It doesn't make very much sense, does it?
Lights will fucking EAT YOUR SOUL MAN.
Nothing that a "Fuck you, clown" couldn't fix.
But nothing clown-related could improve on "teh forces of Hell."
"teh forces of Hell."
That's actually a typo introduced in the transcription!
BEN WOLFSON I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MAN!
I love it. You were so beat.
Or Jamaican.
Fuck, man. The lights. Have you thought about the blue ones? They leave your corpse dead.
Oh hai I'm the only one commenting on 3 different threads
Also, holy shit just saw at the other place the discussion of the source of Fafblog.
And as a matter of fact, as we discovered on the train, it's all the same fucking day, man.
Wouldn't that violate SOother-placeC? It's on the wall of someone I'm not friends with there but others are who runs a headless blog.
Apparently Fafblog was written by someone who used to comment here, man, under a pseud rhyming with a certain tangerine-grapefruit hybrid, man.
Also I hope to god my middle school poetry no longer exists because it was the worst and I was encouraged by my English teachers who thought it was brilliant. Arrgh it's so embarrassing to remember it. Emotional faux-literary crap.
23: I guess a lot of people did? But I had no clue. I guess I'm bad at picking up stylistic commonalities. I also had no idea who meekins was until LB splained it to me.
I was surprised at how many people in that thread didn't know. I had figured it was common knowledge, but then again I forget how I figured it out.
I still don't know who Meekins was, though. That was a period when I wasn't paying much attention to Unfogged.
27: the meekins thing was kind of a head-fake, teo. I don't know that meekins ever invoked meekins-self's posting privileges at all.
As I (or someone posing as another me) said at the other place: Hmm, this certainly explains a rejoinder I got from ___ during a debate at unfogged with regard to internet identity. Me: " your simplistic view of Internet identity matches the subtlety of your political analysis." ___: "This statement is hilarious for so many reasons I can't possibly begin to explain." Point to ____ on that one. Although I cede no ground on the debate itself* , nor on my characterization of the political analysis as exhibited under that particular pseud.
*Which brought honor to no one--although in retrospect it was a foreshadowing of future disagreeableness on ye olde blogge.
I was reading that thread elsewhere earlier today and although I had known the name of Fafblog's creator I never connected it with stras. I boggled. I still can't get them to fit up in my mind. A!=B. I continue to suspect someone else from here of being (a/the) voice of Fafblog. Faflblog, it is the best blog and I miss it.
I mean, look at his comments in this thread.
I was in that thread and I still didn't figure it out.
From the looks of it you weren't alone.
The British fantasy author Tom Holt had a splendid author biography, which started "Tom Holt was born in 1961, a sullen, podgy child, much given to brooding on the Infinite."
Aw, this is really sweet, man. If I could find my poetry from 7th grade, I would provide you with a thing about the rainforest disappearing that hails the world's forest ecosystems as "thee."
I can't believe the most humorless commenter in the history of Unfogged, which is saying quite a lot, could have been behind a website like that. The mind boggles.
There...are...FOUR...LIGHTS!!!
38: I kind of had the same reaction. I liked Stras a lot, and was sad and annoyed when he left -- wrong about some things, and cranky and hostile when he disagreed about something, but I thought he was a real plus to have around. But he never struck me as funny at all, while Fafblog often had me making little gasping noises trying to get enough air into my lungs to laugh properly.
In the future scholars link-rot scholars will reconstruct important early blog posts only using the surviving snippets in other blogs.
I miss that guy too, though I think he stopped commenting while I was still lurking. He really brought the rage. Who knew he was funny?
Where the sense requires it, I am prepared to write Strasmangelopolitanus where the link has the monosyllabic o.
38: Right? I would have characterized stras as humorless, and yet he wrote a blog 50 times funnier than anything I could ever do.
Next thing you know Sifu Tweety will be spilling that the genius behind The Editors really was Bob McManus.
I can't believe the most humorless commenter in the history of Unfogged, which is saying quite a lot, could have been behind a website like that
Fafblog always read to me as though it had two authors, one distinctly funnier than the other...
