For you newcomers who haven’t “met” BlastGal yet, now is a good time to don your radiation-shielding goggles and check out this sizzlin’ Apocapalooza at the homezone of “the A.P.S. Board of Advisors” ...

Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you ? (imagine idle, passing-the-time whistling noises) ? You’re back? OK, now stop panting and listen up. Not long after this site was launched, BlastGal started nagging the Moderator for “a soapbox of one’s own,” explaining that A.P.S. was and is overloaded with male experts. “You’re a great bunch,” she opined, “but we also need a place by and for women, focusing on their many concerns and ’special needs’ about the millennium.”

”Interesting concept,” the Moderator said. “But aren’t you shamelessly ripping it off from Karen’s Anderson’s site, Y2K for Women?”

”@#!$%@, no!” BlastGal replied. Without further comment, she sent the Moderator and his technical expert, Elektro Boy, straight to the “Web shed” with orders not to emerge until they’d cobbled together her new domain.

That work is now done. (Whew!) BlastGal’s Corner will serve two important functions:

You get to pose questions to BlastGal!.

Should I get pregnant nine months before the Year 2000, or not? What kind of glue should I use when I decoupage my husband’s diesel generator to make it more homey? Is there any chance that one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse is a HorseGal? And so forth ?

She gets to “sound off” on ? whatever. As we’ve stressed, BlastGal has a wide range of interests and emotions, and she is equally prone to nurturing as she is to rebuking.

At one extreme, for instance, a nature documentary featuring cozy footage of sleepy, grumpy otter pups will bring out her good side, as will sunny, cheerful millennialists who aren’t hurting anybody.

At the other, she doesn’t care for crooked, evil, or deadly End Timers, and she’s not real fond of people who criticize the Moderator. (That’s her job!) To this end, she’s currently working up a rant -- one of her patented GalBlasts?-- about a certain newspaper reviewer who, er, didn’t rave sufficiently about Apocalypse Pretty Soon.

Yikes! We’d hate to be on the receiving end of that. Watch this space!

Got a question for BlastGal? Send it to: BlastGal’s Corner.