And the moon is made of Swiss cheese!  Let's just say that I've known more than one woman in my time who could peel off a phewsilanimous panty powderpuff that made my eyes water... and be proud of it, too.  Yup, there are ample methane mistresses around who can rival, if not better the best efforts of men... true paint peelers, some of those feminine fairy farts.

I'm with you on this one.. that's why I didn't elaborate, name names. 

     Let that be a lesson to you people. Rome started on a hill of shit. Romulus reamed his brother Remus and claimed the shit pile for himself. He built Rome on that and it took him 27.36139 years to pile up all the phewsilanimus panty powderpuff feminine fairy toots bottled at barkerfinery down the road at a cost of 17.4627 dracmas per bottle storing them under the hill until they was ripe enough to set out in the sun where they popped and incited the populace around the hill to build very large extravagant pillared Parthenons and Colliseums and such like so's Glutious Pootious Maximus' could set up another pile os shit letting the emanations collect in the surplus magnetic bottles what held the highly concentrated super duper plasmabarks he used to conquer the world before he was forced to go home 'cause the fem radical left hand movement threatened to toot so hard as to manifest a second coming of starkerbarkmeister. Not good. Glutious Pootious headed for another shit pile. Nero burned his and then Sodom and Gamorah was reduced to oozing puddles of greenish/brown goop when somebody (pssst...it was Cleo's cow but you didn't hear it from me) knocked over the lantern and set off the worlds first toxic mononuclear emanation that today is commonly known as a starkerbark.

There ain't none. They all abdicated in favor of all the pussilaneous nonsense emanating fron the local college. The science departments have been experimenting again with quantum barks which is why it's been raining here for the past week or so. Upset the natural order of things it did. Has to rain that much to wash away all the toxic goo when Jerry Springer sprung.

PUSSILANEOUS-------as in-------p-u...ssil...ane...ous:

Definition...the extraneous extropolation of...stuff.

      1: Jafo ain't got nuttin' on this. At least not in writing.

      2: No I don't.

      3: So.

      4: Jerry Springer wouldn't know a 'quantum' if it got up and bit him in the ass.

      5: No I didn't. I made it up.

      6: Ever been to West Chester? It's a college town and the closest thing they got to a greasy, sloppy, gooey-cheesey, New York Style pizza is the Dominos across the street. I lived in New York an I know what a real greasy, sloppy, gooey-cheesey New York style pizza am. See...see...now you got me doin' it.  I'm gonna go get me some...YUM! On second thought maybe not. Carfare's too expensive and by the time I find Luigi's place they'll probably be closed and if not the pizza'll be cold by the time I get back. I hate cold pizza.

Seriously though...there's this place called Ponzone's across from Wingate H.S. in Brooklyn that used to make heros, they call 'em hoagies in Pa., in three sizes. Small is twelve inches long, medium is eighteen inches long and the large is a full two feet stuffed with all kinds of goodies. My favorite was the veal and cheese. Not veal parmagian (I don't think I spelled that right...ask Zubaz) but big chunks of veal in a homemade sauce with melted cheese. Talk about greasy, sloppy and gooey-cheesey. Man...it must have weighed at least three pounds it was so big.Lunch time would see kids lined up around the corner just waiting their chance. Oh for the good ole days..................sigh.  

He can't have!  My grandfather was calling me a "pussilanimous polecat" (skunk) before Jafo could read, write or spell... that was when I was 3 y/o, and usually the morning after curried cabbage the night before. At that time, Jafo was 2 y/o and still pulling all sorts of weird WTF faces at words longer than 3 letters when being read his bedtime stories.

In fact, Jafo didn't learn to read, write and spell until much later, picked up the family album and asked his mother who the weird looking baby was. After that, and thinking: "I never wanna look like that again!", he began reading the dictionary every night and never wagged another English lesson again.

Of course it wasn't!  A descendant of the great Gengis Khan himself was responsible for that.. with the help of curried cabbage and a note from me.  Yeah, he needed instructions on the do's and don'ts... the correct procedure for barking safely in the event of a fourth helping at dinner the night before.

