Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Screen Shot
"What the hell?" Doug says.
"Is that--?" Bill says.
As Doug turns the Mullah Billdoug blog around, another pulls up with a screech and blocks their path.
"Isn't that--?" Bill says.
His right arm on the seat back, his head turned back to make the three-point turn, Doug senses rather than sees the second blog pull up on their other side, hemming them in.
When he looks, it too is the spittin' image of the Mullah Billdoug blog. Same blattodeific markings, same sidebars, but--different blogroll bars? Probably powered by a different site feed.
"Imitators," Doug growls. "They want us off the Web. Well, we won't make it easy for them."
"We won't?" Bill says.
"We need to take a screen shot," Doug says. "Send ourselves to a new url."
"But you aren't pixelated," Bill says. "There's no way you can make that jump."
"We'll just have to take that chance," Doug says grimly. "If we stay here, we're dead anyway."
"But--" Bill starts.
"Trust me," Doug cuts in. "Or rather, trust the Mullah. He'll know a way to get us through."
More Mullah Billdoug imitators come screeching up, barricading their escape route four or five vehicles deep on each side. Nobody is getting out of the blogs. They've got something more nefarious in mind than simple virtual violence.
Doug fiddles under the dash for the Print Screen button, hits it hard. The image floods into the clipboard. Doug flips the Photoshop lever, loads the blog into a GIF, and goes to save it--but GIF saving has been disabled!
"Damn," he says. "They're all over us."
"What are they doing?" Bill says with a big grin. Man is he out of it.
They're forcing us to save as a JPEG," Doug says. "We could come through a little--wavy."
"Uh, okay," Bill says.
Doug shrugs. Calm down, he thinks. Bill's right: it is okay. Whatever happens to them as a JPEG beats the hell out of staying here.
"You might want to fasten your seatbelt," Doug says.
"Naw, I'm good," Bill says.
Doug nods, turns the Photoshop lever to JPEG save, and floors the blogas for the ride of their lives.