45:Good alt indie group, but a stretch to call them "genius"
I'm missing Elmore Leonard and Bradley Manning
The comments in the thread linked in 33 are amazing.
"Looking back in it, Fafblog wasn't that funny"
"Have fun dying alone at Whole Foods, you bitchass yuppie"
"Have fun dying alone at Whole Foods, you bitchass yuppie"
That's kind of a funny line.
Yes, that was a hell of a thread. Very early in my active time here.
As I wrote to JRoth in email (sanctity of blah, blah, blah can fuck me), if stras authored Fafblog it probably says something profound about how wildly different people can come across in different voices/mediums or what have you. Some of us apparently do contain multitudes.
Looking back at it, the thing that made Fafblog funny was not the political humor or the absurdist humor. It was the character-driven humor. Fafnir, Giblets and The Medium Lobster were funny creatures.
Oh no. I followed a link in that thread to GrammarPolice, which is now a 1985 prom in Japan. :-(
The stras/Fafblog thing totally blows my mind. Also, I hope I'm not alone in not being able to connect several people from the other place with their presences here.
I have facebook friends who I dearly hope are commenters I've forgotten how to connect with their real names, because if that's not it I have no idea at all who they are.
I think the stras/Fafblog connection is the only case where I've been ahead of the curve. I didn't even know meekins had an identity.
He really did post once (about iced tea), and as far as I know still retains the capacity to post again at any moment.
People will be claiming to drink regularly with Standpipe in a minute.
I 100% for real still make that cold brewed ice tea from the only ever Meekins post. It's on the top 10 useful Unfogged moments for me.
At any moment Unfogged could be overwhelmed by golf blogging.
Slolernr wrote, in the thread teo linked, "strasmangelo jones is ogged's sock puppet. And both of them wrote Fafblog." Uncanny!
The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy led directly to the passage of a historic law, the Gun Control Act of 1968. Does that change your view of the assassinations? Should we be grateful for the deaths of these two men?
Of course not. That's lunatic logic. But the same reasoning is now being applied to the actions of Edward Snowden
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/08/edward-snowdens-real-impact.html
Stupidest analogy ever?
Wow, the thread linked in 33 is something. Stras: Ogged, you're interminably stuffy. Ogged: Nuh-uh.
In retrospect, that thread is a horrifying trainwreck in the making. On the other hand, unfoggetarians are so sensitive these days by comparison. I miss ogged's *winky-winky* style comments, and miss stras's willingness to become infuriated. (Ogged was right that there's as much anger as there is humor in fafblog, but that was pretty obvious to any reader.)
I'm not sure what a "winky-winky" style comment is but it scares me.
unfoggetarians are so sensitive these days
Nuh-uh.
Isn't a winky-winky comment one that is posted by a blue creature with a coat-hanger shaped antenna and a TV shaped gray patch on its stomach?
The highly confused discussion of shooting people with rock salt at the end of the thread amused me.
61: If you are into that kind of thing, Digby just opened multiple new orifices in Jeffrey Toobin's rotting carcass. You know where to find her.
This Comment at FDL
So lets get this straight Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing but the hope he would end the wars soon a Freakin Hope. Bradley's leak motivated the Iraq's to insist on prosecuting war crimes and since America under Obama could not agree to that we withdrew troops from Iraq. Bradley actually did what the Nobel committee hoped Obama would do! Bradley helped create Arab Spring by revealing the corruption in Tunis and how they cooperated with America. Has anyone else did as much as Bradley lately to further world peace?
Always kick up and close, I say.
All hope and outrage aside, Manning might get out in 7-10. I am frankly relieved.
The highly confused discussion of shooting people with rock salt at the end of the thread amused me.
The sudden turn to weapons & ammo was a bit puzzling. I was a regular unfogged reader at the time but I don't remember that particular thread.
And as long as we're reminiscing, have some vintage Camille Paglia (actually from 2013, via LG&M).
