There was a guy named edwino who posted here, oh, a dozen or so years ago. He used to be quite active in the chat room, too. He was doing grad school working with fruit flies. I won’t say he inspired me to do what I’m doing, but he did answer some questions for me and offer some advice. And now I’m in grad school, working with fruit flies. He might be interested in knowing that. More likely, he’s completely forgotten about all of this. On the other hand, maybe he can get me a job…
I heard a rumour that **Cicero **decided to move on last month 
Well, he has quite a web presence in his real life capacity. He’s not hard to find if you want to send him a message. It’s bad form to identify poster’s real names, but if I can find it, I figure anyone can.
Don’t see much of Stranger on a Train lately, but perhaps I’m just reading the wrong threads.
He’s still around.
Arnold Winkelried’s absence is unusual. He organized the Straight Dope Photo Gallery, which as you can see remains up, but he hasn’t posted any new photos sent to him for a very long time now. He does log in from time to time, the last occasion being April 16, but never posts. Odd.
Yeah, I knew his real name. I just never bothered to look him up any time recently. Maybe when I’m starting the job hunt for real… 
Maybe he just logs in to check for PMs or something, but he is trying to lay low. Damn. Folks can’t just be low key on this board without some detective putting them on blast!
Eve left again. I think she said she was fed up with how the board members dealt with transgender issues. I may be mis-remembering.
I used to enjoy Scott Plaid, but one day he just disappeared. Stopped posting all of a sudden, was active one more time about two weeks after his last post, and then never again logged in. It’s been about seven years now.
I see where matt_mcl has been logging in, but has not posted much. I miss his contributions; I often disagreed with him on a topic, but he always brought a thoughtful and reasoned position to a discussion.
I haven’t seen many contributions from Hypnagogic Jerk lately. Similar to my views on Matt’s contributions, I didn’t always agree with HJ; but his contributions made me think.
Agreed - I miss both of them. Cunctator hasn’t been around much either for the last six months.
Swiddles had a blog she posted on infrequently, but she hadn’t posted on it for a few years so I stopped following it. I’ll see if I can remember its name.
GorillaMan is someone whose posts I miss - haven’t run into him for ages.
I, too, am missingmatt_mcl and Hypnogogic Jerk, especially in the Canadoper Café. I’m assuming matt is just too busy to post much these days…
I miss my friend Normal Phase, and not just from our days of playing mafia together on umpteen forums including this one.
Such a wonderful person. Why can’t online friendships last forever…
Well, his is an unusual case. He went to all the trouble of setting up and sponsoring the new portrait gallery – and he did go to a lot of trouble – the MPSIMS thread for it has been made a sticky, and then Poof! he disappears suddenly. He’s not posted any new photos that have been sent to him for a long time now. Has not answered anyone’s PMs that I know of, at least none sent by people in the sticky thread. And despite still logging on once in a blue moon, he doesn’t even bother to post something saying something like, “Hey, guys, I’m taking some time off for a while, will let you know when I’m back.” I find it very strange and not a little worrying.
It was more than that, but that was a big part of it. Eve never really liked debating transsexual issues nor really discussing them, and she always seemed to be uncomfortable by both the level of questioning and abuse she sometimes received. Yet because she had been tagged as the “ask the transwoman” locus of the board, she kept getting dragged into the discussions, mailed by people, etc.
She wanted to be known as Eve Golden, author - and not Eve Golden, transwoman. Something I understand completely - I didn’t out myself as a fellow transwoman until this year because I wanted to be known for science contributions and helping Cecil each week.
She may be interested to know that, the other night, one of the hosts on TCM was plugging one of her books. I can’t remember which book, but it was definitely our Eve who was the author.
According to her profile Kalhoun hasn’t been around since 08-02-2010 and she could always be counted on for a laugh or at least something skewed away from the mundane and trivial. Anybody know her status these days?
She and I used to text - she lives near me - and had plans to meet for a few drinks one day. I haven’t heard anything in the last couple of years. I really do miss her.
Where did Shot From Guns go?