"Oh my God, we've lost control!! Elf the thread! ELF THE THREAD!!" I can hear the sirens (or the silverfish) in the background.
CINCGREEN

Nah. It hasn't progressed to the "Holy War" level yet. But it's getting there, give it time.

Erin passes Cincgreen a spare box of popcorn, and settles back to watch the carnage unfold.
Erin M.

Ben: yeah, where _is_ Evie when you need her?
tafka: um... for a second there i thought you said 'where is evil when you need her?' ... and I thought 'why, i'm right here'
<< to page four
(God, I need more caffeine. I'm getting *way* too woozy...) --- MJP
All power to Martin I say. When other mad dictators get woozy they have a couple of people executed. He just drinks a glass of coke or a cup of coffee. Which greek philosopher had that line about "the next one could be worse again"? ---SUSU
All right, who is it?!

Okay, everyone, fun time's over. It's nice to play with the people on the PPMB, and it was a very good joke, but... WHICH ONE OF YOU is REALLY CKO92?

-- CINCGREEN

I actually went through a stack of old B&B comics and cut out the Daria cameos to make a scrapbook.

Cut... cutting up... buh...
DID HE SAY HE CUT UP COMIC BOOKS?!
Buh... no... he couldn't have...

Shallow15 gets out the thorazine for Um...

Candy! Pretty candy! Oooh...

Um ... I did. They were a dime-a-dozen. Frankly, I only found them to be so-so in the amusement factor, on or below the level of an "Archie" collection... I have lots of Batman comics, Star Wars comics, Indy Jones comics, etc. etc., and I wouldn't DREAM of so much as creasing them! I am a respecter of comic books and graphic novels. "Beavis & Butt-head" are pretty much the bottom of the barrel.

John Takis

Sorry...just old juju from my collecting days...I've got 1,000 nearly worthless mid-80s indie b/w comics mouldering in six boxes right behind me...any takers? No box tops or bottle caps, please. Shiny objects considered.

Um

We can then hope that pigs will not only fly, but will in fact achieve stable geosynchronous orbit about the Earth. Mike Yamiolkoski

And are armed with particle beam weapons sufficiently fine-tuned to take out both Osama bin Laden and Wouter's computer. Um

Okay, I was thinking up a couple of fanfic ideas.
1. New Character: Nothing like throwing a new character in to upset or enhance the ecology of the story. New characters can be male, female...

... or both.
Watch the town react. O'Neill would probably blow a fuse trying to stay PC.
--NomadX

Or imagine how Ms Barch'd deal with it...

March 3, 2002. Hm. That date sounds familiar... anybody know its significance?

I sense a great disturbance in the force ... as if millions of wallets opened wide in anticipation and were suddenly emptied.
John Takis

Sign up now for the Pretentious Jerk Martin Sycophant Society, or PreJerMaSS! The first 100 applicants will receive a new, 2002 model No-Prize, as well as lots of rude, condescending talk from the Head Schmuck himself! But wait, there's more...

He's right, there is, but you have to pay for it and, well, this is the internet...

To those who seem to despise those who they perceive as in "Martin's camp,"

What exactly do you want?

Erin M.

This simple question just begs for a complex and detailed reply. See Erin, since the decay of Communism in the late 80ies and early 90ies the cultural and political left found itself without a model of a "functioning society", while the cultural and political right found itself without an enemy. The following political discourse is dominated by a simple dichotomy, the right accusing the left of hanging on to old utopian ideals, the left accusing the right of being fascist twerps (see Sonic Youth, Dirty). At the same time the western public became a bloated ignorant mass of meatheads. Just even more so than before (see Dick Cheney).

Then some terrorists crashed into the WTC.

And you wonder what our problem is?

Uhmmm....

I think I'd better start again.

If there is a group of smart people, they will start to disagree just for the sake of it. Somebody will not be PC, somebody will throw his glass of Vodka against the wall, somebody will write a review, somebody will put an Anal Cunt record on, somebody will declare he actually liked Pol Pot, somebody will tell the others to kill the president, somebody will start bashing Martin bin Pollard's camp and somebody will just remove all his or her clothes and shake distinctively sexed pieces of anatomy around. The standard reply of the group of smart people is:
1 part shaking their heads
1 part yelling "Woohoo When I feel Heavy Metal!"
and
2 parts "This is gonna be fun."

