Got a question… What does Hi Opal mean?? Why does everybody say that? I haven’t been on the boards that long and I feel retarted for asking!
OpalCat once complained that a numbered list should never have only two members, that it takes more than two elements to be a list. So posters would then add a number three, “Hi, Opal!”, just to make a third item.
It has since shifted to use as the third item in any list. My how usage changes over time!
[example]
- It’s not spelled “retarted.”
- It’s “retarded.”
- Hi Opal!
- You aren’t retarded/retarted/however you want to spell it.
- We’re just new.
[/example]
It’s a plot…against you!
I can prove it.
The phrase “Hi Opal”, or it’s derivatives, only appears on the pages that you are looking at right that second! Scary, huh?
It’s a code we use to mock our witless dupes & hapless victims. That’s you, dude.
Soon, we will come to your house in the night and then… :eek:
But enough about routine stuff, how 'bout them Mets, huh? 
Y’know, this should be added to a FAQ. It’s a question I asked when I first signed up too.
It’s a secret on-line handshake of the Illuminati, a subject that fascinates our Perfect Master.
Where does the theory about two elements NOT= list come from? Is it a mathematical thing?
It’s an old supposedly inside joke that SO needs to die.
It’s generally used by those with about 200 - 500 posts who know enough to know that it is an inside joke but not enough to know that the old timers are fed up of it.
- this has recently been asked
- and also answered
- Hi Opal!
- Hi blink178!
(a new one!) lets start this new tradition!
No, I think it’s the same reason why two items aren’t a pile, or a heap, or a collection.
Mathematicians deplore special cases. I’d say a list can have 0,1,2,3… etc parts, and I’m working on rational and imaginary sized lists.
Or an infinite list:
[list=1]
[li]Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, and pass it around, aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.[/li][li]Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, and pass it around, aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.[/li][li]Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, and pass it around, aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.[/li][li]Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, and pass it around, aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.[/li][li]Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, and pass it around, aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.[/li][/list=1]
.
.
.
Yes, it’s a pretty old idea. I wish they would stop doing it, it’s rather pointless & annoying &
serves no useful purpose, if but to define lists 
. Anyone who wants
to say ‘hi’ to her can easily write her email.
I was surprised to see a “Hi Opal” show up on a list at a gaming board (I think Camelot Vault).
So, do any of the old-timers recall who was the first person to use “Hi Opal” to complete a list?
I used it at Progress Quest’s gaming board once. I think I was more amused about it that she was.
Must be hell on the old vanity searches! heh.
Actually I can’t remember every searching for my name on the board… I do it on Google though 
For a more complete answer, it started like this…
I’ve always been taught that 2 items isn’t a list. Like you aren’t supposed to have 1 and 2 or A and B in an outline without adding 3 or C… if you only have two things you should join them with “and”…
so back in the ice age on AOL I would occassionally start to list things, realize I only had 2 items, and make a bogus 3rd item like “3. well nothing really, but I don’t like lists with only 2 items”
After a while, other people would occassionally tack a bogus 3rd item on their lists to the effect of “3. nothing, but Opal doesn’t like lists with only 2 items”
Time passed. People started just tacking on a bogus third item to 2-item lists with simply “3. Hi Opal”
More time passed. People started using “3. Hi Opal” even on longer lists.
…and it just sort of lingers around.
It started back in the AOL Ice Age because I was taught that if you only had 2 items, you used “and” rather than a list format. Sometimes I’d start a post and make a list and then realize I only had 2 items, so I’d add “3. Nothing to add, but it isn’t a list with only 2 items” or something. After a while, other people started doing the same with thier 2-item lists, putting “3. Nothing, but Opal doesn’t like lists with only 2 items.”
Time passed and it was shortened to “3. Hi Opal”, and eventually the number 3 sort of became dedicated to that phrase, even with longer lists.
And it has just sort of lingered as a habit. Not quite sure why.
(eris, actually I’ve never actually searched for my name on the board that I can think of, though I do it from time to time on Google.)
Ok no fair!!! The board ate that first post, saying that I wasn’t logged in, so I logged in and re-created it… AFTER first checking to make sure it hadn’t posted!! AND THERE IT IS!!!
I call an official no-fairsies on this one.
- Hi Opal!
- Holy post count, Handy - I saw a post somewhere about the fact that you had a lot, but 12,000? In which forum do you post the most? (I’m going to assume you contributed to the popularity of MPSIMS.)
- Can I go home now?
1…err…gasp…choke…can’t…comprehend…
IMPLODE
- Ho
- Hum