The SatChats on Towards Freedom

027-04-08-29

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:45 -0800

Sangeeta came in first and seemed very pleased about it. Breaca came next and the two of them talked to each other because there really wasn’t anyone else to talk to.

They would have continued to talk to each other even after I entered, but Breaca had to go and empty her hotmail account, so I had to talk to Sangeeta. It seemed that she had posted in the physics forums about imagination being more important than knowledge in science (Einstein’s quote actually) and some silly people interpreted it as imagination instead of knowledge and were making even sillier posts. So all these people had to be straightened out - which they were!

Breaca returned and we talked a bit about the state of the forums which was actually improving. Breaca then said that she would like to be a mod, so I told her that she should ask even though Russ had said they weren’t taking on any new mods for a while. We all agreed that she would make a great mod. Breaca thought she would too, because she would delete every post by anyone who beat her in a chess game, which generated

[imvegan] that sounds fair [sangeeta] breaca> hehehehe

Sangeeta wondered about something she had written something in her journal

[sangeeta] pradtf> here is what i wrote in my journal last night regarding something he said: Act as if all you meet may be the buddha…You will then be on your best behavior……better yet, act as if you ARE the Buddha, and you may becoe one w/o knowing it……how is that? [pradtf] sangeeta> do you remember what the master told the student when she asked to see a picture of the buddha? [sangeeta] pradtf> YEP!!! look behind the curtain, and there was a mirror!

Ray entered and was greeted in the following manner:

[breaca] Hello [imvegan] rgoudie> Hi Ray [sangeeta] rgoudie> ROAR! [pradtf] hoooraaay! [imvegan] pradtf> [pradtf] where is he???? [imvegan] pradtf> now don’t get carrayed away [pradtf] well that was short

Eventually he did show up:

[imvegan] pradtf> he’s having trouble connecting [pradtf] imvegan> oh yeah he’s in montreal [rgoudie] pradtf> Yes, I have to travel a longer distance. [pradtf] rgoudie> and it’s colder

Michael and Kyron appeared next, but Ray had to leave for a bit:

[rgoudie] Marsha has asked me to help someone carry a chair down the street, so I shall return in five minutes. [pradtf] rgoudie> that is very chairitable of you

Breaca then explained where she lived:

[breaca] sangeeta> I don’t live in England at all [pradtf] breaca> you live in the ocean then? [breaca] Wales, the land of Dragons, we even have one on our flag [pradtf] breaca> you must have a wale of a time there! [breaca] pradtf> you will make me blubber soon [pradtf] breaca> as long as you don’t go blue [breaca] pradtf> you can travel to Wales by bike orca [pradtf] breaca> don’t you mean by pike? [breaca] ROTFL

Sangeeta had to go to her VegFest, but Ray came back to hear what he missed about his efforts with the chair:

[pradtf] rgoudie> that was a chairitable deed you just did [imvegan] did you chairge for it? [rgoudie] pradtf> Yes, it was, wasn’t it. [rgoudie] imvegan> I charged her 25$ to carry the chair down the street.

Tony appeared but had forgotten his ID so we had to make it up all over again and by the time this was done, he had to leave again.

Then Kyron told us that he had part of our critter website done:

[kyrontf] Just letting everyone know, we have webpages for the 4 rabbits and one of the old snakes up now on the crittercavern! http://www.towardsfreedom.com/crittercavern/

So people all went to have a look and had a bit of discussion about it afterwards.

Larry showed up even though he was very busy. His pelvic injury still hadn’t healed completely, but it was getting better.

Dyl appeared, but Tony left while Ray and Kyron were having a Linux discussion.

Dyl and Breaca were discussing moderators. When the idea of a female moderator was mentioned, the following rather unusual conversation ensued (while the rest of us had a serious conversation regarding the forums):

[dyl] breaca> I can wear a dress. [breaca] dyl> I can loan you a dress what size are you? [pradtf] dyl> svw hasn’t been around for a long time [dyl] breaca> i doubt you have anything my size, but if you have anything in red i’ll try it on. [breaca] dyl> I have a red bikini or a red wales rugby shirt [imvegan] breaca> i vote for the bikini… how about you? [breaca] imvegan> i vote bikini too [imvegan] dyl> ok Dylan… you get the red bikini… [dyl] breaca> i look good in a bikini, but for the sake of modesty i’ll take the jersy i think. [dyl] imvegan> breaca> i’m doing you both a favour by not taking the bikini, incidentally. there was an unfortunate incident in year 4 on a school camp which left my poor sister’s swimming costume permanently stretched. [pradtf] dyl> because you tried wearing it??? [breaca] dyl> tell tell tell, we are all ears [dyl] pradtf> i’m afraid so. my sister never forgave me. [imvegan] dyl> would you care to elaborate? so, you have a penchant for bikinis then? [dyl] no, you’re not getting any more details. all you need to know was the camp was in a place called nowra, and I walked away with the title Miss Nowra and that’s all you’re getting. [breaca] i would never loan my bikini to somone prettier than me [dyl] imvegan> I could send you my new red bikini signed, if you like. [dyl] breaca> oh well. i guess i’ll have to keep borrowing my sister’s. [imvegan] dyl> gee, Dylan!!! could you???!!!!

Then poor Dylan in his overabundant enthusiasm said the following:

[dyl] imvegan> express mail! as soon as I can weasle the clothing off breaca. [dyl] ….there’s something i seriously wished i’d phrased differently.

And of course, Breaca couldn’t let it pass unnoticed, now could she:

[breaca] dyl> that you want to take my clothes off?

Dyl tried to shuffle fast and change the subject:

[dyl] actually there was a video of the particular incident in nowra at one point. i could see if I could dig that up. [pradtf] dyl> now you’re in for it!!

Dyl dug himself in deeper:

[dyl] breaca> that’s the one! i claim the late hour as my excuse for that slip up.

I tried to throw a little help Dyl’s way, by getting Larry interested in my very educational physics posts:

[pradtf] here you go - these posts are really educational - really!! i mean it they really are: http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthr âŠ amp;page=3

Then Breaca toyed with her helpless victim, first by getting him to relax:

[breaca] dyl> its ok i was joking [dyl] breaca> i know

Then by changing the topic:

[breaca] but i do have to leave in a minute [dyl] breaca> bye breaca.

And finally, as Dyl felt at ease while everyone was saying good bye to her, Breaca dealt the final blow:

[breaca] byee everyone [breaca] * breaca holds tightly onto her clothes as she walk past Dyl towards the door

His fate being sealed, what could poor Dyl do:

[dyl] Michael> hehe, somehow I don’t think breaca is going to give it up. oh well. [dyl] breaca> hhehehehe. what a terrible slip up. [pradtf] dyl> slip??? again the choice of words might land you in trouble [dyl] pradtf> prad! i’ve managed to dig myself out of a hole and you seem determined to throw me back in.

As I tried to make him feel better, the following conversation ensued:

[pradtf] dyl> don’t worry i’ll try to make you look as good as i can in the summary [dyl] pradtf> oh no…… [pradtf] i didn’t have time to write last weeks - hope i’ll get around to this weeks [dyl] my mistake is going to be the centrepiece of your creation…. [pradtf] hey i had an idea!! anyone else want to write it up? [dyl] i was only here for the end, and after my bungling tonight i don’t think i’m game to write anything again. [rgoudie] [so many hands rising at the same time] [imvegan] but you do such a good job ….. and I’m really lloking forward to that centrepiece…. [rgoudie] pradtf> If I had more time during a week, I might volunteer, but you do a good job. [dyl] imvegan> ha! if I did it, rest assured my slip, and my bikini wouldn’t be anywhere to be seen.

I assured Dyl that that I could get him the entire script and then had a great idea:

[pradtf] dyl> hmmmm … perhaps breaca might want to write it up … [dyl] pradtf> NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [imvegan] pradtf> youare soooo bad!!

So the subject was mercifully changed by Ray to Marsha coming to Vancouver in September. However, Ray was not going to be able to do so.

However, I was worried for poor Dyl, so I expressed my concern:

[pradtf] dyl has been awfully quiet recently - after his “NO!!!” [rgoudie] Dylan is happy that everyone has apparently forgotten about his slip up. [imvegan] thanks for reminding us Ray

But Dyl explained:

[dyl] pradtf> i broke a finger. too many exclamation marks.

As Ray and I talked about ferry rides, Ranjana, Michael and Dyl decided they would have to leave, the latter with the comment:

[dyl] pradtf> trepidation describes my feelings well.

Ray and I continued a discussion about the job market and housing, but he had to leave as well, but not before Doug put in a brief appearance and we had a few words about the place Kyron wanted to move to - The Bermuda Triangle!

After which we all naturally disappeared!

028-04-09-05

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:45 -0800

A very strange start to the chat with Ray coming in 15 hrs before it started and talking to himself, then leaving:

[rgoudie] Did I leave my keys in here… [rgoudie] No, they’re not here.

Then David comes 1 hr early, starts talking to himself, then leaves:

[DreamlaX] Yay I registered my name! Not that it really makes a difference… [DreamlaX] I’ll be back when everybody will be here…

Finally, both of them come in 10 minutes early and start talking to each other, and stay:

rgoudie enters this room [rgoudie] * rgoudie goes to make a cup of tea. DreamlaX enters this room [DreamlaX] Hey, somebody is already here! [rgoudie] Hello!

They talked about the time and then David told Ray that he was writing a book about using Fourier coefficients to describe an interpolated soundwave. This sparked an interesting discussion that went on sporadically during the chat. They talked about New Zealand which is where David is from and apparently one of his friends played an extra in one of the Lord of the Rings fight scene.

Then Rachel came in, said hello to both Ray and David, said brb and then left.

Sangeeta appeared which surprised me because she was supposed to be in Washington DC and so she was, but she still found a way to join us. Sangeeta had gone there to attend some festivities.

I appeared and got into the sound compression discussion while Sangeeta took off to eat:

[sangeeta] but alas, i have to go y’all– off to a vegan brunch…mmmmm!!! vegan pancakes, french toast and scrambled tofu!!

Ranjana entered at the tail end of a conversation about New Zealand, just in time to hear David say:

[DreamlaX] If I don’t respond it’s because I’ve fallen asleep at the keyboard (again).

to which Ray replied:

[rgoudie] DreamlaX> If Dylan shows up, you guys can seranade us with a snoring duet.

I asked David about the new female friend he had emailed us about.

[pradtf] DreamlaX> how’s your friend?

He replied:

[DreamlaX] pradtf> Which friend is this?

I tried to remind him:

[pradtf] DreamlaX> the one you wrote to us about [DreamlaX] pradtf> Ohhhhh! Right! Gemma? [pradtf] DreamlaX> exactly! [DreamlaX] pradtf> She’s doing great. Her and I went to have dinner together. It’s amazing how well we get along, since neither of us smoke or drink or get up to mischeif etc. [pradtf] DreamlaX> yes it is funny how some people think you have to drink and smoke to have a good time

Ranjana proceeded to tell us about her proposal and Rachel, who had returned recently, told us that her flight had been cancelled due to the hurricane and that she was stuck in Florida, not with her relatives which she wouldn’t have minded so much but

[Remora91] pradtf> with my mother sister and father (i’d rather be alone).

David started an interesting commentary on cuisine:

[DreamlaX] pradtf> it’s funny how some people think meat makes a good meal! [rgoudie] DreamlaX> So many members of my family believe that meat should be the centerpeice of their meals and everything else is just accessory. [pradtf] DreamlaX> it’s funnier how people don’t think they know what to eat unless there is meat [imvegan] yes … that meat thing being central to a meal seems common … but i see some change these days as more and more peple are having some veg meals

Ranjana asked David what he was up to:

[DreamlaX] I’m not really up to much, to be honest… I’ve got a jobby and a hobby… I now work at a games arcade. In fact, I got a promotion already after working there only two weeks. Soon I will be trained up to service video games, and service locally, then nationally. I will then have an internationally recognised qualification…

Rachel left at this point because she wanted to take a shower and was concerned that the hurricane might knock the power out.

Michael came in and told us about a couple of books he was reading:

[Michael] It is called “Adventures beyond the body” … I have started an other book by Dan Brown “Angels and Demons” …. seems to be a very intersting book too

Ray was quite intrigued and continued the discussion:

[rgoudie] Michael> Have you read any of Robert Monroe’s books? He is the pioneer. [Michael] rgoudie> no, not yet but i have heard about him and Buhlman also mentions him in his book [Michael] rgoudie> Ray, was it you who read the Seth-books or do i mix you up with someone else? [rgoudie] Michael> No, that is indeed I…I often stop off at used bookstores and I have found two more Seth books. This excites me since they are out of print. [Michael] rgoudie> Did you like them? I read almost all and am rereading them from time to time ….i read “Seth speaks” 4 times and every time it is completely different for me [rgoudie] Michael> I love them!!! They help me define my understanding of reality. To me, it is more like studying advanced metaphysics. [Michael] rgoudie> YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While this conversation was ensuing, Ray and David were having an indepth discussion of how the latter was actually compressing his sound files. It was actually very interesting, but I still had to contribute:

[pradtf] too much compression can give one a headache, which is why they use a compress

which was thoroughly ignored by everyone.

So I mentioned my endearing post on Lawndry which nearly turned into an environmental debate:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13984

and since no one paid much attention to this, I tried to send Lori over there as soon as she arrived, which she was glad to do since the hurricane wasn’t providing much humour in her life:

[bestofme] im doing ok, i feel like im on house arrest because of this hurricane, we just have rain, and not much of that and wind, lots of that [pradtf] just going to ask you whether you got wind of that hurricane [bestofme] its going through florida futher up north, like the orlando area, its only a catagory 2 but still bad, its going like 5 mph, so flooding is more likely

Then Ray exploded with:

[rgoudie] ARGH!

So I naturally asked:

[pradtf] rgoudie> is that as acronym you are working on for the puzzle forum?

Then Doug entered so we never got to discuss the possibilities. He was experiencing the hurricane too.

[flash] May be kicked off soon. Winds are getting worse. The hurricane is here [imvegan] wow… this sounds serious …. what protection can you take? [flash] I didn’t take much. Should have boarded up some windows. I’m on the west coast and the hurricane is about 80 miles away and hitting us hard now. The east coast is very dangerous … Tampa should be getting a lot of wind. I’m just less than 25 miles south of Tampa … I’m in a non evacuation zone. I should be okay

We talked about how houses are built differently depending on the environmental situation. For instance, Ray said that Japan earthquake-proofs their homes, while on Vancouver Island, we don’t even have basements.

I mentioned that we are on a fault line so Ray has to say:

[rgoudie] pradtf> It’s not your fault.

and then says he has to disappear, but not before I get in:

[pradtf] with plateitude no doubt

Lori had mentioned that she had something to say on a lighter note, but when she didn’t for a long time, I asked her what happened:

[bestofme] pradtf> my lighter note blew away, i don’t remember what it was….lol [pradtf] bestofme> ya i wondered - i thought you’d be in a hurrycane to tell us [bestofme] pradtf> the puns have come blowing in

Then I thought of poor Doug:

[pradtf] if we keep this up, doug might think he’d prefer the hurricane to our company [bestofme] pradtf> haha [pradtf] bestofme> hahaharricane - oh alright that’s pushing it i’ll admit

Ranjana asked Doug how his diet was doing:

[flash] imvegan> Well, it could be better. Still holding my own. [imvegan] flash> good for you [flash] Thanks! Got to be more consistent [imvegan] flash> that will come [flash] I feel though I will never eat meat again! My thinking on the matter is changing. Well, this may sound silly but I was in the book store and got disturbed when a book had a genuine leather cover and got to thinking I need to be careful in the future. Then I thought about shoes. [pradtf] flash> now that is consciousness raising of the best kind!! when it happens within yourself [flash] I guess my mind is looking at it all differently [pradtf] i know the feeling doug - i went through it nearly 15 yrs ago

I mentioned that rapalla7 who had been one of the most vocal anti-AR individuals a year ago had told me that he had boycotted KFC. Additionally:

[pradtf] he also asked about veg recipes because his doctor told him he’d better cut down … he is only 30 i think

Then Ranjana got hungry and decided to leave telling everyone to take care of themselves, so Doug, who was busying himself trying to figure out the smilies told her:

[flash] imvegan> LOL I’ll try. Take care of yourself and make sure Prad behaves. [flash] “0” [flash] “)” [flash] “:” imvegan exits from this room [flash] ) [flash] I give up

I showed Doug how to do at least the happy face and so we were both able to leave happy.

029-04-09-12

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:45 -0800

This was a very short chat, because most people weren’t present. It started off with Breaca and Ranjana forming a mutual admiration society. Then they at least stopped long enough to appreciate my puns starting here:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?page=3

Some of these were considered so good that bbarr threatened to alert the moderators! However, the best part was that he started making them himself, much to Rachel’s chagrin. In fact, the phenomenon seems to be happening all over the site:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=14392

RedHotPun is finally here!

I arrived to learn that the expression “cross your fingers” can mean more than what I originally thought:

[pradtf] fingers crossed? [breaca] it means you can say something but undo it later [pradtf] really that’s what it means over there? it means you are unsure of the outcome and are hoping for a favourable one, over here [breaca] it means that too [pradtf] i wasn’t aware of the other meaning. that’s interesting.

Also, we learned that Breaca is in her first exam year. They have 2 in the UK the first being the GCSE (end of year 11) and after that the A level (end of year 13).

We talked a bit about courage and being pushed around:

[breaca] i am not very big, but quite brave [breaca] * breaca blushes from her boasting [pradtf] it is the size of the heart and not its container that counts [imvegan] breaca> you certainly are brave … and that isn’t boasting … it’s true [imvegan] pradtf> i like that [breaca] i like it too

Then Breaca told us about her new opponent timebombted, who we actually had the pleasure of talking to a few days ago as a result of some of his excellent posts. He is a very pro-environmental individual.

Then Breaca reminded me of the past with the painful question:

[breaca] you have really known Ranjana since she was 4? were you one of her teachers? [pradtf] no she just used to bother me but fortunately i am sufficiently dignified to survive it all these years [imvegan] he was 10 when I was 4 …. and I followed him everywhere … drove him crazy!!!! [pradtf] i used to call her pest - and still do [breaca] oh no [imvegan] yes, when he speaks to his parents he refers to me as pest …. all these years his mother understood him to have said paste

Then there was a bit of a discussion on flirting which is a negative thing mostly, though doesn’t need to be always so. In fact, there is an excellent example of the positive variety in the musical ShowBoat in the delightful duet Only Make Believe:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/showboat/makebelieve.htm

[pradtf] with the music it is one of the most beautiful songs written imho [breaca] the words are very lovely. i liked the words about " put our thoughts in practice" [pradtf] “i like the That’s just an unimportant technicality”.

Inspired by make believe, no doubt:

[breaca] * breaca imagines most anything she chooses, and turns into a dolphin covered in singing roses

and exited from the room!

Then Rachel arrived only to say:

[remora91] i’ll brb. i have to eat something.

Then she came back and I was able to tell her about Sangeeta’s successes:

[pradtf] she made a lot of money for peta india [remora91] wow [pradtf] she made a speech to the jain group out there [imvegan] how did the speech go? [pradtf] and people kept giving her cheques [imvegan] remora91> i saw a copy of it - it was awesome [remora91] good. [pradtf] she collected over $600 last night just with that, but more importantly the organization raised $78 000 in their funds and they said a part of that will go to peta india [imvegan] wonderful !!! good job Sangeeta!!! [pradtf] this is a big thing because they have never done it before [remora91] thats great [pradtf] they use all that money to support sanctuaries in india [imvegan] you know Rachel, Sangeeta is suuuch a powerful speaker [pradtf] but now they will support peta india who is trying to eliminate the need for sanctuaries [pradtf] ya both sangeeta and ranjana manage to fund raise very effectively [remora91] cool.

Ray appeared with:

[rgoudie] Hello. Better late than never, right?

Then Michael also came in.

Ranjana apologized to both for all the duplicate messages:

[imvegan] rgoudie> did my millions of messages keep you away? … too busy reading them all I mean… [rgoudie] imvegan> Well, they were time-consuming to delete. I think it took me five minutes per message. [pradtf] rgoudie> you mean you read thru each before deleting them?

Then Ranjana told Rachel:

[imvegan] Rachel… we set Prad loos last night on the forums… oh my goodness… puns were flying EVERYWHERE !!! [remora91] imvegan> i know! growls at prad

Rachel had made a post complaining that she couldn’t believe I had brought the puns on to the forums:

[pradtf] remora91> i rec’d your post LOL [remora91] lol [pradtf] remora91> it was quite something to have bbarr join in [rgoudie] imvegan> Was anyone hit in the head by flying puns? [remora91] pradtf> really… i swear you kill me sometimes. [Michael] my belly muscles were very stressed by all the puns [imvegan] did you folks see them all? [rgoudie] imvegan> No, I haven’t been following most of the threads on the forums. I don’t enjoy the forums anymore. However, make pun of everyone that takes themsleves too serioulsy sounds like an EXCELLENT idea!!!

Then Rachel asked if I was in the sheeppack:

[pradtf] remora91> me!!! in the sheeppack?????? do i ever act like it? i don’t know where people got this idea that i am nicey nicey. i think i’ve put enough noses out of joint to prove it. [remora91] pradtf> lol. i wonder where… [rgoudie] pradtf> Your posts are consistently good-natured in spite of the abusiveness of the person that you are arguing with. I think that this fact may have something to do with it.

As I tried to defend my position the discussion took a new turn:

[pradtf] ya where do these people get this ridiculous idea [imvegan] Prad has a lot of bluster …… but he is a fluffball at heart… [remora91] pradtf> yes, you are so mean and rude and vicious in the forums insert sarcasm here [pradtf] imvegan> fluffball!!!!!!!!! you seem to forget how terrified my students used to be!!! [imvegan] pradtf> yes… I saw them laughing …. [pradtf] imvegan> they were trying to laugh because they were afraid [imvegan] pradtf> yes… afraid their sides would split ….

Rachel came to protect me from this slander:

[remora91] pradtf> maybe you should be the leader of the pack of vicious veggies. pradtf] remora91> there’s an idea [rgoudie] remora91> Yeas, let’s start our own pack that makes fun of any poster taking themselves too seriously. The weapon of choice for members of the Vicious Veggies pack will be the razor-sharp pun. Our shields will be our indestructible sense of humour. [imvegan] our flurry/slurry of puns will leave veryonespeechless! [rgoudie] imvegan> Yes, this will be the goal. Any thread that takes itself too seriously will be subject to sever PUNishment. We will leave them laughing in the aisles. [imvegan] rgoudie> yes!!!! and we’ll take no prisoners!! [rgoudie] Onward, fair Vicious Veggies!

With that flourish, Ray exited the chatroom, no doubt determined to put his new role into practice!

And inspired by Ray, we all left as well!

030-Conclusion

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:45 -0800

If you have managed to read through all the Veggiechess SatChats, you now know many things.

You know the various members of the clan and something of their personalities. You know about veganism and animal rights. You know about music, art, technology, extra-sensory perception, smoothies and may be even some chess. You know about puns. You also know why the SatChats remained so even after they were changed from Saturday to Sunday.

You may even now know what brought a group of people from all over the world together for hours week after week. Some of us are still trying to figure that one out.

007-04-04-10

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

So this was our strangest chat. First of all it wasn’t the SatChat, but was supposed to be the SunChat. However, since I can’t change the heading what we have to do is come up with another reason for calling it the SatChat. I thought we could still call it that by pointing out that we all ‘sit’ during the chat and thence we have ‘sat’ and therefore ‘SatChat’.

I am open to other ideas, but this issue really must be cleared up as fast as possible as you will see in the next paragraph!

So what happened? Well to start with, Ranjana, Sangeeta, Rachel (now Remora91) and even Prad show up on Saturday at different times! Then Sunday rolls around and Andrew arrives just in time to say that he is too early! After he leaves, Sangeeta also shows up too early and starts to meditate under the auspicies of Fjord’s nice chatroom paint job! Then Ranjana shows up too early as well, but Sangeeta says “hahaha! i see you!” and finally contact is made!

By the time I arrived, there was nothing I could do about it and so I had to talk to Sangeeta and Ranjana, however, even that didn’t work out because Ranjana left for a while.

So Sangeeta was writing a zen story about washing floors for her profile at another website and it turned out really well so I encourage you to take a look here:

http://www.myspace.com/2981049.usr

Do not be disturbed that she appears to be 2 years older there than she does on our family page, because she filled all this out when she was in Boston after going there from Philadelphia where she was at a movie shoot. In that, she plays the part of a 15 year old student (well she is in charge of the project, so I suppose she can play whatever part she wants to), so I totally understand if you get confused. The project (a humane educational video for schools) , however, is progressing magnificently from what I have heard.

Sangeeta offered to help me write the SatChat this week, but we couldn’t figure out when she would have time to do so since she was hectically jetsetting between Norfolk, Boston and Philadelphia over the next few days. So we thought we would write it during this chat! This is a very interesting recursive idea rather reminiscent of Escher’s drawings. If you are unfamiliar with these you can go here:

http://www.worldofescher.com/cgi-bin/ag âŠ mp;which=0

and take a look at some of his fascinating stuff!

However, we never got around to doing this because we were interested in reading the posts in the it’s my god because… thread:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=9936

Sangeeta has a beautiful post there as does our other Ray (Redlentils).