From the link in 68 -- (WARNING!!! reading this may cause brain damage)
Hanna Rosin's "The End of Men," a best-seller last year, is the focus of a Munk Debate that I will be part of at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on Nov. 15. The proposition is: "Be it resolved that men are obsolete." Arguing for the motion will be Rosin and Maureen Dowd. Arguing against the motion will be me and Caitlin Moran. It should be a fascinating and substantive discussion. Lineups of opposing views like this have been rare indeed in feminism, which has preferred to ostracize and exile dissident voices.
Conclusion -- men are obsolete, because women can be just as stupid.
I feel like a lengthy discussion of who wrote fafblog, concluding with "stras!", is something like a semi-annual rite around here. But maybe I'm thinking of somewhere else.
Regardless, stras wrote fafblog and also was often quite funny here. As JP said above, it was always a question of how one read his tone. Having met him first through his fafblog characters and only later here, and having missed the era of blogging that boiled down to pinpointing who was right about Iraq and then vowing never to forgive those people who were wrong (and by "the era of blogging," I of course mean "blogging"), I always read him as speaking with an absurd -- albeit occasionally enraged* -- voice.
* Sometimes justifiably, sometimes not.
You know, this explains why Stras was so boggled when we easily identified International Island Bird as being a Stras-by-another-name: to Stras, we'd all been failing to recognize his voice in a different context for years.
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I just got a red squiggly line when I tried to write "mischievious" in an email, and upon looking it up, realized I've been mispronouncing "mischievous" for the past 35 years.
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Sorry to skip over 68, AcademicLurker, but I'm still amazed by the thread from 33, and can only read it in stops and starts. Here's foolishmortal remarking on anger, for example.
Wherever is foolishmortal these days?
Anyway, the talking at cross-purposes and without knowledge of secrets, in both directions, is, well, makes me simultaneously frown and smile. Ogged knew that at least.
Remember: don't assume.
Agreed with 70 that stras was often funny here.
So many names on that thread that I recognize but I have no idea if they changed handles or just left. I suck like that. I probably have the wrong gender in my head for a lot of them too.
71: I don't think he was boggled; I think he was embarrassed and disappointed, because I think he wanted to continue to be here. I feel badly now as I did then. But enough of old stuff.
This thread gives me a nostalgic glow of "I am relatively new here and have no idea what the hell any of you are on about"--a feeling I used to have more when people talked about Ogged more. Ogged is like Cthulhu now, an elder god I expect people meet in swamps now and then to worship but mostly his presence is just an undercurrent.
That was back when I had a feeling that arguing about politics on the internet was somehow important, and effective. Now I've become reconciled to the fact that nothing will ever change for the better, and particularly that nothing I do or say will ever affect anything. It takes a lot of the energy out of the squabbling.
Ogged is like Cthulhu now, an elder god
Does that make unfogged like Innsmouth?
"He suffered from body dysmorphia every time he glimpsed himself in the mirror and noticed traces of the 'unfogged look'."
79: I feel you on all of this.
I also remember swearing off Unfogged regularly because I really got my feelings hurt. In the above (amazing!) thread, I think I am referenced as the female commenter who got panties in a twist on name-change day. Isn't that cute? What a twist my panties were in about that! On a few occasions, I remember not being able to concentrate on prepping for class because of Unfogged fights. Like, in my real life.
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This is me floating the idea of a NYC meetup somewhere above 59th Street on Monday Sept 2, aka Labor Day.
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I always read him as speaking with an absurd -- albeit occasionally enraged* -- voice.
I would change this to "enraged - albeit occasionally absurd".
At the risk of appearing earnest -- actually, in honor of stras, I shall risk appearing earnest -- I'd say that I mostly agree with 79. But, BUT, I keep trying to remind myself that: a) lots of things are getting better, and some at a breakneck pace; b) the idea that one can't make a difference politically is actually pernicious nonsense, especially if one follows the lead of wildly successful movement conservatives and focuses one's energies on local issues (this may be much more complicated in major metropolitan areas); c) napping and then walking the dog are both important, albeit underrated, parts of effecting social change.
