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006-04-04-03

The VeggieChess SatChat


image of 006-04-04-03

This proved to be one of the most surprising chats we have had, though it started out in a rather unusual fashion.

Rachel and Breaca showed up first wondering why no one else was in the chatroom wondering if Ranjana's GMT message had been misunderstood, but when Fjord appeared, they felt certain that they had shown up at the correct time. So they said 'hi' to him, but he said 'halode' to them, which caused Rachel to say 'huh?' and Fjord to ask if it was Rachel or Kirksey. Then they proceeded to discuss the time and agreed that it was all messed up.

Breaca and Rachel were about to continue a discussion from several weeks ago about musicians, but Michael appeared at that moment just in time for the first big surprise: Fjord had brought his grandson, Orin to the chat!!

Kyron entered then promptly followed by a very confused myself wondering why everyone was so early only to be told that I was late. Ranjana, on the other hand, wasn't even here because she seemed to have difficulties finding the chatroom after all these months.

Breaca then asked Kyron if he were a vampire and proceeded to roll under the carpet laughing while Kyron stood in confusion. Just wait - this may make sense in a moment. Then she asked me if it was ok to timeout someone. I was admittedly a bit puzzled by the question, since I had dicussed this sort of thing with everyone before. So I asked who it was and Breaca said 'Kyron!!!!!!!!!' and immediately started ROTFL after which she blushed like a beetroot at her joke. Then she reassured Kyron that she would never claim a timeout against him.

Meanwhile, it turned out that Orin wanted to be a carpenter and Rachel was planning to be either a veterinarian or a prison guard, while Breaca figured she would be a horse or a radiologist. Kyron then contributed that he would like to be 2 feet to the right, followed by Michael who wanted to be closer to his dinner. Ranjana concluded that she would like to be a singer when she grew up which puzzled Rachel who was under the impression that Ranjana was grown up, but I will not comment any further on any of this.

Instead, I thought Breaca might like to see a picture of Kyron from a few years back (http://www.towardsfreedom.com/people/kyron.html) and the two had a very quick conversation about dinosaurs.

Rachel had asked Orin about carpentry so I asked Fjord to provide the following link, showing some incredible woodwork done by Orin's father:

http://www.yantra.nl/martin/FrameSet.htm

Then Ranjana and I had a cryptic conversation that went like this (starting with her though it really doesn't matter): ? ? ?? ?! what ARE you talking about?

Since I didn't know, I said so.

Kirksey appeared just then to take Rachel away, but she came back because Sangeeta, who was doing a film shoot in Philadelphia, arrived in the chatroom. Unfortunately, before this happened, Breaca had to log off so she transformed into a beetroot and left.

Orin (who is 10), it turned out had been playing chess for a few years and wanted to join VeggieChess much to everyone's delight. So he with a little assistance from Fjord, filled out the necessary forms and is now our youngest clan member!

Sangeeta and Rachel discussed the latter's school assignment as well as her dog who apparently wasn't in anyone's good books at present. Rachel also asked Sangeeta what she thought the purpose of life is to which she gave this excellent reply, "first we need to find our purpose in life…then it is to live a life of purpose."

Michael having eaten, reappeared, and was delighted to see that Orin had joined us. Soon however he started snoring till Ranjana woke him up.

Ray arrived, but since Rachel didn't know who he was, all this had to be explained to her before she left to clean the hamster cage and go on vacation.

Then we had the second big surprise! Lori, who was one of those who helped save Bacon (renamed Daisy) that you have heard so much about, joined our chat! Sangeeta asked about what was happening at her school, so Lori gave us the link to their Animal Rights Club:

http://swtsurrender87.tripod.com/soar

that she designed the website for. Apparently, SOAR (Student Organization for Animal Rights), can't get started at their school till next year and they need 50 signatures as well as a teacher sponsor before the activities director will consider approving it. Apparently, the activities director had disallowed even petitioning on behalf of Bacon/Daisy during the time they were trying to raise funds to buy her which was brought to the board's attention. Additionally, it turns out that the principal of the school is denying that she told the kids they couldn't start an AR club, so things should get very interesting at that school before too long especially since board member Frank Cobo has called for a full investigation.

Lori also told us about a vegan student in her school who supported the Future Farmers initiative because she thought the Save Bacon campaign was just a publicity stunt done by PETA (who actually had very little to do with it). It is unfortunate that some people do not realize that publicity is often needed in order to make change occur. The efforts of Lori and her friends, Ana, Tanya and Leo, have created mass awareness where there used to be ignorance - even though it was not done for publicity at all and only as a sincere effort to save a pig. Lori and her friends plan to intern at PETA when they are old enough.

Kyron arrived and the mandatory Linux discussion ensued with Ray. We discussed backup programs and when I pointed out the benefits of incremental backups using dump (though restricted for Linux to only ext2,3 filesystems), Kyron cleverly (or at least he thought so) suggested I dump dump. I commented that he was being evil, but he retorted that he was being so only incrementally! This caused Ray to giggle after which I refused to say anything in case he strained himself with uncontrollable laughter - a most considerate inaction on my part!

Lori told us about all the birds she has: 3 parakeets, 5 cockatiels, and a quaker parrot and the history behind them, while Sangeeta talked about Brytle who was a parrot we took care of that was rescued by actress Ally Sheedy.

Then a discussion started regarding animal shelters and their relative quality. Ray used to be the webmaster for the Animal Rescue Network where he said conditions had deteriorated considerably having to house 400 cats, twice the number it was designed for. The cats and rabbits at our SPCAs here, on the other hand have excellent facilities. We discussed how no one seems to want to legally stop the pet business, even though it puts so much stress on animal shelters as a result of irresponsible owners who 'cast out' their pets after the initial 'cuteness' period is over. Kyron urged people to boycott Petco which has one of the worse reputations.

It was time for Lori to go and Ray encouraged us to keep fighting the good fight. That is certainly what SOAR does, for during some of the darkest times during their efforts they did keep fighting that good fight honoring their slogan - "Keep hope alive!"

We all departed after this inspirational encounter and thought the chat was over. Well it was, but nearly an hour later Bear walked in, saw that no one was around and said, "Sniff… 2 late…" and 13 minutes after he left, Andrew showed up and said, "2 late 2".

This was very sad, but at least we have recorded the words of Bear and Andrew here so they will not go unheard.

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 1:12 am by fjord Reading your 'interpretations' of a chat gives almost as much joy as the chat itself. Thanks Prad. In Vriendchap Frans When to-morrow arrives it will be today, So, why not now? Wink Halode! (I now know the history behind that word, so I use it!) Thank you for your kind words as always.