note: This is The Column, a part of Apolyton where primarily Markos and Dan write whatever we want :). Well, not just the two of us. The Column is open to everyone. If you feel like writing submit your article to civ2@gamestats.com

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

#44 DAY IN THE LIFE OF MarkG A satirical insight into the life of one webmaster, Starchild-style. #45 NOTES FROM THE UNDERMUNITY What could make or break the Civ community must be addressed now, Resimark insists. COLUMN ARCHIVE

After the wonderful reviews of my last column (check Time magazine for them, and I think BBC turned it into a TV show....) I was asked to return. So here I am. So, I present "A Day in the life of DanQ". Please, enjoy it because if you don't, I'm going to hunt you down. Have a nice day! :)

Now, in my last column, I said DanQ and Sir David were seperated at birth. I recently found out, to my horror, that it wasn't true! It turns out that it was Sir David and Bobo, the HTML writing monkey, who were seperated at birth. All I can say is, poor Bobo..... So now I had to go out to DanQ's house to get the real story.

I arrived at DanQ's house around 4 am Friday Morning. In hindsight, I can see that this is were it all went wrong, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea. I knocked on his door and it opened, revealing DanQ nursing a bottle of vodka and smoking...something. When he saw me, he threw the bottle over his head and ran at me. I could almost he Yeltsin crying as the vodka splashed onto the carpet. While I concerned myself with the emotions of the Russian President, DanQ flew past me and leaped out onto the lawn. He grabbed up some blades of grass and started to smoke them. Ah, I thought, everything begins to make sense. However, I was soon going to learn that nothing would ever make sense again.

After he was done with his grass, DanQ once again ran up to me and said(with the energy of a young puppy or an old man on Viagra)"Hiya Starchild! What's up?? Come inside, come in!!" I followed him inside, carefully stepping around the broken vodka bottle.

-"So o'buddy, o'pal," Dan said to me,"What do you want??"
-"I want," I replied, "To know your secrets."
-"My secrets? I have none! Everything about me is displayed to the public! Ironically, that landed me in prison. Indecent exposure, bah!"
-"Surely you have some secrets," I said, wishing for some vodka so this conversation would be a blur tomorrow morning.
-"Okay, I have one secret. A secret love, a mad story of passion. I show you my love," Dan said as he picked up something behind him, "My love is....Miss Biggles!"
-"Dan, that's a stuffed cat."
-"Hush, you're upsetting her. It's alright Miss Biggles, no one will hurt you...."
-"Hey," I said, "Why don't you show my the rest of the house?"
-"Well....." Dan said, stroking the fur of the cat who looked like it had been killed by having a car, which must have been pushed off a building, land on it during a thunderstorm, "I'll show you my room."

I followed DanQ up the stairs leading to his room. I glanced at the pictures of his family, they were actually cute. Dan, his parents, his sister...no....wait, Dan in a dress. Okay, that last one freaked me out a bit.

-"Here's my room," Dan said, opening the door,"It's where I do my best work."
-"Like?"
-"Like playing with my s....s....Star Wars figures," Dan said, displaying an uncharacteristic stutter probably added only to make the crude joke work. Bad writer, bad.
-"Anything else?" I asked.
-"Oh, I work on Apolyton there too."
-"Cool"

As I walked into the room, with my eyes adjusting from the dim light(my kingdom for some candlelight, maybe a dinner. Some soft music in the background.....), I slowly see a large object in the center of the room. It stands around ten feet high and probably weighs a good twenty tons. In tiny letter all across the surface, Dan has written everything ever posted on Apolyton.

-"Holy...." I say in awe.
-"You like it? It's Apolyton. Everything is written on it, from reviews to updates, to story threads. The left face is almost devoted to Suriname."
-"You like storythreads?"
-"Oh yes, if it wasn't for them, I'd randomly disable posters and blame it on MarkG. Speaking of MarkG, I have to sent this to him every week so he can check it."

Poor Mark....

-"You're in luck, time for an update!" DanQ said as he grapped a small hammer and chisel and scrambled up the stone monolith. Hmm, maybe Bobo is Dan's relative.......

As Dan chips away at the rock, I wonder how he turns this into HTML.

-"You're wondering how this becomes a webpage, aren't you??" Dan said, leaping down so quickly I'm afraid he's going to attack my face.
-"Yes actually. I am," I say, wiping off the spit that landed on my face when Dan talked at his usual breakneck pace, "How do you turn this into a website?"
-"The secret is....." Dan said, coming closer, "My scanner..."
He pointed at a crushed machine in the corner, it looked like the lovechild of C3PO and R2D2.
-"Dan, that can't work..." I said, "It would never fit..."
-"Oh...Miss Biggles makes it work. She's so gifted."
-"She's a stuffed cat."
-"Hush! Do you want to see my other things?" Dan asked.

What I wanted was to escape alive, but that didn't seem likely....

-"What other things do you have Dan?" That's it, keep him talking. Now pick up the scanner and bash him over the head. Very carefully.....
-"I HAVE THESE!" Dan said, thrusting a odd little thing into my face. I dropped the scanner and cursed as it hit my foot.
-"What are they Dan?" I asked.
-"VooDoo dolls! I have one for every poster. See this one? It's Stewart Spink. Watch."

I watched as Dan took a long pin and.....

Somewhere in England, Mr. Spink had a sharp pain in his left eye.

-"And this one is Boshko! Look," Dan said as he threw the doll across the room.

The real Boshko was peacefully rafting down a river somewhere in Maine. Suddenly, he flew from the raft into the ice cold waters. The bears ate well that night.

-"And this one is Mar..."
-"Dan!" I shouted, hoping to spare someone from Dan's wraith, "Show me something else!"
-"Sure, want to see my large Star Wars collection?"
-"Sure," I said as I followed Dan into the other room.

Indeed Dan did have a large Star Wars collection. Life size replicas of Luke, Han Solo, DarthVeda were here. In fact, in one corner I could see a replica of Leia. A naked replica.... I walked over to the Han Solo replica and gently felt the skin. It seemed so lifelike, almost life the actor had been preserved....Oh god..... I looked over at DanQ to see him walking toward me, holding a bottle of tequila in one hand and a "Stuffing for Dummies" book in the other. I back away put DanQ runs up and overpowers me....

So, that's my story folks. In the end, I ended up one of Dan's little projects. I'm currently stacked between Yoda and Han in his collection, acting as a drink holder when he works on Apolyton. That's my story, goodnight.

Shoo Miss Biggles, shoo. Get away from my leg.
---------
Starchild is a frequent visitor and forum poster of Apolyton.

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Apolyton CS or GameStats. They are just the personal opinions of the writer.