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OP
OP
About nine months ago me and my pal Andy were sitting in a car under a tree waiting for the 180 birds sitting on power lines to make a mad dash to the tree to roost for the night. Andy was bored. I was drinking beer and counting birds when, with only a hint of pique, Andy said, "Milo I found just the site for you on the internet. You'd love it.
You could stay home and chat and not talk me into driving you around and sitting under this stupid tree." He was serious. When I got home he signed me up on Awadtalk.
Birds in flock make collective decisions without hierarchy.
I was utterly fascinated with Awadtalk where "We don't need no steekin' rules" was not a rule but a motto.
At first I planned to study this odd group to discover how they could maintain a civil climate in the midst of 500,000 people with vocal egos that could find this site a nice nest to lay their verbal eggs, so too speak.But heck everybody was having too much fun so I jumped in and joined the fray.
Milum: "The best form of government is a nation of reasonable men". The ladies usually get miffed when this quote is quoted, each of us can decide whether their miff is an unreasonable miff or not. But therein lies the crux of the matter, disagreements are fundamental to social evolution, so rules are made to insure that reasonable disagreements don't escalate to the letting of blood. So how did the denizens of awadtalk keep arguments to a minimum and keep out the riffraff without rules? It's simple. They had rules - but only the old timers knew them.
Mulim: ( Ok! Ok! Mulim is a cryptonym of Milum. Can I help if my call for participation fell on deaf ears? ) : Well I tend to agree with you Milum, but you'll have to admit that most of these old timers are pretty sharp and their love of the board is shown by the lengths they go to protect it. Even though I still don't know what ayleaur means and when someone brings up the word yart it is always spoken with a regal air of bored dismissal. But you got to give them credit, out of a base of over three thousand members, a fluctuating corps of fifty posters post ninety-nine per cent of the posts. Without them Awadtalk would receive only one post a week. What do you think of that?
tsuwm :
>They had rules - but only the old timers knew them.
This, perforce, is a gross oversimplification -- as is most everything that gets posted webwise. We started out with tabla rasa and, feeling the need for some unstructured structure, we made it up as we went along -- always keeping in mind:
rule 1 - rules? we don' need no stinkin' rules!, and
rule 6 - there is no rule 6.
The important stuff (there wasn't really too much) was captured first by jmh in a thread in I&A, later to be maintained by MaxQ there and expanded upon a bit offsite. This wasn't the collected wisdom of the pooh-bahs, handed down from on high, for the ages; but rather it was mostly common sense stuff and technical hints that we felt new folks could benefit from, in terms of shortening the learnng curve. The unfortunate thing was that almost no one seemed to read it, in spite of the I&A thread being constantly brought back to the fore and Max permanently linking to the offsite via his signature line; but we constantly referred to is as questions about protocol and technical aspects of the board came up. Even more unfortunate, Max and the thread are now gone. Anarchy rules.
But who am I to judge....
Milum: ...tsuwm, if anarchy rules, how can there be anarchy?(That was a joke.)
Yes I agree that the helpful hints and guidelines for beginners thread wasn't exactly the wisdom of the ages and should be easy to re-institute now that the expatriates
have pulled the plug and moved on to Awadtalkers.
But unless a comet hits, this board will lumber towards its destiny without them, and the next Introduction to Awad needs to wax with length on not just protocol, but courtesy and good manners as well.
But thats not enough. There are ten thousand people out there, dissatisfied and ready to flame, (oh I do so hate the word "flame". It sounds so...so...juvenile.) and ways to deal with them other than excommunication must be found. Whatcha think?
(THIS SPACE FOR RENT) (SEE MILUM FOR DETAILS)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Warning: The curse below will be visited upon anyone attempting to post below this post...
May the Earwick and his friend the Earwig - the invisible worms that fly through the night find their bed of crimson joy in your ear. And may they lay 800 eggs in the middle of your brain and then exit out your other ear. And may the hatchlings be hungry blood red things which in mortal pangs your mind becomes their food. Other than that - have a nice day!**
** This curse is hereby amended to include all practicing pedants, their fellow travelers, their families and their friends.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OP
This is a free country...???...
...WAIT A MINUTE! YOU TRICKED ME!
YOU USED ME TO BRING YOUR POST BACK TO THE TOP OF THE LIST!
I'LL SUE!
YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH YOUR DIRTY TRICKS THIS TIME!
Signed,
Milo
- Pfranz
What better place than cool grass to become a cockroach in.
La Cucaracha, la Cucaracha
Ya no quiere caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le
falta
Marijuana que fumar.
Ah Bill:
You are the sugar en este lugar!
Bon mots,
IP
OP
- Pfranz
Thank you I think Pfranz,
but no, like you, whichever way I go the grass becomes cool.
- Milo -
Post edit:
Pshit Pfriend Pfanz!
You tricked me into posting here against my own taboo. -
Just be advised and aware that time didn't stop with
your little indiscreet indiscretion. -
Ah yes, my Spanish is flawless:
The Cockroach, the Cockroach,
There no querysome lorries.
Why not hold? Why does the falter?
Mary Jane
In other words:
C'mon Bill, give us non-linguistic Limeys (who thought we only needed one language) a chance!
Pezcyclado
P.S. Alternatively - Hola consuelo! Ya there?
WW has informed me from the confines of her padded cell that you don't have to worry about Milum's (or was it Mulim's?) curse. She says that it's the dreaded earwig that is to be feared and not the nonexistent earwick. So she hopes you will write away in complete freedom here till Mulim (or was it Milum) corrects his spelling error. The curse, you see, was DOA. She also requested that I not reveal who spotted the spelling error, but I'm in a naughty mood today, somehow influenced by all I read here on this board, I say, unbuttoning the top button on my heavily starched uniform.
Bedlam regards,
WW's Nursie
Bedlam regards,
WW's Nursie
Hereby noting my suchlike approval of such a nurse.
would be very grateful if you would go somewhere else.
You are persona not grata and always will be.
WW giggled, ripped the duct tape from her mouth, and blew a kiss to your words on the screen. Then she stuck her tongue out at me, nasty little inmate, that one!
Bedlam regards,
WW's Nursie
P.S. Don't I know you from the Pacific? I was the nonchalant officer sitting on the crate of you-know-whats...
OP
Good people of Awad: See how easy it is to right a wrong.
The simple but somewhat displayful call-to-attention of a somewhat minor part of an otherwise proper and appropriately pulling-of-hair and gnashing-of-teeth curse made by so-called Wordwind's so-called nurse who saw fit to broadcast it to the thirty or so participants and thousands of lurking lurkers has been corrected. The curse is now once again in effect and has been made even more inclusive in the process. Hooray!
See what good we all can do if we work together?
Pezclando, here is the translation you begged for so nicely
The cockroach, the cockroach
can no longer walk
because he doesn't have
because he's missing
marijuana to smoke
I know, I know, it's not very poetic in English, Chihuahua!
OP
O' yes you doan do Consue, but somehow this curse looses the beauty, the spirit of expression, when it is rendered in spanish. Listen...
Mayo sus setas sean cuartos de baño para los sapos esos allí sobre se sientan. Y pueden sus potteries ser potties para las serpientes y las moscas y escupir.
See...it doesn't have quite the bite or sincerity of meaning.
So now I offer the curse in it's original native tongue...
May your mushrooms be bathrooms
For toads that there do sit.
And may your potteries be potties
For snakes, and cats, and spit.
______________________*********_____________________
Friends?...once again...friends? What? You do? Oooohyeah! O'thank you dumerator you sho' look good to me!
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