I wonder if the weightiness of the topic, the amount of research required, the stress of it all and all that is related to the lateness of the strip.

The strip is finally up, and there's a very good reason it's so late: I'm just about done with a lengthy discourse that starts with this strip and will ultimately close out the first phase of the argument and carry on into Phase II. (Yes, I know it's more than a little disturbing that the first phase took a month.)

To celebrate, I'm going to take a full week off from doing any of that sort of heady research and use the time for more productive pursuits, such as working on posts I've been putting off (expect at least one webcomic post to actually come along on Tuesday), then spend some time on another research project I anticipate being much simpler, before re-starting work on the Global Warming Series.

I actually think the remaining phases, despite being the more heady parts, could be a little easier for me to write, since they're less philosophical, less foundational on their own, and could be a little less interconnected. (Famous last words...)

It's not "swine flu" anymore.

I want you to book it from this moment: if, in my entire lifetime (indeed all the way until the death of civilization), I see any potential pandemic referred to by a name that names them after an animal you can't get it from in any way, no matter how much it may make sense in some other way, they should be whacked over the head for their idiocy and proof of the old saying about what happens when you don't learn from history.

No more calling out the mainstream media for Favremania, mmmkay?

The Jets released Brett Favre from their "reserve/retired" list yesterday, an auspicious move considering so far as I can tell players on the R/R list don't count against roster or salary caps, but ordinarily a fairly routine move, at least for any player not named Brett Favre.

So naturally you'd expect plenty of "does this mean he's thinking of coming back?" speculation from ESPN and the like, and you'd expect the blogosphere to do plenty of "there they go again, obsessing over Brett Favre" and thumbing their nose because they're so above that...

...hold on, it appears the number 1 topic on SportsCenter's "Blog Buzz" segment this morning was Favre's release. Seems not even the blogosphere is immune to Favremania when a plane traveling between Minneapolis and Hattiesburg and back again sends them going "OMG OMG OMG IT ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH BRETT FAVRE BECAUSE HE IS THE ONLY PERSON IN ALL OF HATTIESBURG THAT EVER HAS TO TRAVEL OMG!!!!!11!!1!!!eleven!"

Why I don't use Blogger's on-page comment form

In my experience, if you're not logged in - and for whatever reason, no matter how recently you may have done so, on Blogger even, when you go to another blog, you never are - you have to hit "Post comment" and be told it didn't go through (you're logged in now), then hit "Post comment" again for it to go through.

So annoying.

(Note: I always use my Google/Blogger account, not anything else, not least of the reasons why being I don't have much of anything else.)

Random Internet Discovery of the Week

Everything you could ever need to know about a black hole in 5 minutes!

No one has cast a vote so far on what I should do with the RID?

Strip should be posted by noon.

Now that that's over with...

I'm not trying the trick I used last night to post the strip again. Actually I think I got Yet Another reason I need to leave Freehostia. For a while now, for whatever reason, I think they think I have a virus or something because a lot of the images I've submitted - images that were created on my desktop and only ever were on my USB drive and laptop en route to their servers - have had their permissions changed so that no one can "execute" them (not the same as "read"). Execute images. It might be something having to do with FTP, I don't know, but using the trick I tried last night I first had the FTP connection crap out on me (either I hope IE8 fixed how Windows handles uploading to FTP or Freehostia needs to fix their FTP system) then I saw that the strip had been uploaded after all but it was no good, so I uploaded it to the file manager and it seemed to work okay but I find out today that the strip image was completely missing so I had to upload it AGAIN around 7 PM. As far as I'm concerned the strip was up so I'm plowing forward.

