Holiday Q&A

Questionable Introduction

Greetings, crickets and elves. Welcome to a special Christmas edition of the Q&A. God rest ye merry gentlemen, peace on Earth and all that garbage. This is shaping up to be quite the Yuletide season. Let me begin this week's post by wishing happy holidays to you all. And not those crappy rip-off holidays like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. I could make several jokes at their expense, but I'll refrain since it's Christmas.

Q: Are you sad this Christmas?

A: Maybe a little. I just received word the other day that Fark is dead. This is according to one of the most hated members of our community, who actually hasn't posted to the site in years. Obviously he knows what he's talking about, and in no way is he being a ginormous cretin. On an unrelated note, "ginormous" now shows up as an actual word in spell check. My high school English teacher must be spinning in her shallow grave.

Q: Did you get any good gifts this year?

A: I got the best gift a Fark Photoshopper could get. No, it wasn't a Presidential pardon for my many years of abusing copyrighted material. No, it also wasn't TSZ's rotting corpse (that's really more of an Easter gift, given his God complex). This Christmas morning, I awoke to find a bright and shiny new Photoshop monitor under my tree. It's called the Fark Photoshop Contest Leaderboard, or FPC Leaderboard for short. Or FPCL for even shorter. No matter what you call it, the Leaderboard works great. It's the best thing since unsliced bread (which I prefer to sliced).

Q: Who is responsible for creating the new site?

A: According to veteran Photoshopper i-dig, who provides hosting for the FPCL on his Misfit Squirrels site, we have Hobosong to thank for putting it all together. My congratulations to him. Instead of fustigating about the decline of our community like an embittered old codger, he got off his ass and actually did something about it. Future generations of PSers will have him to thank both for the current Leaderboard and its upcoming integrated functionality to the main Fark site.

That's a for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Good tidings to you, and all of your kin. Unless you're related to TheSniperZERO, in which case please do everyone a favor and slip some laxatives into his mashed potatoes. Given his demeanor, the man has obviously not completed a successful bowel movement since Seinfeld was on the air.

Stay tuned for more dated references from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Commercialization

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A. This regularly occurring feature focuses on Fark's Photoshop community. Some of you might not be aware, but Christmas is almost upon us. Maybe you're like me, and have been desperately trying to tune out the holiday season since the day after Halloween, when retailers set out the their chintzy Yuletide decorations. Let incessant bell-ringing from religious panhandlers be the clarion call that throttles you into action.

Q: Why the sense of urgency?

A. Christmas is right around the corner, and you only have a limited amount of time to search out whatever perfect gift will justify for your loved ones having to put up with you on a daily basis. What that item is specifically will depend on the person. You'll find that people love to speak in code. For example, your kids may have been asking for that new video game where you get to rape your opponent's eye sockets. Clearly, this is a desperate cry for some new wool socks. Maybe your aunt Beatrice has been complaining that her feet get cold while she's watching TV. Obviously, she's telling you she needs a subscription to the Jelly of the Month club. If you don't have kids or an aunt Beatrice, good for you. You're off the hook for buying presents this year.

Q: When do you do your shopping?

A: Personally, I don't shop anymore. I see it as a job for my underlings. Of course, not everyone has the option of letting their Ecuadorian maid buy all the Christmas gifts. You might be able to get by with a Guatemalan or Jamaican maid, but be prepared to deal with fuck ups. Please note that regardless of nationality, they will become upset if you fail to reimburse them. Just say they broke a lamp and take it out of their pay.

Q: Have you ever seen a Christmas ghost?

A: I'm glad you asked, because I needed a third question to round out the Q&A. It just so happens that I was once visited by three spirits on Christmas eve. They told me I should change my evil ways, and even suggested that I start paying my employees with actual money. Luckily, this happened during the mid 1980's, and I was able to promptly dispatch the Ghostbusters to the scene. That trio of preachy holiday phantoms were no match for a backpack-mounted particle accelerator.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Regardless of your beliefs, I hope you have a happy holiday season. Whether you gather around the Christmas tree or the Hanukkah bush, here's hoping your family shares the most love money can buy.

Stay tuned for more season's greetings from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Intermission

Greetings, crickets and trolls. I'm sad to report the passing of Laz Long. He was a talented Photoshopper, and a valuable asset to our community. I'm taking the week off, out of respect to my fallen comrade. I offer my humble condolences to his family and friends. He was taken from us far too soon.


I'll return next week with your regularly prescribed dosage of animosity. In the meantime, links to all of Laz's work can be found in the Fark profile Remember Laz Long, which was recently created by Wavion.

Stay tuned for more solemn memorials from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Compilation

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to an all-new edition of the Friday Q&A. This weekly feature takes a look at issues facing Fark's Photoshop community. I've been the hate blogger of record for quite some time now. Over the years, I've been called upon to report the latest facts and opinions. Occasionally I even differentiate between the two.

Q: What new resources are being developed for Fark?

A: There have been several sites created to serve our community, but most of them are unfortunately no longer active. A replacement for the Scrutinizer has been in the works for a while, but so far no results have been forthcoming. This week, however, a new type of resource was discovered. You can try it out by clicking here.

Q: How will that site benefit our community?

A: A longstanding problem with Fark has been tied to the fact that image hosting is always handled by a third party. These image hosts have a penchant for being unreliable, which leads to a lot of archived threads filled with broken links. It's gotten so bad that newcomers just have to take veterans at their word when told how much better the Golden Age used to be. By storing all the images in a requested thread, this new site will allow us to effortlessly put future generations in their place.

Q: What limitations does this new resource have?

A: The biggest fault I can see is that every image is pulled from a given thread, including unaltered GIS postings and any NSFW images that haven't been deleted by the mods. The site also doesn't cater exclusively to Photoshop, so we're forced to share space with political trolls and TSA grope threads.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'd like to close by expressing my gratitude to the creator of this new resource. There has long been the need for a way to store contest entries independent of the crappy free image hosts that everyone seems to use.

Stay tuned for more sincere appreciation from the Doctor!