The Easter That Wasn't

Normally around this time of year, people celebrate a holiday which mixes in roughly equal portions elements of Christian mythology, ancient Nordic fertility ritual, and surreal commercialism. The end result is called Easter, is always stuck on a Sunday, and generally it is celebrated by getting together with one's entire family, hiding dyed eggs all over the place, and feasting on the heads of chocolate rabbits, marshmellow peeps, and ham.

This year however, Easter simply did not happen. I did not see a single commercial for pastel colored M&Ms, Cadbury eggs, or any other such things. The long-held U.S. tradition of having an easter egg hunt on the white house lawn presumably didn't happen, as "the president" spent the whole day in Texas. Plus, out of roughly 50 people surveyed, every single one told me that they didn't actually do anything for easter.

I don't really have anything against Easter myself, but it's rather unsettling to see a holiday spontaneously blink out of existence like that.

The only thing that made Sunday unlike the average day from where I sit was that was that my cat came down with a mysterious affliction in the form of a swelling on his cheek/neck. I wanted to take him to the vet to have this looked at right away, but the pricing plan for vet bills is such that only the rich can actually afford adequate medical treatment for their pets. In order to actually get him in there, I had to wait two whole days.

By that point, it was quite clear that this swelling was not the result of some sort of tumor as I thought at first, but rather an abcessed bite. By Tuesday morning, this had swelled up to about the size of the rest of his head. In any case, for a price which wasn't completely astronomical, the vet lanced the nasty nasty abcess, nearly vomitted at the result of this action, and gave the cat a rabies shot he was just about due for anyway. So everything is fine except for the fact that my cat is quite noticably soaked with his own blood.

Incidentally, if you don't approve of these visual aids, be sure to thank Thor for the suggestion that I throw pictures into my rants here and there. Come to think of it though, since Thor throws pictures in all his major articles, and Frog-Boy seems to be partially lifting Sharkey's idea of using his page for odd illustrated annecdotes, I seem to be the only one sticking to pure text. On the other hand, I'm also the one who never seems to get any feedback from anyone. Of course, on the gripping hand, I only have one e-mail address for this page and RPGamer's Q&A combined, so for all I know I just don't notice when people comment on this stuff. Wait, this is another one of those tangents nobody cares about myself included. Moving on!

Every so often, I'll be reading some page or other, and come across the phrase "I don't like to bring up political stuff here, but..." It always sucks when this happens, as odds are good that I'm looking at whatever to get away from hearing everyone around saying the exact same things. Therefore, as a public service, I have put together this page for people to stick all their political ravings so that the average person doesn't see them unless they really want to. I've already stocked it with a number of crudely drawn political cartoons to kick things off, but I'll throw anything up there which people want to say but not on their personal pages, on the conditions that I know who they are, and don't completely disagree with them.

Oh yeah, one last thing before I shut up for the day. My proposal of Crazy Money Making Scheme #5:

Advertising today is a pretty impersonal sort of thing. You designate some ad time or space, set a price on it, and stick in stuff from anyone who meets that price. Now that's all well and good for the average person, but I sincerely doubt how effective it is for the person placing the ad, and the going rate for banner ads in this day and age comes out to roughly 1/200th of a cent per view. So the situation sucks for all three parties involved (the readers/viewers you see get stuck looking at ads for products they don't want).

Back in the old days though, advertising didn't work that way. It used to be that the person who wanted something advertised would go up to some famous public speaker, give them a free sample and a modest fee, and ask that they plug their stuff for them. It seems to me that with a guarentee that the person doing the plugging isn't JUST doing it for the money, this is a much more effective way of doing things.

On that note, if anyone out there in reader land has anything they'd like people to know about, drop me a line and I'll check it out. Or in the case of some actual physical product, try to work out some means for me to do so. If it's my sort of thing, throw me, say, $10, and the next time I post a rant, I'll take some time out to hype it up for you. This page only has a couple thousand readers last I checked so the pricing's a bit higher than a banner, but the odds of people caring are higher, and the plug will remain in my archives for all eternity.

To sweeten the deal a little more, I'll even handle cash like Wild ARMs 2 and 3 handle MP. I'll let you pay for a plug, 4 weeks of guarenteed ranting goodness, AND the core rules to Tyranny (or 2 sourcebooks), all with the same 10 bucks.

Oh yes, and I'll even make the deal a little better for people who want webcomics plugged. It'll still be the $10, but I'll wave the restriction on liking it. I won't lie and say it's great or anything, but I'll try to say something nice. Just try to make sure you get a positive score with this here chart:

• If your comic is sprite based: -100 points.
• If you actually modify your comic's content just for the sake of scoring higher here: -3 points.
• If your comic is about videogames or people who play them: -1 point.
• If your comic is about anime or people who watch it: -1 point.
• If your comic is about two guys and an optional girl who sit around talking most of the time: -1 point.
• If your comic is updated on a quick and regular basis: +1 point.
• If your comic heavily features slimes orcs and/or zombies: +1 point.
• If your comic is focused on telling one specific story which actually moves towards some final resolution: +2 points.
• If your comic features honest to goodness good artwork: +3 points.
• If your comic features something uber-nerdy like extradimensional physics lessons on a regular basis: +3 points.