So after that Sangeeta left to see the Einstein exhibit at the Boston museum.

I left as well, but then Andrew shows up 49 seconds later to say ‘hello?’ followed by ‘rats!’ and left so, even though Ranjana and I called desparately after him, he could not be recovered.

You think this is the end of it don’t you? It isn’t!

I left the chatroom, but Ranjana hung around for another 20 minutes hoping Andrew would return, but he didn’t so she left.

You think this really has to be the end of it don’t you? It isn’t!

Miraculously, 18 minutes 23 seconds after Ranjana vacated, who do you think entered the empty chatroom? You are right! Andrew returns to say ‘double rats!’ and then leaves.

Now you are certain that it is all over! It isn’t!

Unbelievably, 8 hours 16 minutes 34 seconds after Andrew has departed, Ray (rgoudie) comes to the chatroom and says absolutely nothing.

Now it just has to be over! It isn’t!

Incredibly, 2 days after the chat should have ended, I entered the chatroom to write all this up! And for your information, I am still in here as I conclude this final sentence!!

posted by rgoudie: I did attempt to leave a message, but it did not appear. I even tried /last 400, but this did not work either. I suspect something to do with Netscape, which I have been using since Thursday. -Ray from prad: it may have been a browser problem ray. i just copied and pasted that command and it works fine as far as i can tell.

008-04-04-17

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

And so this SatChat started before it really started, with Ray showing up at least one day early just to say “A big hello to everyone” with an enormous smiley face because he knew there was no one in the room!

As if inspired by Ray’s conspiracy, Andrew showed up one hour early and left several vibes, he says because he might not be able to come back, but since he did come back, one has to wonder what his real motivations were!

No less conspicuously, Kyron has the nerve to appear 11 minutes early, to say that he will return, and thereupon exit!

Finally, Rachel shows up only 32 seconds late and poor thing she has to sit around all by herself since Kyron, Andrew and Ray had all left, till Sangeeta appears 7 minutes later. They discussed Rachel’s dog as well as the high quality of Rachel’s recent posts.

Then Ranjana enters and Rachel asks Sangeeta if she is my daughter and Ranjana says no and so does Sangeeta. So this did not come as a surprise to me.

After I entered, the conversation turned to people’s intelligence and how this particular quality should not be a basis for judgement. Ranjana commented that we view intelligence in a very narrow way ignoring that shown by not only people, but also animals. Andrew appeared at this moment and joined in this most interesting conversation.

It is sometimes mistakenly thought that brain size is the sole determinator for intelligence, which of course is by no means the whole story. It is also commonly mistaken that animals also don’t have emotions. As Andrew pointed out, “Anyone who has had a dog, knows animals have emotions”.

Part of the problem is that some people, certain scientists in particular, do not acknowledge animal emotions even without exploring the validity of their viewpoint. Sangeeta suggested an excellent book dealing with the recognition of animal emotions by Masson entitled When Elephants Weep.

Sangeeta made a good point that people will hopefully grant animals rights. However, it is interesting to note the deontologic perspective that bbarr laid out in the RHP forums that animals already have rights regardless of whether people grant these. If anyone is interested in these arguments, just let me know and I’ll get a hold of them again.

Lori appeared and after some minor adjustments to her color settings was introduced to Rachel as one of the group that saved Bacon/Daisy. Rachel mentioned that her dog was named Daisy and that she was a evil dog. I commented how evil our dogs were and that I had contemplated trading them in for furbies and that got Ranjana after me even though I pointed out that she spoils them and they take it out on me!

Fortunately, Lori talked about her parrot who sits on her shoulder which reminded me of Pericles who always stayed on mine.

Ray entered but couldn’t say anything since he was having a lot of trouble with his browser interfacing with our chatroom.

I thanked Lori for her contribution to the Canada’s disgrace (seal hunt) thread and told her she may be interested in what was happening in the Society and Gender thread and before I knew it, she had contributed a most thoughtful and intelligent post there.

Meanwhile, Ray had successfully solved his browser problems and surprised us by revealing that it was actually sunny and mild in Montreal (claiming that he had placed his order for good weather early)!

So as soon as Kyron learnt that Ray was in the room, he rushed in too and the two asked each other how their Linux was!

Lori, Sangeeta and I had a discussion on the formation of Animal Rights groups within schools. SOAR is doing fine Lori reported and apparently has a new member!

Fjord and Orin then appeared and we were much surprised to see that they had both aged since our last encounter: Orin by one year and Fjord miraculously by 34! Orin told us about his chess and his favorite Lord of the Ring characters, while Fjord spent most of his effort trying to explain that he really wasn’t 99, yet.

Meanwhile, Ray and Kyron were engaged in a discussion about teleportation and two of Ray’s cats, not that there was any connection at all.

We talked a bit about meat eaters and how though some of them are adamantly opposed to animal cruelty they still do not see the connection to their plate. Ray made a most profound comment regarding this: “Seriously, most modern carnivores do not understand that their meat does not come from a hunter that took one individual out of the wild. They seemingly refuse to understand that their meat comes from a species of animal that is being held hostage and treated like dirt.”

Michael appeared and started talking to Orin, while Kyron disappeared because the rabbits wanted his attention. Then Kyron reappeared and we talked about bunnies for a bit and how some of them can even drive away cats!

Then Gary entered as usual with his double identity neither of which said anything for the longest time. Meanwhile, Rachel came back.

Then Ray private messaged me wanting to know Kyron’s hedgehog’s name so he could appear to guess the name. I thought this was a clever thing to do, but instead of private messaging him back, I brilliantly direct messaged him the information in full view of everyone. Fortunately, Kyron did not see this, so Ray was able to follow through with his plan. As he proceeded to dramatize his psychic determination of the hedgehog’s name, Kyron began to use a process of elimination to figure out who had told Ray. Eventually, he narrowed it down to Ranjana or myself (since Sangeeta had left and Breaca wasn’t at the chat). Since Ranjana had gone downstairs to get ready for her fundraising recital, I was caught as the guilty party. I suppose my only consolation was that my inadvertant revelations had been spotted only by Ray.

Some people left, but I can’t recall who. However, we learnt that Gary, who had found his voice and identity by now, had done mechanical engineering at university and that he was also working on a novel.

Rachel suddenly asked Michael what his favorite food was and that got Michael thinking about eating. Suddenly, she noticed Sangeeta had left too, but I didn’t know where. Then Ray said he was being forced to go shopping so he was taken away.

That pretty well left Rachel, Gary and myself because Lori also left for a while. The three of us had a very interesting exchange with Rachel inquiring about Gary’s good fortune at being 25, Gary and I wondering about what influence language had on the thought process, and both of us trying to encourage Rachel to not be so miserable about where she was living and the fact she was only 12. It culminated with Rachel posting a very angry, red emoticon after which she said she felt much better.

Lori had in the meantime returned from talking to her godmother who opposes Lori’s being vegetarian. It can be difficult for vegetarians sometimes to deal with the lack of understanding that others have for them and their beliefs. However, consistency and commitment often do pay off and sometimes one will be surprised how the strongest opponents become the staunchest allies!

Lori and Rachel left at this point and Gary figured he should get back to work. I was about to clear the chatroom leaving it completely empty when who should suddenly appear but Kirksey! We talked about the state of the forums for a bit and how rudeness seems to be so prevalent on RHP sometimes. Then Kirksey wondered about getting a new computer, though he didn’t want to try Linux. After suggesting that he consider even a used machine, we both figured we had better get on with the spring day.

And reminiscent of last week’s chat, 43 minutes after we left, Lori comes back to the chatroom only to find that there was no one there. I understand just how she felt, because I am here now more than 9 hrs after she left, all alone, as I finish this week’s summary.

009-04-04-25

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

Well, I really don’t know how to tell you how this week’s chat started because I wasn’t there. But Kirksey was. Unfortunately, he isn’t here to tell you, so I’ll just have to reconstruct it as best I can.

So Kirksey enters the room all by himself and waits around for a whole 59 seconds before Ranjana shows up thinking it is Rachel. Naturally, this surprised Kirksey so much that he was speechless for several minutes and Ranjana thought that Rachel wasn’t even there. Well, that’s true isn’t it, because Rachel really wasn’t there (she was visiting friends), and it was really Kirksey who eventually informed Ranjana that he had gotten some soup out of the microwave. Ok so far so good.

Now for some reason, Ranjana thinks that Kirksey said he got his soup out of the universe. Please don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue! Kirksey was doing his best to adjust to the confusion Ranjana initiated, but was immediately assailed by a barrage of questions which he was barely able to answer!

Fortunately, he was saved in the middle of having to deal with this, because Breaca and Sangeeta entered, though not in that order. Sangeeta said hi to everyone, but Breaca felt she had to giggle and wave.

Kirksey then congratulated Breaca on being part of the Charlie’s Angels clan at which she said she felt nervous and it had nothing to do with the fact that I appeared just then. Poor Breaca was concerned whether it was ok to be part of another clan. I assured her that it was and that I had even told Zoe (the clan captain) that I was glad she had someone as wonderful as Breaca in there. Ranjana told her that she always knew Breaca was an angel and I pointed out to Breaca that now, she had wings to match her Pegasus!

Breaca told us that she wished she were older (though she had to add not as old as prad), because then she would be allowed to post on the forums. I told her that it was just as well because there were some very unscrupulous posters around like Kirksey, who had just recently decimated poor rwingett from the FreeThinkers clan. Breaca immediately went to Kirksey’s defense saying that he was so nice. Kirksey took full advantage of this injection of sympathy to claim that I was just as guilty of goading the hapless rwingett and Ranjana, of course, just had to back him up on that too. Well, what could I do but give in to such overwhelming numbers - after all, this is a democracy! It is true, I have to admit! Kirksey and I worked flawlessly together, bringing the unfortunate rwingett nearly to tears, but it was really for his own good as you will see right here:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=10252

In fact, Kirksey has changed the Apostles’ motto after all this to “survival of the wittiest”, which is delightfully reminiscent of the one the FreeThinkers pride themselves on using “survival of the fittest”.

The forums are really in better shape now than they have been for quite a while. Unfortunately, the moderators only hide posts. Breaca suggested that they might just ban violators and my feeling is that if they did that even only for a couple of weeks at a time, things would be cleaned up very quickly.

At this point, Breaca said her long suffering father wanted to use the computer so we invited him to the chat. He appeared and awarded us all a medal of patience, which caused Breaca to blush and promptly disappear.

Gary showed up at this very moment as a single entity for the first time, but all he could say to Sangeeta was “hey prad! How’s things?”. Well neither Sangeeta nor I really knew what to say to him and so we were left nearly speechless. Gary recognized the error of his ways asked for forgiveness, but instead we pointed out to him that we were both dragons! This confused him further and he tried to talk to Kirksey, so we told him that Kyron and Breaca were both serpents! Now really worried, he tried to communicate with Ranjana, but to no avail, because she exited the chatroom. We continued with Ranjana being a dog and Michael being a rabbit. I don’t know what was going through Gary’s head, because out of sheer desparation he told us that he was “blundering about in the darkness with little or no idea what is going on..”, so we explained that these were the creatures we were linked to in the Chinese calendar. As it turned out, Kirksey is a very handsome rooster, while Gary himself has wound up being a horse with uncommon sense!

And who should appear just then, but another dragon in the form of Ray! Kyron who had been wandering in and out of the chatroom several times happened to be out at this moment and so wasn’t able to talk Linux with Ray, till he wandered back in, at which time he did. So Ray started talking to Sangeeta just as Lori showed up. Sangeeta was able to tell both of them about her talk to a school assembly involving 400 kids followed by 8 panel discussions afterwards! The event was a tremendous success and several students resolved to goVeg afterwards upon learning about the plight of animals as well as the dangers that consumption of animal proteins present.

We learned that Lori is a painter specializing in sky and flowers. I was intrigued at what would make her do that and received this answer, poetic in its simplicity: “I guess, I just think that they are too beautiful not to enjoy.”

So Kyron came in, and Kirksey took off to do the laundry, just in time to hear Gary telling Lori about the potential attack he survived from a ladybug. Lori kept her cool and just told him to call poison control.

Lori also told us that they did AR tabling for Earth Day and generally people were quite receptive. Everyone seems to love stickers - Lori feels it must have something to do with the glue! However, one student took a sticker and ripped it up right in front of her! I have a feeling this extraordinarily mature individual will soon be the proud recipient of numerous PETA stickers!

Kyron left the chatroom just then because he crashed his browser, but then decided to leave the room too. He did come back at some point, but I have lost track when and where. It worked out fine because Ray had left too for his own reasons, but he came back shortly to announce that he was back. Possibly inspired by what Ray was going to say, Lori announced that she was going to leave in order to change rabbit litterbins.

Ranjana, despite her interest in any thing communicative, chose to change the subject and ask Ray about Marsha. Then followed a very strange exchange in which Ray told her that Marsha was waving at him with wet hands, while washing her hair, which Ranjana thought was very nice, but Ray couldn’t understand why, but eventually did, but I certainly didn’t and still don’t, so if you do, please don’t try to explain it to me, because I have lost track of the meaning of this sentence, let alone what the original exchange was really all about.

Now while everyone was trying to decipher this cryptography, I was pointing out what a great thread was developing as a result of Dissident Dan’s Animal Rights/Animal Liberation post. In it we should be able to actually look at the philosophies that form the foundations to animal rights:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=10283

This got Ray to mention that he wished we had a better system for tracking posts on RHP. Possibly, if there were a way to flag the threads of interest, it would be easier to find them in the future. This is an excellent idea and may be worth suggesting to Russ, considering the excellent quality of some of the posts.

Ranjana suddenly suggested that we had all put Michael to sleep, but Michael immediately denied that fact and thus simultaneously verified the truth of his denial.

Lori returned wondering what she had missed and we talked a bit about Dissident Dan who some of us had encountered on the physics forums where he had impressed us with his excellent posts. Lori thought he was very intelligent for his age, and I concurred in that he was really getting on in years since he was already in his early twenties. It turns out that Sangeeta met with him when she was in Florida.

I disappeared for a while at this point to solve an important problem with Sangeeta, but some of the others took advantage of my absence to do strange things. For instance, Ranjana told everyone that I had gone to solve an important problem with Sangeeta, but that she herself was still here. This strange statement of hers, generated an even stranger response from Ray: “snort Huh? Wha’? No, I was, um, praying. Yeah, that … is what I was doing.” Lori responded to this by saying she was glad to know that someone else was alive, but we don’t really know who she was referring to. If Andrew hadn’t fortunately shown up just then, who knows what those three would have continued!

Anyway, Lori took off at this point with a suspiciously French sounding ‘au revoir’ as Andrew told Ranjana that he’s been on the road visiting hospitals. He soon had to leave, but Ray and Ranjana had gotten down to doing some serious talking finally, this time regarding irritating tennants. Ray has some who are fortunately leaving. Michael took this opportunity to talk about his difficulties trying to sell his car in Austria which apparently took more than half a year because people who made the appointments to see it didn’t show up.

I, fortunately, returned just in time to hear the diabolical plot Gary and Ray were scheming. It was their intention to introduce a continuous stream of topics into the chat next week to keep me busy writing the summary: “football, rugby, macrame, nuclear proliferation, organic farming, geo-social politics, irrigation methods in sub-saharan climates, correct use of the word ’the’ in the English language.” They wisely chose to forgo their plan when I resolved to copy and paste the entire chat session into the SatChat forum!

In fact, it was too much for Ray to handle and he left uttering another suspiciously French sounding phrase even incorporating Lori’s ‘au revoir’ to which he deftly added a ’la semaine prochaine’. Gary was obviously impressed so he expressed his multilingual approval with ‘a bientot’ as Ray left. Now that was decent of him to call Ray a good young child for his efforts, since as everyone knows ’tot’ is English for ‘young child’ and ‘bien’ is French for ‘good’ and ‘a’ has a good chance of being an ‘a’ regardless of the language, right?

I had an understandably short talk with Gary regarding abbreviations in which he wondered why the word abbreviations was so long. Gary in addition to his numerous talents, not the least of which is making astute observations, is starring in a movie too! However, he soon started talking about balsamic vinegar and salads, which proved to be too much for Ranjana and Michael both of whom promptly took off thinking about food.

Gary and I discussed the possibility of starting a ’thought and language’ thread along the lines of our earlier discussions, but then he had to leave too.

So there I was all alone in the chatroom and just about to leave, when who should suddenly appear, but Dyl! Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as that, because Dyl didn’t say anything for the longest time. In fact, I was starting to think I was imagining all this, that I was dylerious! But then he spoke and Ranjana came back to greet him. Dyl told us that it was 4am and that he had managed to be a bit late, but we told him not to be concerned since he had missed the chat start time by only 3 hours - he was just a bit dylayed. However, when Ranjana concluded that time is for the birds after all, I had to ask her if she said that, because time flies.

Now Dyl was starting to get a little concerned and started talking about his ski vacation, so I had to point out that he had skidaddled. Ranjana got very concerned for Dyl at this point and told me to stop it, but Dyl went on to tell us about the exciting things they had done on vacation like put a hole in the wall of the place they were staying at. They fixed it all up though, so Ranjana had to say something like “all’s well that ends well” which meant that I had to say something like “i think you mean all’s wall that’s done wall”.

This last one seemed to generate the following curiousity from Dyl: “you’ve finally done it prad, my sense of humour just packed its bags and left”. And Ranjana seemed very moved by it too since she said to Dyl: “i wish i could do that .. but I live with him.”

Nevertheless, I showed my concern, since I knew it was very late for Dyl, with: “did the wall pun floor you?”, which generated an even greater curiousity from him: “urrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. It is possible his keyboard was getting sticky.

We started talking about eggless omelettes and I offered to put a recipe on our website. I didn’t know if Dyl thought I meant it, so I told him I wasn’t yolking or eggagerating either. At this moment, Dyl made the following heavenly comment: “oh dear god, he doesn’t stop!”

Ranjana agreed with Dyl, saying that I “always go to such eggstremes!” I told her we all deserved “a standing ovulation”, while Dyl pointed out that “it’s just one pun after the nest”. Seeing that we all understood what had happened, I reassured both of them that " it isn’t too bird once you get into it" while Ranjana agreed by saying that “we’ll just keep winging it”, after which, feeling she had made her contribution, she said good bye.

Dyl and I talked on a bit about chessboards, since he was keen on buying a high quality one and I suggested one from Franklin Mint:

http://www.franklinmint.com/Product1.as âŠ D=112&

A chess set’s beauty lingers even when the game is not being played!

We talked a bit more about chess, but then we both left.

So nearly 3 hours later, Lori returns to the chatroom only to realize that she hasn’t met Dyl before and says: “hmm, I’m going to read the summary and hopefully find out who this mystery person is..”

A couple of hours after that I start figuring out this summary, but forget to exit when dinner time rolls around. So when I return, I find out that while I am downstairs eating, Ray comes back and sees that I am still ‘in’ the chatroom, but not answering. I hope you didn’t think I was being rude, Ray - it is just as well i didn’t talk with my mouth full!

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 12:56 pm That summery was most entertaining!! The whole egg/chicken joke sincorperated with those sentense we’re ‘cracking’ me up!! LMAO! Very Happy haha! Razz But my question still stands, whos Dyl?? lol Confused

010-04-05-02

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This SatChat saw us discussing some serious issues thanks to them being initiated by Rachel. I will summarize the main ideas behind these.

The first had to do with a CBS news presentation which apparently talked about someone murdering some people at a slaughterhouse and this was somehow linked with PETA. According to Rachel they said:

" It said PETA went to far. It happened several years ago. PETA isn’t really saying anything but, “Meat’s not treat for those you eat!”

So Kyron, Dyl and Michael searched the net for this story and were unable to find anything. Rachel suggested that perhaps someone was trying to frame PETA. This idea wouldn’t surprise me at all, because some groups who oppose PETA’s work do try to fabricate links that don’t exist. There certainly wasn’t the slightest evidence that PETA was connected in any way at all to the murders, but because PETA is an animal rights organization, there was apparently an attempt to implicate them in some way, however remote, however bizzare.

I recall a similar incident in November 2003, when I found out on an RHP thread that there was a news station that was saying PETA was distributing anti-fur pamplets to young children. I investigated these accusations both through PETA and independently and found that the news station was deliberately circulating false information: the pamplets distribution hadn’t even started. The news station acquired information about the pamplets from the PETA website and had decided to ‘create’ this false story about what PETA was going to do with them.

PETA does engage in sensational campaigns drawing attention to the cruelty inflicted upon animals, but it seems that they are often far-outdone by those who utilize misinfomation, misrepresentations, as well as outright lies to defame the organization.

The second issue was a question of ethics: would you kill to defend yourself?" This, of course, is a standard question that has been discussed for centuries by philosophers. What was interesting in our little exchange was that while we all agreed that killing was a last resort after all other routes had been exhausted, the ‘proximity’ of the attacker with respect to ourselves may well affect our final decision. For instance, if the individual were our best friend, it was suggested that we may actually sacrifice ourself rather than take the other person’s life. However, Dyl made the rather excellent observation that if the person was trying to kill you, then you may wish to reconsider that person’s status as your best friend. It brings to mind the adage ‘with friends like that, who needs enemies’!

Another problem with these scenarios that Ranjana pointed out is that they are untenably hypothetical and hence it is difficult to really say what you are going to do.

A favorite example of this sort of hypothetical situation was illustrated during an interview with singer and humanitarian Joan Baez. She was apparently asked what she would do if she was driving on a mountain road and as she turned a bend, a child and a dog were on the road - who would she choose to save. The conversation went something like this: “I would hit neither, but hit the brakes.” “No, you are travelling too fast to stop so you have to hit one of them,” came the demand. “Well, I’d swerve off the road on to the soft shoulder.” “No, you can’t do that either because there is no soft shoulder there is only a steep cliff.” “Ok, in that case, I’d drive off the cliff.” “No you can’t do that either, you have to kill either the dog or the child.” “You won’t let me use the brakes, drive off the road and now you won’t even let me kill myself! So if you are deciding everything for me, then why do you even bother asking me?”

This is the real difficulty with this sort of exercise. If you restrict the possibilities, then you close your mind to the solutions too.

The third issue dealt with how our language stereotypes people. It was an interesting discussion because what people don’t often acknowledge is that by using terms in a derogatory way, even in jest, they are propagating the denigration of a person or a group. Dyl produced an typical example in which the word ‘gay’ (in the sexual sense) was being substituted for the word ‘bad’. So people were saying “You’re gay.” or “I had a gay day.”

Though this sort of thing may appear superficially harmless, even to some gays, it’s underlying implications are very serious. What happens is that it becomes an accepted expression with all its derogatory nuances. It is intended as a putdown of the individual to whom it is directed and simultaneously it scars the group to which it refers. People who scoff at this sort of thing as being ridiculously ‘politically correct’, ought to consider how many expressions are routinely used to degrade women, blacks, minorities, animals and other ’non-mainstreamers’. This is certainly a component through which the tyranny of status quo is maintained.

Now, I will bring everyone uptodate on what was happening during the above discussions.

Sangeeta was in Reno, Nevada trying to get online, but was unable to do so in time because she had to visit Lake Tahoe. She actually made it into the chat for a few minutes, but had to leave because her computer malfunctioned. Apparently, she had a virus that had to be erased. Ray dropped by and started the usual Linux conversation with Kyron, but Rachel, while she was present, asked what Linux was and received a barrage of answers none of which were particularly helpful, from what I recall.

Ranjana started making errors in typing, so she typed corrections immediately afterwards adding to the confusion, because her corrections usually needed corrections.

Rachel asked Dyl for his age and was very surprised to learn that he was 21, because Kirksey had told her that Dyl talked like he was 50! I suggested that Dyl appeared to be 50 because what he says is usually so wise. This comment pleased that wise individual so much dylight that he immediately offered me some brownie points. Then he thought about the whole idea and wasn’t so sure about being 50 and even reconsidered the brownie points.

We got to talking about Monty Python, but I managed to irritate both Dyl and Ranjana when I proclaimed that I didn’t really like them much. Well, that was too much for Dyl and he was about to take the brownie points back, but I managed to appease him considerably by pointing out that we still keep a video of a clip from their “The Meaning of Life” in which these wonderful words run:

“And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, cause there’s bugger all down here on earth”

Throughout all this, Rachel was wondering what brownie points were, but Ray left early saying that he had errands to run, but I think it was because he was thinking about brownies.

We talked a bit about the chessboard Dyl was going to buy. He had found another beautiful one:

http://www.houseofstaunton.com/HOS/WindsorBN2Vin.html

Dyl also told us, he had an Egyptian set with metal pieces which he will show us pictures of later.

I told Dyl the story about how I bought a chess computer in 1994 so I could practise up since the kids at the school chess club were all beating me and there wasn’t anyone around to play against. Well! Who should complain about this but Ranjana, claiming that she was always around.

That forced me to tell the story about how Ranjana got mad at me for beating her playing blindfold back in the 80s. Well it’s true! She thought I was just showing off, which I wasn’t - I was just trying something new. She didn’t take into account the fact that back then, she barely knew how to play the game.

Actually, Ranjana told Dyl the story, but I had to embellish it with the parts about how mad she got. For some reason, Dyl found my predicament not just amusing, but sufficiently so to be ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing, for those of you unfamiliar with internetese).

Then Michael pointed out how he drew with Ranjana because he was afraid of playing her too. Well, I suppose I added the afraid part, but it really doesn’t matter does it?

