Lies, Damned Lies & Everything Darien Says (10-22-03) - Posted by: Terry

So I see Captain Revisionist History -- or as his alter-ego is known as, Darien -- is up to his Stalinist tricks again with the About Us page, which is rife with falsehoods about yours truly.

...speaking of yours truly, I am not dead. I've simply been in a coma ever since I coincidentally caught the Black Plague after dining at Super Buffet, but Chef Wang has promised me the two were unrelated. As a get-well gift, he gave me a coupon for half-off my next lunch buffet meal. Score!

All About Somebody (10-20-03) - Posted by: Darien

In response to non-start requests from our legion of adoring fans for more information about the nutjobs who run this joint, I've posted an About Us page where you can learn all sorts of useful information.

There's always next year... (10-19-03) - Posted by: Darien

I missed last week's Heroes of Communism update because I was busy watching baseball. But, for some reason, my Cubs decided they didn't feel like winning after all, and lost instead. So I'm not similarly occupied this weekend, and I wrote a comic strip. A Nobel-prize-winning comic strip.

AGAIN BIG SUPLIZE!!!! (10-09-03) - Posted by: CHEF WANG HUNG

CHEF BLING TWO SUPLIES IN ONE DAY!!! IS BIG DAY FOR SUPEL BUFFETE!!!! NOW HAVE NEW ROCATION MAYBE NEAL YOU MABYE NOT CRICK ON THE RINK TO FIND OUT!!!!!

BIG HAPPY EXCITING!!!! (10-09-03) - Posted by: CHEF WANG HUNG

SUPEL BUFFET NOW HAVE NEW FLIENDS PAGE GO LEAD IT MAKE VELY HAPPY!!!! CRICK HELE GO SEE NEW FLIENDS!!!!!!

RINK NOT WOLKING TLY AGAIN CRICK HELE that bettel

Congratulations to Us (10-06-03) - Posted by: Darien

I'm proud, and, indeed, honoured, to announce that perfectlydarien.com has been chosen as the first-ever winner of the Nobel Prize in the field of web comics. This announcement came as a surprise to many people, especially considering that we didn't publish the first strip until way after the deadline for recommendations had passed, and even more especially considering the quality of the comic. Yet we still won, probably because the Nobel Prize is awarded by snooty Europeans who are attracted to the deep meaning to be found in the strip's undertones. Under the veneer of communism and superheroes, see, there lies a dark tale... one of superheroes, yes, but also one of communism. Or, to emphasise the important part for those non-Europeans who may be reading this page, as well as to make it look like it would if the Soviets had won the cold war and this "internet" thing was a tightly-controlled arm of the central government: Communism.

This also relates to the reason why Terry's not been heard from lately; he's all pissy because the site's first Nobel Prize win came as a result of a feature he has nothing at all to do with. That's right; our first Nobel Prize may be a victory and an honour for the site as a whole, but it's a victory and an honour specifically for me. And, of course, communism.

Redly Menacing (10-05-03) - Posted by: Darien

The new Heroes of Communism is up. It's pretty ridiculous and zany. Plus left-wing and anti-establishment and all those things that are popular with the kids these days. So check it out.

Also more porn sites on the forum bite the dust. I may make the whole thing bite the dust if this keeps up, since it doesn't work anyhow.

Badass Update (10-05-03) - Posted by: Darien

The contest is closed. We will announce the winners in a bit, after Terry and I have had a chance to sort through the submissions we received and decide who the winners actually are.

I've finally removed the porn posts from the forum, after checking up on it and finding a string of five porn site ads sitting at the top. So now the forum is back to its typical, non-porn-advertising self. As in, nothing's going on.

The supermarket is trying to tell me that this is National Frozen Foods Month, but it can't fool me. I know perfectly well that that was March. I do now, anyhow; I seem to recall something about thinking it was May at the time. Regardless, I'm starting to think they just make these things up.