82.--poop. I would love to do that, but I'm going to be out of town all weekend.
81: AWB, I'm not seeing that reference on a quick scroll of that thread, but if someone harassed you about that, I feel responsible. Six years later, I hope we're okay.
79: That was back when I had a feeling that arguing about politics on the internet was somehow important
So that's why we hardly ever have political threads any more! It's boring without them; political issues occupy a fair amount of my mental space.
86.1: We are totally cool. It was a weird time for me emotionally. To be honest, it's almost always some kind of weird time for me emotionally, but that was especially weird.
Oh, and if anyone is keeping track of my stupid personal life, I got ended up projectile-crying all over my new handsome friend about how miserable I am that the shy gentleman has a girlfriend and no one will ever ever love meeeeeee. I stayed over and we spooned. I do not have good boundaries!
83: and I would (either politely or ironically, depending on your preference) reply that I think that's almost entirely a matter of how one read his tone. Because I met him first through fafblog, then through my own blog, and only later here -- or at least that's how I perceived things -- I tended to read almost everything he wrote as absurd, even if often angrily so. But I can totally understand how other people would have read him as strident and sometimes unhinged, especially if they hadn't first met him as a humorist.
77: Oh, and ogged is not an elder god, for heaven's sake. He's just a guy. Interesting guy, if you like that sort of thing, but just a guy.
I don't know why I bother to say that -- it sounds obnoxious -- but really, ogged is a person just like all of us.
I got ended up s/b last night I ended up
but really, ogged is a person just like all of us
Now Labs, on the other hand, . . .
I don't know why I bother to say that -- it sounds obnoxious -- but really, ogged is a person just like all of us.
But you know his name isn't really ogged. I had thought ogged was an Iranian name.
82: Argh -- I'm out of town from Thursday the 29th through Tuesday the 3d. Other than that, a meetup sounds spiffy.
89: I deny this vehemently. If I keep clicking the refresh button, eventually Ogged will bring cargo.
87: But at least Handsome sounds supportive and comforting, which is what you want in a friendly good-looking handsy guy. That does suck about shy guy, though.
82: Is the 3rd or 4th a possibility?
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Holy shit litte tiny quadcopters are fun. Thanks, Spike!
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This can only end with Zardoz becoming a Luddite.
95: Yup, totally. I am very glad he's turning out not to be weird about it. It was a weird thing for me to do, especially because I thought I had managed to control all of my feelings through private expression followed by intense repression.
98: Or clinging to the top of the Empire State Building, batting madly at drones before plummeting to her doom.
One or the other.
88 has convinced me that fafblog was never funny. I bet Von Wafer ruins Santa Claus for little children by explaining that the reality of Santa Claus is all a matter of perception.
No, Zardoz will grow to love the BottleCopter.
102: Also, "Hark! A Vagrant" is written by Megan McArdle.
98 and 100 seem complementary rather than contradictory.
101: Not more than a synechdoche, in my experience.
name-change day.
Ugghh, interesting idea that turned out very badly.
On a few occasions, I remember not being able to concentrate on prepping for class because of Unfogged fights. Like, in my real life.
Is that so surprising? I avoid getting into fights here, and I've had days when I was pretty distracted by either being grumpy about a thread or waiting to see what would happen in a thread.
I um.
Didn't really think ogged was supernatural.
See if you get any cargo when he returns.
111: Like you would know. You weren't here, man. Noob.
Ogged is the Twelfth Imam. You'll see.
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair, Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr, Who still am free, unto no querulous care A fool, and in no temple worshiper! I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire, Lifted my face into its puny rain, Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain! (Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave, Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)
Smearcase: Tell me. Either five in eight months, or three that took months each. OTOH, I like the undergrads I've just given a bed to, so all is well.
And I can move books by Amtrak freight, thank goodness.
Holy shit litte tiny quadcopters are fun. Thanks, Spike!
How small? Could it hold a camera? where did you get them? I want one/some.
The Walkera Ladybird can have a little camera modified on, but doesn't come with one. Some do. They are indeed super awesome.