So quickly and cleverly changing the subject, I related a story of a classic game that took place a decade ago between Ranjana and Sangeeta. Well, actually Ranjana told the story, but I had to embellish it properly so it had the necessary depth and comprehensivity it warranted. The two of them were in the very initial stages of learning the game back then:

" so as one of us took the other’s piece, we immediately sacrificed one of our own in return……. it reached an apex when.. i took her queen and then offered my own…"

What Ranjana had forgotten was that none of this was intentional on either of their part. The game ended in a draw, because they both didn’t feel like playing anymore and started yapping about other things, leaving me to put away the pieces!

Michael and Dyl thought this was very funny and when I meekly tried to generate a tiny morsel of sympathy on my behalf, by pointing out how I always had to clean up, I was mercilessly derided by Ranjana’s deceptive compliment, “you’re good at that”. Well, she didn’t fool me one bit!!

Michael and Dyl had overwhelmed themselves with amusement to the point where they felt they had to depart, leaving me all alone with Ranjana in the chatroom. I told her that I would run away and she threatened to come after me. I said I could type faster than she could because of my dvorak layout, but she said her “typing is more confusing so you have to warit until youcan make sense of it and that give me an advantage”

As you can plainly see, she is right. However, while she was gloating about her victory and enjoying my apparent entrapment, I made my escape!

Two hours later, I stealthily returned to the chatroom only to find that she had left indications of following through on her threat to come after me. I can tell you all this much, that as I write this, my safety is still secure - she hasn’t caught me yet!

011-04-05-09

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was an interesting chat with Breaca being the first to enter the room. Finding no one else there, she started to spin silently, whatever that means. She did this for more than 3 minutes, apparently without getting dizzy until Rachel showed up. Then I think she stopped spinning silently so she could talk to Rachel or perhaps she kept spinning, but not so silently for she spoke (no pun intended perhaps)!

Breaca and Rachel introduced themselves to each other because evidently they had forgotten that they had met earlier, but it didn’t make any difference because who should appear other than Zoe, the leader of Charlie’s Angels clan! Unfortunately, for the first little bit, Zoe didn’t get to say much, other than the terrible problem she was having with the constant refreshing of her screen, so Breaca suggested that she ask me for help when I showed up, adding very slyly that I was always late. Fortunately, I was sufficiently late not to see that comment, which is what Breaca was counting on, but what she forgot of course was that I would see it later, which is why I am writing about it now, right?

By the time, I showed up, Ray was already there and Zoe had left (she was to come and go several times trying to fix her problem), but neither of them said anything to me. Why you ask? It was because I was greeted in this most unusual fashion by Rachel, “I still itch!!!!!!!! Prad help!”

Now that would flabbergast most individuals. However, I quickly gathered my senses and tried to evaluate the deeper meaning behind this particular outburst. I remembered from a distant past, that yesterday, Rachel thought she might have stepped on a fleas’ nest and was itching very badly and so with total calmness I went to construct a series of remedies including calomine, aloe vera, tea tree oil, citrus. While engaged in this labour, Sangeeta appeared and suggested ice and between popping in and out, Zoe recommended witch hazel. Despite all this expert advice, it turned out that Rachel’s mother had bought something at the drugstore which apparently did the job so we may have to wait for her to find some more fleas before we can test our theories.

Breaca had in the meantime conjured up Kyron to assist Zoe which he did by recommending she change to the FireFox browser, which she did with success, thus putting to an end this unhappy episode in her life. In fact, I think that Ray was so overcome by the euphoria of it all, that he said, “The sun is blazing and it is a lovely day and I simply must go outside. Have fun, everyone.” And so he did.

Ranjana appeared though and tried to talk to everyone, but kept making so many typing errors that she wasn’t able to actually say much more than apologize for all the typing errors. It proved to be too much for Breaca though, who promptly flew off on her Pegasus with a “byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” to everyone.

So at about this time Rachel left too, because Kirk wanted to join us, which he did after fighting with his mouse for a while. But then Sangeeta said that she had a call from Armenia, which of course had nothing to do with Kirk, and left for a while. What I found most remarkable about the next several minutes was that no one said anything. When I finally broke the silence with this historic observation, everyone started giving excuses as to why they were not saying anything. Zoe, for instance, claimed she was still fighting with her computer, Kirksey said he was fighting with his mouse, Ranjana said she was waiting for Sangeeta to stop talking on the phone to some person in Armenia, while Michael didn’t say anything, because I don’t think he was even in the chatroom. (Well, he might have been there but was so well hidden that I didn’t see him)

Zoe told us that she lived half the year in Newcastle, England and the other half on a ship. This no doubt inspired Kirksey, who said he would like to live on another planet because the forums had become such a pain. At this, Kyron suggested that K-Pax was a pretty good planet, just as I echoed that it was a pretty good movie too. This cheered Kirksey up enough to tell us that he had received an offer on his house finally, so we were all glad to hear this.

I asked Zoe what sort of training she needed to be a navigator, which is what she is when she is on that ship. She said one has to be skilled in a variety of areas, such as ship construction, ship stability, spherical trigonometry, metereology, maritime law, chartwork to name only a few. Kirksey added that Zoe played a pretty good game of chess too! Zoe then went on to tell us about GPS (Global Positioning System) and sextants which I had a particular interest in since we once thought of buying one some years ago. She also told us about a gyro compass, which are far more accurate than magnetic compasses and can operate in situations, such as shielded submarines, where the magnetic field of the earth is ‘blocked’. Here is a link briefly describing the principles of a gyro compass as well as some other nautical instruments:

http://www.thalassa.gr/2002/to/en/n06.asp

Zoe leaves on her ship in July and will unfortunately not be able to get internet access for RHP.

At some point during this most interesting discussion, Rachel apparently tried to remove her father so she could get into the chat, but Kirksey fended her off and I congratulated him, but she found out, so I had to fend her off.

Lori appeared and was introduced to Zoe. Sangeeta asked Lori how her animal rights club SOAR was going and was glad to hear of its success.

Rachel asked if a koala bear can swim and we found out that they probably can in an emergency, but not very well. They are also not bears, but marsupials as are kangaroos. Here is a link about them:

http://www.savethekoala.com/

Sangeeta discussed the inappropriateness of keeping exotic pets in unnatural environments. On the issue of ‘hostile’ animals, Zoe made the excellent point that animals are usually hostile only when threatened, a fact that some people do not wish to acknowledge thus propagating unfounded myths about certain creatures.

We were delighted to see Fjord after a long absence and found out from him that Orin was doing well too. Since Zoe is quite a traveller herself, she had an conversation with Fjord about geographies. Then while I told Fjord about the math and physics Kyron and I were doing, Zoe told Sangeeta about all the different courses she was going to be taking: I counted over 20!

Since Zoe is a navigator, Sangeeta told Zoe about her ‘favorite’ ship, the Sea Sheppard which is the Sea Sheppard, committed to protecting marine life though the efforts of Paul Watson, who was also a founder of Greenpeace. The mission statement of the Sea Sheppard Society tells us that it “is a non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) involved with the investigation and documentation of violations of international laws, regulations, and treaties protecting marine wildlife species” and here is a link to its website:

http://www.seashepherd.org/

Rachel meanwhile was having troubles with her computer and left. But she came back in time to hear Fjord tell us about Art Hobson’s physics book that highlights ecologic principles:

http://www.uark.edu/depts/physics/about/hobson.html

This got Sangeeta and Zoe talking about Stephen Hawking’s work. Sangeeta and Kyron are learning about string theory so we look forward to some interesting discussions on that topic in the future.

Well, I had to leave and when I announced this, everyone seemed inspired to leave as well. For some reason, this pleased me very much so I left feeling very much pleased. However, then I found out that Fjord really hadn’t left, but since I already had, it didn’t bother me at all. Nor did the fact that Rachel poked her nose into the chatroom an hour later. It didn’t even bother me to learn that Michael who had been lurking in the room since nearly the beginning of the chat, and had said hello 3 times and nothing else throughout the entire session actually lingered there for another two hours afterwards, before finally departing. I do not think he was painting the chatroom, since Fjord had already done this more than once. Perhaps he found the chat a good place to meditate, but since he is not here as I write this, I guess we shall not find out.

012-04-05-15

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

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 âŠ 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!

013-04-05-23

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was one of our shorter chats, but nonetheless quite interesting as you will see.

Zoe was the first to enter this week, soon followed by Kyron and Ranjana. It turned out that Zoe was turned out very well done, because she had a sunburn acquired from purchasing a cd. I realize that sounds quite remarkable, until one is told that she had to go to the store under a very bright sun in order to get the cd. The good news was that Zoe passed 4 of her exams and is already a fully qualified GMDSS electronics operator who can’t use a VCR.

Zoe was particularly pleased, because failing exams can create difficulties. For instance, failing that course would result in her not having the qualification as well as costing her ?105! Ranjana, upon hearing this, exclaimed “holy smokes…. that’s expensive!!” upon which Zoe appropriately stuck to the subject saying that failing her Advanced Firefighting course would result in her again not having the qualification and this time costing her ?530! As you can see the difficulties actually compound, of course, as a direct result of the British currency system that insists on using pounds as a unit rather than dollars, which is probably just as well since there apparently is no word ‘comdollar’.

Sangeeta came in and told us about the video, she has been working on to introduce animal rights into high schools. We know that she was telling the truth, because we actually saw this video a couple of nights ago. It is excellent already, even though the finishing touches aren’t in place yet. It is bound to create a significant impact in the curriculum as a social justice movement that more people are becoming aware of and thinking about. Sangeeta is also giving a talk on animal rights in New York tomorrow to a school in East Harlem and is in the process of possibly introducing AR components to the Girls and Boys club on a nationwide basis.

I came in about now to tell everyone that Breaca’s new friend Dawn (rhp’s Unicorn) who is also the mother of our Veggiechess Clan’s FoolsM8, might be coming to our chat. Unfortunately, Dawn didn’t arrive and neither did Breaca, who wrote to Ranjana saying she had too much sun and was going to bed and to give her love to everybody.

Fjord came into the chat and we were all glad to hear that his leg was much better and that he walked for the first time since injuring it a while ago. Fjord asked Kyron how his string theory was coming along and was told that he and Sangeeta who had started us all on this were both at a stage where they grasp the superficialities, but need to study a lot more math in order to understand the details.

Zoe told us she has a friend in Croatia who was in the middle of an mild earthquake so I told her that we get them here all the time, but they are so small that we don’t even notice them. After she learned that we lived on Vancouver Island, she immediately started a conversation on the excellent Xfiles series. This was followed by her saying that Canada presented dangerous waters to navigate in because of the ice, rocks, shallow passes and the cold temperatures that can be very hard on older ships’ metal. As her ships’ navigator, one of her responsibilities is to make sure that the course taken does not embroil the ship in dangers such as these.

While I was discussing these most interesting matters with Zoe, Fjord was having an equally engaging conversation with Kyron and Sangeeta regarding string theory. Those interested in an introductory non-technical explanation can find out all kinds of things at this excellent site:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

Inspired by all this Sangeeta contemplated existing in parallel universes, but her ambitions seemed not to affect Andrew who had just arrived. However, it reminded Fjord of mescaline which is a ‘psychedalic to expand your consciousness and to throw you out the normel sense-experiences’ in the form of a mushroom. Fjord went on to talk about Ram Dass a psychologist specializing in human motivation whose explorations of human consciousness led him at one time to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals." He also wrote some interesting and kind books one of which we have read called ‘How Can I Help’. Here is a link to his website, in case anyone is interested:

http://www.ramdasstapes.org/

Andrew left at this point and Ray appeared. Ray told us that he had a neat computer back in the early nineties called the Amiga2000, so I volunteered that we still had our original MacIntosh from 1984, and Zoe mentioned her Sega system - all great machines in there own time.

Meanwhile, Fjord and Sangeeta had gotten into a very interesting discussion on the concept of expectations. Sangeeta’s premise was “we are stronger than we think…and have abilities to reach heights that supercede our expectations– that is why expectations aren’t a good thing”, while Fjord maintained that “expectations are all right as long as we can deal with it when they get scattered; like dreams”. This discussion greatly interested Ranjana. Ray who was talking to Kyron about a Linux Fedora boot up problem their company was having was also intrigued and joined the conversation.

Meanwhile, Zoe was experiencing her own limitations in that she considered herself to be very small, but I made her feel much better by reminding her that she could say the word ‘purple’ now, which she could only say as ‘purcle’ when she was really little. She felt so good, in fact, she tried to convince me that she had to stand on a phonebook to steer her ship. Well, I wasn’t going to be fooled by this and suggested that she was just telling me a phoneybook story.

In the other conversation, Ray suggested that our beliefs determine our reality, while Ranjana tried to get clarification as to what was exactly meant by the word ’expectation’ so that it wasn’t confused with the idea of ‘goals’.

This was a point to consider since Zoe needed to deal with a specific goal of her own, that of acquiring relief for her sunburn. Quickly, wielding the Home Remedies text, I offered several solutions including soothing compresses with cold water, oatmeal, witch hazel, or buro-sol antiseptic powder which contains aluminum acetate, cornstarch paste, vegetable slices (cucumber or potato), lettuce, tea bags soaked in cold water. However, it seemed that aloe vera was considered the best. Upon hearing this Ray just had to offer “Where is Vera, and why are you saying ‘aloe’ to her?” and this really didn’t help Zoe’s sunburn one bit.

Then Ray got serious again: “what does one do when they are fully immersed in their expectations to such an extent that they no longer believe that the expectation is a part of them, but that they are a part of the expectation?” This is actually an interesting concept that appears often in our daily ‘rituals’ - does one drive the car, or has one become so attached to driving, that it is the car that does the driving?

Sangeeta tried to differentiate between types of expectations: “going to work is little expectation…what i mean is the big expectations we have like expecting to find a life partner….we can expect but it is also a limitation i believe as you lose sight of all others around and you are centered around that one expectation”

I was also suggesting to Zoe that if she didn’t have oats, for a compress for her sunburn, she could try mud, but it turned out that she didn’t have a garden.

Ranjana clarified between planning and expectations: “when I say planning,,,, I mean mean setting some goals etc….but it is open to the forces of the universe! expectations I believe make me more closed to those forces….”

Fjord however felt that it was possible to have expectations and be open to whatever comes. He illustrated his point with what was happening at his house in that he was expecting a delicious dinner, but if it is burned “I will try to smile”.

The discussion was obviously very deep, because even the mention of food didn’t send everybody off wanting to eat the way it used to in the past!

Instead, Sangeeta suggested that “if you didn’t expect anything burned or not, you would smile anyway and there would be no ’try’ " As if inspired by this comment, Fjord filled the screen with smiling faces!

Well, Ray was so happy that he closed the wrong program when it was time for him to go, but he figured it out shortly and was therefore able to leave, but not before wishing everybody a happy Queen Victoria holiday.

I initiated a conversation with Zoe regarding accents in which I maintained that the British, Aussies, Americans and even Canadians except those on Vancouver Island all spoke with accents. However, for some reason, she found my powerful arguments unconvincing. So then I tried to point out that Vancouver Island really wasn’t part of Canada, but that didn’t work any better. So I quickly changed the conversation back to the holidays issue again and by suggesting that everyone take a holiday, managed to skilfully extricate myself from the situation.

In fact, I was so skilful that everyone else started to extricate themselves from the chatroom rapidly. Perhaps they took my suggestion of taking a holiday seriously.

Anyway, half an hour after the great exodus, Sangeeta who had threatened to return to the chatroom, did only to find that no one was there, so she threatened to stay there and meditate, which she did for precisely 32 seconds - a point that I threatened to note in this summary which I have just done.

And guess who showed up a couple of hours later? You’re correct! It was Lori noting that she had now missed 2 Satchats in a row! However, she wished everyone a “super awesome week” and said she would catch us next week and left with a smile which is a great way to conclude this week’s chat.

014-04-05-30

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was an enormously long chat - more than 4 hours!

Now Zoe came in first, but decided to go have lunch so when Rachel entered she didn’t get an answer to her ‘hello’ so she tried a little harder with “Zoooooooeeeeeeeee”, but of course didn’t get a response. Then Breaca came in and said ‘hello’. Then Zoe suddenly appeared saw what Rachel had written and said “hellooooooooooooooooo”. As luck would have it, I came in just at that moment and thought Zoe was saying hello in that rather extravagant fashion to me so I quickly tried to reciprocate “hellooooooooooooooo to you tooooooooooooo”.

No one had a chance to respond, because Rachel wondered if I could interpret dreams. Apparently, she kept being drowned by an evil plant. Naturally, there were several interpretations offered. I suggested that she shouldn’t think the plant was evil; Sangeeta suggested the dream meant Rachel should eat more plants; Breaca figured that the plant was really Rachel’s Adam in some alien form. However, Rachel insisted that Adam was not the alien, but that Gary Senice was the alien. I lost track of what was happening at this point, but I figured that from what Rachel said about the plant’s activities Gary Senice wasn’t sonice.

We had obviously helped Rachel a lot and made her feel much better about this frightening incident, because she was able to change the subject and ask where Dylan was.

Breaca mentioned the fiasco that had taken place on RHP clan forum yesterday directed at Skeeter. Fortunately, Zoe, Ranjana, Sangeeta, Fjord and I were able to publically emphasize that this wasn’t acceptable behaviour. Breaca posted today to the same tune and Sir Ivanhoe suggested that the thread be closed which the moderators did follow through with.

Zoe asked an interesting question regarding whether we eat candies with gelatin in them. Since we don’t eat candies, the answer is obviously no, but it got us to discussing what we avoid as vegans. Zoe was surprised to hear that in addition to the usual meat, dairy, eggs, vegans avoid leather, silk, honey and wool. The rationale for leather is pretty obvious, but here are the some reasons for avoiding the others:

“silk is produced by boiling silk worms alive or cooking them alive…one silk worm is the equivalent of a tiny strand of thread…imagine how many worms for a shirt!!!! millions!- it’s jst gross! and wrong!” (Sangeeta)
“honey: bees produce honey for thier babies, for thier own survival- we take it from them and replace it with sugar water- that’s pure exploitation….a jar of honey is te amout of work a bee would do traveling 3 times around the equator!” (Sangeeta)

“many bees can be injured or killed through the process of obtaining honey and besides they’veworked hard to make that honey for themselves” (Ranjana)

wool is produced at the serious expense of sheep’s well-being. Despite common illusions, sheep undergo horrors for this industry:

“Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work without regard for the welfare of the sheep. One eyewitness who saw the shearing of sheep said: “[T]he shearing shed must be one of the worst places in the world for cruelty to animals - I have seen shearers punch sheep with their shears or their fists until the sheep’s nose bled. I have seen sheep with half their faces shorn off ?”

The quote is from the website www.woolisbaad.com in case anyone wants to explore the realities further.

While it is true that not all farmers hurt the sheep, the vast majority of sheep do not get the benefit of these particular individuals, because profit not compassion still dominate people’s actions.

Zoe reflected how she has personally “seen the poor treatment of sheep from new zealand and a sheep ship was berthed next to mine in new zealand and it was not nice”.

Rachel asked Sangeeta whether she could get rid of some leather materials by giving them to PETA so that they could be sold to make money for the AR cause. People often do exactly this sort of thing when they realize they do not want to support an industry that inflicts cruelty on animals. A few months ago, for instance, PETA was able to send a large number of boxes filled with furs donated by people who refused to wear fur any longer.

Then Rachel asked whether I watch De Grassi high. I said no because I don’t need to watch a show about high school since I have taught in one for so long. I did recall that this particular show was actually quite a good one in the 70s, but since we rarely watch tv, I wasn’t particularly interested in anything that remotely resembled a soap opera. Oh oh! That got me into trouble with Zoe and Rachel who are both soapfisianados, but I think that the mention of soap, caused Ranjana to head for the shower.

Sangeeta said that she likes Star Trek which we do as well because of its scientific and social merits. When I mentioned that Mr. Spock was a role model for me, Rachel asked whether I had those pointy ears. I pointed out, though not with my ears, that I didn’t get the ears since I had settled for horns instead. Sangeeta also noted that her picture on our family page is one where she is half-elf, half-vulcan, which is all fine, except I couldn’t figure out which half is which despite my personal associations with vulcans.

Then we got on to the Xfiles and Sangeeta mentioned that she had met Scully at an animal rights awards show. Apparently, her production at that time, Worldfest (the largest vegan festival in the world www.worldfestevents.com ) almost managed to get Mulder to be one of the many celebrites who appear at that event.

Then a great thing happened as we sent Rachel off to fill out the Veggiecarta. She was mistakenly under the assumption that she had to have a pawnstar to be on our family page and I told her that this wasn’t true. While Rachel was gone, Ranjana bickered with me about whether she had damaged the shower (which I was most relieved to learn she had not), Zoe said that she played the guitar (and also the viola and violin) and Sangeeta suggested that she and Zoe play a violin-sitar duet.

After Rachel returned, I went looking for a remora fish for her, which proved to be a surprisingly lengthy process, so I do not know what happened in the chatroom. Well actually I do, because I just read it, but since I don’t see anything there that I said, I don’t know if anyone would believe my account of what transpired. One thing is for certain though and that is Ranjana kept telling everybody how much trouble I was having finding that remora fish picture! But I did find it and now you can all see Rachel’s new profile on our family page:

http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/family.html

Just as I returned to tell Rachel the good news she disappeared! I thought it might be a result of ecstatic joy because of my success, but later I found out that it was because her computer had crashed and she wasn’t able to get back online for a few hours.

We were all happy to see Fjord when he arrived. Ranjana inquired about his leg and learned that it was healing well. I asked about his natural mohawk haircut and found that it was doing well too. I expressed my great admiration for it since Ranjana has helped make sure I don’t have any hair. Of course, she denied it, but I don’t think anyone was convinced - I certainly wasn’t.

While we discussed the validity of my claim, Sangeeta answered several questions Zoe had regarding PETA. Some of PETA tactics tend to be on the ‘outrageous’ side and while some quite justifiably question their effectiveness, it is important to remember that PETA does a lot of their ‘stunts’ soley to generate publicity and awareness regarding the cruelty towards animals. What PETA has found in the past is that if they just ’talk’ about something, media don’t listen. This approach has been criticized by some AR groups and applauded by others, because there is a wide discrepancy as to the ideologies of AR groups.

Then Zoe raised the excellent question as to why the individual groups don’t join together and form a strong single entity. I have often thought about this, especially back in the 80s when I thought it would be a good idea to unify the various groups involved in the peace movement. As I look back now, I feel that the reasons unification wouldn’t be a good idea is because

different groups focus on different issues appealing to different people 2) a single group would make an easier target for the opposition

Still, I think Zoe’s point is a good one because sometimes AR, feminist and even peace groups fight amongst themselves.

Zoe had to leave, but stayed on since Andrew arrived and she hadn’t really talked to him before. Their first encounter went like this (with a little help from me):

[purclecow] who is reizen? [pradtf] purclecow> reizen is an andrew [purclecow] what does he do? who is he? [pradtf] purclecow> he comes to the chat from all kinds of places [purclecow] but what does he do? [reizen] purclecow> what do you do, who are you? [pradtf] reizen> purclecow is a zoe [purclecow] me, well i am me and i work for the merchant navy [reizen] purclecow> These are very big questions [purclecow] i always have big questions [reizen] purclecow> I am me and I work towards my happiness. [purclecow] happiness, cool job

Fjord was so confused by this exchange that when I asked where he was, all he could reply was

His reply so confused me, that all I could respond was

Andrew and Zoe though simply ignored our confusion and proceeded to discuss travel with Ranjana joining in. But this talk caused Sangeeta to remember that she had to travel so she left.

So just to show that we didn’t take any of this personally, Fjord and I talked about Padfoot, the master of evil on RHP, but since there really wasn’t much to discuss we soon stopped. Before we did, though Zoe finally left saying that this time she meant it. I was immediately reminded of the policeman scene from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance and mentioned it and to my most pleasant surprise Andrew sang out “Tarantara”!

This got us into a wonderful discussion with him about him! We learned that Andrew was a professional, baritone opera singer at one time, but chose a different profession because the opera didn’t appeal to him. Ranjana was of course delighted to hear all this since she is a classical singer herself.

Then Andrew and Ranjana started discussing the animal companions they had encountered and somewhere in the midst of all this, Fjord got me into trouble with Ranjana. I’ll tell you how he did it. He brought up the topic of frogs because his granddaughter had found one that they later released and I causually made the observation that Ranjana reminded me of a frog. Now this was merely an interesting observation because her teacher gave her singing exercises to imitate a frog. Now I was careful to write this while she was on the phone, just so she wouldn’t take it the wrong way, but as it turned out she saw it and when she denied that her singing exercises had anything to do with a frog I had to think fast. So I suggested that perhaps I really meant a toad since they sing up quite a chorus in the trees around our place in the fall. This didn’t seem to help the overall situation and Ranjana said something like I was trying to sing at this point. Andrew said something about digging a hole to me, but Fjord got me out of trouble by mentioning a singing grasshopper (‘sprinkhaan’) which seemed like the appropriate thing to do since I got into all this trouble because of him in the first place. Fortunately, Ranjana started talking to Andrew about something else because she might have been concerned that the meditating grasshopper may start to sing.

