This is closely related to Q2. The date shown on the subject line of each issue is the issue date of the column, not the date it appeared on the 'net, which is generally later that same week. Thus it is possible that the obituary's "publication date" might be before the date of death. This is a quirk of our publishing schedule and should not be considered evidence of psychic ability.

The second question pretty much answers the first -- indeed they aren't
exactly "different", but rather the H.U. comes out in the free Friday edition, and
then comes out in the Premium edition the following Monday. That is, alas, the way
it has to be, considering the main capitalistic reason for it in the first place.
(If you can't stand unbridled commercialism, skip the rest of this paragraph.)
While Randy indeed enjoys writing the obits, and celebrating the lives of the truly
interesting people featured there, one function of the H.U. is to give the Free
edition readers a reason to at least skim through the "author's note" at the bottom
of each issue. Not only because Randy has something to say there, and it would be
nice if subscribers actually read it, but also because of what's right above the
Honorary Unsub in the Free issues: a blatant pitch for readers to Upgrade to a
Premium subscription -- a paragraph that tells briefly what they missed by not
being a Premium subscriber. Because quite frankly, we wouldn't have been able to
keep publishing without the Premium subscriptions; Upgrades bring in more income
than the advertising in the Free edition, more than the books do, even more than
the newspaper syndication does. So since Premium puts the bread on the table, the
H.U. needs to be the freshest, most timely feature possible to bring people down to
read the Premium "ad". The choice, then, is to write the H.U. at the last minute on
Friday for the Free issue to make it as effective as possible, and thus run it 72
hours later in Premium, or to write it on Monday for Premium, and have a
four-day-old H.U. for its primary market on Friday.

It depends -- Randy was doing too many speaking gigs and tired of the disruption to his schedule. He will consider speaking engagements if at least two of these factors apply: you have a very interesting group, you offer a reasonable honorarium, or if Randy's already in your area on other business. More info is here.

Say it out loud, and you'll probably get it. Back in the olden days when Randy actually worked for a living, he worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In his early years there, NASA employees didn't commonly have Internet-connected e-mail, but some did have access to "NASAmail" (a private network running Sprint's Telemail software). Randy's most frequent correspondent was a friend at NASA headquarters named John, and to spice up the exchanges they would include funny spellings of various things. Randy started to address John as "Jawn", and John would address Randy by his initials, RC, which morphed into aRCie (pronounced "RC"), which later was simplified to arcie. It stuck, and it's been arcie since.

Pretty much even when we are on vacation issues still come out. But if not, we'd announce it way in advance. More likely, your subscription was dropped from the list because your copy "bounced" back repeatedly. If you suspect you've been dropped off the list (e.g., your server was down for a couple of weekends), just go ahead and subscribe again -- the server will either re-subscribe you, or reactivate a subscription that was put on "hold" because of bounces. See details here on how to subscribe or unsubscribe.

Note we do not respond to anti-spam "challenge/response" messages; to ensure you get the mail you asked for, be sure to "whitelist" (allow) mail from thisistrue.com and our e-mail distribution company, lyris.net.

Sorry, but we can't provide back issues of This is True. For one thing, it would quickly get out of hand -- we already average over 200 e-mails a day (though we do appreciate your comments!) But beyond that, it thwarts the whole idea of how you are supposed to get back stories: Every year, a book collecting the previous year's columns is published -- indeed, this is how the whole net operation is financed -- so you're very much encouraged to pick up copies for all of your friends! For details about our True book collections, click here.

We also have an online archive that we're expanding over time as we get the chance to code it all up and get it online. The online archive is here.

The short answer: No.

The longer answer: No. The "central authority" (if you will) of "real" Darwin stories (tales of people erasing themselves from the gene pool -- or nearly so -- by doing something incredibly stupid) is at DarwinAwards.com. There are three categories of "Darwin" stories: 1) Those that are true (such as those on the Darwin Awards web site); 2) Those that are completely made up (and what's the fun in that?); and 3) Those that started out as true, but have been greatly embellished with made-up details over time.

An example of the third type is the one about the guy in Los Angeles who went flying in a lawn chair by tying a bunch of helium-filled weather balloons to his chair and launching himself skyward. Yes, this did happen, but first, it did not happen yesterday, as most of the e-mail versions imply -- it was on July 2, 1982. Further, contrary to most e-mailed versions going around, Larry Walters was not rescued by a helicopter as he drifted to sea (like that would be possible anyway), but rather he landed by himself in Long Beach, thanks to his planning ahead and taking a pellet gun to shoot out a couple of the balloons. Other versions have other silly "details" (e.g., he really took a bottle of water, not a six-pack/case of beer, on the flight). Naturally, many such stories aren't just embellished old stories, but are made up from the start.

The lesson: even true stories passed around online not only can be but very often are changed -- sometimes several times -- at the various stops they make. The only way to be sure that the story you get is as it was originally written is to subscribe directly to reliable sources. An example of this (of course!) is This is True -- subscription info is here. This sort of "morphing" is why we do not accept story submissions of items you had e-mailed to you by others, that you "found somewhere" or whatever; we only will source stories from "mainstream, legitimate newspapers" (and their official web sites). For more on submitting stories to us see this page.

This is True, however, is associated with the Stella Awards -- cases of outrageous but true lawsuits. Unsurprisingly, that web site is StellaAwards.com.

We're happy to work with you on gift orders. See this page for details.

"Standard" depends on your point of view. An average American would write

I like "This is True," which I get every week.

I like "This is True", which I get every week.

(This entry spawned quite a discussion when a reader was offended by the answer!)