Automatic for the People (09-28-03) - Posted by: Darien

The revolution is at hand. perfectlydarien.com is proud to bring you the world's most anti-establishment, power-to-the-people shitty webcomic, Heroes of Communism! Just remember that it took an expensive college education and some expensive graphical tools, along with some totally free images courtesy of the internet, to make this not only as ugly as the proliferate MS Paint webcomics, but also a guaranteed 30% dumber!

Now that I both have a webcomic and have pretty much become part of the Red Menace, I'm really going to have to stretch to find any more problems to become a part of. But I promise I'll try.

A Bit of Help (09-19-03) - Posted by: Terry

To get you all started on the Cramagrams, consider this one:

Darien Dreamweaver: Rad dude? No way: dud.

Just remember who at this really cares about our loyal readers. It's not the dud.

Mr. Pawnbroker (09-17-03) - Posted by: Darien

Time for a little contest. This one is to honour the memory of a hardworking pd staff member who just recently passed away - of course, I'm talking about our legendary celebrity spokesman, Mr. Johnny Cash. And the contest? Cramagrams. Go find out what they are and come back here.

We'll be giving away two prizes - copies of Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around. One copy will go to whomever creates the funniest cramagram based on a perfectlydarien.com character, feature, or concept, and the other will go to whomever creates the cramagram that looks most like a real anagram without actually being one, and at the same time is still funny, under the same conditions.

You have until the end of September, my time, to come up with stuff. Enter as many times as you like, though, since it would be gay for both identical prizes to go to the same person, you can only win once. Now go go go!

A Tyrant's Wrath (09-17-03) - Posted by: Terry

I haven't said a lot since I started, which is a shame because I feel obligated to post given the fixty hojillion dollars Darien's paying me.

Now, just because I haven't updated doesn't mean I haven't been working. It's just that I'm trying to work on a feature article, but working for a guy like Darien makes this sort of thing difficult. Basically, I'll suggest an idea and then he'll okay it. I'll spend six hours writing it, then another hour or two formatting it. I show it to the big boss before I put it up and... he claims he never told me I could do it in the first place!

Then he uses one of his many blunt weapons to smash my computer. He's footing the bill for all of these computers, so I guess it's his call.

And then he'll go and let some random guy post some crazy Chinese food menu. But my brilliant feature listing 1,000 reasons why Final Fantasy X is worse than E.T. gets axed? Thanks, pal. I appreciate that.

... (09-17-03) - Posted by: Darien

I - what? Wait... what?

GO NOW (09-17-03) - Posted by: CHEF WANG HUNG

FUN NEW CHINESE LESTAULANT OPEN!!! YOU GO NOW TO SUPER BUFFET WHERE THERE IS PLOMISE OF NO DIE FLOM FOOD POISON OR MEAL IS ON HOUSE!!!!

AIM log (09-16-03) - Posted by: Darien

00:44:34 (Stephen): I love wang!

I've obscured his real name to protect him from gay marriage proposals, but, really, is anyone surprised by this?

Outside help (09-16-03) - Posted by: Darien

Also, before I forget, thanks to everyone who's written in to tell me which links back no longer work now that this page isn't called index.html anymore. I think I got them all, but if you see any more, let me know.

And don't bother to tell me I shouldn't have my links pointing at /index.html anyhow. I know that. I just seem not to have realised it at the time, is all.

Long nights (09-16-03) - Posted by: Darien

So I'm trying to fix this problem. All of a sudden, my web host claims I'm not the owner of all the stuff that ls -l tells me I own, which is messing up many of my scripts. Just to be safe, I've chowned them to myself (yes, I am aware that, if I can run chown on them, I'm probably the owner) and it still complains. I'm working on it.

That evil child (09-14-03) - Posted by: Darien

I see Terry's posted his first news announcement. You'll be hearing more from him after I let him out of the box. He gave away Darien's secrets, so we must punish him, yes? Yessss.

In other news, nobody posted an award yesterday. See, there was some confusion stemming from the fact that I thought Terry was going to do it and he thought I was going to do it, so we compromised and nobody did it. That's the good thing about having sidekicks - more excuses for not updating the page.

If you want to talk to Terry, he's at some e-mail address. Me, I'm at same old.