Feeling he had done his good deed for the day, Fjord decided to leave at this point. Fortunately, Andrew talked at length with Ranjana about various matters and she must have forgotten about what transpired. At least, that is what it seems like as I clandestinely write this with the door locked.

015-04-06-06

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

Wow! The longest chat yet - over 5 hours!! Geez you people talk a lot!!!

Dyl started the chat - well in a way he did. He showed up about 12 hours early because they do the time differently in Australia. When he saw that no one was there, I think he thought he was late rather than early, because instead of celebrating his promptness, he merely exclaimed “bugger” three times and vanished!

Rachel showed up early too, but only by about 10 minutes so Dyl wasn’t there and she expressed how bored she was. Zoe appeared, but what no one realized was that she had entered the chatroom even before Rachel and remained silent because she had gone to sort out her dinner. Lori then entered after a 3 week absence and announced that she finally made it, but after Zoe remarked that she would have to stay inside for an electrician, all Lori got to hear was how bored Rachel would be even though she wasn’t waiting for an electrician.

Ranjana and Michael came in just in time to hear that Zoe sprained her hand playing a video game for 8 hours and that Rachel sprained her eyes after doing it for only 3 hours. Michael on the other hand simply felt sprained because he had finally gone back to work after a long holiday.

Then Breaca appeared in her full 15 years and 2 days glory and received birthday greetings from everyone. She was actually at a party, but tore herself away for a bit to drop in.

We learned that Lori’s AR group SOAR

http://swtsurrender87.tripod.com/soar/

was doing nicely and that they had been leafleting recently. Also, Lori had rid her own computer of the virus that had immobilized it and had saved herself $60 in the process!

I started telling everybody about the baby bunny we had rescued a few days ago. He has been named Yoda because of the orientation of his ears. Interestingly enough, Lori had just rescued 2 kittens.

Suddenly, Rachel lettuce know that Kirksey was eating spinach from his own garden. And then even more suddenly, she asked me “what does it mean in a dream when your best friend turns into a vampire and bites you?” I interpreted this to mean that it was time to tell her friend to go vegetarian - especially, when there is a possibility of getting bitten by him!

Rachel said that some of the people on RHP were disturbing. This becomes very evident during some of the debates where unfair and ludicrous tactics are often used. However, I am glad to say that those from Veggiechess have always managed to handle the situation and themselves with wit, equity and calmness.

Meanwhile, Ranjana and Fjord discussed playing their game in the next life since Ranjana was taking so long to move, but Michael wondered if there was an automatic timeout after 5 years. This worried him enough to think up a solution, just in case it was true: “but then you can continue the game by entering the position and you have another 5 years”. Ranjana thanked him for that great suggestion, but I think she was being sarcastic. To not get into further trouble, Michael suggested that Ranjana actually plays blitz but through several universes and this had sufficient cosmological immensity to not only appease her, but to confuse me.

Then we learned that Rachel was going away for camp for a week and to prepare for it, she took off for a while to eat and this gave Kirksey a chance to talk, but only for a bit because he was driving Rachel to the camp which was nearly 200 miles away. After he returned, he would have to get back to painting his house. We learned that Kirksey did a lot of driving anyway for his work, sometimes as much as 100 miles a day. I told him that I used to like driving at one time many years ago and that I would pretend I was piloting a starship! Then I realized that Kirksey could be Captain Kirksey of Star Treksey on the starship Enterprisey! Well, it was time for them to go where not one of them had gone before and so they left.

Fjord asked about the possum problem in New Zealand. These creatures were brought there to start a fur industry and some of them escaped into the wild where without natural predators they are causing considerable destruction to the forests. Conservationists want to poison them, the fur industry wants to trap them and take their fur, while AR groups want to sterilize them. Zoe said she really wondered, as did Sangeeta and I, about this because very often people make a bigger deal regarding a problem, just so they can implement a quick or profitable solution. This is why it is so important to have AR groups since they speak on behalf of the victims.

Sangeeta asked Lori how her mother felt about her activism and we were pleased to hear that not only is her mother supportive, she even helps with the leafleting!

Meanwhile, Fjord and Michael were having a discussion about rain turning Austria into a big lake and how it was fortunate that Michael was such a good swimmer and something about his being a duck which caught Lori’s attention as well as several of the rest of us. Sangeeta recalled her efforts at swimming which she called drowning which really isn’t correct because she actually did learn to swim. Fjord therefore made the most helpful suggestion that she put salt in the water because it would help to buoy her up.

Zoe gave an example of how human intervention to rectify a problem had backfired:“look at ecuador as an example….the banana spider was killing stuff and being a general pain, so they introduced a snake….now the banana snake, that got bored of the spiders and now eats tonnes of other stuff and has doubled the problem.” Then she suggested that we look at the animal problem from a different perspective - that it is the humans that were the real problem. This led to an interesting discussion regarding human overpopulation and how forced sterilization or at the very least, restraint could be a most useful solution. If people really wanted to have lots of kids, there certainly is no shortage of them in the orphanages of the world.

Zoe gave some very profound commentary regarding dealing with the real problem rather than pursuing makeshift solutions:

“there are so many animal rights groups….but at the end of the day maybe the problem [humans] is the cause” and

“the cause for the destruction should be adressed before the prevention is decided” and

“humans see themselves as superior which maybe as a race they are, however….when the earth reacts….which it will in time, it will be too late to change our mistakes”

I was fascinated to see all this wisdom being typed by someone who had recently sprained her hand playing 8 hours of a video game!

We were delighted to see Bear enter the chatroom after several weeks absence. I naturally tried to introduce him to Zoe and Lori, but Ranjana ignored me and tried to do the same thing. However, she wrote some things in a very strange way. Here’s the sort of thing i mean,

[imvegan] LBear> bear meet Zoe and Lori (beat of me) [pradtf] imvegan> how come you are going through everything i have just done? [pradtf] imvegan> didn’t you like my introductions? [pradtf] imvegan> lori is bestofme not beat of me!!!!!

After all this, Ranjana finally admitted that she wasn’t listening, but she didn’t type “wasn’t” properly turning it into “wan’t” which was probably a freudian typo indicating that she wanted listening which didn’t surprise me very much considering the immense volume of verbosity I have had to deal with for over 4 decades!

Zoe then started an interesting commentary about merchant ships vs navy ships. It was surprising to learn that while the former are luxurious with “our own double bed in a huge room, with tv, fridge, VCR and sometime sky tv”, navy ships are about as spartan as they come. Sangeeta who had toured a navy ship agreed wholeheartedly with Zoe’s descriptions. Zoe also made the very interesting point that the level of skill training in the navy is pitifully inadequate in comparison to that of the merchant fleet and related an incident in which one of her counterparts in the navy through incompetence was suggesting a course which would have caused her “to navigate straight into a fishing vessel”!

Meanwhile, Bear told us that he was injured because he fell while feeding his pets and had to have “a little chirugic repair of my left eyebrow”. His vision was impaired for a while too.

Zoe went on to tell us a fact of interest regarding banana transportation on merchant ships. Apparently, the crew get longer port time, because they have to be very careful unloading bananas and have to do it slowly. Additionally,

“the bananas start off green and then produce a gas called ethane i think but if you stop them producing the gas by regulating them at 14 degrees C and put only nitrogen in the cargo holds they remain fine for up to 3 weeks still green unripened.”

All this talk reminded us that we didn’t have bananas to make smoothie today, but as it turned out we did so it all worked out right.

Then Bear and Michael decided to have a discussion on their respective ages, which are very close since they were born in the same year, but Michael was born in November while Bear was born in December. They both seemed very pleased with all that so I figured I’d better not say anything.

Lori suddenly popped in again and Sangeeta told her about the Social Justice video and curriculum she had produced for high schools. Lori said she knows at least 2 teachers in her school who would be very happy to use it in their classes.

Then Fjord returned to the chat after his cycle ride, so I suggested he was a recycled Fjord, but he didn’t get the ‘car’ joke which is ok because I didn’t know I had made a ‘car’ joke till just now. Instead I went on to ask the profound question “why can’t a cycle stand up by itself?” and after much deliberation had to provide the answer which is that “the reason a cycle can’t stand up by itself is because it is two tired”. Ranjana was obviously not interested in this because she left the chatroom before hearing the punchline and both Fjord and Bear could only manage a single laughing face after I had prompted them twice with triple laughing faces and had even written “two tired!! get it???” as well as “how come i’m the only one laughing??”

Fjord countered by asking “What do you do when your bike is too high?” to which I replied “deflate it?”,“try to handle it?”,“settle on it being unseatable?” and “see it as an offender?” after which I was told by Fjord that he hadn’t quite asked the question correctly. But it was too late anyway because Lori couldn’t stand it anymore and had taken off. Bear shouted for Lori to bring her back and was successful because she did reappear, but didn’t say anything and then disappeared again. She was probably Loritering just outside the chatroom.

Bear kept saying he had to go and wash the car, but since he didn’t go to do that chore we kept talking. Fjord had made a new friend, David (rhp Dreamlax, whose posts we liked very much) and so did I, Larry (rhp huntingbear), both of whom have joined our family and may join our clan as well. Bear had also found a couple of new friends who he thought may enjoy our clan and will arrange to have them get in touch with me if the idea appeals to them. However, he said that Lori was obviously his best friend since she had him shouting for her recently. I informed him as to Lori’s real identity - one of the students who saved Daisy the pig and Bear was very pleased that she had joined our group. He was naturally also very glad to have met Zoe as well and commented on how the internet provides us with good opportunities to meet such interesting people.

When Bear found out that David and Larry were going to join our family, it reminded him that he was supposed to fill out the Veggiecarta a long time ago so that I could put him up on the family page. It was ok though I guess because I had lost his picture because of the harddrive erasure a while ago, so he put both items on his agenda.

Sangeeta told us that she had made friends with a Buddist monk recently from Dharam Shala: “he is pure veg and fighting for animal rights in thier tibetan parliament”. She went on to ask Fjord who had lived in Nepal, “have you heard of Thich Naht Hahn? he is a vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher…he is also very socially active…i like it when people take thier faith and put it into action- it is the best way to honor the faith i believe..”

Sangeeta continued by mentioning that she had been inside some amazing churchs with incredible architecture and that she planned on going there to meditate in them and Fjord told her how the shop he used to own was about philosophy, meditation and yoga.

Bear talked about some interesting prime number puzzles he had which were in Spanish, but he said he would try to post them anyway and this got Sangeeta talking about a fascinating book she was reading called the Da Vinci Code and what was neat was that both she and Fjord were roughly halfway through the book at present. According to the writeup on Amazon.com, “the book masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history”.

I then made the observation that this chat had already gone over 5 hours and tried to blame it on Sangeeta for talking so much, but it didn’t work. However, Fjord left shortly afterwards perhaps to read the Da Vinci Code and Sangeeta took off to practise her sitar. Ranjana appeared again briefly and somehow that reminded Bear that he really did have to wash his car, but Ranjana left before he could, leaving me all alone in the chatroom until I left too.

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 10:17 pm by dyl 12 hours?! I was 12 hours early?? Prad, I swear the start time for this chat changes every week! I arrived the same time the chat started 3 weeks ago. I’ll try to co-ordinate my efforts with you during the week.

016-04-06-13

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

Another enormous chat more than 5.5 hours! It was one of our best, with a couple of exciting new members and one of the most profound discussions we have ever had in that chatroom!

We were delighted to see the newest member of our family, Larry (rhp huntingbear and papa_bear in the chat) appear. He did not just appear though. He was the first person in there! He uttered the first word! It was “test”! I will refrain from mentioning that he came 6 hours before the chat started though. He is after all from Australia and has no doubt been influenced somehow by Dyl.

Anyway, Larry did not wait around for 6 hours. He only stayed 10 minutes, no doubt admiring the fine paint job Fjord had done in the chatroom many weeks ago. Instead, Larry reappeared 13 minutes after the chat had started, but that was just fine because even though Dyl and Kyron were already in there, neither said anything to the other so the chatting really hadn’t started.

So who do you think started this chat?

Well I did, with the single word and accompanying exclamation mark “larry!” Now Larry lives on the part of Australia where the time isn’t as strange as Dyl’s so it was only about 11 pm for him. Soon Rachel and Ranjana appeared so introductions were made.

We were very surprised to see Rachel because we thought she might still be at camp, but as it turned out, she had managed to get on a computer at one of her friend’s in Louisville. She couldn’t stay long, but it was great that she dropped in to say hello to everybody. Not only that, Kirksey came on a few minutes later as well, but he had to leave soon too because he had to drive his younger daughter’s friend. He was of course very glad to see Larry, whom he referred to as ’the other theologian’, since both of them are two of the kindest people on the RHP forums speaking the truths of Christianity in the nicest ways.

I explained a few details about the chatroom to Larry who had discovered how to use different colours and the next thing I knew all these happy faces were being emitted by him. That was very nice of him, even though I realized that he was only testing the faces. Then Larry’s wife Deborah sent us a hello as did his nine month old daughter who I think wanted to attend the chat, but it was really a bit late for her to do so.

Upon Ranjana’s asking, Larry told us that he was originally from the United States, but had moved with his Australian wife to Perth. He said that he had received several messages of welcome from Veggiechess members already since joining us a few days ago. I warned him that Veggiechess people like to talk a lot (as evidenced by these chats) and that they like to eat a lot too, aptly demonstrated in several earlier chats as they would stampede at the first mention of food. Larry replied “well I like talking, and eating. looks like I came to the right place!”

While I was contemplating the correctness of Larry’s words and how glad we were to have him with us, Dyl entered and I was so surprised that I was forced to exclaim, “dyl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” This surprised Dyl even more and he was left speechless for quite a while so I had to ask, “dyl??????????????” After Dyl had recovered from all these punctuation marks, he and Larry talked a bit about Australia and timezones, since they were at opposite ends of that country.

Then Dyl told me that he was studying a book on endgames by Glenn Flear, so I had to tell him that I “never heard of it i flear”. This got Ranjana to blurt out, “dylohoh dyl, he’s starting it again!” but she directed the message to me instead of Dyl not that either of us could possibly understand it, and then followed it immediately with “i made a real mess of that message!” as though that subsequent commentary was really necessary! Luckily, Dyl and Larry were engrossed in a discussion about Australian holidays by now, and were more or less spared particularly since the message had been directed to me even though it shouldn’t have been.

Then Dyl asked whether I knew that Australians called North American football by the strange name of Grid Iron. I said I didn’t and so Dyl proclaimed, “Interesting. I always thought North Americans only feigned ignorance to irritate others.” While there was probably plenty of truth to this, I countered with “we can hardly make out what dyl is saying because of the [Aussie] accent” immediately after which Ranjana desparately rushed to Dyl’s defence by telling Larry that “Prad is rather naughty”. However, there was no explanation as yet why football is called grid iron, or why football is called soccer, or why rugby is called rugby until Dyl solved the mystery by suggesting that they came up with these weird names so as not to conflict with the ones already in use. Considering the choices of the names and their incomprehensible logic, I can honestly think of no better explanation!

Dyl and I talked a bit about ‘real’ football. He played defence and mid-field. I played center forward and right inside, but at a time when the 5-3-2 (5 forwards, 3 mid-field, 2 defense) systems were in common use. Dyl suggested that it would lead to a high scoring game. Most systems these days tend to be far more defensive.

Fjord entered and immediately expressed his disappointment at Ranjana’s move that he had been waiting for weeks (if you recall from an earlier chat, the two of them were planning to continue their game into several lifetimes because a certain person was taking so long to make her move). He said he expected a mate in 3! Then he proceeded to tell Dyl that his whole country was orange because of football, so I had to jump in to ask “so is your national anthem ‘home, home on the orange?’” to which Ranjana asked " couldn’t you orange something different?"

Fortunately, before any of this could continue further, David (rhp dreamlax) came in for his first Veggiechess chat! David had joined us just a day before Larry and he was based in New Zealand. David was a friend Fjord had discovered on the forums and we had been impressed with the quality of his postings. Right now, though, David wasn’t quite awake, because it was even later for him than it was for Dyl! He said, “Excuse me if I stop talking entirely, I’m either asleep, or eating breakfast”

Of course, people were curious about David’s nick so here is his answer, “Yes, actually this nickname actually comes from the words DREAMing and reLAXing. The monks found it very suitable for me and decided it was the name they’d call me when I’m lazier than normal (which does not make for a good Buddhist!)”

David asked when the chat started so Ranjana told him that people just drop in from around 8am pst onwards and I had to add that “at least one person even dropped in on the wrong day” to which Dyl guiltily but cleverly replied, " hardly surprising, with the thing still called a sat-chat". Well, then I had to explain that since I couldn’t change the name of the title on the forum, we called it a satChat because we are sitting when chatting.

Meanwhile, Fjord and Dyl were engrossed in a conversation about painting policemen orange, blue and green. Since I really didn’t understand any of it, I will comment no further other than to say that this sort of conspiracy would probably not be looked upon kindly by the police associations.

Larry decided to leave at this point but told us that soon he would be able to show us pictures of his family, links to which we will make available on the satChat.

Dyl thought he should get going too because he had to meet " someone of the female persuasion for coffee" at 11:30 and he figured he’d better be awake and on time. He wondered if doing a Russian cossack dance would be a good way to impress her, but I suggested something more along the lines of carrying a chessboard. Dyl was impressively philosophical regarding this indicating that if his friend wasn’t sufficiently impressed, he’d be home in time for the midday show. We both concluded that it would be a win-win situation!

Meanwhile, David accomplished a first in Veggiechess chat history. He sent a directed message to himself. Then he woke up a bit and exclaimed, “why the hell did I message myself?” Fjord shouted, “Dreamlax” in astonishment! I pointed out, “this has never happened here before”. Dyl suggested, “Mate, you really need some sleep”.Ranjana, for once, was speechless or perhaps she hadn’t noticed because she was contemplating her smoothie.

At any rate, after we had all recovered, David told us what he does at the monastery and showed us a website of programmers (of which he is part of), who write programs for people who need them, for free:

http://www.dreamlax.2ya.com/

Ranjana stated how nice that was and “its in the spirit of sharing and service”. I think that may have embarrassed David, because he immediately left the chatroom. He came back shortly though and we were able to continue. As it turned out, it wasn’t David who was embarrassed, but apparently his computer was because it logged him out several times during the chat.

Fjord asked whether I could join him in the Peter Singer thread and I said I would as soon as I could but it doesn’t look like it will be that soon because this satChat is so long. Dyl felt he had to leave to prepare for his encounter expressing how grateful he was that I didn’t try any of my jokes this week. That made me wonder if I should have armed Dyl with some jokes so that he was even better prepared!

Then David started us on one of the most interesting discussions we have had on these chats with the question “What do you do when someone offers you a meal with meat?” and specifically “The eight-fold path says right thought and right action is defined by right only if it is beneficial to others, but is it more beneficial to eat meat, or to be polite?”

The conversation went on for a long time and I will try to summarize it as best as I can.

The crux of the problem appears to lie in the concept of being beneficial: “being beneficient is very debateable since it is also temporaly based - therefore, due to its transitory nature, it may be an idea to establish alternate parameters”.

One may argue that by refusing to eat meat we risk offending the host and therefore are not being beneficial either to the host or to the cause of vegetarianism. One can also argue that since the animal has been already murdered it is more respectful to eat the meat - the damage has already been done, so why cause more ‘damage’ by creating friction. One can even go to the extent of claiming that you actually ‘hurt’ your host by refusing to partake in the meal that has had a lot of effort put into it.

While there is some validity to all of the above three ideas, they should not be the deciding factor in one’s decision. For instance, refusing to eat the meat can prove to be an educational eye-opener for the host who perhaps thought that everyone except those ‘sickly veggies’ eat meat. Possibly, it can be an inspiration to the host who may not agree with the murdering of animals, but didn’t realize that some people not only live without doing so, but also stand-up to speak out against it. Finally, the host may be hurt even more realizing that the guest has violated a cherished principle just to accommodate the host’s feelings.

Some of these ideas become a little clearer if we consider what we would do if invited to a cannibal’s house for dinner. I rather doubt if anyone would try to ‘accommodate’ in order not to ‘hurt’ the host’s feelings even though the refusal would be based more on disgust rather than on having compassion towards living beings. Yet, the slaughter of helpless animals which occurs at a horrific rate draws neither disgust nor compassion from many, but only because it is an accepted social norm.

To base our actions on the accepted social norms is both dangerous and detrimental, because the status quo changes, but ethics don’t. It is never the quantity of people who pursue a course of action that is important, but the quality of their conscience. If 100 people do a wrong thing, it doesn’t make it right. Instead, a single person who does the right thing can never be made ‘wrong’ no matter how many voices speak against, no matter how powerful the opposition. As Gandhi once put it,

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS.”

So on to specifics.

Suppose you are the ‘guest of honour’ and meat is served - what do you do? Well, if they know you are veg and they serve meat, then you are really not the guest of honour; if they don’t know you are veg, then they should find out right away, so as not to dishonour you.

Should you risk offending them by refusing to eat meat when the most important thing is perhaps to convince them to change such behaviour? First, it is important to realize that it is not our job to convince them of anything; it is up to them to convince themselves. Second, while it may be true that it is easier to start a conversation by eating the meat, it seems a bit strange to speak about vegetarianism through a mouthful of flesh. Finally, a courteous, infomative, non-threatening refusal shows what your principles are and that you stick to them. What is interesting is that no host would ever be offended if you refused because it was ‘against your religion’, rather they would rush to undo their lack of awareness, so why does it suddenly become a problem when we substitute ‘principle’ for religion?

What do you do if meat is offered as a donation to your organization? Well, this is a somewhat different situation, because it would depend if your organization advocates vegetarianism or not. However, even if it doesn’t, it is possible to inform the donors that vegetarianism is the lowest common denominator - meat eaters will eat veg food, but veggies will not eat meat. Therefore, it makes more sense to donate vegetarian food since then it can go to anyone in need. Sometimes an organization will even accept, in the name of the cause, the very thing it opposes. For instance, PETA accepts furs donated by people who refuse to wear them anymore and gives them to people in need or to animal shelters.

Is it immoral to eat an animal that has already been murdered? Eating the murdered animal isn’t immoral, but what needs to be considered is the message you wish to project. By eating it (except in a situation of desperation), do you not project that you accept the murder of animals? Since eating the animal requires it to be murdered, the two become almost synonamous, even though the one eating it has committed no immoral act. People who eat meat aren’t cruel, but perhaps they haven’t thought through the connections of their actions. It is their ‘consumer demand’ that produces most of the cruelty. Similarly, eating of chocolate from the Ivory Coast isn’t an immoral act, but it is the consumer demand that fuels the child slavery there.

What if the host cannot grasp your principle of being vegetarian? If the host doesn’t understand your reasons, then you should explain them. Eating the meat while explaining may be a courtesy to them, but then why talk about vegetarianism? It is of course possible to say that you are a semi-vegetarian and give your reasons for ‘cutting’ down, but then it would be appropriate for your host to also follow suit and ‘cut down’ meat consumption which certainly is not the same as eliminating it. Besides, as Michael put it “you cannot only live the moral principals others can grasp, can you?”

Here are some interesting questions and statements by various people in this discussion:

“The question is for me what is more valuable; sharing with friends and communicate about my morals; or refuse and have no communication at all.” (Fjord)

“There is a difference between eating a meal -because- it has meat, and eating a meal with meat in it that was offered. Are we just as equally supporting the death of the animal, if at all? (David)

“Especially as I DONT EAT ANY ANIMAL PRODUCTS I had the most opportunities to talk with many people about why i live like that …..” (Michael)

" if you start with that premise - you will find people react accordingly …. I have a different premise and I get a different reaction - never have I found that communication stops…. people have said they don’t agree with me and we have very good discussions” (Ranjana)

“isnt it a bit silly for a vegetarian to go to and eat something without knowing what it is well beforehand?” (Kyron)

“how would your hosts feel having you eat meat at their table and then finding out you were veg? … i think if they learned that you were veg for moral reasons, they would be devastated” (prad)

“Last November when we had a big business dinner in my company with 80-100 people present and I knew that there is served only meat …… so i asked to prepare a special meal for me as i am vegan and really a special meal only for me was prepared and i had the best opportunity to talk about why i live like that with soooo many people who were vvery curious … never would i have had that platform to talk about animal rights if i had not decided to be completely true to myself” (Michael)

“I just want to know what the worse situation is, though, to refuse the meal or to eat it.” (David)

“we’re talking about how people feel… how did the animals feel? what harm is greater?” (Ranjana)

" i feel that this really is the point …. we could see all this discussion from the point of view of the animal being in the slaughterhouse shortly before his/her death ….. then it does not matter how other people feel about you" (Michael)

“[your host] should respect your views … if he doesn’t, then he needs to invite you to dinner a few more times” (prad)

“Offending the host is not showing compassion. We must never assume we are not going to offend anyone.” (David)

" let’s look at a muslim and a buddhist each inviting the other to dinner … the muslim offers meat as a token of respect - the buddhist offers vegetarian for the same reason … the muslim will eat at the buddhists, but the buddhist will not eat the muslims meat … why? because the underlying principle that is the strongest belongs to the buddhist … all religions preach compassion - but few practise it and offense is not to be taken in the same light as death … so the compassion of not killing overrides the ’token of respect’" (prad)

Sangeeta entered at this point and though she had unfortunately missed this very interesting discussion, she got to talking to David about various things such as music composition which is a talent David has. It also came out that David had done an excellent post on ‘anger’ and it is well-worth looking at:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthr âŠ amp;page=2

Ranjana read the post and said how wonderful it was. Immediately, David disappeared not because he was embarrassed remember, but because his computer was.

