Speaking of Blogger: Is the Blogger Server Fund anything like the "Stop Stealing Public Radio!" fund-raising drives one hears on NPR every few months? It's sort of like "guiltware" -- yes, it's free, but you should feel guilty that we're just giving it away, so if we ever find ourselves strapped for cash, you'd better be prepared to fork over a generous sum, generally much more than you'd pay if we were to charge you for the service in the first place. Given Blogger's performance of late, perhaps they should just charge by the minute...

But Blogger, like NPR, is a good cause. I'd be willing to pay for it. Besides, just think of all the pointless babble that would never see the light of day if Blogger were to disappear...

"TV Funhouse" is a fine new show on Comedy Central, perhaps the best original show that network has ever run (and which therefore will, most likely, be gone by the time I remember to watch it again). If you ain't seen it, get seein' it! TV Funhouse, the brainchild of the ever-naughty Robert Smigel, is the other side of the "South Park" coin -- it's just as tasteless and vulgar, probably moreso, but it's smart where "South Park" is dumb. It features the same sort of gags Smigel is known for on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and his animated spots on SNL: poor quality rubber animal puppets eating poop, having sex and comparing genitalia, a racist Dennis the Menace take-off who taunts the Jews next door, etc. Smigel and company bring out the naughty thoughts lying just below the skin of popular culture, the things kids giggle about in church and responsible adults try to pretend aren't there. What makes the show funny is not the jokes themselves, so much as the way they point out how uptight our culture still is. A welcome dose of levity as we prepare to enter the Dubya Years.

So?

The tech media's recent obsession with the supposedly sorry state of the e-consultant business is getting a bit tiresome. Admittedly, it's hard not to notice the string of dismal reports coming in from all sectors of the industry... if the big players are being hit this hard, so the thinking goes, won't the smaller ones be wiped out entirely? But these companies all staffed up for what they hoped would be a tidal wave of demand, something which, as we all know, evaporated along with the stock prices of these companies. So of course they're letting people go. This is not the death knell of the e-consulting industry, or the Internet, or the economy. Yes, it will be painful in the short run, but once the turmoil settles, the industry will be better off.

Q: What is Pixelfuse again?
A: Pixelfuse is a site transmitting my musings to a world that doesn't care.

Q: Where did it go?
A: It has been on hiatus since May, due to my general lack of enthusiasm. It has been dormant most of its life, in fact. Kind of like a cat in that respect.

Q: Why should I care about that?
A: Because you bothered to type in the URL or click on a link to get here, that's why.

Q: Who the hell do you think you are?
A: My name tag says I'm Mary Wilcox, but I don't think that's right.

Q: You wanna step outside, punk?
A: No, it's freezing out there!

Q: Who is the President of the United States?
A: The United States no longer elects Presidents. Every four years voters cast votes for one of two candidates, and then engages in a heated debate about which one actually won, involving lawsuits, appeals, more lawsuits, shouting matches, recrimination, bitterness and deep, deep shame. This lasts for four years, after which the process begins anew.