Websites.

*As promised at the end of this ridiculous post, here's a more accessible link to Cat's website, which was marginalized by Marcus' ranting and raving like a madman.

The other day, the two of us were looking for something on our older computer (a workhorse that's just about ready for the glue factory) when we stumbled across the website Marcus built to help him get a teaching job. And since I'm Marcus, I can tell you that there is almost no explanation for why that website helped me get a teaching job. It only proves that I'm insane.

First of all, I built it on a server I bought a few years ago. Haphazardous.com has, right now, the school newspaper I helped the kids build this fall, some garbage assignments for my classes -- and, of course, a link through that image in the lower-right corner to my first reference to a Nintendo game. This has been here since I emailed my site to about twenty districts looking for work.

(Pressing "A" should actually make the picture advance. Once upon a time, I had some tricks up my sleeve...)

Anyway, this is how I landed my job. There is no way any of you are bored enough to read much of that, even though I can reason through deduction that you are very bored; you are reading this post, after all. But there is too much. Let me sum up:

The site map links to three gems that should have gotten me laughed out of any potential interviews: my Wake Forest site, a Japanese postcard and a portrait by my niece, Jenny. (By "gotten me laughed out of," I mean "gotten me elected superintendent, obviously.)

That portrait is actually such a winner that I will post it here:

That is such a keeper!

Anyway, it's my old Wake Forest site that puzzles me now. I got a Master's Degree in part by building this one. I don't know now whether it is cause for me to love myself or be very depressed...

If you go back to that main page, you can see a picture of me. By clicking on the eyes, there are secret pages to visit. What's not so hidden is all the craziness: the porpoise thing, the picture of the phoenix from Ranma 1/2 as a major link... I think you can just start clicking randomly and quickly find a reason or two not to put me in a classroom with impressionable youngsters.

(In the "cause for me to love myself" column, I put the "clay brick express dancing" page.)

The point might be that the only page I did remove was the one labeled "Personal" in the right menu, meaning that I felt something in there was somehow worse than the rest. But I was wrong. I should have kept that link; those would have been awesome phone interviews.

Here it is. It's still online, just inaccessible from the other site. Here's what I notice:

The music I must have posted at one point is gone, because I realized that my music is garbage and threw it back in the gutter, because the place for garbage is in the gutter, not my mind. There's a very small image in the bottom bar that links to real victory of the NES kind. And there are Marvel Series II cards.

(In this same, strange self-love/self-hate session, I found other cards I made over the last couple of years. Maybe I will get over myself long enough to post some of them -- the hip-hop cards or the Japanese folklore ones, probably.)

The cards I posted make me happy. There are ones for my siblings and some other crazy bits, and they all load in a separate window with a front and a back. I guess I was planning on personalizing the fronts for the last few, but I've never started a project and then abandoned it before.

Here's the card I made for my brother, in case you need a little enticing:



Oh, the suicide joke! I wish I could bring that back. Probably not appropriate for a high school teacher... or is it?

I just like that no one, the wife included, gets the affection with which that joke is delivered -- except for the siblings. Once upon a time, I was in hysterics on the floor of a lobby of a theater where my brother and sister and I were going to see the musical Rent; I was shaking, really, and I was in tears from laughing hard; and the whole thing was due to me repeatedly saying, "Have you guys heard about this crazy new craze that's sweeping the nation? It's called suicide." I miss them.

Before we go, let's post a real website. This is Catherine's portfolio and such -- with artwork, cuteness, dashing and daring -- and it has been updated in the last week or so with newness.

(I'm [Marcus again] going to put another link to her site up at the top of this ridiculous post.)