Sadly, I saw no harm in a fourth or fifth helping, so gave him the green light.  Sadly, however, acres of forest were decimated while he was out fox hunting.  Green light my arse... more like 007's license to kill!!  Yup, the fox hounds that heard him let one rip from the saddle (well those that didn't succumb on the spot) all buggered off and left him to find the fox on his own... cos obviously his fellow fox hunters weren't hanging around. either.

Anyway, Anal-Gitis Khan, all alone in his quest for the fox, decided that the task and his surroundings were overwhelmingly against him, so made his task easier by flattening the forest with a turbo charged starkerbark.  Unfortunately, however, the fox was blown into orbit around a distant quasar and hasn't been seen since.... which annoyed Anal-Gitis Khan greatly, not only because he didn't catch the fox, but more because the EPA issued him with an environmental code of conduct breach and a hefty fine.

Oh yeah, on the "meteor" explanation...er, rumours, there are differing eyewitness accounts and some discrepancies.  While some (well those who survived) reported a fiery meteor crashing to Earth in the forest, others claim that Anal-Gitis Khan placed a cork in his rectum so his horse wouldn't bolt during the hunt, that the pressure became too great and the cork was expelled under such considerable force it caught fire and the extreme heat actually flattened the forest.

Personally, I tend to lean toward the latter account, given I have first-hand knowledge of the awesome power of curried cabbage... its devastating consequences if unleashed with undue care and a lack of experience.  Yup, cross the meteor explanation off the list... it was Anal-Gitis and his 'gas propelled' fiery cork.

Now there's something I bet not many of you knew... that I am an avid historical buff and have explanations for many of history's hidden secrets: such as the fall of Rome; why Vesuvius erupted and swallowed Pompeii, and what caused Krakatoa to erupt so violently.  Yup, mans misguided hand was at work, as usual... as was the curried cabbage.

     There ya go...starkerbark Totinos in a box and zappeded with highly concentrated ectoplasmic irradiation then serveded on a piece of cardboard. Ain't that a bitch. Jeez...it's like ya can't go nowheres nowadays without findin' such inhospitable unniceties fostered upon an innocent starkerbark. No wonder they blow off as much nu-cular fecundities. They bes unfairly containeded and squeezeded inside magnetic bottles all the time with mono-aniclimatically irregularitational substances that would drive any not so sane starkerbark into imploding and blowing the cork straight down, up or sideways depending on which way the wind is blowing and flattening whole stands of 3,000 foot Sequoia trees in the redwood forest of north Wickershamshire. What a waste. And then...and then Anal-Gitis Khan and his meager minion types come along and try to emulate the infamous starkers and him highly concentrated thermoplasticated ectoplasnostically irradiated......bark.

     Want proof? Go to Arizona and look at Meteor Crater. Then swing west some more and look at the Aegean Sea where Santorini used to be. It's original name was Thera but it ain't there no more. Thera blew up and sunk Atlantis under the ocean in the Aegean Sea. It wasn't until 65 B.C.E. that they were able to find out what happened. Anal-Gitis Khan's Uncle Rec'Tal-itis Pootious Maximus nee Glutious developed a severe case of downunderconstipationoutback syndrome. It was very prevalent back in the day. He went to see the doctor who refused to examine Rec'Tal-itis Pootiuos Maximus nee Glutious' backside citing he never wanted to be stared back at again.

     The doctor prescribed K_Y jellytabs to be inserted orally by Rec'Tal-itis Pootious Maximus nee Glutious' hermorphrodigitalikali manservant six times an hour for three months. Providing there was sufficient liquid lubricant on hand or someplace real close. Because of the times they lived in sand in the vaseline was optional. Bet ya didn't know about Uncle Rec'Tal-itis Pootious Maximus nee Glutious...huh?

Of course I knew of Uncle Rec'tal... he was the one who inspired Mr Methane to follow in my footsteps.

