I doubt anybody will remember me, but I was one of those putzes that refused to pony up $15 for membership when the message board ceased being free low those many years ago. It was partially due to general principles, partially because I’m cheap, but mostly because I was spending way too much time getting into drawn out debates in GD and this gave me an excuse to bow out gracefully.
And then, of course, work got extremely busy, and there were various health crises, and my son was born, and I devloped some new hobbies, etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I finally decided to cough up the dough just so I could pop in to say “hi.” Things are still crazy in my life, and I doubt I’ll have time to post much, but at least now I have the ability to do so. Maybe this time, though, I’ll steer clear of GD. Or not. You never know…
[As an aside, I find it amazing that even after three years, the system still recognized my login and even had my profile and sig-line on file! As another aside, as I think about some of the stuff I posted here in the past, I am truly grateful to discover that Google apparently does not index these message boards…]
In the last three years? Nothin’ much. Lib’s gone, and you probably will notice that handy is gone too. Geez, Lib and handy in the same sentence.
Anyway, welcome back, I doubt you’ll remember me, but I seem to remember your username. Definitely.
I think there was a server upgrade a year or two ago, that seemed to help with the delays and network error messages.
We got a few new mods too.
Lost a couple of long time posters for whatever reasons (prolly mostly due to the membership fees). ‘Prolly’ became acceptable as a substitute for probably, but you still can’t mis-spell definitely, that’s a no-no (there’s no a in ‘definitely’).
The MMP began about that time too.
Just as I type this I get an error message trying to ‘preview post’.
Of course.
Oh, and you missed the greatest rant of all time, search for “Suck it down, you drunken bitch” and you’ll see what I mean.
I definitely remember the handle and I have warm feelings for the person behind it, but until I do some searching I can’t be sure where we exchanged views or opinions. My gut reaction is that it might have been some philosophical issues or movies or music.
Anyway, good to see you back. I was away for a while myself. Missed close to a year’s worth.
Once I search for common threads I’ll let you know if there’s anything unresolved between us. Until then, be happy!
Pay-to-play has cut down drastically on the number of crash&burn newbies. We still get a fair number of guests coming in who don’t get up to speed on the way things are done, so we still have the occasional flameout, but they don’t take as long as they used to.
It also seems to have increased drastically the use of socks by banned posters who want to either get a few last digs in, or post under another name for a while and see if anybody notices.
People have been much more diligent about making sure Great Debates are actually debates, General Questions have serious questions behind them, and everything is in its appropriate place.
You can now call people trolls in the pit, and in the pit only. I’m not sure if you can only call people trolls for trolling in the pit, or for trolling elsewhere on the board.
The place is much quieter. It’s a lot less fun. It seems smaller.
That thread needs to be in the pit rules as a sticky or whatnot along with instructions for all to read and appreciate before making a first post to the pit.
How about all the new stock phrases and cliches that have since come into use:
[ul]
[li]1920’s-style death rays[/li][li]When come back bring pie[/li][li]Tinfoil hat[/li][li]I burning your dog[/li][li]Og= “god”[/li][/ul]
I don’t know what some of these mean and I don’t care to look them up. All I know is that they are recurring phrases. I’ll leave it to someone else to provide explanations for these terms and their origins. I don’t even know for sure if any of these were in use more than three years ago.
While I am also pleased to say that occurences of "Hi Opal!"have greatly diminished, you still see it from time to time, much to the annoyance of many posters (myself included).