What do we want? We want controversy. It's the fun part. Disagreement for disagreement's sake. We want to wave our banner all over the place. We will rock. This is the verbal equivalent of a [mosh]pit. You don't go in to hurt other people. You want to have fun with other people.

See you in the digital sweat.

Hmmm... I think that's still not enough.

Well, we are primates. As such we still have our biological instincs and want to challenge Alpha Male Pollard. Cincy already grabbed his share and took her to his (attention Linguists!) treehouse(!) of love.

OC this doesn't explain the controversial females or the controversial queer guys. File it under "another stroke against a system run by white, straight males."

And to make a final statement I'll abuse another Sex Pistols song:

"Don't know what we want, but we know how to get it
we wanna destroy that martin boy
cuz we
wanna be..."

SUSU

it's prob'bly something to do w/ coming so late to Daria fandom, but I keep feeling like I'm just about to get cranking & up to speed as seemingly everybody else's getting ready to go home...

I know what you mean. I came into the fandom right after Season 3 ended, and during the between-seasons slump, it seemed like I was showing up at a bad time. People were leaving. People were fighting. Made for good entertainment, though, so I stuck around!
--Kem

So, you have one of those wife-beta readers too?

*chuckles* Nice to have one around, eh?

KnightHawke

She deserves half the credit for my stuff. Most of the funny scenes in "Outage" were her idea, and "Is Summer Over Already" wouldn't have been finished without her. This story likewise owes much to my wife's input.

Most of our arguments have to do with grammar:

SHE: This should be "whom" not "who"
 ME: But people don't actually talk like that. They say "who".
SHE: It's not correct grammar.
 ME: I know that. Sandi doesn't.
SHE: It seems wrong...
 ME: I want to leave it.
SHE: Fine, just so you know it's wrong.
 ME: I knew that when I wrote it.
SHE: Then why did you... never mind.
 ME: I won't.
SHE: This one should be "Trent and I" not "Me and Trent"
 ME: Dear, it's the way people *talk*.
SHE: It's not the way Daria should talk. She's too smart.
 ME: Fine, I'll change it.
SHE: You don't have to.
 ME: Fine, I won't.
SHE: But it *is* wrong.

This is why my stories take so long to get posted.

Mike Yamiolkoski

P.S. [Squints suspiciously at Martin] You didn't have anything do with shooting Lennon, didya? --- Guy

If so, I'd like a word with you about missing Yoko. --- Dennis

FF.net is like Kenny. Get killed every half hour. -- Type_Here
Oh my God! They killed ff.net! -- alchemist
But the best part was that the art director from "E.R." read my "Daria" spec and really liked it.

Kara Wild

ER has an art director? What does he do? Color coordinate the gaping chest wounds?

Milo

Damn it, Cincgreen! You're making me use up a quiet afternoon to respond to your well thought-out essay... Anyway, when I posted that message on the PPMB, I just wanted to get something started. I'm a stubborn optimist, so to read a bunch of mournful posts about Daria's demise is almost as bad as reading a threadful of "Daria Luvs Trent!" posts.
Kara Wild
How old am I? Old enough to know exactly why I spend time alone with willing members of the opposite sex, and young enough to actually have my head spin when it happens! :-)
Brother Grimace
(Oh, come on, like anyone else would say that.)
Oh and maybe it'd be a good idea to add a little diclaimer everytime he says something damn insensitive... --- RB

Just because I believe Daria/Trent shippers are in league with the devil,

*** ATTENTION: Not all SRMB regulars share this opinion. I for one believe, that shippers are not in league with the devil since the devil is just something people came up with to explain evil. Evil! Nothing else. And Shipperism isn't evil. It's just irrational denial of facts comparable to the flat earth society or maybe the Libertarian party.
-- The devil's right hand: SUSU.***

and that writing fics are how they worship him, doesn't have to mean I'm insensitive. --- Thomas

Ah, Thommo? Yes it does.

Another workplace shooting, in Indiana. Everything too typical... He was (reportedly) dressed for the occasion in camouflage fatigues --- how original.

I always used to joke I'd do it in white tie. C'mon, show a little class.

Plus the usual bafflement on the part of the duly constituted authorities as to the nature of the weapon(s) used.

