12-25-97

Hail,

Happy holidays.  Nope, no Christmas theme to the page.  The Crass Consumerism holiday has enough advertisers, I don't really feel like being yet another one.

A few announcements, of sorts.  Mr. Maddog, of Politics and Other Tricks and Queens are Wild, is now more or less running a Daria IRC channel.  Stop by #Daria on EFNet sometime.  If he plans another get together, I'll post time and date.  If you're a total IRC novice, check out mIRC, a good program in itself, plus it comes with a nice list of IRC servers, so you don't have to worry about it.

I've put The Book of Wraith on hold for a bit, to work on Sick Sad World.  I want to get this page re-formatted before second season, and TBoW is growing titanic in size (over half a meg of text with the two largest sections yet to go).

I have my copy of the Daria Diaries (have for a while, just haven't updated the page).  It is out at Amazon.com, probably at Barnes and Nobles, and is at Waldenbooks, but I've been told it's in the art section for some reason.  There's a bit more info on my Just the Facts page.

Now, I have been watching the Daria episodes in marathon format recently, so I actually have something to comment on.  This is something I noticed quite a while ago, but never really thought about, and suddenly I really noticed.  While most of the characters' eyes are simply black dots or circles, Jane's eyes are actually colored.  If you watch, especially the closer shots, she's got blue eyes (the exact shade varies, which may not be a mistake, since my eyes do change color).  Actually, this reminded me of Dune, but where is Jane going to get melange (as always, I'm refering to the book, not the movie)?  Since I've noticed this, I've been carefully looking at all the eyes, and she's almost the only one with this feature.  The only other exception I've noticed so far is Jesse...  His eyes seem to be green, if you look really closely.  Now, "Road Worrier" did spark a small bit of debate about whether or not Jane liked Jesse.  If these two are the only ones in the show with colored eyes, are the artists hinting at some sort of connection/similarity between them?

I'll leave off with a wonderful holiday poem I was sent last year, called "Twas the night before - and all that other happy crappy".

"Twas the night before Christmas, and all thru the rooms,
Not a creature was stirring, (we were all out of spoons).

The children were hung, by the chimney with care
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Grandma was nestled all snug in her bed
drinking shots of Jack Daniels, eyes glassy and red.

Me with my jimmy, and Ma in her gown
had just settled in and were about to get down.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like the Flash,
tore open the shutter, threw up on the sash.

When what to my wondering eyes did I see
but a sleigh with some deer crashing into my tree.

With a drunken old driver blowing chunks as if sick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than turtles his coursers they came
and he screamed and he shouted and he called them bad names.

“Go Beavis- go Butthead- Buttofucco and Vixen
on Comet- on Ajax- on Windex and Nixon!”

“To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall
now bash away, crash away, smash away all!”

And then on my roof came the whole blasted herd
they stomped and they pee’d and they dropped their deer turds.

As I grabbed my ol’ shotgun and was turning around
down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

Dressed like a bum from his head to his foot
I cocked back my rifle and said, “Halt you old coot!”

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back
and in his pocket a bottle in a brown paper sack.

His eyes- oh how bloodshot, his ears- oh how hairy
his nose was quite bulbous and as red as a cherry.

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
and the teeth there inside were the darkest of coal.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth
and it gave off the smell of a peculiar strange leaf.

He was haggard and stoned- a right sorry old elf
and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.

He flipped me the bird and went straight to his work
then emptied my stockings and called me a jerk.

Then laying his finger inside of his nose
a bright yellow mucus out of his nostrils he blows.

He staggered to his sleigh and to his team gave a shout
“Come along boys, let’s get the hell out!”

And I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight
“Merry Christmas dumb schmucks, and to all a good night!”

Wraith