A typical email, but one we chose because it seems really flattering:

Do my eyes deceive me, or is there new wallpaper in the background on the blog? What is it, and who picked it out?
It looks very nice on the retina display.

Well, thanks. But this is asking for some inside baseball, and you taunt us to reveal some of the deeper and darker secrets of the ferocity that goes on behind the scenes here. So here we go.

There are a number of sites using a largely similar or wholly similar look and feel to ours. Remember, we have been doing a website since they were done with paper and pencil, so we get a bit ornery when people show a lack of imagination and creativity, and simply use the same public domain template that we did.

Your Czar got a little tired of the repetitive late 1960s wallpaper look, and suggested to 孔夫子, the Œcumenical Volgi (The Notorious ŒV), that we should maybe go with something a little better. So the Volgi found a nice leather ink blotter pattern. The Czar adjusted the colors until ’Puter said “Used Brawny!”* and we knew we had it.

But that might be the most obvious cosmetic change if you are an IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera user. Readers using the Yapchari browser will note the three-dimensional hyperchrominance effect when you drag objects forward and back through layers. Users of the Empyrion 5 browser will find that they can now read the site in cuneiform with a single i-click, and that the Print button now works. Users of the DOS 3.1 browser will find their screen consists of green flashy text on a slate screen.

Glad you all seem to like some of these features. One more tidbit: Yapchari users should rotate the ఖ icon 90° to z-color the ఆ frame. That is very cool. Users of other browsers should really upgrade, once it becomes available in ఠctob౬r 2254.

Other features we are looking into include an ability to dediacriticize Volgi’s posts so they render on most systems without extensive language packs installed, the ability to flag essays that are basically re-treads of our usual tropes about unions, Democrats, liberals, and journalists, a radio button that puts more commas into the Mandarin’s rants, and a button that automatically removes all links to Wikipedia and puts in properly researched references.

Thanks for all the thumbs up (or whatever body parts you have been sending us photos of in various defensive postures)! Some of us treasure every one of them.

*Don’t get it, eh? Just like Dad!

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.