Actually I want to attach a tiny speaker to a tiny drone and fly it down to hover outside my neighbor's window and have it scream shut up shut up shut up!!!
It takes some inside practice first, but I'll bet that's possible.
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It's pretty rude to turn down an invitation from an old friend for dinner at his house while I'm in town, isn't it? And yet I really just want to go back to my hotel and crash because I've had entirely too much social interaction already. Hmm.
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Also, I'm sorry, AWB. Not having what you want and having to admit it, yuck.
104: Snorting > little gasping noises, or the other way around?
104 s/b 105. I s/b more attentive.
Little gasping noises > snorting. Snorting just means I was taken by surprise; little gasping noises is for things that are so funny I can't successfully breathe for a while.
117, 118: you can get one with the camera already on it, actually. Google walkera ladybird v2 fpv devo f4. It is three times as expensive as the cameraless one, though.
I nearly fainted from joy imagining doing what is described in 119.
We can build these shutupneighbor drones. We have the technology.
Ditto 129. You have the very best ideas, mcmc.
I never connected stras with Fafblog, but at some point stras made it pretty clear he was a comedy writer and that he commented here to be serious. I think he used a phrase like "escape the funny." I figured he was telling the truth because people are like that sometimes.
people are like that sometimes.
Namely, truthful.
132: Interesting! Similarly we've discussed the odd fact that Bob Somerby is a comedian, but the Daily Howler often seems utterly humorless. Is it the case that comedy professionals can turn on and off the funny? That maybe normal people disperse their comedy in small portions through all their communications, while comedians are able to contain their humor, so it all goes into their art?
I have to say now I'm consumed with the idea that the Parrot is way way better than the walkera ladybird. I still don't feel quite confident enough yet to take the ladybird on an outside run.
135: the Parrot sounds kind of lame now that I have learned more about it. Way less range than the ladybird (or Phantom or X350 or whatever) and nonstandard controls. You could get the camera for the ladybird and a pair of amplified goggles and fly it from like a kilometer away.
Holy crap. If I had had to pick out two people of my internet pseudo-acquaintance whose tone and affect was most opposite, it could have been Stras and Fafblog. Amazing. 88 is a very interesting comment along those lines -- I really thought of tone as kinda sorta objective somehow, but I guess not.
Unfogged fights
Not sure we get enough turnover here for big fights any more, everyone has already had their relevant fight. Unless VW goes back to insulting me every other comment, just for old times sake.
If we can just stick it out for a couple more years, I'm sure some people will lose their shit during the 2016 primaries.
134: Yes. I know plenty of comedy writers and performers who are not cutups in person.
In contrast, I'm hilarious and no one has ever offered to pay me for it.
Re: 125. Tell me how abashed I s/b that although I understand "s/b" I didn't realize why it had its meaning.
(I hadn't in all these years been curious enough to look it up, and if pressed I would have averred that it was an abbreviation for "substitute", with a syntax unique to "s/b".)
137: we could revive the discussion of how much Obama wants, in his heart of hearts, to gut Social Security. I'm sure JRoth would be pleased to join in the fun. Heck, that might even bring stras back.
everyone has already had their relevant fight
We could start new ones for entertainment value. Like I could have a terrible feud with oudemia about something TV-related and regularly storm off in a huff.
I got the Helimax 1SQ V-Cam recently. That one has a camera that saves stills or video to a micro-sd card. Its been fun, but haven't managed yet to get any remotely decent videos out of it. A few interesting stills, but the resolution is fairly crap.
This is quadcopter #3. My wife is at the rolling eyes stage.
The parrot was pretty ground-breaking, really the first off-the-shelf thing that could do what it does, but I think its fallen behind a bit - outclassed by the Phantom, which is awesome because of the GPS feature. But I saw a rumor Parrot will be getting GPS, which would be pretty sweet.
142: Or hurricane season could mean we're due for a discussion about letting the earth re-claim New Orleans.
I was just in a meeting today with some people from FEMA working on the long-term rebuilding of a community that was destroyed by a catastrophic flood earlier this summer. It was interesting.
