How to Tell if Your Roommate Is a Dead Cassowary

So look, back in the day, when the web and I were young, there was this website I liked with that title.  I remember it pretty darn well. There were helpful diagrams along the lines of

A cassowary:

A dead cassowary:

and there was a numbered list of ways to tell, which became more and more baroque. Fuck me, I even remember how the last one conclude: The other speaker here is a child you have just met: "'You think that's bad--this guy's roommate is a cassowary.' 'My roommate's dead,' you say."

So this was a real damn thing that existed. It may have been silly and inconsequential, but it existed and I liked it. And now it is...gone, unless my search powers just can't find it (there's nothing on the wayback machine, fwiw). How many thousands of OTHER early websites have just disappeared from existence? Obviously, this is not in the top billion concerns that one might have with the world today, but damn, man. Imagine if BOOKS just...disappeared like that. You want to revisit that novel you remember from high school? Too bad; it is now non-extant. I have nothing profound to say here; nonetheless, bah.

E.H. Young, The Bridge Dividing/The Misses Mallet (1922)

This was published first as The Bridge Dividing, then as The Misses Mallet.  Is that latter name more commercially appealing?  Maybe.  Everyone likes mallets.  As far as I know.  Interesting facts about Young: 1) she was in a long-term relationship with her lover and his wife; 2) She was an amateur mountaineer.  That first one MIGHT have some degree of relevance to the novel; the second-- seems doubtful.  Though I certainly WISH it did.

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