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012-04-05-15

The VeggieChess SatChat


image of 012-04-05-15

So this was a record-breaking chat in that it exceeded 999 lines! This is all the more remarkable considering we didn't have our usual large turnout exemplifying Margaret Meadiator's inspiring words:

"Never doubt that a small group of talkative, committed people can change the chatroom. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Fear not though, because this is only a summary so you shall not have to endure all that happened by virtue of my brevity.

I made a special effort to get into the chatroom before anyone else so I would not be accused of being late, but much to my dismay, I saw that Dyl had appeared earlier not once (3 hours early with the comment "bugger. Early), not twice (2 hours early with the comment "oh dear. Again"), not three times (1 hour early with the comment "ARHHHH"), but four times (30 minutes early with the comment "GRRRRR"). Well, you can't fault the fellow for enthusiasm that's for sure, though one can't help but wonder what was happening to his linguistics over time.

So I appeared early, as I told you, and was greeted by no one, since Dyl had left to figure out what he was going to say, if he came early a fifth time. Breaca flew in very cheerful as usual and told me about the EuroSong contest which she didn't find to be all that cheerful, but it didn't matter because her chess is doing well as she has made it into the top 50 on RHP:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=10732

Then Zoe appeared and the two started talking about prime minister cabbages which didn't make the slightest sense to me, but they seemed to thoroughly know what they were talking about at any rate. Then Zoe taught me another one of though British words - Breaca had taught me about 'lush' many months ago - and Zoe introduced 'brill' which is short for 'brilliant' as anyone can plainly see, though in the Canajian colonies I seem to recall that it could have been short for 'brillo' which is a steel wool soap pad for cleaning dishes. Anyway, this was all in reference to a particularly clever chess move Zoe had made earlier without intending to. In celebration, Breaca philosophized that everything is planned even though we don't know it, and then promptly ate "a raw sprout next to zoe".

Ranjana came in followed by Dyl who was now 15 minutes and 6 seconds late for the chat! Admittedly, that is an improvement over the time he was 3 hours late, so we should not be too hard on him - after all, it is 3 am in his vicinity. To cheer him up, Breaca said he was both lush and brill, with a few giggles thrown in.

Ranjana commented on the stunning Egyptian chess set Dyl had and was kind enough to show us photos of:

http://home.iprimus.com.au/jeffcotter/chess2.jpg http://home.iprimus.com.au/jeffcotter/chess3.jpg http://home.iprimus.com.au/jeffcotter/chess4.jpg

I had to disappear for a while so I really don't know what happened, but apparently not a whole lot till I came back only to find that Breaca didn't know what her name meant. There was a St Breaca who was very brave, just like her namesake, but no one, including myself, knew what the name meant, and I certainly couldn't find it on the internet. Breaca may tell us more next week and left at this point after she "turns into tony blair's bestmate george bushyb sprout" so you can see that some explanation certainly is necessary.

Right about now, Sangeeta sneaked into the chatroom, but was astutely detected by us all. Zoe told us she was doing her certificate in radio engineering and that she also fell asleep in class because it was so boring. She added she didn't know how to use a VCR, which caused Ranjana to admit to the same, but I corrected her by pointing out she really did, because she got me to run it.

That reminded Dyl that he didn't know how to make different smiley faces, so he felt frustrated because no one would tell him since none of us knew either. Unfortunately, he couldn't even make a smiley face to show his disappointment.

We talked a bit about some people who like to call themselves veggie but still eat fish because they think fish have no feelings or intelligence. This nonsense has often been refuted and Sangeeta found a most recent study:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west 
 189941.stm

We found out from Dyl that his father is a computer programmer who has "written software to run a laser guiding equipment at a observatory in canberra". Dyl himself is knowledgeable in C++ programming and had written a 'tipping' program for football which makes predictions as to future winners. Dyl said the program didn't make him any money, but he seemed to enjoy writing it.

We asked Zoe whether she had misspelled the 'purple' on her RHP handle 'purclecow' and found out she hadn't. She couldn't say 'purple' when she was younger and so she kept the word just as she used to pronounce it back then.

Sangeeta who hardly wrote a word through all this, decided she was going to leave since she was helping to run a PETA booth later in the day.

Then Rachel showed up eating lunch and complaining that Dyl was wrong about something or other. Dyl insisted that it was not so. This was to lead to an extremely heated discussion, but before going into that it came out that Zoe's computer had various forms of lunch spilled onto it and since it survived, it was dubbed immortal!

Anyway, it seemed that Rachel was going to marry Adam though she kept denying it to everyone. I suggested that before she does such a thing she first read Sangeeta's excellent essay on marriage and its tragic pitfalls as well as consult with Kirksey since after all he is her father and she is only twelve. For some reason that no one could understand, she kept saying that she didn't even like the person she wasn't going to marry which reminded me of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan line from Iolanthe where a couple gets married first and then change their minds afterwards - this seems at any rate to be the most economically contributory approach in society.

Then Rachel started warning everyone that she was getting mad and proceeded to demonstrate this with a vast display of angry faces. This of course, endeared Dyl to her since he couldn't figure out how to make them. So Rachel cleverly made a deal with him that if he stopped trying to get her to be married, she would show him how to make these faces. Dyl agreed to some extent, but insisted on getting access to more faces to the point where Rachel started to get mad again.

