin'.

Well, as a matter of fact, I do care, and I'm gonna show 'im just how much I care, no matter how much it takes outta me. I'm going to take every assignment really seriously, I'm going to crumple in shame whenever I screw up, and I'm going to hand in my resignation if I ever lose him a client. That's how huge this job is to me. I don't wanna get fired. I'd rather quit first. Maybe then my boss'll figure out that I know how serious this stuff is, and he won't have to remind me of it all the time.

I'm a model employee, and I won't stand for anyone thinkin' that I'm not.

I Hate Anime

There was a time when I loved Japanese cartoons. That time is over now, but it was a strong and influential chapter in my life. I first caught sight of anime when I was around, oh, I guess four years old. That's when I saw Voltron for the first time, you see. At the time I didn't know it was Japanese, nor did I know the extent that its American licensees had sanitized the original material, but I liked it because it had big robots and lots of shooting.

When I was eleven, I was getting tired of the Flintstone Kids/Fantastic Max garbage that was being jammed into my eyes on Saturdays. I was also more interested in Nintendo. It was then that I happened upon a mysterious new cartoon called Dragon Warrior, which was supposedly based on the NES game I used to play with my brother. The cartoon didn't look much like the game, and it didn't follow the storyline very closely, but still...what a cartoon!

And no, I don't mean that in the way that the vapid Cartoon Network used to mean it.

I still remember the first episode that I saw, "Level 4 - Girl Warrior Daisy." It's the episode in which the wandering mercenary Daisy follows Abel and his friends around to fill her purse with the money left behind by the monsters they slay. She ends up joining them on their quest to rescue Abel's childhood friend Tiala, in a not-so-subtle effort to get to know that handsome, heroic Abel a little better. Her animated acting is surprisingly deep for a cartoon marketed to children: without even knowing or seeing the girl whom Abel is looking for, the tomboyish Daisy displays a twinge of uncharacteristic jealousy.

The episode is also filled with sword-swingin' violence, deadly explosions, and battles with magical monsters, but it was that little exchange at the end, when Daisy makes the decision to stick with the other heroes, that made me a fan.

The best moments in the Dragon Warrior series are those when the heroes are sitting around a campfire, ruminating on events, chewing the fat, and generally allowing their personalities to bounce off of each other. Sometimes they don't say much because they've just been through something painful. Other times, the sparks start flying as they annoy each other. As in all good stories, the action that initially draws viewers is secondary to the feelings and thoughts of the characters.

The themes of Dragon Warrior are pretty common for a fantasy adventure tale: there's love, friendship, bravery, sacrifice, and all that traditional heroic stuff, but they were presented in a less patronizing manner than I'd seen in cartoons. That was when I did a little research, or as much as I could at the time before I had access to the internet. All I really had to look through were my old Nintendo Power magazines. Believe it or not, though, I did learn something from them!

I found out that Dragon Warrior was the American name for the hugely-famous Japanese RPG series, Dragon Quest. I also found out that the game's programmer and scenario designer, Yuji Horii, asked Akira Toriyama to design the characters and monsters. The heroes of the Dragon Warrior cartoon were loosely based around some of the character designs from the video game Dragon Quest III.

This was the first time I'd ever heard of Toriyama, but as anyone who's heard of Dragon Ball knows, it wouldn't be the last. O, how I wish that I had told my parents to invest in Saban Entertainment at that time!

Wondering if I might find more information on Dragon Warrior, I looked through some of the old Electronic Gaming Monthlies that I had around the house. That was when I began to notice some of the upcoming PC Engine CD games that were out in Japan, like Cosmic Fantasy and Parodius. It was bizarre...the art was so familiar...it was like Voltron, Tranzor Z and Dragon Warrior were HUGE over there!

It wasn't until I was thirteen that I began to see Japanese cartoons appear on a tiny section of shelving in a dark corner of my local Suncoast. I gaped, and then looked about, as though I'd stumbled upon some kind of treasure hoard, and didn't want anyone else to claim it.

I simply had to have them, but they were all so overpriced, and I only had about thirty bucks leftover from Christmas. I could only pick one. I reached out and claimed one that had rather simple but attractive packaging: 3x3 Eyes, Volume 1.