So after the past weekend's expletive-laden rant let's get into details. My ideal Plan A is to work on the web site and Da Blog and everything from home, but that hasn't been an option, for whatever reason, for nearly if not over a year. As I've mentioned in previous posts I go to my Dad's workplace and mooch off an Internet connection that's not even the workplace's. The place itself is supposed to have a connection but that hasn't worked since virtually the instant it was instituted. So earlier this month the place I normally mooch off of decided to secure their connection, but they're fine with me mooching off them, which would be great if my laptop could get past the "detecting network type" stage without spitting out a "network doesn't seem to exist" error despite the fact it's staying on the list of networks the whole time. So now BOTH my Plan B and C, accessed from the same location, aren't working, and while both are nominally working on the problem it's at a glacial pace (and I don't think it's a good idea to only have one guy who knows the security code who's not always working there if you intend for actual patrons to use the connection) and to varying extents I get a vibe from them that it's my problem, forcing me to use my battery for Plans D and E, which for whatever reason tend to be pretty slow, perhaps slower than normal, at least for Plan D.

On the plus side, those annoying downstairs neighbors are finally gone, so if you move in directly downstairs from me and set up an unsecured Internet connection I can use fairly reliably I'll give you a gazillion dollars. (Gazillion dollars to be paid in varying amounts at varying intervals over whatever period of time the payer deems adequate including never.) Or at the very least you can chip in your IT expertise at Dad's workplace or the place next door and get at least one Internet connection working enough to be useful.

Not for kids. Or anyone.

Fucking neighborhood with its fucking college students and poor people and fucking Freehostia with its fucking file manager and fucking Blogger for eating my first attempt at the last fucking post and fucking me for not backing it up when I know how much Blogger fucking sucks and fucking Blogger and Internet Explorer for not backing it up instead of assuming everyone is fucking online every last fucking bit of the time because it's not as if there aren't people still on dialup or even not even on the Internet is there? and fucking laptop for sucking so fucking much and fucking laptop battery for sucking so fucking much fucking first-choice connection for being so fucking slow and fucking me for screwing up my fucking sleep schedule and fucking me for putting too much work on myself and fucking owner of the place where fucking Dad fucking works to not fucking be there to work on the fucking connection and fucking people to prevent Dad from getting the needed info for the other fucking connection and fucking place providing said other fucking connection and fucking me and/or Mom for losing the fucking info in the first place and fucking me for getting into the fucking situation to need either of those in the fucking first place and fucking society for its fucking intolerance of people like me because it fucking suppresses anger rather than fucking understands it.

Fuck the whole wide world and every last fucking person in it. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say that the world and the people in it would be so much better if it weren't for all the fucking people. I've been driven so insane by all my fucking overwork I can't even leave the house even after being cooped up in it doing nothing all day cause all the fucking people drive me fucking insane.

And fuck it, now that I've fucking let all this out I'm probably going to not believe a fucking word of it and I'm probably going to go back to nicely going along with the fucking crowd and believing the same fucking things as every-fucking-one else and meanwhile everyone's going to look at this as more than the fucking theraputic excersize it is and think I'm some kind of fucking monster that's going to become a fucking serial killer some day and it's probably going to fucking cost me any shot at a fucking real job and some people might say I shouldn't fucking post it in the fucking first place but I'm fucking doing it anyway because the world needs to fucking know this mindset and what fucking drives me to it and that they need to fucking steer clear of me and it's probably more common than they fucking realize and people like me are probably fucking driven to this fucking mindset all the time and I hate fucking needing to add this fucking disclaimer to every one of these fucking posts.

And fucking "K" key.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... another retype. I thought I made myself immune to this bullshit.

If the Super Bowl were covered the same way the NFL Draft is:

• It would last two days.
• It would be covered by TWO networks.
• It would be preceded by a five-hour pregame show. Same (or less) than now, right? Well, there would be pregame shows on both networks.
• One of the two networks would have analysis throughout the entire game on a sister channel.
• There would be cameras inside each team's locker room which each broadcast could switch to whenever they needed to, AND cameras inside the houses of players who could be called in at any moment to fly to the game and pitch in for either team.
• There would be in-game interviews with coaches and team executives, and an interview with one player after every play either early or late in the game.
• Each network's broadcast team would include an expert who has analyzed every single play each team could possibly use during the game and has drawn up a "mock game" scripting every move of the entire game (or at least the first quarter).

On another note, Al Davis is now officially certifiably insane.