In any case, it has come to my attention that there are a lot of baseless and scurrilious rumors floating around in cyberspace about this journal. I think it only fair to set the record straight.

Of course, the fact that no matter what I say, rumors travel faster and truer in cyberspace than facts weighs against me, but at least I made the attempt.

For instance, there is no truth to the rumor that Bill Gates, to give himself a new image now that he's past that unfortunate monopoly action by the government, has bought this journal and is going to rename it "XDIARY".

...Although with a name like that, I'd probably get a lot of hits from would-be porn surfers...

Nor is there any truth to the rumor that I did this ---sold the journal to Bill Gates---for the not-inconsiderable sum of ten million dollars. I suggest that you write Mr. Gates and say that Al is an artiste, and would not consider selling out for anything less than fifteen million dollars, no matter how dynamite the idea of using an on-line journal---which a proven track reckord of being folksy and Norman Rockwellish and PG-rated and easily perused without a blush by the average American without outrage---that no matter how good an idea that is, Al would not do this for less than fifteen million dollars.

I have my artistic integrity, after all...

Remember to get the URL right, too, in your outraged emails.

There is no truth to the scurrilious rumor that this journal is really written in code, supported by Osama Bin Ladin to the rest of Al-Qaeda...("Al"-Qaeda, get it?). That this is a way to get coded messages to hordes of suicidal religious fanatics to destroy Western Civilization.

Nevertheless...

Please remember that Mr. McVeigh used what was essentially a manure bomb in Oklahoma City. Please remember that there are huge garbage scows that go by the United Nations and the Statue of Liberty every day...especially around, say, January 1st, 2002. They stopped the Millenium plot, but Osama is great on repeats---so don't visit the UN or the Statue on January 1st, okay?

Or Disneyland, either--- if Achmed doesn't get fired for wanting to quote the Q'uran to little kids while still in his Goofy suit...

I am not a trustee in a Federal Prison after being sentenced to life in prison for the bludgeoning death of a telemarketer. That hypothetical trustee did not violate the warden's trust in him, by not entering in the warden's long list of kickbacks and scams into the computer system, but instead accessed the Internet and uploaded this journal with its hypothetical, Norman Rockwellish family values...

....As a way to escape the nightmarish reality of prison life, where only the occasional obscene drawing mollifies the other inmates enough so that I am not always the subject of a "gang-bang" beyond the rancid dreams of porn producers or of the Sodom Entertainment committee...

By the way, can anyone tell me if "Preperation H" really works?

I refuse to give in to the web trends of the moment. There is no truth to the rumor that this will all become a Flash site, causing many of your browsers to crash.

Nor will I become a trendier "weblog", that odd outgrowth of on-line journals---that substitutes actual content on the web to pointing at other worthwhile content on the web. That's for people too lazy to surf the web for themselves!

Of course, I occasionally link and plug PATHS OF DARKNESS...

And MEMEPOOL....

And BRUNO...

And of course, my Lives On-Line was a weblog before weblogs were cool...

Still, I stand on the sinking sand of my principles!

So there.