How can something look great in FF...

... look great in Chrome, in Opera, and in Safari..... and then look like a total pile of crap in Internet Explorer 8?  Why does IE have to be so different?

Because its microsoft.

But i hear rumors that IE 9 is supposed to be standards compliant. Microsoft's way of making a comeback in the browser wars. So perhaps things will get better.

Internet Explorer 9 is very impressive, even if late to the party. No matter how much it improves though, I'm sticking with Opera (and Netscape <3).

It's not just little things.  I have an internet video search page on my site that works in every browser but IE.  IE gives me 'object required' js errors.  I'm sure the problem is self-inflicted.  I have a habit of changing things and only looking at the changes in FF.  I hate using IE.  I've been working on a few things this past week, and thought everything was going well.... until I decided to look at my site in IE.  It was total garbage.  I fixed most of the trashed out look by undoing a few things, but the 'object required' error is a bit strange.

Sometimes I iron out my website's web browser compatibility kinks. Other times I just block access with Internet Explorer and tell the user to go screw themselves if they complain.