Some our more astute readers (yes, both of you) may have noticed a dearth of fresh material on this very site. Why, you may ask? Well, it's because of September 11^th. I don�t know how, or why, but it seems every problem these days is caused by some 9/11 ripple, so why not ours? Let's take a moment to figure out why this is.

Tech stocks tumbled after September 11^th because�well, I don't know why. Perhaps because investors were wary of the world market. Airplane makers cut back on production, thus tech companies like CAE had less demand. That's one trend blamed on Sept.11. (In fact, tech stocks were going down before Sept.11�) Another trend is the cancellation of "reality" shows. Millionaire went down the toilet, as did countless others (The Mole, um�and others�), while feel-good staples such as Friends rocketed up in the ratings. TV executives claim the reality show craze was dashed because, all of a sudden, people's real reality was a lot less frivolous, or some such. (The truth is, "reality" shows have a negligible connection to reality, anyway. Also, it was just a mater of time before audiences realized what utter, fetid lemur crap these shows were�).

Now let us find an excuse, yes? You see, itoop articles generally bring joy to our readers. Well, usually they do (or should). Now if we start enjoying ourselves, it will make the evil-doers angry at us for being so care-free and happy-go-lucky that they will strike again. But if we don't supply humour and live in fear, the terrorists win. We can't let the terrorists win. So we're stuck between a rock and some other solid object. On the one hand, we entertain the masses and the terrorists win, or we cut back our output and the terrorists also win. We're not updating because we can't decide what course of action to take.

So the next time you readers start hatin' on itoop staff writers for not posting more material, remember we�re doing this in an effort to maintain national security. 9/11 has forced us to cut back our writing output, for the time being. (Actually, the real reason is that we�re just damned lazy).