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For all of you who participate in the forums: I’m changing the permissions so that you will only be able to read messages if you are a registered user. Apologies in advance if this is an incovenience, but I am having some mysetrious server issues that I hope this will fix. Feel free to write me if this puzzles you. Registering as a forum user is still of course free.

Update: Sorry for any confusion: when I talking about the forum, I’m talking about the Comics Curmudgeon community forum, not the comments you can add to individual blog posts of mine. You don’t need to register to put comments on the main part of the site; you do have to register now to view the forum site.

Update 2: I’ve also updated my install of WordPress (the software that runs the blog part of this operation) from 1.5 to 2.0.2. This appears to have gone remarkably smoothly (much more so than the last big upgrade), but if anyone out there notices problems with the blog, please let me know. I’ve also installed a new, much more powerful comment-spam removal package, called Spam Karma, which for the most part allows me to dispense with the “see it before you say it” screen. If your post is suspected of being spam, you may be asked to prove that you’re a real person by entering a “catchpa” code — basically, you’ll be shown a series of numbers and letters and asked to enter them into a box. This shouldn’t happen too often, as Spam Karma learns over time, and it will figure out that you’re not a spambot in short order.

If you’re curious about the motivation for this flurry of late-night activity (warning: technical geekery aheady), my ISP just told me that either my blog or my forum software was apparently eating up a lot of PHP resources on the server. I took some steps to reduce the amount of work PHP had to do — that’s where the more effective spam-killing comes in, and the restriction of the forums site to registered users (since every time a non-registered user looked at the forums, PHP had to work to render everything). As a precaution, I also updated PHPBB and WordPress to the most recent and secure versions. I’m not sure if this actually has solved the problem. If anyone is experienced on why WordPress and/or PHPBB might suddenly be forking a lot of PHP processes, I’d love to hear it.

Update 3: OK, I’ve re-added the ability to “See It Before You Say It” because some people liked it. It’s no longer mandatory, however.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/26-7/06

Well, no wonder she’s sick all the time, with these quacks for parents. I guess they’re trying to conclusively settle the “feed a cold and starve a fever, or vice-versa?” argument. Maybe they can convince Dr. Troy to open an all-dessert-based clinic, with Lou from Mary Worth as a silent partner.

Abbey, as always the smartest one in the room, looks like she’s unconvinced about the effectiveness of this protocol. She also looks to me disturbingly like a whacked-out Axl Rose (like there’s any other kind). But then, in panel two in Wednesday’s strip, Sarah looks a lot like Angela Lansbury, so I may be seeing things.

Beetle Bailey, 4/27/06

That’s funny, I think my initial response to “Beetle didn’t open his chute” would have been “If he isn’t careful, he’ll plummet to a terrifying, painful death.” Guess that’s why I’m not in the army!

Apartment 3-G, 4/27/06

“Yeah, your art, your passion, your life’s work … snoresville! It’s good thing you’re so dull yourself, so you don’t notice. I’m going to go do something more interesting now, like listen to myself talk. Ta!”

Judge Parker, 4/27/06

Oh, yuck. Is that what they’re calling it these days? I hope for his clients’ sake that he isn’t treating this time as billable hours.

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For Better For Worse, 4/25/06

Mark my words: Thérèse’s having humiliated and cuckolded Anthony is only the beginning. My prediction is that, despite the fact that this evil, baby-hating hussy vowed that the nine months little spawn-of-Anthony spent in her womb would be the sum total of the energy she would expend on it, she’s nevertheless going to take the Mustachioed Milquetoast before a bewigged Canadian judge and demand custody. Why? First, she’s a FBOFW villain, and therefore exists to make the sympathetic characters as sympathetic as possible; and second, there is no need for any other reasons.

Meanwhile, if Liz gives up her exciting, fulfilling life in the north and her romances with Paul the ass-grabbing mountie and Fly-Boy Warren to come home, marry the chump, and start popping out babies, then I for one will be very depressed (though not Anthony-level depressed, don’t worry). Mock her First Nations travelogue life if you must, but she’s the one Patterson that escaped the suffocating middle-class suburban life that has Mike in a death-grip, and nothing about Anthony says to me that he’s worth sacrificing a whit for.

Mary Worth, 4/25/06

The only way Kelly could look any more depressed than she does in panel two would be if she actually had a gun barrel in her mouth. “You sat through the same awful dinner as I did last week, and now you want me to spend more time with that force-feeding loon? And you’re the biddy that people come to for advice in this town?”

Apartment 3-G, 4/25/06

Aaaand thus endeth the Tommie storyline.