Sangeeta and David continued to talk about veg restaurants, buddhism, and New Zealand which is a place Sangeeta wanted to visit, so David invited her. It would be interesting to see if he were shocked if the whole Veggiechess family were to descend on him in Sangeeta’s entourage!

Then we got into a brief discussion on vitamins and vegetarians, because it is a strange misconception that people have, that vegetarians are somehow deficient and need to take vitamins to replace what they are missing. This is one of the silliest anti-veg arguments around. No one needs to eat animal products and no one will be deficient in anything as a result. Like any diet though you should eat sufficient variety (ie don’t try to be veg on pasta and tofu alone) and acquire sufficient calories for your level of activity. Vitamins from your drugstore are both unnecessary and don’t really get assimilated into the body as the advertisements try to get you to believe.

Another common misconception revolves around what a vegetarian really eats and for that we have this rather astute description:

“A vegetarian doesn’t consume any animal products such as meat, fish, milk, cheese, butter, eggs, sea foods, or even honey (a vegan is a vegetarian who has adopted a lifestyle avoiding animal products like wool, leather, silk). The ‘veg’ in vegetarian after all does represent vegetables, fruits and other plant-based foods. People who include dairy to an otherwise vegetarian diet consider themselves to be lacto vegetarians. Those who consume both dairy and eggs call themselves lacto-ovo vegetarians. Of course, by that reasoning those who eat everything other than red meat should fancy themselves to be lacto-ovo-pesco-polla-miele vegetarians.”

The term vegetarian is rather loosely used to describe lacto-ovo vegetarians because most people who consider themselves vegetarian are lacto-ovo vegetarian.

What many people do not realize is that by supporting the dairy industry one actually supports the veal industry. One may think that no animal is killed in milk production, but millions of male calves and their mothers (whose lifespans are quartered) would tell you otherwise.

We would have had a discussion about medicines, but since I wanted to illustrate my point with diarrhea and David was considering eating muesli, we decided it would be better to just talk about muesli instead.

David disappeared again at this point, but came back exhibiting his chatroom version of reincarnation.

Andrew then dropped by for a bit. He has been travelling to various places for his work, but he always tries to come by to say hello. He is presently involved in a series of presentations that take him to north carolina - oregon - pennsylvania - Colorado - Wyoming - Alabama, Texas - then Florida!

David talked about the various milk producing farms in his area and how the bulls that don’t produce good sperm are slaughtered for the fast food restaurants so they can say they serve real beef. This reminded me of the amusing but pointed statement Dr. Neal Barnard made:

“The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people’, you’d better live real close to a real good hospital.”

So we talked some more about other milks such as soy, rice and oat milk, the last being of primary interest to me since one doesn’t have to cook anything.

I don’t like to make food and I really don’t like eating either, but when it is time to clear the table because others haven’t met their responsibility, guess who is called upon to save the honour of all? Me! Sangeeta who had nothing better to do, stayed around to argue about my noble actions which she forgets she has often been responsible for initiating, but then decided that she wanted to discuss something else on Yahoo! So I said I’d race her out of the chatroom and quickly exited before she knew what was happening!

017-04-06-19

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

Finally, a shorter chat as several people were unable to attend.

However, Larry, Zoe, Kyron, Breaca and I were in there pretty quickly. Zoe greeted me with “How now brown cow”, and though that took me completely by surprise I was still able to make the exceptionally original response of “mooooo”.

Breaca, we were glad to learn, was feeling much better after a few days of illness last week, and she brought a father’s day greeting with her. She also told us that ironman had offered her a draw which is quite something given his record, but Breaca is contemplating continuing the game because she feels that she may be in slightly better position.

Now it must be mentioned that after my little greeting to Zoe, she started mooing too. She mooed to Breaca, who mooed back, and Zoe gave her a moowho in return! Well, don’t ask me! I don’t orchestrate these chats!! Anyway, I concluded that Zoe was very happy which she acknowledged, but also said that she had broken her cd player: “i just broke it in the rain so i bashed it a bit to fix it and super broke it”. However, before she could feel too bad about it, I reminded her that “to err is human, to forgive is bovine”.

Larry sent me a picture of his family and I left to put it up on the family page. It is quite a wonderful picture with Larry, his wife Deborah, their son Jonathan, and their daughter Mae (who you may recall tried to sneak into the chat last week) and you can all see it here:

http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/family.html

As Breaca put it “you look such a kind family”

Michael and Ranjana then entered though not in that order and were quite surprised to hear that Breaca had drunk the Atlantic ocean. For those of you who are concerned that Zoe now won’t have a place to sail her ship, I must insist that you not worry. Breaca was only exaggerating and the Atlantic ocean is still as it was, but she did have to drink a lot of water this week as a result of her illness, but please understand that she is fine, the ocean is fine and Zoe sets sail in about 2 weeks.

Zoe is also in much better shape after seriously cutting her hand last week. She told Ranjana that she had a few scars, but she was healing well.

When Michael asked Breaca how she was, Breaca replied, “Im god thank you” and then corrected ‘god’ to ‘good’ and then added, “lucky prad didn’t see my mistake”. Well, prad was busy trying to get Larry’s family pic up on the internet so he really didn’t have a chance to see this mistake. Then Breaca told us a bit about the debate her class had about “Is God a woman?”, but said that after a while the boys in her class got childish and the discussion flopped. Then she and Zoe engaged in a conversation that dealt with stickkkkkkkkkkky keys, glue ears, and prit sticks none of which I understood really because it was all British jargon and I wasn’t around anyway - remember?

Breaca then turned the subject to something we could understand, tattoos, but I don’t see why she couldn’t have chosen tatones or tatthrees, so I will speak no more about this.

Ranjana wanted to know what animal friends everyone had and here is the census:

Larry - a cat named Jacob, a former stray Zoe - hopes to get a chinchilla when she returns next year Michael - a cat a ferret and a rat Breaca - dogs and horses and a brother

The discussion took us to parrots which are fortunately illegal unless bred within the country. Ranjana explained how parrots are taken out of their natural habitat, stuffed in bags and shipped overseas. The mortality rate is often over 95%, but ‘worth it’ for the poachers due to the high price of parrots. We had one such parrot for 2 years in our household. It had been sent around to various pet stores and was in terrible shape. Finally, thanks to the efforts of Animal Alliance in Toronto, Canada and actress Ally Sheedy (“Maid to Order”, “Short Circuit”), he was brought to us. Unfortunately, though he seemed to improve over time, he died rather suddenly in 1995.

Zoe pointed out that the laws in UK are quite severe as far as selling ‘illegal’ pets - upto 3 years imprisonment.

We got to talking about the excellent game Breaca played against lioness who is a very strong player. It would be up on our games page, except Breaca is going to add some comments to my annotations. Now just to be nice, I told Breaca that I wouldn’t mention that we have been waiting 6 weeks for those annotations. Ranjana said that it was nice of me not to mention the 6 weeks, but Breaca pointed out that everyone heard me say that and started blushing, so I had to make her feel much better by saying that I wouldn’t mention how she got the satChat times all mixed up back in the early days of Veggiechess. Breaca went to hide under the table, no doubt feeling much better. Or so I thought, until ’looks up at big bad prad, then runs to sit next to Ranjana’. But then I knew everything was fine, because ‘Breaca blows a kiss to prad and ranjana’.

Michael and Larry meanwhile were discussing game analysis and will work together on strategies and tactics during a game. We already have seen excellent progress in Ranjana’s chess as a result of working with Michael for several months. In fact, Michael has been acknowledged for his ‘veggiechessness’ on our site:

http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/v âŠ sness.html

Well, Ranjana took this opportunity to sing the praises of Michael’s tutoring and Michael reciprocated by noting what a good pupil she was and so on.

Rachel came in and asked about another dream. This time there was a rather rude talking tomato which called her an idiot, so she put it into a blender. Well, this dream wasn’t sufficiently serious for her so she told us about her hair activities. Apparently, she had tried to dye her hair a little blonder, but had instead turned it rather yellow and naturally she was wondering how to get it back to her original colour.

Before I could make any astute and helpful suggestions I was called away to deal with a particular matter, so Rachel spoke of her camp adventures. When Ranjana and Michael asked her what she had learned, she mentioned " just a bunch of stuff about forgiving people, integrity, urm, sex, anger, family. i also learned i have mild road rage at times and sometimes am a bit scary on the road."

So then Kirksey switched with Rachel for a bit and mentioned that he was going to Kosovo “to help that area deal with terminally ill people” in the fall. Kirksey seemed concerned that there wasn’t going to be a Starbucks in the area, but Zoe summed it all up by saying " it must be great to know that you are helping someone live alot better life".

Then a quick discussion of happiness began with Michael saying he had to go for dinner, Kirksey saying “happiness is a state of mind”, Ranjana saying “happiness comes from within”, and Zoe concluding " happiness is within the mind of the person to feel it and no material posession can grant you true happiness". Michael even came back from dinner to exclaim “YES !!” to this.

So Rachel obviously wanted to feel happy, because Kirksey said, “Well, you know who is giving me the evil eye and wants to get back on so I will say adios for now”. She came back to ask if anyone had dated over the internet which somehow led to the information that Ranjana and I were married. Fortunately, I was not present for this discussion because I might have had something to say about it!

By the time I returned, I caught the tailend of the conversation. There was something about Ranjana knowing me since she was 4 (yes I acknowledge I am remarkably resilient) and Rachel saying that was scary since she knew this guy since he was 3 months old! So naturally I asked Rachel, “are you still trying to get married?” which immediately generated the response “PRAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!” because it reminded her of the chat we had when dyl suggested she liked some fellow named Adam and some of us were concerned that she was going to marry him.

So to help Rachel out of trouble, I pointed out that everyone is not who they seem to be on the net and that Rachel might actually be 57 years old which got me a “i will hunt you down!” from Rachel.

I remedied the problem though by making a helpful suggestion after Rachel mentioned her yellow hair again which she followed with a “not a word” to me, no doubt because she didn’t want to make me think to much about this difficult problem. Well, it didn’t take me too long as I came up with a really simple and inexpensive solution “you could cut it all off then it would grow back original color”. Realizing that Rachel might need some incentive here, I pointed out “you will look very wise if you have no hair bald people often convey that impression”.

Rachel was concerned that wise bald people were all male, but I assured her that it was not the case because it is a very buddhistic appearance. She pointed out that she was a Christian, so I suggested that she could be a “bald buddhistic-like christian waiting for her hair to grow back”. This rather helpful option was met with a “are you being difficult on purpose?”

Meanwhile, Zoe had figured out through another conversation that Kyron was not a second husband of Ranjana’s, but was actually her and my son and that the 3 of us were sitting in the same room working off different computers. She also figured out that Sangeeta wasn’t related to us, but Ranjana pointed out that Sangeeta was related in spirit as was Michael.

One obvious piece of evidence proving that Michael was definitely related in spirit was demonstrated when I had the great idea, inspired by all this baldness talk, to try to get David to shave his head since he was a buddhist. Michael’s immediate response was three very happy faces in a row!

Zoe felt better because she now knew who was related to whom, but she also said “will you adopt me, i feel so lonely now”. Ranjana said “ok” and I said “of course since we believe family is not so much of blood, but in the joy and respect we have for each other”.

Rachel wanted to adopt Zoe too, so Ranjana suggested that we all share.

Everyone suddenly left leaving Rachel and me in the room. Rachel said she was going to get a new puppy (she really wanted to adopt someone), so I asked how that was going to help with her hair. She said, “i don’t know. but i won’t have to feed you or zoe now”. I asked what she meant and she gave the following excellent answer, “well if i adopt you our grocery bill will go up which will mean less allowance and more chores.”

Luckily, Breaca came back just at that moment to rescue me from that extremely clever response by Rachel! But Rachel was not so easily diverted as she suggested, “maybe breaca can adopt you”! As I have mentioned before, Rachel has an excellent sense of wit and articulation which show up in her forum posts on a regular basis!

The three of us talked for a bit about deception on the internet and I pointed out how easy that was. For instance, I told Breaca how just a little while ago Rachel “was trying to be a 57 yr old bald buddhistic christian” which generated another “PRAD!!!!!!!”

Breaca had returned to wish me a happy father’s day and Rachel said that she had to go and spend father’s day with Kirksey so she left. I talked with Breaca for quite sometime about RHP soaps, players, clan leadership and how so much more than chess happens on this site.

Kyron made a brief appearance and Breaca said “jello Kyron” instead of ‘hello’ and this seemed to greatly amuse both of them.

After Kyron left, Breaca and I discussed some of her games against the top RHP players. I pointed out that she has a great chance against any of them because she plays with such imagination. She was called away just then so I was left alone with only my imagination in the chatroom. Neither of us stayed long.

Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 3:27 am by olav Prad, where do you guys chat, or is private? Let me know! Smile

018-04-06-27

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

I want everyone to know that I came first and waited around for the rest of you! Rachel came next and thought she was alone but she wasn’t. She had some interesting information because she had adopted 10 timber wolves through a government program for a $125.

Larry and Fjord came next and I was able to tell both of them the courtesy with which Rachel had handled a rude poster a few days ago. I told several people this and it is worth seeing the calmness and composure that was demonstrated by this 12 year old who handled the admiration with grace and humility:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=11673

However, the grace didn’t last long because Rachel asked me what kind of dog I was. That wasn’t really the problem though. She wanted me to take this test on this site and by answering questions like what sort of stuff I would like to eat (and the choices were simply awful) and stuff like that, my particular breed of dog would be determined. Now, of course, I wouldn’t answer any of these questions and so I thought it would end, but as you shall see, it didn’t.

Fjord and I talked a bit about the latest developments in the Godel, Escher, Bach thread:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthr âŠ amp;page=5

and Zoe appeared not that there was any connection.

Meanwhile, Rachel was trying to talk me into trying that dog test, but I fended her off quite skilfully. Ranjana appeared and immediately started saying hello to everyone individually when a perfectly simple hello would have done. Rachel then tried to make me eat a powerbar in that test of hers, but when Zoe heard the word ’test’, she immediately exclaimed, “test,huh,what test”, no doubt because she had been doing so many tests recently. When Rachel saw that Zoe was interested, she told her about the test, but Zoe said she is allergic to dogs so Rachel came after me again. Ranjana said she didn’t need to take the test because she was already a dog.

Larry told us his kids’ names meanings. Jonathan, which he told us means gift from Jehovah, and Mae, which apparently means from Mary according to a baby names site. He thought Kyron was an interesting name and we were able to tell him that Pradip means light, Ranjana means colors - Kyron means multicoloured rays of light from the sun.

Rachel realizing that she wasn’t making progress on the dog test with me, threatened another test even though Kyron did her dog test simply because he was curious about it. She tried to give me the celebrity test in which I apparently was to wear a bikini. You see how sadistic Rachel really is!

Ranjana went on to tell Larry a bit about how she and I met, but fortunately I was busy so I didn’t have to think about that time nearly 4 decades ago. Besides, I had my own problems with Rachel digging up inappropriate test after inappropriate test!

Suddenly, Dyl entered and I thought I might be rescued. I exclaimed, “dyl thank god you are here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” which rather puzzled and possibly worried him. My plan was simple, yet brilliant. Give Dyl to Rachel. I was sure that Dyl would see the nobleness in the sacrifice. Instead, he seemed so confused, he left to take a shower, leaving me to face Rachel’s beouty pageant test!

Before he took off, though Dyl told us that his encounter with his female friend (mentioned in an earlier SatChat) was a positive experience, I think: “The Russian kick-dance was a smashing success. I’ve been told I can dispense with the crutches in a fortnight.”

Zoe meanwhile brought us uptodate on some strange clan proceedings elsewhere on RHP. It seems that some clan leaders are being rather dictatorial, kicking out members, making unfair match-ups and all in an attempt to ‘get to the top’. This is a very strange thing to do, since it really doesn’t take a whole lot of talent to get to the top, just a whole lot of time. We agree with Zoe’s idea of having a clan: “i just run my clan cus i like my members”.

Despite this, one of the members that I like, insisted that I take the beauty contest test because I need to let out my inner beauty queen.

Fjord then told us that he had found a wonderful new place in which to live: “a very nice place in a kind of forest. Kind of perfect for me. Very close to the city, but outside”. There were still some finances to work out, but it sounds like Shangrila - especially after he gets ADSL internet connection.

Zoe, as we know, is heading out to sea very soon. She is very busy right up to departure and not just with packing: “i have 4 exams this week then fire fighting the week after and i will go on friday the 9th of july”.

Rachel’s next attempt was to get me to take a teen celebrity test. I explained, that I couldn’t possibly take that test in the following way: “how can i take an age restrictive test when i do not accept temporal ramifications on one’s existence?” and fortunately she seemed to accept that and went on to look for something else to bring on me.

Suddenly, Ray appeared in the chat after a long absence. He was introduced to Larry whom he had never met in the chat before, but i saw a great opportunity as a result of his appearance. Since Dyl wasn’t present, I figured ray would be a perfect substitute. Ray thought from my request for help that I was losing a debate, but I told him it was much worse than that and that it was actually Rachel who was after me. Rachel figured this out though and said that she was going to hunt me down anyway. I appealed, “rachel is picking on me and very badly too” but that did not generate any sympathy from anybody. In fact, Larry told us that he was falling asleep and figured he should go soon since it was so late where he was.

Ray asked Kyron about linux and was told that he hadn’t updated his gentoo system for about a month at which point I was able to point out that Kyron hadn’t gotten his website completed for a year. Ray commented that he was most impressed with rRachel’s postings on rhp echoing what everybody else had thought already.

Breaca appeared and told us that it had been difficult for her to come to the chat because she had visitors, and while she was exchanging greetings with everyone including Dyl who had finally come out of the shower, Rachel’s next test for me was a kissing test. My reaction to this was “kiss!!! what are you trying to get my into!! don’t you know kissing is very unhygenic?” I knew this to be a fact because I had heard Mr Spock say so on a Star Trek episode.

Dyl boldly readied himself to go where Rachel would have him go, but she, despite relishing the possibility, said that she would be going after him after she finished with me. By the way, Dyl still didn’t know what he was in for but, he made it clear that he was enjoying the fact that I was squirming.

Zoe returned with a hot chocolate and then, she, Dyl and Breaca had a discussion on how the drink was prepared, while Rachel tried to turn me into a mom and then into a flirt. Dyl tried to be helpful by saying “if only she could find a russian kick dancing test”.

Ray had conspicuously said very little and was much relieved to learn that Rachel was primarily focused on myself and Dyl, especially after Rachel said “Ray is nice”. I tried to point out that since Ray is very very nice that he deserved her attention but to no avail. At this point Michael offered “Rachel is no Raycist”.

Then Dyl, Rachel, Ray and Kyron had a discussion about snakes and Kyron mentioned that all our snakes had been released but that it was likely that we would be getting more soon over the summer which is when they are out in force and tend to get injured by other creatures (interestingly enough, a few hours after Kyron said this, our first visitor for 2004 was inside recovering from what looked like an attack by a cat).

Rachel’s next attempt was a bush-gore test. Yes I know, unbeliveable isn’t it? This was followed by a prom dress test, which proved to be too much for Breaca who couldn’t stand it anymore and flew out of the chatroom.

The conversation switched to the debating forum. Both Dyl and Ray expressed how they don’t like going to that forum because sometimes it can be upsetting, As Ray put it “I need to count to 1000 before posting”. The debates can be upsetting sometimes considering the tactics and rudeness that people display there. However, what is important to remember is that that forum is a place to convey information reguardless of the ridiculousness of the opponent. Dyl said that some posts make him so angry that he has to leave the forum: “how can you argue with with people whose grasp on logic is so tenuous?” It can be difficult and there is a saying that it is impossible to win an argument with an ignorant person. However, there are several techniques that can help the situation. One of them is to turn their own argument against them, another is to reveal it for the joke it is.

For instance, the person who claimed that Mother Teresa was going to hell because she was a catholic and didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus is a case in point. One can point out that you thought that it was god who decides who goes to hell and then logically continue with the question whether this person was equating himself to god. You can also do some research and find counter arguments from other branches of christianity. The point is not to win the argument but to convey information.

Another example is when you get grotesque opposition in vegetarian arguments. The idea isn’t to make the other side lose or even make them vegetarian. However, it is important that their statements don’t go unchallenged and that some imformation is provided.

Some of these issues can be understantably very emotional as Ray eloquently put it “I’ve learned to handle personal insults (somewhat), but I still cannot accept that animal rights is a matter of opinion. It is not a matter of opinion that the Earth deserves our respect. It is not a matter of opinion that Beagles shouldn’t have posions forced down their throat!!!”.

AR is the most difficult of all social movements because humans have a hard time relating to other species and as Dyl put it “or even their own”. That is why it is necessary to speak out against these atrocities and the forums offer a good vehicle for doing so and solidifying ones’ ideas. There are some absolutes and thinking that all opinions are created equal really doesn’t make sense.

Sangeeta phoned from Florida saying that she was unable to come to the chat because she was at a conference and that we were to keep our conversations dry and not have any fun because she wasn’t there. She received a group hello from all of us.

I related to Ray two imaginative efforts Sangeeta was engaged in for AR. One was the video she produced which brings AR in to the context of other social justice movements such as feminism and racism. By doing so, teachers can show the connection between all these movements against oppression. The other is to produce AR material that is specifically designed for science classes. Practically all AR material goes into social science or philosophy classes, yet much of the actual ‘damage’ is justified scientifically. By providing a strong scientific basis for much of this rather than primarily an ethical one, the AR case becomes stronger than ever.

Ray made the excellent point that AR needs to become trendy. In fact, that is precisely one approach PETA takes, making AR ‘cool’ for instance, with the peta kids:

http://peta2.com/

Through the efforts of organizations like PETA and improved technology, the AR has progressed faster than any other social justice movement. Thece is a long way to go, but progress is accelerated because of the sheer determination of the activists who actually have a harder job than in other social movements: after all, it is easier to relate to equal rights for a woman or a black person than a pig who you plan to eat.

Ray told us about the new feline friend that was trying to adopt them and here is a fabulous picture:

http://shell.pubnix.net/~rook/DSC00056.JPG

Cats seem to always be attracted to Ray and Marsha. He told us the following stories about some of them which I am reproducing in full:

“The first cat we named “Gadget”. He was the most handsome cat. He had FIV, but Marsha got him adopted with this young woman. The second we named Gulliver. I was in Baltimore on a work contract, but Marsha was still in Montreal. Gulliver appeared on our second-story balconey in the middle of a freezing Montreal winter. He was sitting there cuddled with his lower jaw drooping. Marsha managed to herd him in a cat carrier and bring him into our computer room and shut the door. It turns out that he had a broken jaw. the vet suspected that someone kicked him in the face. Can you imagine being a cat with a broken jaw in freezing cold. He sat on our balconey and waited. I believe that there is a reason why he waited out in the cold at our back door.”

I had to leave, but Fjord and Ray continued discussion on Fjord’s up coming adventures including the zen monastery. Then they had a fascinating discussion about meditation and how it can discipline the mind, but how it also takes a disciplined mind to do it in the first place.

Ray and Fjord are both familiar with Vispanna which is India’s oldest technique for meditation. Fjord told Ray how he used to go on 10 day meditations with his son into the forest.

Ray and Fjord both left.

Then Fjord came back and left us these beautiful thoughts in the silence of the room:

try to be pleasant and polite! No problem, all on my self what an amazing thing this is it is really a room I like, because I meet friends here but there is no room it is all in the mind and yet so real just like the chair I sit on just like you who reads this just like me us aum shanti, shanti

019-04-07-03

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

Dyl was there first, but no one could talk to him. That’s what Zoe and Larry found out when they got there, so they talked to themselves about the origins of their names, purclecow and papa_bear.

Ranjana appeared late and Zoe thought that she had been eaten by hungry whales, but it turned out that she had only slept in.

Larry and Zoe were both eating, but when Zoe found out that Larry was eating a mandarin she wanted one too but obviously Larry wasn’t able to get one to her. In fact Zoe seemed disappointed when Larry said that he was no longer eating a mandarin because he had eaten it all, so she told him to eat another mandarin.

Then Zoe reminded us that this was going to be her last chat till next April because she was headed out to sea. She had finished her 4 week operation course on navigation aids and was getting ready to do her advanced firefighting course. She still claimed she couldn’t work a vcr though.

Dyl came back and was greeted with a flurry of exclamation marks which seemed to make him very happy while Zoe told Ranjana about the dangers of fires on ships which are considerably more serious than they are on land.

Larry and I talked a bit about Mayharm who can’t seem to keep track of what I say, what he says, or even what we are talking about and when Dyl heard this he said “who are we talking about? sounds a little like me actually” I assured Dyl that we were not talking about him. Larry summed it up nicely by saying “there is a lot of that syndrome going around in the debates forum”

We were suddenly most surprised by the appearence of Gary who hadn’t been at the chat for weeks! Gary told us that he had not only not been to our chat, he rarely visited the forums and had barely kept up with his chess moves. Of course Larry knew Gary since they were both members of the white hats clan but Gary didn’t know Zoe so introductions were made.

We got to talking about organic foods and I asked Zoe how easy it was for her to get that when she is out at sea. She said that she doesn’t eat much on a ship but she still manages to do her best.