New Face at PD (09-12-03) - Posted by: Terry

Loyal readers of PD.com (all two of you), I'd like to introduce you all to... me. I'm the new face at PD so cleverly mentioned in the subject of this post (see above subject). Since my coming aboard is sort of a funny story, I figured I'd share it with you as my first update.

It's no secret that Darien is addicted to the intoxicating combination of crappy videogames and cheap liquor. From what I've heard on the street, he used to finish off a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and two Acclaim titles before noon every day. Scary stuff.

Anyway, in the last few months he'd been trying to kick the habit and doing pretty well. Up until last week I ran a small game store near his house. He was, of course, one of my best customers. As a responsible retailer, I was helping him get the monkey off his back and only selling him good titles.

This is more difficult than it sounds. Darien has been a multimillionare ever since he sued his ex-employer (a box factory) for injuries sustained because they had left some too-sharply corrugated cardboard lying around. Without explaining the intricate web of power and corruption that is the box cartel, let's just say that the end result of all this is that Darien's loaded. He couldn't have more money if he owned Bill Gates. And if that Bill Gates was made up of many, smaller but equally rich Bill Gateses, all of which were solid gold. We're talking loaded.

The upshot of being so rich is that Darien doesn't have to work. He's free to spend his days doing whatever he pleases, which is normally something that's not updating his Web site. What he used to do was play bad video games and drink worse booze. Now that he's cut the bad games and drink, I have to keep him supplied with good games. Think about this for a minute. How many good games were released in the last year? Two, and they were both just repackaged versions of Half-Life (Nintendo may have released something, but since I'm not a six-year-old girl I wouldn't know).

Now imagine trying to keep someone who has infinite money and infinite free time occupied playing only good games. Obviously it's not possible. So last Thursday I may have accidentally slipped the new Starsky & Hutch PS2 game into his daily purchases. What else was I supposed to do? I'd already sold him Soul Calibur 2 for the three consoles and a copy of Tetris that I told him was SC2 on the GameBoy Advance. I figured he'd be so busy playing SC2 he wouldn't get around to trying out Starsky & Hutch. Boy was I wrong.

When I came to open up the store Friday morning, I could tell things were bad. Darien was standing outside, shaking, an empty bottle in his hand. He was screaming obscenities at me. I'd seen it one too many times before -- he was in the midst of a bad bender. In between profanities, he told me he wanted a copy of Simpsons Hit & Run. "But Darien," I said, trying to cool down the situation. "That's not out yet. I can do a preorder, thou--"

I never got to finish my sentence. His request for awful games denied, his deepest cravings unsatisfied, he flipped out. I don't know what it was he did to my store, but I think it involved three styles of Kung Fu illegal outside of Jet Li movies. I do know that it involved even more cursing and insults about my mother.

After about an hour of that madness, all 125 pounds of Darien's pale body had been exhausted. He lay in a heap on the ground amidst the wreckage of what was once a very respectable gaming establishment. It was clear I was ruined (I sadly declined to get the "crazed attacks from Internet nutjobs" rider on my insurance policy). When Darien awoke and regained his senses, he apologized for what he'd done.

"I'm sorry about this, Terry," he said, struggling through his hangover to form every syllable. "I'd like to make it up to you. How about if I give you a job better than owner of a gaming store?"

"I dunno," I said. "At my old job, I was my own boss and got paid to basically play games all day. What could be better than that?"

"You can write for my Web site," he said. I just stared at him. That was an uncalculably worse gig, and we both knew it. "And I'll pay you fixty hojillion dollars," he said.

I shook his hand. That was a deal I could get behind. So, even though I'm only here for the fat cash, I hope this will be a great experience! Or at least I hope it will be easy.

How blue can you get (09-12-03) - Posted by: Darien

I've redone the whole front page, as you can see. Now there's this funky PHP content management system I wrote when I was bored that handles my updating for me, and makes it easier for the forthcoming sidekick-types to update without my involvement. Which is slick. If you spot any bugs, let me know. Same old, really. I may not post a new award today, since I've spent all day writing the new system and converting the scripts from Perl to PHP. But we'll see what happens with that.