What a rush that afternoon was. For the countless hours that I watched and rewound that tape to watch it again, I was immersed in ultra-violent demonic adventure! My eyes were forced open to take in a world of animation previously unknown to me. Sure, I'd seen some "mature" cartoons on Liquid Television about a year earlier, but that stuff was mostly outrageous for its own sake. This "Eyes" cartoon had heart. It had a story! It wasn't a very good story, mind, but it was definitely richer than any two weeks' worth of Tiny Toons.

And so my ghetto-venture to increase my anime collection began. I couldn't afford to buy every thirty-dollar video out there on Suncoast's shelf, so my brother and I hatched a different plan. We made weekly runs to our local Video King to rent the newest anime releases, and then copied them using our VCR and camcorder. This was before VHS tapes were infused with that saturating copy protection effect, in case you were about to question. So, every copy we made, from Madox-01 to Akira, from Bubblegum Crisis to Riding Bean, was picture perfect.

Of course, we had no desire to sell these copies. We just wanted to watch them, over and over and over. Even though not all of the movies we rented were good, we watched them anyway, or just fast-forwarded through them. My brother and I both liked to draw, and we studied the cartoons for tips on how to design, and then re-design our own characters. Sometimes we'd pause the movies and try to draw the frozen image.

Week by week, our collection grew. Demon City Shinjuku, Kabuto, Gunbuster, The Wings of Honneamise, The Hakkenden, Ninja Scroll, Grave of the Fireflies, Robot Carnival, Devilman, Kiki's Delivery Service (I chose that one, heh), and more...it was an amazing sensation of endless discovery, similar to what Nietzsche must have felt when he first read Dostoevsky.

And then, in 1997, something strange happened. Something tipped the boulder and sent it on its inevitable drop from the cliff. What's weird is that I'm not entirely sure what this strange happening was. Perhaps it was the Americanization and subsequent broadcast of Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network. Perhaps it was the exposure of the United States to that horrid mass of sewage known as Evangelion. Perhaps it was the continuation of the 3x3 Eyes saga in the U.S., which took the story beyond the first four volumes and then dragged it in a whole other direction, a direction that lacked the kitsch and occasional humor that I loved so much about the originals.

I don't know what it was, but I found myself looking at these Japanese cartoons and wondering just what the hell made them so damn special. It's possible that I was experiencing the effect of simple economic law, and that the decreased scarcity and growing popularity of anime was draining its attractiveness for me.

Or it's possible that, in looking at these cartoons, I was beginning to see that they weren't really much different from any other group of films. They tried to deal with tough emotional situations, but they still looked too cute to succeed.

Or maybe it's possible that the shallow but pioneering grasps for meaning in Dragon Warrior, that had impressed me so much as a child, just weren't as powerful to the Dickens-reading young man I'd become. My love for Japanese cartoons, that love for their exotic artistic style, ostensibly "mature" themes, and their excessive blood and gore, began its steady, momentous roll down the mountain. By the time that Cowboy Bebop became the hippest thing on TV, I was weary of those gem-like eyes, those lesbian overtones, and the surly grimaces. I was disgusted by Tenchi Muyo, I was dismayed by Dragon Ball Z, and I was slightly distended by Wicked City.

And now anime is freakin' EVERYWHERE. We have Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, CardCaptors, and tons upon tons of wannabes made by striving American studios who go so far as to use JAPANESE LYRICS in their title themes and JAPANESE POPSTARS in their storylines. It's pathetic. Sad and pathetic, if you will.

As horrid as this situation is, it gets worse. Now every kid in the country is trying to draw anime-style. You can't look through any art page on the internet without seeing some overly-cute, gem-eyed cherub holding a big gun, or some angry, gaunt, long-haired rebel holding a big sword. And they all have that one sharp canine tooth, you know? As though they're all stricken with lycanthropy or something. It makes me want to paint my keyboard with my half-digested lunch.

You might argue that I'm just upset because something that once helped define my identity has been adopted by the unwashed masses, so I don't really stand out as a man with unique interests anymore. Well, I've thought about that possibility too, and even I'm not sure if I can rule it out yet. Even so, I find the terrifying proliferation of anime to be an affront to all mankind, and it's high time that these mindless followers had a wake-up call. The best cartoons do not involve tentacle rape, magical collectible beasts, or big bloody bursts of violence. The best cartoons are the ones that strike out with a unique style that makes people feel something they've never felt before. The ones that bring the characters, no matter how bizarre or seemingly removed from the human condition, close to us.