Gary told us about the very interesting night he had when a team of paranormal investigators came to explore the 5th century system of caves beneath his pub. Ranjana asked if they had found anything and Gary said that they didn’t find much: “they didn’t find much so that was a bit disapointing. I’m a bit of a sceptic, and they seemed to want to find ghosts in everything, so it was a bit of a washout overall, but they had cool equipment and seemed like nice people … They had an electromagnetic field detector, and were getting very excited about a particular area until i pointed out that it was where their power cable extension was coiled up, causing hysterisis”

I told everyone about the really funny comment Ray had made when someone had written a post with “censored” interspersed. Ray suggested that the post be transfered to the puzzles forum so we could try to decipher what each “censored” really meant. Larry had made a joke in there as well and here is the link to the thread:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=11978

Fjord entered and tried to say hello to everybody at the same time and in the process confused Larry with Mike which is interesting since we do not have a Mike in our chat. Fjord didnt seem to be bothered by his mixing up of names. In fact, he told Ranjana he was eating, that he just came home and that he was terribly hungry. Gary had to go but not before Rachel showed up and Gary commented on her excellent capabilities as a debater which is interesting considering he hardly knows her. As you can see Rachel’s fame has spread. Rachel’s response was “huh?” so i commented on this and Rachel said it was Sunday and that her brain was dead.

Ranjana brought up the question as to whether it was Dyl’s turn to do those Rachel tests. I pointed out that Rachel had all kinds of people doing those tests now, including bbarr! Dyl, fearing the worst told Rachel “Rachel, Prad was just telling me he had a yearning for another test”. It was a really a desparate attempt but you have to understand how afraid Dyl really was. However, Rachel’s response was that he was next which led me to coin the famous phrase sometimes attributed to Shakespeare “hoist by your own petard”. Unfortunately, Rachel continued with “right after i finish with prad”.

Larry, Dyl and I talked a bit about the images people maintain on the forums some of which seem to be very unreal and some definitely are unreal. Images maintained by the likes of SVW seem so bizarre that one wonders whether rhp is a big socialogical experiment and characters are planted just to see how others would react.

Fjord and Larry got into an interesting discussion about how to learn to preach since Larry was studying to be a preacher. Larry said “the real learning involves preparing the sermon. your audience is people who know the Bible, more or less, so you can’t just get up and say anything”

Dyl went on to give a history of the Zach episode which involved his fictitious creations BigMelon and MissHope. it was a rather unfortunate episode in the history of rhp and resulted in the initiation of the TOS.

Rachel wanted me to do a test on what flavor my personality was but rather than fall for that I started to tell her the story of when Sangeeta got upset with me over colors. This was when Sangeeta was 17 and her class was to do a test to determine personality profiles, the results being given a particular color. So Sangeeta comes upstairs all excited to have me try the test and tells me what the different colors people can end up being are so I tell her I don’t need to do the test because I’m purple which of course wasn’t one of the colors. Naturally, in those days, in that circumstance, she wasn’t too happy with me.

Sangeeta was actually not at the chat because she was on her way back from a Jain conference in Los Angeles. The Jains had wanted PETA president Ingrid Newkirk, but she sent Sangeeta instead because of the tremendous confidence they have in her. Sangeeta had made many Jain friends during her years on the west coast and they were of course glad to see her again. One of the neat things Sangeeta was doing was to inform them about the animal cruelty involved with dairy since Jains are lacto vegetarian. The conference was a great success and of course Sangeeta was a hit for AR as always!

Ranjana and Rachel had a quick discussion about candy which of course has little nutritional value, is bad for your teeth and doesn’t do a whole lot for your overall health either.

Then during the Zach story, Dyl said something like “Imagine how you would feel if prad revealed that he was actually joe blow from sweden” so I want to make it very clear to everybody that my name isn’t joe and I have never been to Sweden.

We also talked about the efforts of PETA’s Bruce Friedrich who is running for president on a reality show. It is a great way to gain publicity for AR. Here is the link to his page:

http://votebruce.org/

It was time for Zoe to leave and we wish her the best over the next 9 months. Hopefully, we will keep in touch with her via email. All the best Zoe!

Ranjana initiated a discussion about how we could assist each other on the forums by contributing ideas and knowledge. For instance, if we are on a thread and need some new ideas we can help each other out and discuss approaches with each other on mutually interesting issues. I explained it to Rachel in the following way: “say i’m trying to convince svw of the value of the tickle tests, ok? now he is totally opposed to them, ok? so i can’t make my point clearly as to the benefit of the tickle tests, ok? so i consult with you and you give me some ideas - like they are fun, or they assess your personality with accuracy, or they make you smart etc so now i have some new ideas with which to present my case - and have also learned something in the process so that is the idea behind this in that it can help us all to be better posters.”

The idea seems to be a good one and we just have to figure out the details as to how to make it work.

Kyron and Rachel got into a neat discussion about snakes and what to do if you were bitten by one specifically a rattlesnake. Rachel had an interesting question regarding whether as vegans it is acceptable to use an antidote that was made with animal by-products. Ranjana provided the best answer to that from the vegan perspective, I think: " if it happens… and there is really no alternative… and the anti-venom is already there… then it makes sense to use it"

Several people left shortly and Fjord, Kyron and I were left discussing the communication mechanism for Ranjana’s forum idea. We figured we would try a maillist or a VeggieChess forum thread. Pleased with this plan, we all left.

020-04-07-11

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

An unusually short but still interesting chat this week.

Fjord was in first 10 minutes before the chat started said “halode everybody” and took off.

Breaca came in a few minutes later and found that she was all alone however Rachel and Michael appeared within 3 seconds of each other and Breaca was no longer lonely.

Rachel talked about having her tonsils removed while Breaca talked about watching a concert on tv all of which was especially interesting since they were both talking to each other about these two rather unrelated topics simultaneously.

Kyron and I appeared just in time to hear that Rachel’s bad dreams had stopped which was a good thing. However Breaca started talking about removing tonsils through the nostrils and removing other body parts the way the Egyptians used to. Then Rachel said the Egyptians used to scoop the brain out through the nose so I started wondering what sort of dreams she was going to have this time.

Breaca suggested that it must be male brains because a female brain would be too large to do that with. Rachel agreed and the two of them started to congratulate each other on their immense cleverness till I asked whether they were suggesting that girls are fatheaded as a result of the extra large brains, of course.

Before I could get any serious reactions to that comment, I brilliantly changed the subject to asking what Kirksey was doing and whether he was going to sleep again like he did last week. Rachel said that he wasn’t allowed to till he finished his chores. I naturally asked if he was chortling about all this work, but as usual, it went unnoticed.

Then I told everybody about Yoda our baby rabbit. Rachel asked if rabbits can be litter trained which of course they can, but we haven’t had to since they seemed to be naturally inclined to be neat and clean. Yoda, however, is a little chewing monster in that he ate through my mouse and speaker wires, which subsequently required soldering.

At the mention of speakers, Breaca’s father and I had an indirect conversation about KEF, Castle, Mission and Vanderstein makes, through Breaca.

At some point, I mentioned how Rachel and David were picking on me, but since she denied it (David would have denied it too), I have to provide the link where this happened, just to make my case:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthr âŠ amp;page=2

The action starts with Rachel questioning my very eloquent depiction of the rather strange ritual of lip contact that homo sapiens seem to have developed over the past centuries.

Breaca then proceeded to blame one of her teachers for not being able to spell properly. Apparently, “he meant to put on my report i am appealing and he put appalling”. Now, I leave it to the discretion of the readers, to determine the current state of education in Breaca’s school, where teachers apparently have both the wit and the freedom to create ingenious puns such as this!

Sangeeta and Michael talked a bit about the book they were reading called the Da Vinci Code. Then Rachel said something about being so smart that she was actually stupid, which led me to reflect that “they do say that the line between genius and madness is a thin one”. I suggested that it is ok to go mad, just so long as one didn’t get angry.

We were then delighted by the first appearance of our newest member Tony (SirUlrich)! We eventually decided to call him Tony and not William, because it appeared as though he preferred it that way. Sangeeta didn’t help matters much when she confused Tony with Josh, thinking that the former had an interest in epidemiology. Tony said that he couldn’t even spell eppydemyologie and I think it would be safe to assume that he didn’t have an interest in either, because all he could say afterwards was that his screen was flickering.

It would appear that Sangeeta was on a trend here, because when Michael and Ranjana were briefly talking about Les Miserables, she said “ya, im watching #1 it i think for the fourth time now..you will realy love the 3rd one…anyhow i love all the scenes with aragorn, gandalf and arawen….”, which is curious since none of these characters were put into the novel by Victor Hugo. (According to Ranjana, Sangeeta apparently mentioned Lord of the Rings, but I couldn’t find anything of the sort, and neither will any of you, because the chatroom conversation gets erased every few days.)

I pointed out to Breaca that she and Kyron are serpents and she thought I was calling her a slimy snake, which of course I wasn’t since snakes aren’t slimy. As a result of this clarification, she “hisses and lays on her belly”. The rest of Breaca’s stay was occupied in understanding what it was to be a beautiful serpent in the Chinese calendar, which you may look up right here:

http://www.chinavoc.com/zodiac/snake.asp (a site that Sangeeta and I simultaneously found)

and the Cat Stevens song Everything Is Beautiful, the words to which can be found here:

http://www.ziplo.com/beautiful.html (which is not the Chistina Aguilera one that has the word beautiful in it too)

We got into a discussion about beauty, after there was some commentary by Ranjana and Sangeeta as to who had been able to remove the most hair from my head, and I pointed out how trendy the whole idea is:

“for instance, in henry 8’s time, women were required to be extremely fat and bulky” whereas “in elizabeth 1’s time they were to be thin and pale” (I didn’t go into how they made makeup in that time, with lead and pig urine, because I thought that no one would like to hear about the science behind it all).

It turned to be very fortunate that I didn’t discuss any of this since Michael would soon head off for dinner at this time. Rachel took off too or was removed by Kirksey who appeared just in time to hear Breaca tell us about how they were in the midst of torrential rains. This was neat because a few days ago we experienced the strongest hailstorm I have ever seen! Breaca left at this point because it would have been risky to leave her computer on in this weather.

Kirksey told us of his progress with the massage business he was working on setting up. It isn’t easy where he was located since most people are not into that kind of thing, but on the other hand it does give him a chance to start something unique.

I headed off to take a shower at this point and my absence was taken advantage of by Ranjana and Kirksey who made some comments to each other about this, thinking no doubt that I wouldn’t see them, but obviously forgetting that I would when it was time to do the summary! However, ladened with guilt, Kirksey left or was removed by Rachel.

Ranjana, though, was quite deservedly much harder hit by her sinister deed (even Michael left her because of what she did though he tried to soften the blow by saying he was going to eat some kale salad) and while I was cleansing my body, she attempted to cleanse her conscience by writing Mother Teresa quotes which I’ll repeat here for her benefit again:

“If you are humble nothing will touch you,neither praise not disgrace, because you know what you are.

Intense love does not measure; it just gives.

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your smile,in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t give only your care but give your heart as well.”

Well after only 3 quotes, Ranjana figured her penance had been done, so she started talking to Michael who had returned, about kale salad.

Meanwhile, Rachel popped in and out for a bit and told us about her science experiment through which she had found out that water can conduct electricity. Unfortunately, she had unintentionally used her own body to do this experiment, but she had survived and the experience certainly removed any boredom she might have been feeling at the time. I suggested that if she was still bored, then she could watch the terrific show, MacGyver, where the hero solves a lot of problems scientifically and doesn’t electrocute himself.

Michael told Ranjana (but not Sangeeta, who was busy eating continuously) about some of the interesting things from the Da Vinci Code:

“The Priory of Sion is a secret organisation that is keeping the secret about the Holy Grail (historically not completely clear) …. But some of the masters (the highest in rank in the organisation) were …. Da Vinci, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy and many others.”

He provided this link where some of this is discussed:

http://www.ordotempli.org/priory_of_sion.htm

For some reason, the link seemed to make Ranjana hungry and she left for her smoothie. Well, I left too and missed the return of Sangeeta who had finally finished eating, but seeing that the chatroom was empty, no doubt went back to eating again.

Then I thought I’d go back to get an early start on this summary and who should appear but Fjord! Kyron joined us and we had an interesting discussion about Crop Circles, those huge patterns that keep appearing all over the world in fields. Fjord has actually seen some of them! It is hard to say whether these are natural phenomenon, extraterrestial creations or outright hoaxes. Here is a link that Kyron has been using in researching all this:

http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/blt1.htm

Ranjana came on and the three of them had an interesting discussion about the trilobites family before departing, but I’m not going to tell anyone about it.

021-04-07-18

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was the most hilarious chat ever! You will soon see why if you can get through all of it. Just remember you have been warned!

Breaca entered right on time and started talking to herself because no one else was there. Sangeeta arrived soon after and started talking to Breaca. Now those of you who know Breaca and Sangeeta are aware of what an ominous pair they have the potential to make.

It started with Sangeeta trying to hide a bit of information from me: “i have a secret to tell you…don’t tell prad ok? I did somethig really dumb that he would laugh at me about… i put my dress on the wrong way, and i was sturggling to turn it around the right was- and i whaced myself in the nose- and now i have a scab on my nose…lol! im sooo dumb!”

Now you must realize that Sangeeta had some sort of devious plan in mind, because when Breaca wondered whether I would see this she said: “yes…he will read this log…i’m doomed to be reported on the satchat i bet….sigh…”

Ok, so next they start discussing the dress a bit and Breaca comes up with this diabolical idea: “if prad laughs we will make him wear a dress to next weeks chat”

and sangeeta “bursts out laughing..trying to hold herself up– giggle, giggle…straight face.”

So now you know about the conspiracy and the conspirators! Growing impatient to execute this scheme, they figured they should call me so that I hurry up and get into the chatroom, but fortunately, Kyron appeared just then and they were both diverted. Kyron told them that he was pursuing chemistry as well as the crop circles and Sangeeta express a considerable interest in them. Breaca was just beginning to talk about the storms in her area, when Ranjana appeared and was promptly enrolled into the conspiracy.

Into all this came Larry and told everyone that he was going to give his first sermon next Sunday. He was a bit nervous, but very excited! Larry is also planning to attend a theological college in the future. After reading that Kyron was investigating crop circles, Larry expressed an interest in those as well and then proceeded to ask where I was.

That is when Breaca started the thing rolling: [breaca] “he is getting DRESSed”

with Sangeeta adding full support: [sangeeta] breaca>

Larry suspected he may have missed a good pun but all he got out of Breaca was “he he he”.

It was under these disconcerting circumstances that I innocently entered the chatroom. I suspiciously eyed the greetings I received:

[sangeeta] pradtf> helllooooooo there…what took you so long? [breaca] Hellooooooooo Prad [papa_bear] Speak of the devil! {well that is quite understandable considering my profile photo} [imvegan] pradtf> we’ve been waiting for you…..

and then [breaca] you look nice today Prad

Thinking in my usual lightning fast fashion, I tried a stall tactic to give myself a chance to evaluate the situation: [pradtf] i am trying to figure out breaca’s pun

and suspiciously saw that “breaca winks at sangeeta”

Luckily, I got a temporary respite because Larry wanted me to look at the excellent pun he had made on the forums (“What to call a group of ferrets may not be your concern, but it is the business of ferrets.” a group of ferrets is a business), but when I returned Sangeeta and Breaca launched their conspiracy into high gear (hmmm such an appropriate way to put it as you will soon see):

[sangeeta] pradtf> breaca> well we should aDRESS the matter at hand shouldn’t we breaca? [breaca] sangeeta> Prad is trying to skirt round the issue

and they were not surprisingly encouraged by Ranjana: [imvegan] sangeeta> breaca> you guys are Good!!

So they continued:

[sangeeta] breaca> it’s all just disskirtting if you ask me! [breaca] sangeeta> he will give us a dressing down soon

Larry, trying to make the best of this confusion thought that I was “doing some experimenting with alernate attire …” and you might well imagine my surprise at this comment!

Breaca tried to ‘alleviate’ Larry’s concern: [breaca] papa_bear> do you think he looks pretty?

And Ranjana began her participation, making 2 puns though she possibly thought she made only 1: [imvegan] may be I can join the fray I find all this very disconskirting…

Then feeling guilty “breaca hides in the corner” for only a moment because her very next line was “ROTFL”

She continued: [breaca] who were you ad dressing Ranjana?

By now I was fully aware of this rather spinister attempt at humour at my expense, but I figured I’d better reassure Larry that I wasn’t really into fashion: [pradtf] papa_bear> actually since i only wear shorts and tshirts even on the most formal occasions, i can’t take any of the credit breaca is sending my way

and I valiently defended myself with: [pradtf] as you can see, breaca is attempting to put me under DuRESS

Sangeeta expressed her concern: [sangeeta] breaca> oh no, he’s catching on….quick let’s hide

and quite rightly so since I followed with the imaginative: [pradtf] but i don’t find it too dressful

causing the trouser-wearing Breaca to “run to sangeeta and they hold hands”

Naturally, I strengthened my position by asking Breaca: [pradtf] breaca> so i suppose you’ve been panting then?

Breaca said that she was breathless with long and short pants because she and Sangeeta were hiding in the wardrobe and Ranjana quickly jumped in with: [imvegan] pradtf> ah.. you are repanting now are you..? {repanting = repenting}

I made the observation that: [pradtf] breaca> depending on what is in there, it could be a boredrobe

while Sangeeta came back with: [sangeeta] breaca> no, then we will be shoeing off…i’d rather find a place where no one will pantronize us….

So I reflected on the situation: [pradtf] this has become appantomine

Since the puns flowed freely and with mutual inspiration from here on, I will simply let you read the creative results and add commentary, in {} as before, only when there seems to be some obscurity in understanding the play on words.

[breaca] sangeeta> this could be a tight situation if he in vest igates us {tights are stocking-like contraptions and a vest is a device designed to hamper (yes that is a pun too) the breathing of men wearing suits}

[pradtf] yes it could be a closet call {a close call}

[imvegan] sangeeta> maybe you guys could run up to the panthouse to hide {penthouse is the highest level in an apartment building usually}

Larry who had stated earlier that he really wasn’t good at puns, showed his newly found abilities starting with these beauties: [papa_bear] surely, we dare not und’resstimate the seriousness of this stitchuation {und’resstimate = underestimate and stitchuation = situation}

[breaca] we could go undercover {undercover refers to clothing disguises}

[sangeeta] breaca> we should tell him that we have a vested interest in all this… {there’s that vest contraption again}

[breaca] do i have to admit to mistucking at school? {as in tucking in your clothing very appropriate considering that Breaca admitted earlier to Sangeeta in the chat to having tucked her dress into her underwear at school}

[pradtf] hiding undercover could be considered sheeting {sheeting = cheating}

[breaca] sangeeta> sock it to him {‘sock it to him’ is a common English phrase meaning to strike or hit}

[sangeeta] breaca> don’t let prad throw threads at us….or else we’ll have to sow what we reaped! {sow = sew which is where the threads come in}

[pradtf] that would be quite a feet {I figured I would follow through on the earlier ‘sock’ with feet = feat}

[pradtf] sangeeta> sow what if you have to {and add another sow = so this time}

Then Breaca pulled the excellent: [breaca] pradtf> of corset it isn’t sheeting {of corset = of course, the corset being a contraption designed to hamper women from breathing}

[pradtf] sangeeta> you should be thready for all this {thready = ready}

[imvegan] this is a very slipper y situation {are slippers slippery?}

[pradtf] breaca> i see you have girdled the issue quite well {girdle, following up on Breaca’s corset}

[breaca] * breaca will run away to Bra zil {Bra, following up on the girdle}

[pradtf] breaca> don’t count ry on that! {count ry, following up on Brazil}

[sangeeta] breaca> no no…let’s go down under-where the kangaroos hop! {under-where = underwear}

Larry had mentioned that he was having trouble making his own puns because he was so busy laughing at everyone else’s so I said: [pradtf] papa_bear> i hope you can bear these puns

Breaca continued: [breaca] there are no flys on Prad {fly = front zipper on pants}

[pradtf] breaca> no there aren’t because they are too busy zippering around! {well flies do zip around}

Sangeeta and Breaca were planning to hide in Larry’s house so the former said to the latter: [sangeeta] breaca> sounds like he s cott some space in his little country for us! {he s cott = he’s got, with cot being a type of bedding}

Then Larry came up with: [papa_bear] sangeeta> did you know that they have trained some kangaroos to be BOXERS? {boxer shorts are a type of underwear for men}

[breaca] who would wear kangaroos under their jeans? [papa_bear] imvegan> I thought it necessary to BRIEF you all on that matter. {briefs are also underwear}

[sangeeta] papa_bear> i bet it would sock it they boxed with humans.. {sock it = suck if, i think that is what was meant here and boxed connecting with boxers}

[imvegan] papa_bear> yes, I appreciate the SHORTS {shorts are also pieces of information}

[papa_bear] sangeeta> especially down under {well, shorts are worn down under so to speak}

[pradtf] breaca> well only a jeanius would consider doing so {jeanius = genius}

[breaca] papa_bear> you could sing a thong about it {thong = song, thong being a type of underwear or bikini bottom}

[breaca] has this thread reached rock bottom? {which is why bottom is mentioned}

[pradtf] breaca> that’s would have to be a slippery thong {but thongs are also a name for slippers}

[breaca] papa_bear> no bum notes {again a reference to bottom}

[imvegan] breaca> sew… this is what we’ve come to… {sew = so}

[sangeeta] imvegan> i must say Ranjana, u must cut back on the shortening…it’s starting to shoe on your belly…. {shortening is a fat and shoe = show}

[pradtf] sangeeta> lardy lardy! {the expression is lordy lordy! and lard is a shortening}

[breaca] papa_bear> sorry {for making so many bottom references}

[papa_bear] breaca> no asspology nece ary {adding his own bottom allusions though i don’t know what is meant by nece ary}

[breaca] imvegan> i didn’t mean to needle you {back on the sewing theme, needle meaning to bother someone}

[pradtf] breaca> are you blushing because you have mascaraed the english language? {mascaraed = massacered while mascara is the goopy make up stuff put around the eyes}

Then followed a period when everyone congratulated each other on their excellent performances and Sangeeta pointed out that one who makes puns is called a pundit (a learned person) with a punchant (penchant or disposition) for plays on words.

Then Sangeeta brought us back to the clothing theme: [sangeeta] EVERYONE>personally i think EVERYONE here should be in a straight jacket! {straight jacket is what they restrain people in}

complemented by Ranjana’s: [imvegan] sangeeta> are you shirt about that?

and Larry’s: [papa_bear] sangeeta> I was going INSANE trying to think of a way to do one with ‘jacket’ {the straight jacket is usually used on people who are thought to be mentally ill to the point of being uncontrollably violent}

and my: [pradtf] papa_bear> just jacket up one notch {jacket = jack it}

More compliments to each other: [breaca] everyone is good, to a fashion {clothing theme again}

[papa_bear] imvegan> it wasn’t thimble {thimble = simple as Larry pointed out, but it can also be nimble of mind for instance}

[sangeeta] rgoudie> we are all just needlelessly chatting… {the needle used again, but differently}

Ray came at this point and people explained what was going on: [sangeeta] rgoudie> about a dressing prad… {a dressing = addressing}

[imvegan] rgoudie> it’s sort of hard to do… take a look at the converstion…. it’ll keep you in STITCHES !!!! {stitches meaning in laughter}

[pradtf] sangeeta> yes a real WARdrobe {war because we were all engaged in this verbal battle}

Breaca then said that she had to leave to wash her hair, so Sangeeta used the opportunity: [sangeeta] breaca> dont be a washout!!!! i wanted you to stay with me forver…now it’s just washful thinking! you are in a hairy situation!

as did Ranjana: [imvegan] breaca> oh, so do you have to go now? well, don’t be abraid {abraid = afraid, with braid as in hair}

as did I: [pradtf] sangeeta> don’t worry, she won’t commit hairykari {harikari being suicide}

as did Michael: [Michael] pradtf> I just committed hairikiri {because he just got a haircut}

Breaca said she was looking for shampoo and got this from Sangeeta: [sangeeta] breaca> don’t waste your time…it’s all a sham you know!

Breaca flew off and Fjord ran in.

Then it all started again with Larry commenting: [papa_bear] I’ve been laughing so much I feel like I’ve PUNched in the stomach [pradtf] papa_bear> don’t punish yourself that way [imvegan] papa_bear> such PUNishment!! {notice Ranjana and I used the same idea here}

[imvegan] pradtf> you stole my line… [papa_bear] you guys like that one? I thought it was a feeble, puny attempt {as in puny meaning small}

[pradtf] imvegan> apun my word! we both had the same idea! [pradtf] papa_bear> but it was attempting one {returning Larry’s ‘attempt’ favor}

[imvegan] pradtf> you don’t need to PUNctuate it that way [sangeeta] papa_bear> you’ve made my head sPUN so much…i don’t know what to do with it! {another excellent pun on pun}

[papa_bear] pradtf> I was wide opun to the temptation! {continuing the tradition}

[sangeeta] pradtf> hint my pun to papa_bear was an opening just for you….i guess i am just ahead of the game… {what Sangeeta wanted me to do here was make a pun on head, but she went and did it herself}

[imvegan] sangeeta> you always get so heady !!!!! {and Ranjana did a variation on it}

[pradtf] sangeeta> i wasn’t heady for it {so I didn’t want to let her down hence heady = ready}

[imvegan] sangeeta> well I guess you were thinking of pawns…. {this time pawns = puns}

Rachel and Fjord joined us and Ranjana asked him: [imvegan] fjord> have you ever seen such opuning remarks?

so I pointed out: [pradtf] imvegan> he couldn’t afjord not to

Ray couldn’t take it anymore: [rgoudie] What is hapPUNing is that these guys all think that they are PUNny.

but Larry countered with: [papa_bear] rgoudie> don’t punderestimate them!

