It was a moment of temporary insanity last night that struck. I suddenly lost the ability to connect to my WordPress Dashboard and I froze in terror. I then tried to get onto willowsgrove.com and it said it couldn’t connect to the database…sonnofa…okay, retrace your steps, what did you just do, Karl? Think man, think, it’s only nearly 1am, what did you just flub up? It was then I realized that I had just installed an ancient forum nuke, not out of choice, but because my host (the ever wonderful archaic Yahoo Small Business) wouldn’t allow me to install phpBB3, and I was asked to change the password to the MySQL server to install. Eureka! I went into the file manager on YSB and opened wp-content.php and changed the password in there to the new password I just created before the panic attack occurred. Bingo-Bango-Bongo! I was able to go into the dashboard and also willowsgrove.com was back! I promptly fired up my FTP software and downloaded the entire wordpress folder to my hard drive and burned it to CD, then went and collapsed in bed, letting the sweat dry from my body. That would sound erotic if not for the fact I just shaved about 20 years off my life doing something stupid so late at night.

As reported in the Guardian (UK) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009, back in 1945 Tsutomu Yamaguchi was having a very bad week. As he was in Hiroshima on a business trip on that fateful August 6 when the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare. He survived with burns and spent the night in an air raid shelter, returning home the next day. Fortunate to have survived, but unfortunate in that his home happened to be Nagasaki. He arrived home on August 8th and the very next day, the second, and to date, the last atomic bomb used in warfare was dropped. He survived that atomic blast as well and is still alive today at 93. I can just imagine what was going through his mind after the first atomic survival…”Whew, I don’t know what that was, but I am glad to be alive. I think I will head home now and try and get over this whole dreadful experience.” Placing what is left of his belongings on his bed he turns in for the night. Waking up the next morning, he hears the air raid sirens wailing through the morning sky and witnesses the second mushroom cloud as he drops his jaw and partially melted toothbrush into the sink shouting, “shimatta!”

A few weeks back Kurt Sasso threw out a quote from a cartoon on Twitter and mentioned the first one to guess the source correctly would get a spotlight on his website TGT Webcomics. I and Robert Chandler of I’m Not Bob fame guessed it right. He already had his spotlight (WTG, Bob!) and this week, it was my turn! You can read it here or here. If you haven’t ever checked out Kurt’s site or Phil Hofer’s site, do it now! If you love webcomics, Phil and Kurt have done a lot of hard and worthy work to list as many webcomics to read and you can literally spend hours reading through them all! They even have a weekly podcast where they interview a webcomicker each week and let readers share insights and motivations of the many webcomic creators out there. You can join in online if you can, but don’t worry, the podcasts are also available for free by subscribing through iTunes.

Thanks again, Kurt and Phil for the spotlight on Willow’s Grove! The Official Grover badges are in the mail as soon as the robot overlords finish their coffee break.