In other words, the best cartoons are made by John Kricfalusi. Watch Man's Best Friend and Sven Hoek. Go read his blog, and learn a thing or two.

Love Your Mother

An aside: I find that I write these blog entries at times when things are slow at work. I suppose that, should I ever realize my dream of making a living as a writer/cartoonist, I will keep a small office a city away from my home. I just can't contain my work, thought, creation, and relaxation in the same place. Aside ends.

Post proper begins.

I've been a video game player for most of my life. I started on the Mattel Intellivision when I was three or four years old. Even as a small child, I was fascinated giving life and intelligence to inanimate characters, whether I was operating a puppet, drawing a cartoon, or playing a video game. It was always more interesting to me to have some degree of interaction with images or objects, rather than to passively watch them.

So I played video games. Lots of video games. I played the Nintendo Entertainment System, I played the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. I played the Neo-Geo, I played the Neo-Geo CD. I played the Game Boy, I played the Game Boy Color. I played the PlayStation, I played the PlayStation 2. I played the Game Boy Advance, and I still play the Game Boy Advance SP.

You get the idea.

I played hundreds of games in my twenty-seven years, and I'm beginning to understand that much of that game-playing was pretty much a big ol' waste of time. I mean, what did I learn from doing any of that? What kinds of emotions was I made to feel? Was I really thrilled to experience something new with each cartridge I slid into the machine, or was I satisfied merely to escape from my steadily increasing responsibilities?

It's all just a big, black miasma of meaninglessness. Nowadays, my opinion of video games is a bit more in line with the words of these two gentlemen:

Video Games Are Incredibly Stupid!

Gaming's Missing Kane

Okay, so maybe they're a bit biased and melodramatic, but they make meaningful points. I just can't stand any of the PlayStation Metal Gear Solid games, but I find the Game Boy Color MGS, which is viewed from a constant top-down perspective, to be quite playable. I've become bored with SimCity and The Sims, and yet I feel inexplicably drawn to Maxis's upcoming Spore. Somehow or other, I find comfort and familiarity in the older 2D games that I've already played through a thousand times, but I keep hoping that a new, advanced game will help me recapture the joy I felt when I was a kid when I brought home a shiny new NES cartridge from Toys 'R' Us.

I'll never forget the excitement I felt when I first got a hold of Zelda II. I still remember the emotional satisfaction that came with completing Final Fantasy II (now called IV, thanks to the internet, more or less). I keep hoping that I can feel these things again someday, but my tastes have grown and developed so much that video games just can't rise to meet them.

Well, most video games. There was one that came out recently which was able to draw a wild, childlike rush from me.

That game is Mother 3, for the Game Boy Advance.

Mother 3 is, of course, the sequel to Mother 2, which was released in the U.S. as EarthBound. Mother 3 is a very different type of game from Mother 2, however, in the same way that Doom 3 is a very different game from Doom II.

Where Doom II and Mother 2 are about showing off enhanced instances of their respective genres, first-person-shooters and role-playing-games respectively, Doom 3 and Mother 3 are little more than stories with FPS and RPG trappings. Much play time is spent in these games reading text or listening to testimonials, learning the nature of the game worlds, and that of the antagonists. The games can be very morbid, but they both manage some modicum of humor at times. In Doom 3 this humor is dark and gory, while in Mother 3 it's fanciful, and occasionally uncomfortable.

Since both games exist primarily to express the ideas of their creators, and because they vary so wildly, it's impossible to say which one is superior. However, I find that Mother 3 is the game that affects me more, not just because it encases more intimate themes, but because it's more friendly. It doesn't punish players for losing battles (at least, not much), and it doesn't require twitch reflexes to succeed, though it does ask players to have some skill at recognizing rhythm. It's also portable, which makes a big difference in the experience, as it can be enjoyed in small bits while you wait in line for your chicken quesadilla. Where Doom 3, and most video games like it, are made to be big-screen, surround-sound types that you might share with your friends, Mother 3 is more personal, like a good book.

There are some problems with it, of course. The walking speed is too slow, the menus are kinda clunky, and the characters are awfully chatty. Even when you can read the Japanese text, these people just go on and on and on...someone should teach Shigesato Itoi, who wrote the game's scenario, a thing or two about "killing your darlings."

