A year ago, upon the event of [slash]'s first birthday, I contributed that which basically boils down to these three grafs:

Despite what others may think, CRZ cares about [slash] to the degree that he genuinely DOES NOT CARE about making money off of it. He never did to begin with and has since only mentioned it in passing, sometimes a joke and then, most often, at the expense of others (as is his way). But the bottom line has always been keeping it grassroots and keeping it simple — and not to make money off of you, whether you're a reader or a contributor or, as is frequently the case, both.

But are there others out there making money off of CRZ? Good Lord, yes.

And does the man get compensated for this loyalty? Hey, WrestleLine don't pay him shit, folks. And they well SHOULD — for all his unflagging, unsurpassed-in-quality, and INSANELY time-consuming recapping duties (having witnessed firsthand the work he puts into the damn things), the corporate whore that is WL needs to kick back a biscuit or two to the guy in recognition for an above-and-beyond-well- done job for OVER a FRICKING YEAR. That way he can spend it all on presents for ME ME ME. I LOVE presents. Still, CRZ ain't gettin' paid, and he's still busting his ass.

(Psst ... you can read the whole thing her e, but take my word for it, the rest is all filler about long-deceased sites undeserving of memory and more boasts about how awesome my boyfriend is.)

Anyway, choke on my genius. Reflecting on the long, slow dissolution of WrestleManiacs and CRZ's rather easy decision last month to walk out on WrestleLine's base-rate offer to render himself contract-bound to exploitation, I am pretty shocked at how prescient all that up there really was. Maybe I was just hoping that I'd be proven wrong in the end, but I know all too well that sometimes it just plain sucks to be right all the fucking time.

When CRZ turned WrestleLine down, the general assumption that he was retiring was really good for a laugh as he's so O/C, he seems to foster the belief the world WILL go supernova if he breaks his SmackDown! streak. But in the end there were no biscuits, and not even table scraps, which is really sad when you think about it. Between rent and car payments alone, the last thing I'd be doing is devoting hours of my life to recapping TV shows for free. That's exactly what CRZ has been doing for years; that's how he left it; and that's where he is, until the day we go straight goofy and set up a [slash] donation box through PayPal.

Yeah, we did talk about the PayPal thing — but don't worry, we'd only do that as a big funny joke. You can't look around this place and seriously believe there's any money to be made in any of this, can you? If you can, you're probably involved with a site where people straightfacedly assume the titles of "Webmaster" and "Editor in Chief" and "President, New Media" in the desperate belief that they're doing something other than playing dress-up, like junior publishers Rod and Todd Flanders with their toy printing press: "Is your source reliable?"

Those same people and thousands more like them are the very reason why the online industry tanked over the last year — it was overrun by obnoxious, overbearing assholes coasting on bullshit fumes, not knowing the first thing about running a business, let alone maintaining it, let alone making money on top of that. Hence why CRZ keeps his shop here — he wants no part of that scam, and he doesn't belong near it to begin with.

Of course, when I think about how many ad banners Chris must have served for WrestleLine over the last two years, it really makes me sick. It also makes me think about biscuits and car payments and more presents for ME ME ME and those aren't in the offing. Another year of [slash] and it's still the same old song: CRZ ain't getting' paid, and he's still busting his ass.

God, I love him.