I was so impressed that I just had to suggest: [pradtf] papa_bear> if you publish all this in a tabloid, would you become part of the papabearazzi?

which inspired: [papa_bear] pradtf> I was writing things down for the tabloid, but my pun ran out of ink. And of course my puncil broke.

followed quite naturally with: [pradtf] papa_bear> it’s a heavy lead to bear {note lead = load and the double potential of bear}

[imvegan] papa_bear> maybe if you had been more PUNctual, this wouldn’t have happened {another great variation on the pun theme!}

and more: [papa_bear] pradtf> what kind of crazy? schizopunia? multiple punsonality disorder? [sangeeta] papa_bear> prad> i haven’t an inkling what you are all talking about {shifting the flow to the writing utensil}

[papa_bear] sangeeta> thINK it over carefully. {and picked up nicely!}

[imvegan] sangeeta> papa_bear>pradtf> what’s the stINK all about? {another great follow-through!}

[pradtf] papa_bear> all that is very psychillogical {going back to Larry’s schizopunia stuff}

[papa_bear] imvegan> you should pay closer a-stench-ion {an excellent connection to Ranjana’s stink line}

[imvegan] papa_bear> ureeka!!! {an acknowledgement! reek means to smell}

[rgoudie] imvegan> What I reek of? {continuing this smelly theme}

[imvegan] rgoudie> I reekon, you understand {yet again reekon = reckon}

[papa_bear] imvegan> isn’t that a quote from an ancient gREEK? {a little historical switch over}

[imvegan] papa_bear> I think you’d better diSMELL that myth {dismell = dispell keeping the connection to both the Greek mythology and the stink}

[sangeeta] imvegan> wow you seem pretty brainy today, what happened…is your head growing larger? or perhaps you are increasing in skull…hmmmm.. {a clever acknowledgement with skull = skill}

[pradtf] papa_bear> yes they were very creteive {creteive = creative going back creatively to the mythology of crete}

[papa_bear] I have sermon preparation material laying all around me. I wouldn’t want this game to influence the puntification I’ll be doing. {pontification means to express opinions or judgments}

[imvegan] sangeeta> I suppose you’d rather be aHEAD!! {returning the brainy comment}

[sangeeta] papa_bear> ohhh…you have a sermounting task ahead of you… {getting back to the sermon}

[pradtf] papa_bear> you could be the punminister! {and again}

Now Larry gets inspired in preparation for his sermon and will make several Biblical references: [papa_bear] I’ll be preaching from the book of Phillipuns

[imvegan] Michael> is this too PUNchy for you? {Ranjana finds yet another variation on pun}

[fjord] imvegan> I was in my punkin garden; I had to save a bird {Fjord joins in}

[pradtf] papa_bear> a punderful opportunity [papa_bear] fjord> did it fall from its nest and get SQUASHed? {Larry goes into the garden too}

[imvegan] fjord> i guess the bird’s life dePUNded on you…: {yet another!}

[pradtf] fjord> ya that would really be gourd bad {pumpkins is sort of a gourd = too}

[fjord] imvegan> hn. i was more pun ching the neighbour’s cat while she tried to reach the nest {the explanation regarding the bird}

[imvegan] fjord> what a catastrophe !!!!! {going back to the cat}

[fjord] papa_bear> no they still are alive and innocent; in bothe houses I have a nest {this is interesting since there is letter sharing between ‘both’ ’the’}

[pradtf] fjord> but you catapolted the bird to safety {back to the cat}

[rgoudie] pradtf> Very immPRADsive. {Ray sends a compliment}

[papa_bear] rgoudie> I agree with your appRAYsal {and Larry acknowledges it}

[pradtf] rgoudie> thanks that was goudie of you to say so {and I return it}

[fjord] what is up with yoy all: pun strokes ? {as in sunstroke}

[rgoudie] papa_bear> Than you BEARy much. {ray acknowledges Larry’s comment}

[pradtf] fjord> no we are just a bit luny {luny = looney but also as in lunar connecting with Fjord’s sunstroke}

Now Larry puts his Biblical references into high gear: [papa_bear] our text this morning is from Phillipuns 2:27. “…God had mercy on him…so that I would not have sorrow upun sorrow.”

[pradtf] papa_bear> you are going to revolutionize the JOB {getting a little encouragement}

[pradtf] papa_bear> you can be the puntificating preacher! {and a confirmation!}

[papa_bear] pradtf> with preaching like this, we’ll get large NUMBERS of people into the church.

[imvegan] papa_bear> it will be very punoramic {from Ranjana too!}

[papa_bear] imvegan> I’m sure that’s true. You’re all great JUDGES of this sort of thing. [papa_bear] imvegan> I just hope the MICAHphone will carry my voice clearly enough.

[pradtf] papa_bear> well you are sure to rope them in with your larryate {a lariat is a lasso however the intrepretation could also be laureate which is an award winning writer}

[sangeeta] papa_bear> will they just be numbers, or NUMBers after the there the puntificating of the preacher… {variation on numbers}

[papa_bear] sangeeta> these Biblical puns are getting RUTHless [papa_bear] imvegan> thanks for not underESTHERmating me

[imvegan] papa_bear> you can COUNT on me {back to the numbers}

Rachel felt she had to make her contribution with what she said was the only pun she knew: [remora91] this was at white mills camp. i was standing in line to play carpet ball. this one girl had 2 balls in her bank. while she was serving the guy next in line took the two balls out and put them in his pocket. the girl who was playing saw this and said, - wait i ran out of room. Give me back my two balls I know they’re in your pants!

She added: [remora91] It doesn’t sound that funny now but it was hilarious then. we all burst out laughing. our minds are so twisted at this age.

[pradtf] remora91> simply aballimable! {helping out a bit aballimable = abominable}

Larry continued: [papa_bear] imvegan> I aim to please. I wouldn’t want to hear any LAMENTATIONS about bad puns.

[pradtf] papa_bear> i don’t think your congregation NOAHs what they are in for {noah = know}

and: [pradtf] papa_bear> i’m glad you are so ecclisiastic about it {ecclisiastic = enthusiastic}

Sangeeta announced that she was going have lunch so just as she left, I suggested she was off to eat continuously again. She found out though because my comment appeared on the screen before she left so she returned to give me trouble and Ranjana suggested:

[imvegan] sangeeta> that was fast food I guess

Sangeeta lunched (lunged) at me: [sangeeta] pradtf> i came back to tell you there is a pastability that i may be doing more that eating… [sangeeta] pradtf> so don’t get saucey with me!

but I was fortunately able to distract her by telling her how clever she was: [pradtf] sangeeta> that’s using your noodle!

and as she left I bid her adios: [pradtf] pasta la vista

Then Rachel mentioned a tomato soup Kirksey had made for her which she said he claimed he’d gotten from Ranjana. This was a total surprise to Ranjana because she had never given Kirksey any recipe. So this is a mystery that needs solving - where indeed did Kirksey get the recipe from? In any case, it provided opportunities:

[imvegan] all, this talk of food has made us VEG out I guess…

and: [pradtf] did you know that tomatos grow by themselves? it’s quite automatoic

and the very clever: [Michael] my sTOMATCH TOo i requireing some food so I’ll leave for now

Larry continued working on his sermon now into overdrive: [papa_bear] my uncle MARK is fAMOuS in the neighborhood because HEBREWS his own beer. But he got drunk and when he JUDE his food, he didn’t chew it thoroughly. He choked. Fortunately, my brother JOHN ACTS fast, and slapped his back to JOELt the obstruction out of his throat. After sharing that REVELATION I’m exhausted.

Ranjana was most impressed and impressive: [imvegan] papa_bear> that is a sign of genisus {genisus (geniuses) = genisis}

Fjord quipped to Larry, “Which translation of the bible you are using”

but Larry quipped back: [papa_bear] fjord> AlMOSt any translation should do.

and I added: [pradtf] papa_bear> i guess some could call this imbibling {imbible = imbibe meaning to drink}

Larry recovered from his exhaustion: [papa_bear] I have enough material here to PHILEMONth’s worth of sermons!

and Ranjana provided support: [imvegan] papa_bear> or bibbling on…. as the brook

and a bit more encouragement from me: [pradtf] papa_bear> it will be quite a sermonstration!!

Fjord commented in admiration: [fjord] papa_bear> i should visit your church; it must be filled with laughter

to which Larry asked: [papa_bear] fjord> would that make you the PROVERBSial prodigal pun? {proverbial prodigal son}

By now Rachel and Kirksey were engrossed in a fight over the soup, so I commented: [pradtf] remora91> i don’t think you and your father are being very souphisticated

and Ranjana suggested: [imvegan] remora91> now tell me what soup? did you have it for soupper? {soupper = supper}

and Fjord continued: [fjord] imvegan> No it was souper {souper = super}

Larry reflecting on his efforts: [papa_bear] imvegan> I’m on fire tonight! PSALMbody stop me!

Then he contemplated: [papa_bear] imvegan> maybe it’s divine inspiration.

but I suggested: [pradtf] papa_bear> or psalmistry! {as in palmistry}

Larry continued with a little concern: [papa_bear] if I preach poorly I might get fired from the canon

but Ranjana turned it around: [imvegan] papa_bear> then you’ll be cannonized

I tried to help too: [pradtf] papa_bear> won’t you preach from a Leviticustern? {preaching takes place from a lecturn}

Dyl showed up around now, but Fjord left explaining that there was no connection.

Ranjana explained what had been happening to him: [imvegan] yes we’ve had quite a punversation

Rachel said that she wasn’t really involved in all this because she still had dignity. Then she added that her comment had backfired. No one understood what she meant, but then I figured it out. Rachel had been after me for weeks to do silly things (which I am obviously incapable of), but I had refused because I had too much dignity. Now she finds she has heaped a considerable amount of this dignity on herself too.

In any case, Larry had to leave at this point which was just as well, because Rachel and Dyl started fighting with each other on a variety of issues. First it was venomous snakes. Then it was about cricket. Then it was about blowing things up like cornstarch and fruit (the latter proved to be too much for Ranjana who went off to make a smoothie). Then about Martha Stewart even though Dyl didn’t have the foggiest idea who she was. Then Rachel left for a bit and I talked to Dyl about cricket bats. When she came back, she was ready to fight some more and on the forums too. So Dyl figured he would post something quickly and then head off to bed before Rachel could reply. However, before he could do this, I cleverly departed to write up this most marvellous chat, leaving the two siblings at each others mercy!

022-04-07-25

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

Lori was the first in after a long absence! In fact, she was early! So early that she had no one but herself to talk to. So that is just what she did. Her conversation with herself touched upon an explanation as to why she was early (she felt she would forget if she weren’t), what time it was where she was, summer vacation, the time in Canada and finally having exhausted all possible topics of conversation that she might interest herself in over a whole hour, she started to sing.

Larry must have heard her, because he came in just then! They hadn’t met before so introductions were made and they each proceeded to tell the other how they became part of the VeggieChess family.

Kyron and Sangeeta appeared within 1 second of each other and had a little chat about the chemistry Kyron was studying. Sangeeta explained to Larry about Lori’s background in saving Daisy the pig which is discussed at length in this thread:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=9330

There followed a brief discussion regarding Lori’s Straight Edge thread:

http://timeforchess.com/board/showthread.php?id=10372

It is interesting how people are surprised when they come across some people who don’t drink, smoke, do drugs (even caffeine) because some of these habits are made to appear so natural in society. I recall that people used to say that I was a model teenager because I didn’t drink, yet the same people thought I was weird several years later for exactly the same reason! Sangeeta put it in a very interesting way:

“ya i don’t like to put stimulants in my body…id rather just use my own resources to get “high” or get energy– i see too many people dependent on things outside of themselves- and that can lead to misery!”

Larry and Lori both thought they might stop the caffeine. Larry had already won his battle against cigarettes, but Lori was not so fortunate in that she has developed asthma from second-hand smoke from her mother. Having been one of the earliest and active members of the Non-Smokers Rights Association back in the 1970s, I can only emphasize how dangerous second-hand smoke really is.

Larry and Sangeeta started up a few puns, just to bring back memories of last week’s chat, but it didn’t go too far - well, at least not yet - though Lori was probably getting a fair idea of what to expect considering Larry asked her if she ever went “expLORIng in f-LORI-da”. In fact, it was curious that Sangeeta told Lori not to encourage Larry because she said that “he’s gonna start punning all over the place if you give him an inch…he’ll take a mile!” That is rather a case of the rot calling the metal, plaque (well we do the best we can with what we’ve got, so if you don’t get it, just ask)!

Ray came in then and told everyone that the cat Mena (http://shell.pubnix.net/~rook/DSC00056.JPG) who had been living at their place for several weeks, was being taken to adoption! People congratulated Ray on the excellent postings he had contributed to the KFC Supplier Cruelty Expose thread:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=12554

I have to admit that one particular post of Ray’s which specifically addressed SVW, was so excellent that I woke up at 4am one morning laughing about it and wasn’t able to get back to sleep for quite a while!

Lori was particularly glad that KFC’s involvement had been revealed since she had been leafleting against the company since the beginning of the year. The cruelty exposed in that thread (as well as through the link to the very graphic undercover video) though is perhaps best descibed with Larry’s words after he returned from reading it:

“That’s hideous. May God forgive them”

Ray mentioned that they were concerned about their cat Gallahad who has liver problems and Sangeeta said that her roomate has found that cats often develop liver problems because they are fed commercial cat food which contains slaughterhouse products with tumors and other diseases (as well as euthanized bodies of pets) and recommended a great site to visit

http://www.vegancats.com/

Some people think that because cats are naturally carnivorous, they have to be fed meat. What they don’t realize is that cat food is largely cereal anyway and that the dietary requirements of cats can be met completely through vegetarian sources including the specific need for the amino acid taurine. We get our vegetarian cat food through Evolution (http://www.petfoodshop.com/). If you wish to make your own vegetarian catfood, you can get complete nutritional supplementation through James Peden’s HOANA (http://www.vegepet.com/about.html).

Then there was a quick and interesting discussion about how people don’t really get to find out how meat actually is produced:

[sangeeta] papa_bear> the sad thing is that whenever PETA goes undercover, we always find hideous cruelty like that! it’s soo sad…in the US over 27 BILLION animals are killed for food…it’s just unconscienable! [papa_bear] sangeeta> I believe very strongly that humankind is failing miserably in our obligation to manage God’s creation responsibly. [sangeeta] papa_bear> ya…you know tho what gives me hope…is everytime we show Meet Your Meat videos (www.meetyourmeat.com) to passers by- they begin to question thier choices, and some become veg on the spot…it is allowed to continue cuz people don’t know what takes place behind closed doors… [rgoudie] sangeeta> Exactly! You never see a freakin’ McDonald’s or KFC commercial showing how the meat is prepared. Only those smiling faces after the fact … It’s almost as if these companies expect their customers to believe that the meat is magically created by divine elves.

I came into the room about now only to be greeted by the very suspicious looking:

[sangeeta] papa_bear> oh oh! don’t say a word to PRAD!!!!

However, before I was able to pursue this matter, I was very pleased to hear that Larry’s sermon went really well. Larry even had a joke to break the ice:

[papa_bear] “We have a minor roster conflict this morning. It seems I’m scheduled for creche. So I need someone to preach for me "

Now for some reason everyone else seemed to get the joke, while I was looking for a pun, so the joke was finally explained to me with a snide little comment from Ranjana that all jokes don’t have to be puns. Despite this unfortunate circumstance, I was able to salvage the situation with

[pradtf] papa_bear> well i should have known that this sort of thing would creche up to me sooner or later

Here is Larry’s most excellent sermon:

http://www.geocities.com/papa_bear_is_s âŠ script.txt

Kirksey came in not because Rachel let him, but because she was somewhere in Florida. He and Larry proceeded to have a discussion on preaching.

Larry was surprised at how quickly Lori read his sermon and then found out that she had also read the particular passage in the Bible the sermon was about. However, Lori in telling him all this, mispelled ‘read’ to ‘rad’ and that started a radvalanche:

[bestofme] Well, I read the scripture first in my bible, and then went ahead to rad your sermon [bestofme] *read(lol…rad…) [papa_bear] bestofme> the meaning is RADically different that way [imvegan] papa_bear> don’t be radiculous [papa_bear] pradtf> you didn’t find the ending radundant? [pradtf] papa_bear> no only radiant! [imvegan] papa_bear> no he was rady for it [papa_bear] imvegan> pRADtf is always ready for a pun! [imvegan] papa_bear> aww youre just paRADing your stuff [papa_bear] imvegan> just plying my tRADe [sangeeta] i think all of you are just RAD dude!! [imvegan] papa_bear> well, you;ve gRADduated now [sangeeta] papa_bear> well the good thing is that we all RADify your sermon!

But when Larry said he was out of rad puns, I tried to take things in a different direction (even though the rad hung on):

[pradtf] sangeeta> yes but do you think he should preach from an altar? [sangeeta] pradtf> not in his punny state– it might create an altrication! [bestofme] I know of some sermons through RADio [kirksey957] That would be RADical [sangeeta] papa_bear> congRADulations…you did your best! [pradtf] sangeeta> agreed! people might think he had altarior motives [imvegan] sangeeta> are you trying to be altaruistic? [sangeeta] imvegan> no..my altar ego just shows through sometimes [imvegan] sangeeta> well it has no altarnative! [pradtf] sangeeta> but he could always counter those people by saying he was just exercising his freedom of preach [imvegan] papa_bear> don’t fALTAR !! [pradtf] papa_bear> guess that altared your plans

Then Sangeeta brought fashion into the whole thing:

[sangeeta] papa_bear> just for that…i think you can wear a halter top…your wife could lend you one [papa_bear] sangeeta> I’m not BRAve enough to preach in one [imvegan] papa_bear> oh brather!! I just got that one [sangeeta] papa_bear> i think in this way they will be inspired…but you still might remain emBRArassed… [imvegan] sangeeta> don’t be mean, you should emBRAce him

Then for some reason, Larry got inspired to put his sermon to rap music:

[papa_bear] Yo, listen up, ‘cause I’m ‘bout to get my preach on [papa_bear] Mark chapter 2 is the text I will teach from [papa_bear] Jesus comin’ home to Capernaum

and with a little help from Sangeeta:

[sangeeta] papa_bear> jesus was a man from gal’le…and he can to earth to set us free… LOL! [papa_bear] People’s gathered ‘round. Where was dey from? [papa_bear] Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem [papa_bear] Fo’ men wit’ a paralytic come

Lori returned to exclaim:

[bestofme] wow, I’m glad I left when I did, with all this rap cough cough talent…..

but Sangeeta countered with:

[sangeeta] bestofme> well it least its not the cRAP you hear on the radio!

and I pointed out:

[pradtf] bestofme> larry is not standing on sermony

followed by these conclusions:

[sangeeta] papa_bear> i love this RAPsody [imvegan] papa_bear> you have such good RAPport with your audience [papa_bear] kirksey957> I’m starting my own clan. The RAPostles

To which I had to add:

[pradtf] papa_bear> well that’s bound to be letter than the apostal service

Ray reappeared having taken Mena to adoption, so everyone took advantage of that:

[pradtf] rgoudie> you must have rayarraynged your activities [bestofme] Theres a RAYPture of rain coming down over here [pradtf] bestofme> you can’t put a reign on rayin [rgoudie] Did I make it??? [pradtf] grayt!!! [sangeeta] rgoudie> congraytulations! [sangeeta] rgoudie> a ray of hope just decended upon us… [imvegan] rgoudie> it’s not a bad thing so you can raylax

Then the focus turned to Lori because she had commented on the puns:

[bestofme] lol! you guys are going to me with laughter! [sangeeta] bestofme> ohhhh…isn’t it gLORIous! [pradtf] sangeeta> well she is quite loriticulate you know [imvegan] sangeeta> so many puns Sangeeta, just depLORIble!!

So guess who should come along in the middle of all this? It was Dyl!

The puns had apparently made Lori hungry and she was about to go and have a bean and rice lunch, but she was dylayed with:

[sangeeta] bestofme> can u share? i’ve bean so nice to you! [pradtf] sangeeta> you mean bean so rice to you kirksey957] The best line of all rap: “give me a sista can’t resist her. Red beans and nice did miss her.” [rgoudie] bestofme> It was RICE of you to visit.

And as Larry left to go to bed, Ray sent him the following goodbye:

[rgoudie] papa_bear> Sweet BEANS.

Speaking of disappearing, Kyron told everyone that Ord the snake had left for the 3rd time. He just seems to come and go as he pleases. Another snake, Daedroth was like that last summer. Anyway, just so Ord’s name wasn’t taken in vain:

[rgoudie] kyrontf> Is that an ORDinary occurrence? [imvegan] rgoudie> boy, you’re sure playing with wORDs

And after Dyl warned Ray not to encourage the punning in others, he was shocked to learn that Ray was really an insnakegator:

[rgoudie] I do RAYdiate PUNshine, don’t i. [pradtf] dyl> we are just didylling around [rgoudie] dyl> I hope that you make some checks, mate. [imvegan] dyl> i’m sorry, Dylan, but we’re all involved in this repunsive activity

Poor Dyl desperately tried to fight back:

[dyl] pradtf> pretends he missed prad’s joke [dyl] you too, ranjana?! i had some hope for you. recovery seemed possible.

But

[imvegan] dyl> i’m sorry Dylan… i know i’ve let you down…. i just had to opun my mouth ….

Sangeeta had actually been talking about her flute and everyone wanted a concert so I suggested:

[pradtf] sangeeta> we could compress your concert into a siTAR file

Lori returned from lunch, but was not spared:

[pradtf] lori is in digestion

That just about did it for Kirksey who excused himself on the pretext of having some painting to do, but didn’t get away with impunity:

[imvegan] kirksey957> great to see you Kirk , afer you finish you can make some appaintments

However, it was evident that Dyl was inspired:

[dyl] the puns are becoming rampunt. (just testing the water. A quick dip of the toes).

bringing the following encouragement:

[pradtf] dyl> if you can’t dyl ’em join ’em

Lori had to leave on the pretext of having some chores to do, but she didn’t get away with impunity (just in case anyone missed the first one):

[pradtf] lori is choretling off

Then Dyl made a rather strangelooking comment:

[dyl] .

So I had to ask:

[pradtf] dyl> like what’s your point

to which he replied:

[dyl] oops. [dyl] pradtf> what’s your point….oh dear, prad. lol [dyl] the . was an attempt to refresh the page. nothing was coming up. I also wanted to give you a chance to make another terrible joke or two.

Out of the blue (as so often it happens), Sangeeta asked:

[sangeeta] pradtf> do you think i should watch fiddler on the roof today?

and received:

[pradtf] sangeeta> can’t you watch him on tv instead? [dyl] or fetch him a ladder?

It was late for Dyl and he mentioned being tired so we got to do this again:

[pradtf] dyl> that reminds me - do you know why a bicycle can’t stand up by itself? [dyl] pradtf> no, please enlighten me! [pradtf] dyl> well, it is two tired [dyl] pradtf> horrible!!!!!! [pradtf] dyl> do you know why tricycles stopped being used? [dyl] pradtf> lol. why? [pradtf] dyl> they keep getting sent into three tirement [dyl] pradtf> i’m literally shaking my head right now.

Ray brought a bit of physics into it:

[rgoudie] pradtf> Do you mean when the wheels are stationary? [pradtf] rgoudie> well there is a demon that keeps them up when they aren’t stationary called anghoular momentum

All this got Lori (you see, she wasn’t able to leave) to make the following twisted joke:

[bestofme] there were two pretzels walking down the street, one got beaten up, and one got as-salted!

And Dyl tried:

[dyl] i’ve told my ‘bird pooing on the windscreen’ joke, haven’t i? i really need to find a few more one day.

but we won’t go in to this because after telling the joke, Dyl felt he should stick to chess. However, he wasn’t let off that easily because Ranjana (who had typically forgotten the punchline to the joke even though she had heard it before from Dyl) added:

[imvegan] dyl> AH well chess might be an impoovement!

with Sangeeta still focussing on the meaning of it all:

[sangeeta] dyl> hmmm…still thinking…i don’t mean to poo poo your attempt tho…

Dyl did insist though that his joke was still better than my efforts from a while back:

[dyl] pradtf> but you must admit, it did beat your “let’s leave everyone in suspense for half an hour” dancing joke hands down.

even though no one was allowing me to tell that joke (I seem to have forgotten what the joke was though for some reason).