Well, golly. He's dead. It's not like he won't let them look at the piece. Amazing --- these people are supposed to be professionals?

Devilkitty

What gets me is why anybody would commit mass murder over losing (or fearing he is losing) his crappy little job. Most of the "real" jobs I ever had I hated so bad it was like a day of Jubilee to me when I got fired from them. I am very gruntled to be unemployed.

Crossada75
Lew: Gnutella? Have I eaten that?
Caira: Lew: Yes, it's the edible Napster subsitute.
Jennifer: Lew: No, that's not the name of a woman.
tafka: i think it's made from Gnuts
Lew: And if it's the wrong shape, "It just won' go in that lill' hole..."
Jennifer: "It's STUCK!"
ahmygoddess: sez our ex-prez...
tafka: you just have to turn it around and try for a better fit
Lew: Eat Gnapster gnoW! It's got gnuts!
Wind_Lane wonders if he has to define the line between reality and make-believe for Orca again...
_Jenn: Wind: Orca doesn't have a very keen grasp of reality- that's why he's in a chat room
Orca: It's over there isn't?
Caira: WL: Why bother? You can lead a whale to water...
Orca: Or no - over there?
Wind_Lane: Caira: yeah, but I'll bet I can lead a whale to a Japanese whaling facility and make it into lovely consumer goods for a decent mark-up :)
Don't count me out yet...my ability to soak up freetime with pointless, morally correct activities is the stuff of legend.
--- See you at the anti-WEF demo then, Um?
HEY! A small SPOILER! For your information, I still haven't seen the last six episodes of Season Five! I missed the first few, so I decided I'd wait and catch up when MTV re-aired them in sequential order.
You may all laugh hysterically at my ridiculous naivete.
-- Well, if you insist, Mr Takis...
Excuse me - but is this the Thomas from SRMB - Thomas the Destroyer, Thomas, the Pontifex Maximus of the Season One Coven of Integrity? He's BACK? HERE?

All hands, this is Brother Grimace! I have authorized activation of the Emergency Broadcast System to declare a national emergency! I am declaring a Level Omega threat situation! All civil defense and military systems are now authorized to move to Threat Level DEFCON ONE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! Thomas is back in the system - He's here! Move! Move! Move!

Nononono, Brother... Thomas isn't a season oner, he's a canon obsessive. Big difference.

Where are all the POOR kids in Lawndale?
Lawndale has no poor people. They get fed to Mrs. Johannsen. --- Kara Wild
We were wondering: What if Daria went to hell?

Well, maybe it's limbo. Sure, there's flames, but no one's damned to be there eternally.

Except Thomas.

Um advertises the Scorched Remnants...

Glad to know that I've been certified in the AAA class of rudeness, Caira -- normally, Joe Blow's opinion wouldn't matter much, since they wouldn't know how to be rude at all. However, after reading the Quotefests, it's good to be complimented by someone who DOES know something about the matter. I'll strive to continue to meet the Australian standard, and surpass it; I'm sure that Mike [Yamiolkoski] will try in his own way to do the same.

CINCGREEN

Is that "AAA" as in a bond rating, or "AAA" as in baseball, or "AAA" as in batteries?

Um

You know, CINCGREEN and I were toying with the idea of crashing Michigan DariaCon 2002. I must say that the deliciousness of the joke would be ruined by a Michigan Winter and certain pontificating windbags who shall remain nameless. --- RB

Oh, we all know who you mean. Seriously, Michigan Winter is currently quite mild ... astoundingly so for mid-January, actually.

And you and CINCGREEN are welcome -- as far as I'm concerned, anyway. Whatever you may think of Martin, I'm sure he's smart enough not to "ruin" anything. You're both adults. I'm sure you can mutually agree to disagree for a few hours. Perhaps even pose for a few silly pictures.

CINCGREEN: Hello, Martin. I think you're a pompous windbag.
MARTIN: Hello, CINCGREEN. I think you're a jerk.
CINCGREEN: Care for some bean dip?
MARTIN: Leave the bowl.

John Takis

P R O C E E D
AP: MTV's Second Daria Movie Delayed Indefinitely
ACK! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! No!
Be an optimist. Maybe it's so good that the intelligent people at MTV are prepping it for a theatrical release.
(Must ... keep ... straight ... face ...)