I’ll probably be updating the site(s) in the next few months to reflect updated web standards and readjusting the LOTR pages which I never got the chance to finish.
I’m glad it’s back- there was some good stuff in that. However, there was some poor stuff as well, in particular an article with a good premise that was rather poorly written called “Jesus goes to the movies” by…well, me. If possible, I’d like a disclaimer to appear on that article explaining why it’s so bad, something along the lines of:
I wrote this article in my early days on the Straight Dope Message Board, when I was both younger (17 to be exact) and still new to stuff like “good article writing” and “outside research.” So, if you think this article reads like it was written by a dumb teenager: it was.
I have no idea why I wrote I was a “devout Roman Catholic,” as I was not by any means back then nor am I now. Someday, I hope to write a better article that’s better-researched (not on this subject, a different one). For now, you’re stuck with this.
A *long *time ago, Euty, you ran a competition to see if people could identify the sources of the different issue titles - I think it was only up to about edition 10 at that stage though. I worked out most of them (like No Alarms and No Surprises being the Radiohead thing, and the one about not selling the bike shop referring to the Wright brothers), but I never could get the background to ‘The Damned and the Pubescent’.
“Teemings” was an e-zine that we started way back to showcase the literary and artistic talents of the members of the SDMB. It folded a while back because of lack of interest and the fact that I just didn’t have the time to do it anymore.
And actually the “Don’t Sell the Bike Shop, Orville” was not referring to the Wright Brothers, but was from a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.
Here’s the complete list:
Issue 1 : “This Slim Volume …” : from my own editorial introduction
Issue 2 : “The Damned and the Pubescent” : see above
Issue 3 : “Wretched Entertainment at the Sign of the Trap” : “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville
Issue 4 : “More Fool Me” : song by Genesis from the album “Selling England by the Pound”
Issue 5 : “The Weird Sisters in the Year of the Big Wind” : “Ulysses” by James Joyce
Issue 6 : “Cage 3 - Free Show” : “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace
Issue 7 : “No Alarms, No Surprises” : song by Radio head from the album “OK Computer”
Issue 8 : “All Things in Moderation” : chosen because it was an all-moderator issue
Issue 9 : “It’s a Complex World” : song by The Young Adults from the album “Helping Others”
Issue 10 : “Don’t Sell the Bike Shop, Orville” : see above
Issue 11 : “Sunstroked and Soggy” : from the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou”
Issue 12 : “Root Beer Rimshot” : I seriously don’t recall where I got this from
Issue 13 : “Crouching Tigger, Hidden Pooh” : parody of the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”
Issue 14 : “Dry Bones” : chosen because I hadn’t gotten the graphics for the site in time and had to put together a “bare bones” edition
Issue 15 : “Once More, With Feeling” : old Broadway chestnut.
Issue 16 : “In Search of Historic Dolomite” : I didn’t really expect anyone to get this. There used to be a show called “In Search of…” hosted by Leonard Nimoy which investigated various mysteries like the Bermuda Triangle. When I was working at Toys R Us, we were unloading one of the trucks and once unloaded we saw that someone had spray painted on the inside “In Search of Historic Dolomite.” We never did figure how who did it or what it meant.
Issue 17 : “All Full of Tears and Flapdoodle” : “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain
Issue 18 : “Just Keep Swimming” : from the movie “Finding Nemo”