I'm sure some people will lose their shit during the 2016 primaries.
Why wait? Go Hillary!!!!
everyone has already had their relevant fight.
Another problem of getting here too late. I've had snippy exchanges with three people I can think of but nothing beyond a few comments, nothing knock-down drag-out. It's really very sad.
Oh man we're going to have a "primary" here in NZ for the first time ever and I am not looking forward to the internet during it, based on my memories of Clinton/Obama.
I'd offer to have a nervous breakdown just to get into a serious fight with you, mister smearcase, but I've discovered it's actually rather draining. also, we instituted a new family rule that if either your doctor or anyone in the family thinks you should go to the hospital, you have to go to the hospital, and I think if it's the psych ward then actually without wifi. maybe! husband x could poll you guys actually, it would be a good guest post.
I was a dick to you a month and a half ago about saying things were "totally gay" but then I apologized because I was completely in the wrong; that's really no way to fuel a long-simmering feud.
127: Little gasping noises > snorting
Ok, otherwise I might be forced to conclude that OPINIONATED GRANDMA was Giblets.
I have only the faintest recollection of that. It's highly possible I was overreacting to something. It has been known to happen.
I was completely in the wrong;
Right, it's only specific things like opera that are gay, not everything.
I think the official order for greater gayness is having sex with men I think the official order for greater gayness is having sex with men < showing any interest in the emotions or opinions of women < rollerblading.
walt, surely frequently attending the ballet has to come first, then knowing that you want to have sex with men, rather than thinking you just suffer from nameless unhappiness and dread and self-loathing, then opera, then actually going ahead and having sex with other men, then being calvin klein's boyfriend.
156: It's possible to suffer from nameless unhappiness and dread and still be 100% heterosexual, though, right?
...I'm asking for a friend.
I think nameless unhappiness and dread comes with being functionally literate.
What about dread-that-one-can-name? Viz, 'the world is governed by cunts, who can longer even keep up the pretense of basic decency, and they get more nakedly triumphal and self-satisfied about it every day' dread.
157: It's always worked for me.
159: I'd call that more "rage" than "dread", but there you go.
I think nameless unhappiness and dread comes with being functionally literate.
Being literate --> reading Peter Watts --> nameless unhappiness and dread. Yep, your logic is flawless.
re: 161
I suppose the helplessness added to the rage makes for a dread-like experience.
161: Actually, reading Peter Watts (specifically, Bulk Food) motivated me to visit Vancouver and the Vancouver Aquarium, which wasn't an unhappy or dreadful experience at all.
Lovecraft made me want to visit Antarctica, but I think his place descriptions are considerably more fanciful.
Extrapolating from Stras, possibly Peter Watts is a ray of sunshine in person. I wonder.
162: two tastes that taste dreadful together!
165: Watts comes across as pretty cheerful on his blog, for sure, although most of the time what he's being cheerful about is fairly unusual. Most recently, the discovery of a sort of tick whose bite induces a delayed anaphylactic shock reaction to red meat in humans ("PETA could release this in hotel rooms! EAT MEAT - and DIE!"). Before that, his attack of necrotising fasciitis and resulting emergency surgery and skin graft (with photos).
In his other life Peter Watts was James Herriott.
In his other life Peter Watts was James Herriott.
All creatures great and great and small and small.
132: I think he used a phrase like "escape the funny."
It truly is a fine line between enraged and funny.
166.2 suggests the disturbing possibility that Peter Watts has been doing his best to write cheerful novels about cheerful subjects.
Glad rollerblading is still one of Walt Someguy's stages of gayness, but he forgot the last one.
gswift, have you opined about videotaping cops?
The results seem alarmingly good.
Iberian Beauty, at my suggestion, started reading "Blindsight". I'm not entirely sure whether encouraging others to read Watts is something you do because the book is awesome, or something you do because life's pain must be shared.
That said, "Blindsight" isn't even close to as grim as the "Rifters" books, only the first of which I thought was genuinely good.