So I had to think of a most ingenious solution quickly and of course I did! All this stuff about marriage had triggered deeply buried, trama within myself. No, I don't mean my own marriage (though I could provide revelations regarding that later when I am not being observed), but hideous occurences at a wedding I was forced to attend. Well, a wedding is bad enough, but this was something special. Many years ago, some people who called themselves my friends (actually, they were my tennis partners) decided to get married and they wanted me to be an usher. Try as I might, I was unable to extricate myself from this predicament (I was a much weaker person then, you see).

So they insisted I dress up in this suit and even wear a tie (which is really an extraordinarily useless addition anyway). So I do all this and we go to the church. There I am, trying to mind my own business, when someone asks me why I wasn't doing anything. I ask him what he meant and he tells me that I'm supposed to show people to their seats. I thought that this was ridiculous since all the seats were in full view of everyone and besides, they were quite capable of finding their way to them anyway - but no, I had to escort them to their seats.

Then after the extremely boring and pointless ceremony due to which the hallowed auspices no doubt made a fair bundle, I had to drive the newlyweds to the reception in my car which they had decorated in a most absurdly undignified fashion! Fortunately, I was able to escape the reception before the dancing started so I should not consider myself unlucky in totality.

Evidently, my story had a beneficial effect on Rachel who exclaimed in capital letters: "MY GOD. I AM NOT GETTING MARRIED." I find that most considerate at least to ushers if not beyond and no doubt, Kirksey will find some relief in all this too!

However, Ranjana was not so considerate for she brought up the point that I had been caught dancing in the past. Admittedly, it was Russian kick dancing, but that didn't seem to diminish the accusation. Rachel tried to come to my rescue by suggesting that "it's hard to imagine the solitary hermit prad actually dancing", but a stronger diversion was needed.

I remarked that I thought that though there might have been some of that Russian dancing, it was primarily the limbo. This got everyone thinking, so I pursued my momentary advantage to its fullest!

I asked the deep question "so does anyone know why dyl is good at the limbo?" and as you may well imagine, everyone wanted to know the answer, so naturally they started volunteering them and interrupting in all fashion of ways.

Poor Dyl, who wanted to know the most since he was directly involved, kept trying to calm everyone one down and even tried to make faces at them, but to no avail and Rachel got so desparate that she insisted that I was teasing her by not telling, but how could I possibly give the answer, while denying that I was teasing her and looking at the faces Dyl was making. When Ranjana firmly insisted that I tell the joke, Dyl cried a little, but then thought he understood the joke which was that I wasn't going to tell anyone anything, but he was wrong as I had to point out, losing yet another opportunity to tell the joke.

At this point, Dyl started to get very impatient so I suggested that he tell some jokes if he was unwilling to wait. He tried to do so on the spot like that, but being caught unprepared he felt very nervous no doubt and started harping back to me to tell, with imageries such as drum roll spot light rests on prad crowd becomes silent

Then as I tried to start again, he offered someone coughs a baby begins to cry

Ranjana recognized that Dyl was not aware of my attempting to start again, so she said, "NO!!!!!!!", but I didn't know this so I had to ask her what she was saying 'NO' for.

Rachel by now was very confused and exclaimed, "What in the world?". Fortunately I was able to clear up her confusion by pointing out that was not the right question which of course was "why is dyl good at the limbo?"

Poor Dyl in desperation tried to find the answer on the internet and was unsuccessful. Then it turned out that he didn't know what the limbo was, because he directed us to a web dictionary to look up the word. I did have to point out that he would only find the meaning of the word, but not the answer he was really seeking.

Then Zoe, made the really brill observation that she finds "it funny that the joke is about limbo and is also in limbo"! That was really very clever so I invited her to join the Godel, Escher, Bach self-referential thread:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=10235

This however had little impact on Rachel who exclaimed, "Everyone SHUT UP!" This was indeed a noble effort on her part, but I had to point out that if I followed her dictates, I wouldn't be able to tell the joke.

Michael entered the chatroom at that moment and psychically asked, "can anyone tell me why Dyl is so excellent at limbo?" Then realizing he did not know what limbo meant, asked, "what is limbo ?" making Dyl feel very important by giving him a chance to pull out his dictionary definitions! After reading, Michael asked if there was something called dylimbo which proved too much for Rachel who wanted to change the subject. However, Dyl wasn't ready to give up yet, since he had spent the last ten minutes scouring the internet trying to find an answer, quite unsuccessfully I had to point out, though we all complimented him on his dyligence.

Suddenly, Zoe brought us back to reality by noting that she had forgotten what the question was. That was the last straw for Rachel who took off to RHP and planned to return only after I told the joke.

Dyl pleaded with me to have mercy since it was 4:10 am where he was, and when everyone was quiet, Michael asked me to dyliver the joke. Which I did.

It really was an excellent joke, admittedly lacking the impressive, intellectual recursiveness suggested by Zoe, but none the less, carrying a considerable impact on the listeners. Ranjana was most impressed expressing her approval by several smiley faces. Dyl was too, but he used a face of a different colour. Michael was pleased that the dylemma had finally been resolved. Rachel returned, but had completely forgotten about the joke. In fact, Gary showed up after everyone had left and didn't even know that there was a joke on the floor!

Of course, we had to ask Dyl whether he really did dance the limbo 'down under', but he left in a hurry since it was nearly 4:30 am for him in Australia!