I won't go into any more detail about Mother 3 itself, as you can learn plenty by just checking out Starmen.net. I will simply say that it's the one game I can enjoy even as a grown human being. It's a game that genuinely made me feel like cheering at times, and like crying at others. I didn't actually go so far as to do either of these things, but I was close to it, which is more than I can say about any other video game I've played in my life. And I've played a lot of them.

So when is this video game thing going to end for me? I don't know. Part of me really hopes it's soon, while another part of me is afraid to let go of something that's been so tightly entwined with my life. I've always had a hard time doing that, as certain women from my past can attest. All I know is that I have yet to purchase any of the new home consoles from Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon. That's got to be a step up, right?

Baby-Killing and Self-Discovery

I feel it is necessary to discuss something of a fragile and unpleasant nature today: the self. More specifically, the duties that appease the self, and how we often rationalize these behaviors by framing them as selfless. Even more specifically, the self-centeredness, self-righteousness, and self-servitude that is nowhere in the world more bloated and more blatant than in the overemotional abortion issue.

How many times must we hear the story of the pregnant woman whose boyfriend wants an abortion? And how often is the boyfriend chastised for being selfish, while the woman is praised for being courageous? Somehow, the woman's desire to maintain the pregnancy is held up as noble.

It's not.

What if the man wants an abortion because he hasn't the money to support a child, and therefore cannot provide it a healthy lifestyle? Is he still being selfish? Women often counter this by saying that there is never a "right time" to have a baby. If a woman waits for her man to be "ready" to have a baby, then she will be waiting forever. These are wrongheaded and unfair exaggerations, as every human being has the capacity to change. If the man insists that he will never, EVER be willing to have a baby, only then is the woman correct. I haven't met many men like that. I think that most men really do want children, so long as they are confident enough to accept the responsibility.

Despite what some women will tell you, there are indeed right and proper times to have children, as opposed to poor and inappropriate times. Say a woman is dating an angry, drunken, abusive man who hits her and assumes she knows the reasons why. Let's also say that this woman is afraid to leave the man because she thinks she's ugly and unwanted and she believes that she won't find anyone else. Now imagine a couple who love each other, have secure jobs, live in a large apartment with extra room, drive by an elementary school on the way to work each morning, and meet with a network of friends every other weekend. By a woman's argument, neither of these couples is apparently in the right place to have children.

Some women say that men don't want children because those men want to hoard their time and money and energy for themselves rather than share it. The problem with this argument is that the child is not yet born, and so it has no need for anyone's time, money, or energy. It's hard to say that you're denying something from someone when that someone doesn't exist. If the woman puts forth that the man MIGHT neglect his hypothetical child at some point in the future, she might as well don a turban and try looking through sealed envelopes, because she's making wild predictions to support vague assumptions. It's like the irrational jealousy a woman has for another even in her mate's absence, as she thinks that if her boyfriend was present, he MIGHT ogle that other gal. That's the kind of louse he is, right?

Some women say that it is against God's will that babies be aborted. Then they vote for warmongering politicians (Republican and Democrat) who take money from polluting, outsourcing industrial lobbies. They hear about children being slaughtered in the contested regions of Africa and then continue chewing their hamburgers. They ignore the parts of the Bible that talk about infants' brains being dashed to bits on the rocks, all in the name of God. These women do not care for human life in the altruistic manner they purport. Like the queens of the insect world, these women care only for their own broods.

Most commonly, women use the selfish word because they think that, in requesting an abortion, the man is not thinking of the baby, but only of himself. Well, here's a point most people don't like to admit: the woman isn't thinking of the baby either. She's thinking of her own instinctive need to nurture, to hold her new little doll, to have something to love, to test out her plumbing, to meet her all-American goal of building a family. It's no different from the male need to dominate his herd by injecting his DNA into as many females as possible. Both genders are no less entrenched in the superficial business of fulfilling their biological needs, their only differences are the actions that satisfy those needs.

There is one, only ONE reason to deny abortion that is truly, completely without guile, and that is the simplest, most natural reason of all: to maintain the human species. However, there is no longer a need to maintain the human species. There are already six and a half billion of us on a planet with unevenly distributed resources. If there is anything to be done for the greater good of humanity, it is to STOP the propagation of the species. Population control, unintuitive as it might sound, could very well save lives someday.