In fact, Uncle Rec'Tal was revered by many in his day as being the greatest fartologist ever. Howver, some feared his rectal recitals (those who didn't have opera glasses and had to sit in the front row) and soon his stage act became a thing of the past.  It was such a sad end for such a promising performer, but he was made of better stuff, from that era of 'never say die' barkers, and he went on to street perfoming... busking his arse into the history books with such amazing feats as barking the entire 1812 Overture without taking a breath.

Unfortunately, however, Rec'Tal met with an early demise... a premature ebarkulation, if you will.  Yup, his stage act was resurrected, and one night he was performing his renowned rendition of the 1812 Overture when someone thought they had to ignite the cannons during the fiinal ovement.  Sadly, Uncle Rec'Tal was instantly incinerated in a bizzare spontaneous combustion event that has since never been repeated due to the lavish opera house being completely gutted by fire and taking several city blocks with it.

I do need to work on the sizing. But to keep the look I'm going for, it's going to be a bit larger than the average panel.

How about ' Gas Station' ?

I got Harley in IM and he hit the nail on the head. I was going for that retro 'Vegas Casino' sign look and he mentioned it looked like a' Diner ' sign.

The center one rotating is a good one with the cabbagge head on the reverse. However the other two could be further enhanced, if you like, with a glow of some kind to simulate a bark emanation or rather the toxic glow after the initial Kaboom. Or...and this is wierd...seeing them melt. Also 'Gas' Station is cool. You've got the eye on it Bro. We're keeping the faith.

The retro/vegas look is super...if you can pull off the sizing. I agree about the 'real estate' thing...i've seen that a lot too. Of course, real estate is pretty cheap in Vegas about now.

Colors are perfect. The 'Diner' sign thing is right too. It'll also maybe give you a place for the 'search' and 'on/off' stuff. Might have to make it a shade taller (the 'star' form) to fit the rectangles into the green triangle. the extra height could be borrowed from the posts, I suppose. Could put flashing white lights around it to emphasize the  <---- Parking thing...or the star or menu portions...maybe all of 'em.

Lookin' very good Po'.

Tell ya what, guys, there's some pretty good ideas being 'floated' around here.  I paticularly like the idea of a sound scheme and different effects... now that could really enhance/set this project off.  Now should I get out my microphone and start recording some outrageous 'barks' for this?? 

Hehe, with echo and a bit of reverb added they'd sound even more awesome... if that's possible. 

The flashing lights around the 'Gas Station' Sign, I think, would have to be relatively small and not too bright/gaudy, so as not to take away from the overall theme... but yeah, lights sound good as well.

I'm also thinking for the start button, instead of a whole cabbage, maybe a bowl with yellowy-green curried cabbage in it, with animated steam rising when you click it, if that's at all possible.

I went and had another look and I'm thinking instead of a rotating disc(s), wouldn't it be easier to have it/them change states, whereby the image changes from one to another upon mouse-over/clicking of a pre-designated task or button?  Being a non-skinner I know nothing about animations in WB's, but I imaginge that a rotating disc may be harder to implement than a changing state that would probably be less distracting for users.  I'm sort of thinking the start panel itself shouldn't be too busy so as not to distract or detract from the theme.  The start panel may not be up for a long time, but some people rely on it to access folders, files and apps all the time, and 'too busy' may be off-putting for some.

I hope that I'm not getting too bossy or critical, whatever here but I DO want this project to be a success, and having read many a time of users saying 'this or that is too busy/gaudy/bright', I just felt the need to mention these things... cos sometimes less can be more, if you know what I mean.  With so many really neat ideas being floated here, I know how easy it is to get carried away/swept up in the euphoria of the whole thing (been there done that before), so I guess I'm just trying to add a little perspective.

Don't sweat it, if you can you can, but if not I am more than happy with the current theme idea/state of affairs, so please, focus your time, energies and ideas on the one before us and leave the other for another time, if you so decide to pick it up again.