10-01-97

Hail,

Just to let everyone know what's happening, I'm undertaking a major re-work of my personal page and my Ultima Online page.  I won't be spending much time on Sick Sad World until I get those two finished.  Ultima Online is out in final version now, so I'm also playing that in an attempt to get decently set-up before the servers are flooded ;)  I also just got my copy of Alliance of Light:  Fugitive Prince by Janny Wurts, a book I've been waiting for for months (it came out three or so weeks ago, but the only book-store in town is a bit out of the loop, even for special orders).  I should be back to Sick Sad World pretty soon, with updates, additions, and fixes (some I already have, some I'll probably get), and I will update the contest page if anyone ever sends in an entry (hint, hint).

Wraith

9-22-97

Hail,

Okay, it's been a while, but there hasn't been that much happening in the Daria universe.  Despite my new VCR, I haven't watched many of my Daria tapes yet; we're in thunderstorm season and I'd hate to burn it out already (we've had at least 7 small black outs in the last 2 days).  Still, I have a few things to babble about today.

First, I'm going to re-post my questions, just in case.
One:  Does anyone recognize the tune Daria and Jane are listening to in "Esteemsters" while waiting for Sick Sad World?  [There's singing in it, so I doubt it's stock music.  I couldn't catch the first line, but the next two go:  I couldn't put it down.  It made my life complete.]
Two:  Has anyone made a tab for "Ice Box Woman"?  I don't play the guitar, or I'd make one myself.  I'd give the drum part a shot, only we haven't even seen the drummer yet.
Three:  Does anyone recognize the Sick Sad World font (the one used in the logo)?  With or without the drippleys (or whatever you call them).  Also, does anyone know where I could get the font?  [It's been suggested that it's hand drawn.  Anyone know of any similar fonts?]

Just for the purpose of speculation, has anyone else considered Daria's political leanings?  Her "Are you really that stupid?" attitude doesn't seem to lend itself to a Democratic point of view.  She doesn't strike me as a Republican either, especially not a Religious Right type.  I think she's probably too honest about people to be a Libertarian. Reform party?  Maybe if Ross buys Sick Sad World and does his campaigning there, but probably not.  Which really doesn't leave much.  Independent of some sort, but what sort?  She won't be voting for two years, but many schools conduct mock elections (at least during presidential election years), so it's possible we'll find out (would she vote for Algore?  Probably not...).

Recent TV news stories have convinced me (not that it took a lot of convincing) to continue on my intelligence and society track.  One of these, as you may guess, is the stupid national testing that Clinton is all for.  I don't think it's stupid in and of itself, but come on.  Test reading (once) at 4th grade and math (once) at 8th?  What good is this going to do?  If the kid can't read by 4th grade, they've got 4 years of catch-up to play in all the subjects, not just reading.  And if they're back on math in 8th, they've got a few years of math and science catch-up.  In other words, it's an image thing.  If real national standards were established, parents would howl.  Schools are locally controlled, after all, and that messes up the education process more than anything.  I know how parents react to bad grades.  My parents (well, mother), when my sister got poor grades in english, immediately attacked the teacher.  She couldn't be any good, after all, if she gave my sister such low grades, no matter that they (my parents) hadn't seen my sisters work or anything.  So they complained.  However, I happen to know from experience that that english teacher was the best teacher at the school.  Now, I didn't get good grades from her either, I got what I deserved.  She was the only teacher in school that told me "I know you can do better work than this, so I'll give you As when you put the effort in".  In case you couldn't tell, I coasted through high school (much as Daria is probably doing) since I was on a different level than most of my "peers".  If the parents couldn't go and bitch the principal and superintendent out when their kids got bad grades, maybe they'd actually be forced to learn something and earn the grades... just a thought.  Now, I may as well tie this in with Daria, however briefly.  We haven't really seen how Helen and Jake respond to their kids grades, except for a brief comment about Quinn's grades in "Malled" (I think).  However, Quinn obviously isn't putting any effort into learning, and she (and Brittany as well) hasn't been held back or kicked out, so something's wrong somewhere.  Does anyone think Helen isn't the type to go complain to Principal Li about her kids getting bad grades?  I can see the argument now "They're being graded unfairly because they're female".  Helen is rather obsessed with the supposed gender gap, so this is a probably starting point.  Of course, I can then see Daria making sure she (Helen) found out all about Mrs. Barch...
There was also a recent story on the local (state) news that rather pissed me off.  It was repeated for a few days before, thankfully, disappearing.  It was about a pair of 15 or so year-old kids in high-school.  Brothers, in fact.  Both of them were absolutely huge (6' +, 200 + pounds, so on) who were, get this, already being recruited by colleges.  No mention of their grades or anything, but hey, all these colleges want them to play football for them, so here's some money.  And this gets them on the news.  Anyone think something like this would happen to a kid who, oh, scored high on an achievement test (such as the SAT or ACT) in junior high school?  Or the kid who had the truely amazing science fair exhibit that the judges couldn't figure out?  Would a college be interested in a kid like this?  Well, maybe if he's a good football player too.  And yet, no one I've talked to seems to think this story was the least bit strange...  (of course, Denver has been called the "sports city" of the US or something like that.  You know, something to really be proud of.  Our paid pros beat up your paid pros).  I look forward to the day that someone like, say, a teacher, can earn an average salary of $100,000 per year.  Of course, at that point a loaf of bread will cost $200.
In case you can't tell I'm a bit ticked at all this.  It doesn't help that M*A*S*H (the only show besides Daria I make a point of watching) has been pushed back over two hours to make room for sports commentary shows (and it used to start at 10:30 pm on sunday nights...).

One last bitch... thanks to the thunderstorms my TV reception is shot, so I haven't seen much news lately (no, that's not the bitch).  From the little I have seen, one of the big news stories (besides Di) is that, wow, Chelsea (sp?) is going to college!  This has even been on the national news!  Slow news week?  Okay, so she's going to college, so?  There was even an interview (on the state news) with a girl from Colorado who's going to the same college (Stanford, I do believe) and - get this, this is the actual story - might be Chelsea's room-mate or class-mate some day.
And who thinks that Daddy didn't pull a few strings to make sure she got into the right college?  I don't know anything about her intelligence, and I don't care, I just wonder who Billy-boy gave an aircraft-carrier to this time (back in NAFTA days, he actually promised one senator that the Pentagon would buy a new aircraft carrier - built in his district- if he'd vote for the bloody bill).  Okay, so it didn't have much to do with Daria, but I've been rather annoyed by all this lately.

Wraith