Now, look. I know it's painful to investigate one's own motivations, but before we all start shouting about how everyone else in the world is so selfish, let us turn our judging eyes inward, and think about the verbs we use. "I want a baby" starts with "I want," a pair of words that could just as well precede "to lose weight," or "to watch my soaps," or "to choke that bitch with the huge boobs over there." It is an expression of personal, individual entitlement, no matter how it is spun, polished, or redressed.

If you ladies simply must hold and feed something and feel good about yourself for doing it, do what Christ would do: keep your legs shut and take care of some poor kids. Take less for the people who don't exist yet, and give more to the people who do.

Good Night, Sweet Principal

I can't remember the exact date of the event, but it was not long ago. It was a sunny, cloudless, and boring old morning. I opened my paper ("The Bad News" as it were) and searched out the obits as I do everyday.

Some dub the dead deliriously depressing. Others like to look 'cause they're luridly alluring. I'm of the mind that they're absurdly amusing. I enjoy peering down on the portraits of proles, and perusing the pining on their pointless pursuits. This day, however, was a fortuitous first, as one of those faces was frighteningly un-faceless.

It was the principal of my elementary school, a tall and stern and brow-less old man who held up his students to the highest of standards. Being a star student myself, I had the old guy on a first-name basis.

Then he broke a very delicate promise that he made to me.

You see, there was this lovely young teacher at the school who was just the right size and shape for a growing Evil One like myself. Now, I was naive enough to be unaware of the complications born when teachers and children touch, but I was sensitive enough to understand that what I did was forward, reproachful, and wrong.

That was when that principal...that principal.

So the teacher talked to that principal, instead of talking to me, and the man took me into his office one day after recess. What followed was a lengthy and embarrassing lecture after which I desperately requested that the man refrain from informing my parents about the causal events.

This, of course, is the promise that he broke.

Not two weeks after this initial humiliation, I was summoned to my parents' quarters to discuss the transgression. They had hesitated to call on me due to the principal's mentioning of his promise. Apparently he felt that he could break his word so long as I didn't know about it. This was the first time I had ever encountered such treachery. I was but eleven, and I had so much to learn.

That talk with my parents lasted nearly two grueling hours. I will never forget the pain of their searching eyes. They rummaged not through my belongings, but through my brains. They sought not for scars on my skin, but on my psyche. Narrow chambers they were not to pass were pried and cracked apart. The anguish of that day was nearly as great as that which I put that lovely young woman through.

But I still live on, and that principal is gone, and I do not mourn. I am glad, and proud, and grateful, for justice has been done. Through his incessant information I endured a molestation of the most private part of all: my thought, and such analysis I will never abide. Children remember.

I am glad he is dead and rotten, and I hope pain was his mate for his passing.

Catty Clients

Boy, people sure can get grumpy when they go to an appointment and find out it's been canceled. I found that out the hard way. I guess I shoulda called the client right away when I got the news that my boss was sick.

I don't know; I'm trying my best to keep things organized and communicative and all, but sometimes I just get so wrapped up in whatever's goin' on that I just miss somethin'. Next thing I know, I'm getting mean emails from my boss askin' me to apologize profusely to all those folks what missed him. And those folks, they never say, "That's okay, fella, I accept your apology, now let's just forget this whole thing ever happened." Nope, boy, I tell ya, they're always real mad about it, and the only thing they think'll cheer 'em up is makin' sure my boss knows just how mad they are.

Now, I know this is all my fault, and I ain't denyin' it, but what else can I do but say I'm sorry? I mean, uh, everybody makes mistakes, ya know. Does it really make these people feel better knowin' that I'll be gettin' in trouble over it? It'd sure be nice if people could be a little understanding. I get mad when things don't go right too, but I would never wish for somebody ta get fired over it.

God, I sure hope I don't get fired over it.

CSS and other, less useful technologies

I've received word that Daniel has procured a book to aid with the transformation of this weblog, so that its appearance may not remain reminiscent of a Charles Dickens book cover. It's entitled CSS for Dummies, so I can only assume that it's intended for magically animated mannequins. I hope that Daniel is more intelligent than a mannequin, because this is my second post and I'm already sick of this layout. Expect changes soon.