In other news, our celebrity spokesman died last night, which is utterly gay. I don't get why cool people die when there are so many lame people who could die instead. But, oh well. We plan to give him a few days off before requesting that he return to work spokesmaning for pd.com. So damn your eyes.

You done lost your good thing now (09-11-03) - Posted by: Darien

The awards march on. You can view today's entry here if you don't want to read the first one again looking for the link. Also, remind me to remove that porn site link from the forum when I get a second, because I'm... too busy right now. Or lazy. It ended in y, whatever it was. But until I get around to that, I hear my forum can fulfil your Asian voyeur site needs.

It seems to me that every day I have the blues (09-10-03) - Posted by: Darien

So. Martin Luther King day, right? Everyone gets all worked up about that.

As for what we're doing to celebrate National B.B. King Month, well, we figured that there was only one fitting tribute to a man great enough to have all the male royalty in the history of Britain named after him: sock puppets. Unfortunately, our live, streaming video feed of the sock puppet performance of B.B. King: the Life of a Blues Legend was to be met with a tragic end when it came to light that none of us remembered how to make a sock puppet. And it was getting sort of late, so we didn't want to bother looking it up. So we sat, and we thunk, and we puzzed till our puzzers were sore (now, now), and we finally thought of something we do know how to do: Paint Shop Pro filters. So we garbaged-up a classic piece of Darien fan art to make it look like it's all shiny and golden (it's over there somewhere), and decided to give B.B. King an official Darien trophy.

But, you know what they say: the best laid plans of mice and men make Jack a dull boy. Or whatever. Point is, no sooner did we decide on this course of action than did party-pooper Charlie Musselwhite bust in and play the race card. Why, he asked, were we honouring only a black blues man? Obviously, it must be because he's black. Certainly there are plenty of worthy white, latino, and asian blues musicians, yes? So, fine, we thought, we'll give Charlie a trophy, too. But then things started to get out of hand. Trent Reznor started complaining that we were discriminating against non-blues musicians by not giving him an award, too, even though he's named after a way kickass monster from Super Mario World. Tom Hanks felt that he should get an award for his portrayal of something or other. Finally, when we received a message from Satoru Iwata saying that he felt our position was unfairly marginalising Nintendo's contribution to the Chicago blues scene - specifically, Trent Reznor's last name - we decided that enough was enough. Instead of a nice, humanitarian gesture like a trophy for a legend of the blues, instead we're bringing you a typically sarcastic and mean-spirited article called The Darien Awards. We'll give out lots of trophies over the next several days, crybabies. And if anybody doesn't like it, don't blame us. Blame society. Especially Charlie Musselwhite, Trent Reznor, Tom Hanks, and Satoru Iwata.

We are currently in negotiations about creating a National Rodney King Weekend.

For Mature Audiences Only (09-07-03) - Posted by: Darien

I've been consulting with highly-regarded experts in the field of funny web sites in an attempt to come up with ways to make pd.com, if possible, even funnier. And the experts agreed that there is one thing that pd.com is totally lacking that would quite possibly make it the funniest possible website. That one thing? Dick jokes. pd.com doesn't contain a single dick joke. Until now!

Two penises were walking down the street, and one was assaulted.
Why did the farmer win the Nobel prize? Because he was outstanding in his field... with his HUGE WANG.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the (some pun involving the word "cock")

There. I should be receiving my official trophy shortly. Of course, there's the other suggestion the experts made, which was that I need to find a comic foil to tell everyone what a schmuck I am; an Oliver Hardy to my Stan Laurel, if you will, or perhaps a Chet to my Erik. If anyone has any suggestions, nominations, or applications, send them on over and I promise I'll at least look at them. Maybe.

Found him! (08-27-03) - Posted by: Darien

Taking a break from the grueling work on my sekrit projekt, I've found the time to churn out another new feature! This would be the first new feature on pd.com in about fixty years, too. It's called The Devil's Man Pages, and it's the second feature on pd.com to belong to the Devil. I wonder if that's a sign? Anyhow.