These days the Web is moving faster than most of us can keep up with. Between work and kids and keeping the family boat afloat, I feel like I'm slipping a bit further behind each day. The list of skills I want to acquire or improve on is a long one...and growing: PHP, graphic design, XML, JavaScript, usability testing, project management, Ruby-- You get the idea. I want to master it all. Perferrably now.

After John Oxton of Joshuaink claimed he only reads six blogs, The Watchmaker Project's Matthew Pennell posted a screenshot of his blog list that you have to scroll to see. Made me feel downright reasonable with my 81 feeds (see Noteworthy Blogs).

They were troubled times--times of strife and turmoil, man against man, browser against browser. Into this chaos of lawlessness, brutality and disregard for web standards, stepped a new contender. Sleek and powerful in a case of shining armor, the champion strode onto the field of battle bearing a new and mighty weapon that made strong Windows men quake and PC women swoon. Parallel, he called it, and fascinated, the people flocked to him...

When I first started working on the web, it was not only possible but common to build an entire website by yourself, from back end to front end. Even promotion. We called ourselves webmasters because we had mastered (or more often, just did) everything. The back end was Javascript or Perl because that's what was available; the front end was table-based HTML; and promotion meant submitting to the 10 or 15 new search engines eager for links.