Ray and Sangeeta started up a discussion on hypnosis, soul and mind, the former being an expert on hypnotherapy. I had asked what the relationship was between the soul and the mind. Sangeeta came up with this rather neat comment:

[sangeeta] pradtf> when they come together..you get soulitude…

Ray’s description was very interesting and the following ensued:

[rgoudie] pradtf> In my humble opinion, the soul is conscious, intelligent energy, and the mind is that portion that interfaces with the physical world. [pradtf] rgoudie> then you don’t see it as mind being conscious and soul be sub or beyond conscious? [rgoudie] pradtf> Not as I see it. In my belief system, we are all souls, each able to experience physical reality through these vehicles we call human bodies. The conscious mind is merely a sharp point that gradually widens until it encompasses the entire soul mind. This is where I believe the term expanding one’s consciousness arose. [pradtf] rgoudie> that is interesting - so the interface with the physical world, the conscious, may not be aware of the soul, hence, we do not really know ourselves [rgoudie] pradtf> A hypnotherapist will place a subject in trance. What this means is that the conscious mind is set aside so that the more-expanded soul mind may be fully present. This is where the memories of our experiences are stored. Too many people do not even believe in the soul, so they are not able to access any such memories. If folks would bother to investigate, they would be amazed at the experiences stored in their deeper mind. [pradtf] rgoudie> yes but the way you have described it is very interesting because it seems to explain the dichotomy that we are often told to resolve - that of knowing oneself [rgoudie] pradtf> Yes, truly knowing oneself. This is always what is intended when one is told that “all answers are within”.

I was curious about the degree of connections between souls in this model:

[pradtf] rgoudie> ok now if the souls are the conscious, then can souls be connected other than by conscious communication? [rgoudie] pradtf> Yes, souls communicate conceptually. [sangeeta] rgoudie> what do you mean by that? [imvegan] rgoudie> well, it makes sense to me that soul wouldn’t be bound by language rgoudie] sangeeta> Well, I didn’t want to use the term “telepathy”, but there it is. Only the physical plane requires language, because humans do not believe that they may communicate any other way. [sangeeta] rgoudie> prad and i have talked about that…telepathy concept [rgoudie] imvegan> Once the doubting, interfering conscious mind is out of the way, then you would be utterly amazed at what is possible! [sangeeta] rgoudie> interesting cuz prad and i were talking about that…and perhaps what we verbalize is something within our subconscious mind being worked behind the scenes…

Sangeeta wanted to know how I thought Ray’s model explained the ‘know thyself’ concept:

[pradtf] sangeeta> well if mind is the connection to physical reality and must expand to include the soul, as ray has put it, it means that we can’t know ourselves (the soul being the conscious) till we put a little effort into it

In other words, the interface alone (the mind being the interface to reality), can only be aware of what it comes into contact with. However, that is a contact with things exterior to the consciousness or soul which is where the ’thyself’ resides.

Then I asked:

[pradtf] rgoudie> ok then - where does the subconscious fit in with respect to mind and soul?

Ray answered:

[rgoudie] Picture a sun as drawn by a youngster. It is essentially a circle with bumps, correct? Imagine that the point of each bump is a concious mind currently focused in the physical and involved in its day-to-day activities. If you recede away from the point, you expand your consciousness until you evetually have access to the entire circle.

Another way of looking at this would be to expand the point till it encompasses the circle.

[rgoudie] The so-called subconscious is nothing more that the same mind that is less focused in the physical. I use the terms conscious and subconscious, but do not intend for them to be related to the Freudian concepts.

What made Ray’s model so interesting was that it was saying that the subconscious and conscious are the same, that there is only one mind but with a different focus, sort of like peripheral vision. Ray thought that was a good analogy and added:

[rgoudie] Hypnosis is nothing more than the formal attempt to cause a mind to expand away from the tip and access deeper parts of itself. When the filtering conscious mind is set aside, then amazing transformations may take place.

Ray wished to know about my ‘picture’ of all this and see if the ideas were similar:

[pradtf] the idea that we have is that the conscious is what we are rationally aware of - similar to your idea of the buffer to reality however, the subconscious is something that is a bit like a drop in an ocean - individual but linked with the rest of the ocean. The peripheral vision comes in here as well though at a different level, and expanding your conscious here means to not focus on the ‘desires’ of the obvious so that you can connect with the subconscious, and knowing yourself means to link with that ocean. [sangeeta] pradtf> the ocean being the “universe” somehow linking to the cosmos and the secrets that lie there - that’s interesting for the following reason..i think that “ocean” if you will is where imagination lies…and that is where Einstein acessed some of the mysteries of the universe. [rgoudie] sangeeta> I agree. Most breakthrough ideas come from this collective mind.

Ray wondered what ‘yourself’ meant in this context:

[pradtf] yourself is not what your conscious understands - that is an illusion or as the hindus say maya [sangeeta] pradtf> what do you mean yourself is not what your consicous understands?

Since the conscious is able to perceive only external stimuli (eg the 5 senses), then it is safe to assume that what is being perceived is the stimuli as opposed to the reality behind it. In fact, the conscious cannot even be sure that the interpretation it makes about the reality behind the stimuli is accurate. Hence, how can the conscious possibly comprehend something such as ‘oneself’ when this concept doesn’t even offer detectable stimuli.

I explored the comparison between the two models:

[pradtf] what i find really interesting about rays idea is that it defines knowing oneself as a positive activity whereas as the other idea is a negative one [sangeeta] pradtf> the other idea is a negative one? don’t understand still [rgoudie] pradtf> Negative? [pradtf] ray expands the mind to eventually include the soul - a positive or expansive activity - the other way is to acknowledge maya for what it is and deny its existence - a negative or excluding activity, by eliminating maya you get to the good stuff. Both very interesting and credible, imho though the concepts and axioms are somewhat different.

What seems to make the concepts different, of course, is that the axioms are different. Ray wondered whether the ideas were topologically similar which certainly seem so:

[pradtf] you just have to shift a few terms around and deal with the positive/negative discrepancy in creative way

For instance, the ‘conscious’ is the same in both, but Ray’s soul is similar to what I am calling the ‘subconscious’. His idea of knowing oneself amounts to expanding the former so that it can merge with the latter, whereas in my model the subconscious is allowed to come forth when the perceptions of the conscious are revealed to be the illusions they are. In Ray’s model, souls can communicate through telepathy, whereas in mine they are linked together as drops in an ocean.

Ray asked about belief systems:

[sangeeta] rgoudie> in terms of my belief system…i don’t know if there is a god…i don’t care if there is…what i do care about is WHO i am and the integrity that i live with….pretty much that dictates everything i do and think– well at least it is suppose to [rgoudie] For me, as you probably have already guessed, I believe that we are all souls (comprised of conscious, intelligent energy, known as “spirit”), and that we experience the physical using human bodies. Once these bodies die, the portion of energy that was responsible for the physical is drawn back .. [sangeeta] rgoudie> if there is a god…it was would be the divinity that i see in life all around….in the workings of the atom, in the creation of a galaxy, and in the blinking of it all…it’s all divine! [rgoudie] into the oversoul and the experiences are merged. This physical plane is nothing more than a 3-dimensional training ground for souls. 13:22:10 [sangeeta] rgoudie> more recently then, for me getting to know god…is the exploration of science and nature…and getting to know self is the quest for integrity….

We three dragons all liked that. I had to leave at this point and though Sangeeta and Ray continued to engage in a most interesting discussion regarding the varieties of dragons, I will conclude this summary with Ray’s beautiful comment to Sangeeta regarding integrity:

[rgoudie] sangeeta> perhaps it is because you act according to your beliefs IN SPITE of the resistance that you encounter. To me, this makes you a shining soul! I have respect for anyone that is able to maintain their beliefs in spite of tremendous social and/or peer pressure. This, to me, is the definition of integrity.

023-04-08-01

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was a short chat with very curious beginnings. First Larry appeared an hour early to announce that he wasn’t going to be around for the chat and left. Then Kirksey showed up asking if anyone was home and getting no answer, he left for a few minutes but didn’t log out. So then when Rachel logged in from Florida she saw Kirksey was still there and called:

[remora91] dad?

Then more emphatically,

[remora91] DAD???

And finally,

[remora91] man… I’ll be back at 11

but before she could leave, Kirksey appeared so she said

[remora91] hey dad!

Then followed this most interesting conversation between father and daughter:

[remora91] yeah. i’m so excited about today! [kirksey957] Getting home? All the animals are fine. [remora91] i get to talk to everyone here, i get to come home, and i get to talk to jon! yay! [kirksey957] Do you want to cut the grass when you get home. It’s awfully tall. [remora91] cough cough still… feeling… sick… crosses fingers behind back [kirksey957] OK, well we’ll just let it grow a little longer. [remora91] joy insert sarcasm here

Just then Kyron entered and Rachel tried to talk to him, but after his initial greeting, he wouldn’t answer for quite awhile, prompting Rachel to conjecture that everyone had died. However, Kyron explained that he was in the process of looking for Yoda Rabbit, who was busy with his own activities.

Kirksey asked Kyron if he had received a package he had sent:

[kirksey957] Yes, I ordered something for your folks, but I’m wondering if I had the correct address or they copied it wrong. [kyrontf] no we havent gotten it yet [kirksey957] OK, I’ll give it a few more days and then call them back and see if they can track it. I’m trying to influence the “goad to be freindly” contest. [remora91] oh god, what’d you send? [kirksey957] A beautiful picture of me in all my glory. Just kidding. [kyrontf] kirksey957> lol [remora91] nooooo!!!!

There was no further discussion on the topic after Rachel’s exclamation.

Then Rachel commented to her father that she had a very busy social life and proceeded to demonstrate it with:

[remora91] zzzzzzzzzzzz………….

Kirksey wondered if Kyron continues homeschooling during the summer and when the latter answered in the affirmative, Rachel was shocked:

[remora91] falls out of seat how can you stand that??? [kyrontf] well, it’s fun stuff we do……………..so……. [remora91] like? [kirksey957] I imagine that what he and his dad do is very individualized and fun.. [kyrontf] we started linear algebra recently, i’m starting chemistry too…

That proved to be a little too much it seems because as soon as Ranjana entered, Rachel exclaimed with great relief:

[remora91] YAY!!!

but Kyron said she was having trouble getting in, so she expressed her immense disappointment:

[remora91] NOOOOO!!!!!

Breaca came in and told Kirksey that she was wearing a bikini because it was so hot where she was, so Kirksey asked if they had air conditioning. Breaca said no they didn’t, but they had windows specifically XP. (I thought this was really funny so I had to tell the whole story).

Ranjana meanwhile still hadn’t solved her problem of getting into the chatroom, but I wasn’t surprised.

Then Breaca asked Rachel about her boyfriend Adam who really was her boyfriend, but had apparently become Breaca’s boyfriend and introduced the bizarre word ‘snogged’ which apparently has something to do with the even more bizarre practice of kissing and goopy stuff like that.

Kirksey quite rightly couldn’t take this kind of stuff anymore and left, but I had the misfortune to enter just at that moment. Fortunately, the discussion changed to Ranjana’s inability to get into the chatroom which I had solved by the way, but despite my heroics Breaca suggested:

[breaca] imvegan> maybe Prad was blocking you

and Ranjana responded:

[imvegan] breaca> you may be right - he said noone was complaining that I couldn’t get in

which was quite true (no one wrote a single complaint), but even so Breaca concluded:

[breaca] imvegan> I think he gets scared when we are together

Ha! That’s all I have to say regarding such absurdity!

Then Rachel made the excellent comment from Florida:

[remora91] pradtf> i love my relatives and all but after a week i would rather love them somewhere else

which allowed me to announce:

[pradtf] remora91> i understand! i have successfully managed to lose all mine

Then while Rachel and Breaca proceeded to negotiate the subsequent rights to this Adam entity, I told everyone about Sangeeta’s latest involvement:

[pradtf] sangeeta is adopting a 12 girl named amanda from a homeless shelter - i believe she is with her now [pradtf] it is not a legal adoption, but an informal one [Michael] pradtf> she is adopting a 12 year old girl??? [pradtf] she met amanda when she was doing her talks at the girls and boys club of america [pradtf] amanda is extremely spunky and has been writing to IAMs insisting they stop testing on animals [Michael] what do you mean with an informal adoption? will amanda be living with sangeeta? [pradtf] Michael> no but sangeeta will be trying to bring her over regularly [pradtf] Michael> i believe she is trying to work it out with amanda’s father who is also at the shelter [imvegan] pradtf> that sounds great… she sounds like a really neat girl [Michael] pradtf> i see …. that sounds very good …. i hope it will all work out ….

Then Rachel, Breaca and Ranjana talked in a convoluted way about cuteness and dignity or something quite incomprehensible, but it gave me the excellent opportunity to say:

[pradtf] breaca> i prefer to be acute rather than cute

Rachel commented:

[remora91] oh god, here come the puns.

and a few moments later:

[remora91] guys, i’ve got to go in like two minutes. it was nice talking with you.

Breaca continued us along the acute theme:

[breaca] pradtf> isn’t that an angle? you are more obtuse [pradtf] breaca> well go finger that out! it may be revealed through an examination of one’s cuticles [breaca] pradtf> looks like you nailed me [pradtf] breaca> i’m glad you digit at last {digit = dig it}

Then she inquired:

[breaca] pradtf> what are toenails called? [pradtf] breaca> you mean no one has toeld you? [breaca] Pradtf> it was a footnote I forgot to read [pradtf] breaca> well i hope it has given you a new ankle on life

Michael and Ranjana joined in:

[Michael] breaca> is that what a toenail is called??? that is toe difficult for me toe understand … [imvegan] pradtf> i really kneeded that! [breaca] I wouldn’t thigh to you would I? [pradtf] imvegan> that is very knobbyl of you [imvegan] just get hip about it!

Lori entered, shortly followed by Kirksey again. The former was having trouble and said that her computer was acting up so I wondered if it should receive an Oscar. I then realized that Lori and Breaca had never met at which point Breaca mourned:

[breaca] Prad makes me stay in the attic if we have important guests in the chatroom

so I told her:

[pradtf] breaca> well i don’t want you to come out and attic everyone

Lori, who kept appearing and disappearing, told us that she had been to a concert recently and there was a PETA2 table there. PETA2 is the dynamic kids’ arm of the main organization:

http://www.peta2.com/

Then while Ranjana and Kirksey talked about his massage business, Breaca and I discussed her potential recruitment into the Jewish clan. It seemed that she was thinking about heading into it because the clan leader, Shaul, who is a fine fellow, kept asking her to join it - and she seems to have this problem with saying ’no’. I pointed out to Breaca that she is not a commodity and that she should join only if “you like the people there or you want to play for another clan or you think you are supporting the jewish initiative or even because shaul is nice”, but that she shouldn’t join just because you can’t say ’no’.

Michael said told us that Larry and Deborah were expecting child number 3, but I couldn’t see why that should prevent him from coming to the satChat. It also seemed obvious to me that they weren’t taking the ‘go forth and multiply’ bit in the mathematical sense at all!

Then Breaca had a great idea:

[breaca] I love being in a clan that is so friendly, we should win the goad to be friendly award

My initial reaction was:

[pradtf] breaca> well considering that you inspired the idea and we are holding the competition - i think people might think there is a slight conflict of interest

but then:

[pradtf] breaca> wouldn’t it be hilarious if we made all the others go through with the competition and then presented the prize to ourselves!! [imvegan] pradtf> !!! [breaca] pradtf> Yessssssssssss, please do it kirksey957] Oh yea, I’m laughing bigtime! [pradtf] that is just like the party i’ve been intending to throw and then not showing up to it [Michael] pradtf> great idea !!! [pradtf] we should do it just to show how delightfully diabolical we can be

but then followed a slight twinge of conscience:

[pradtf] but that really wouldn’t go with the veggiechess image now would it

When I suggested we say that Kirksey made us do it, he said:

[kirksey957] That’s all I need is more arrows coming my way.

So I asked:

[pradtf] kirksey957> why have you been in a lot of rows recently?

He said that certain people were “Just challenging my salvation that’s all.” It is so weird in my mind that so many hold that key to the gates of heaven, it must drive the poor landlord nuts!

Then Breaca talked about posting:

[breaca] pradtf> well one day i will post, but a lot of girls get lewd comments, even when they post about chess. I just need to be careful.

It is very unfortunate that anyone should feel that way. It is something that we should unite to do something about:

[pradtf] there should be a crackdown on ALL sexism on the forums - but it won’t happen if we avoid the problem

Breaca commented on how brave Zoe was regarding these things, so I told her she had someone to aspire towards! Breaca’s parents have a most appropriate approach towards her posting on the forums:

[breaca] I am allowed to post, and debate but not to argue, and if anyone uses bad language or makes improper remarks I must not retaliate in kind.

and that is just how it should be:

[pradtf] breaca> one should never take the low road considering the high road is always available!!

We shall see …

Kirksey commented that Eddie Anders had committed RHP suicide recently by swearing his head off and had been removed from the site, leading to:

[Michael] kirksey957> these kinds of suicides are fine [pradtf] Michael> i guess anyone who dies in switzerland commits swiss side [breaca] my friend wanted to die next to a canal - that would be Suez side

Breaca had to leave, but it didn’t happen without puncident:

[breaca] imvegan> hugssssssss [imvegan] breaca> bit hug to you too!!! [imvegan] breaca> i meant - BIG!! [breaca] did she bite me? [breaca] fangs you ranjana [imvegan] breaca> to tell the tooth…. i didn’t mean that

After Breaca left, Kirksey pointed out that Feivel had a short fuse leading to the following:

[pradtf] people with short fuses deserve to blow themselves up [imvegan] pradtf> what if he refuses? [pradtf] imvegan> then he is confused [imvegan] pradtf> so he must be fusetrated [pradtf] imvegan> stop fuse fusing him so much {fuse fusing = foo fooing} [imvegan] pradtf> your making too much of a fuse! (fuss) [pradtf] imvegan> you are adding fuselage to the fire! [imvegan] pradtf> are you talking about fusesil fuels? [pradtf] imvegan> now you are being fuelish

And that was about all Kirksey could endure and with the “I’m going to get with the vacuum cleaner” line, he took off. In fact, so did the rest of us.

024-04-08-08

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was a relatively short chat much of it centering around the disgraceful abuse of the RHP TOS - specifically with the rampant sexism that some people just seem to accept. Well, we don’t!

Anyway, Ranjana started the chat by getting in there first and talking to herself with the usual bad typing. Kyron came in afterwards, but didn’t say anything to her and I can’t say I blame him since the typing was so incomprehensible.

Larry came in next but had to leave for a bit because of a crying baby but he returned shortly. Ranjana then congratulated Larry and Deborah on their new expectancy pointing out that they are going to be very busy and Larry just said:

[papa_bear] imvegan> we’re gluttons for punishment!

Breaca and Rachel arrived, but Kyron for some reason was drifting in and out of the room repeatedly. Eventually, we couldn’t figure out whether he was really with us or not.

Rachel complained that some ‘dude’ had tried to infect her computer with a virus. Fortunately, it didn’t happen though.

Ranjana congratulated Breaca on her posting efforts against sexism. Breaca’s posts have dominated the recommended lists. Here is the thread she started and it is well worth reading:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13049

Another related thread of concern is the following in which Sangeeta and Ranjana start the fight against sexism:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13062

A large part of the problem is some people think this sort of thing is funny and therefore it is acceptable. Or they hide behind the ‘freedom of screech’ defense. Or they argue that one person’s offense is another persons ‘cup of tea’. Unfortunately, these rationalizations fail to acknowledge the damage done propagating derogatory attitudes towards women. For instance, here’s what came out in the conversation:

[Remora91] breaca> you forgot asking their bra size, asking if they’re a virgin, and asking for phone numbers. [Remora91] all of which have happened to me. [breaca] I have only had underwear questions [Remora91] ewww…. [papa_bear] Remora91> that’s awful. Did you notify Russ and Chrismo?

The thing must be fought and stopped.

Sangeeta came in to tell us that she had been watching the Lord of the Rings. As some of you know, she has taken a homeless 12 year old girl named Amanda under her wing and the two of them spent the weekend together doing various things including watching Charlotte’s Web and Lord of the Rings. Amanda apparently has read the books and knows them so well that she can point out when the movie deviates from the story.

Suddenly, Rachel launched this hair-raising conversation:

[Remora91] hey prad> how can i make my hair thinner? [pradtf] Remora91> you can pull it out one by one [sangeeta] Remora91> ummm…he might tell you to associate with me some more! [Remora91] lol [Remora91] prad> really! i can’t put my hair back in a pony tail anymore! its this big fat thing thats sitting on my head! [Remora91] its not even hair! [sangeeta] Remora91> how about a hair cut…good barbers can thin out thick hair easily so it is more manageable [pradtf] Remora91> well you can also cut it short - easier to manage from what i’ve heard [sangeeta] Remora91> funny that you ask prad who hardly has any hair…and whatever is left- he shaves…if you go to him, he’ll convince you to shave it all off! [pradtf] sangeeta> hey!!!!!!!!!! i just saw that hair comment!!!!!!!!!!!! [sangeeta] pradtf> darn!

Tony joined us but not as SirUlrich because he had forgotten his password. So while he was talking with his temporary account, we reset his real account so he rejoined us as himself.

Then Larry showed us the amazing pun he was working on:

[papa_bear] tonight’s aching tuba shops took hassles

I couldn’t figure it out, but Breaca did!

2 knights a king 2 bishops 2 castles

Pretty neat stuff, eh!!

Larry was still trying to complete it and we all tried to help out and eventually came up with version 3:

[papa_bear] a kiwi in tonight’s aching tuba shops took hassles upon and (opponent) aboard eight puns.

This excellent pun is certainly shaping up nicely and if Larry can work on it this week, he might be able to finish it in time for his church’s sermon!

Since all this required a lot of thought from all of us, Breaca was inspired to start us off:

[breaca] if a thought is pensive is a forgotten though expensive? [imvegan] breaca> that makes me rather apprepensive

Rachel was wondering about her purpose in life again with questions like:

[Remora91] just wondering, am i a cold hearted witch? [Remora91] and do i deserve to go to hell?

This sort of contemplation is not unusual for a conscientious individual trying to figure out the world since there are so many conflicting attitudes and forces out there.

The discussion continued:

[pradtf] Remora91> you’ll never find out who you are if you live up to others’ expectations

I wanted Rachel to elaborate and this relieved some of the seriousness:

[Remora91> so ?? let’s hear it [breaca] lets hear it here [pradtf] breaca> hear here! [breaca] pradtf> you are my hearo [imvegan] breaca> i’ve hered that before

I brilliantly calculated that I would quit while I actually was ahead:

[pradtf] breaca> i don’t know if i can beat that one

And continued the discussion with Rachel:

[pradtf] Remora91> you must also recognize who you are and that you have your own abilities to at least make your part of the world a fair and decent one [Remora91] yeah, i know. [pradtf] Remora91> when one is active in work then one fulfills one’s purpose [pradtf] Remora91> that’s just what breaca did on the gender thread - and you were doing in the traditional values thread [Remora91] i have an useless purpose then that is if homework counts.

Then Breaca made a terrific suggestion:

[breaca] Rachel and I should get together and do a joint thread [pradtf] what a team!!! rachel and breaca!!

Breaca, Sangeeta and Kyron left at this time, but Rachel continued with me:

[Remora91] prad> what if i don’t have a purpose? [pradtf] Remora91> so? [Remora91] well? [pradtf] Remora91> make one [Remora91] prad> like? [pradtf] Remora91> do you like injustice? cruelty? meaness? [pradtf] Remora91> there is no shortage of causes [Remora91] prad> depends on who its towards. [pradtf] Remora91> yes i know that but you know what i mean [pradtf] Remora91> and even then - there are ways to eliminate these properly [Remora91] but i just want to leave kentucky. i really don’t have any aim where i’m going after i finish school. [pradtf] Remora91> and you will leave kentucky - but you don’t need to map out your life now [pradtf] Remora91> only allow your character to merge with your conscience

Then Rachel steered the conversation with a rather interesting argument:

[Remora91] prad> urm… conscience… yeah, well, about that… [pradtf] Remora91> ok go on [Remora91] prad> i don’t have one/ [pradtf] Remora91> really - and how do you know that? [Remora91] because i never feel quilty when i know i’ve done something wrong. [pradtf] Remora91> that has nothing to do with your conscience [Remora91] well what does

After Rachel told us about a bit of nastiness she had practised on her sister many years ago, this fascinating discussion continued:

[pradtf] Remora91> what is ‘doing something wrong’? [papa_bear] Remora91> pradtf is right. Don’t count on feelings. If you know you’ve done something wrong, then you know it. [pradtf] Remora91> exactly as larry has put it!! [papa_bear] Remora91> you don’t feel guilty, but you know it was wrong [papa_bear] Remora91> That’s not abnormal. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” They knew that sometimes they did wrong things for which they didn’t feel guilty, and they prayed for God to stir their hearts accordingly.

We all have this conscience, but sometimes we can be good at hiding it. One of the most memorable lines for me was from the movie, KPax where the alien Prot said:

“Every being in the universe knows the difference between right and wrong.”

We concluded:

[pradtf] Remora91> the fact that you knew this was wrong, proves you have a conscience - you just need to let it out for some fresh air

Then the sublimity took a curious turn:

[Remora91] okay. brb [pradtf] Remora91> i didn’t mean that you have to take your conscience out right now to give it some fresh air [Remora91] lol. i know. i just had to see what my sister thought of my hat. [imvegan] Remora91> is it new? [Remora91] its actually not a hat. its a binder that i’m wearing on my head. she says i look stupid. Lol.

We will not continue any further with this.

Larry told us he had severely hurt his pelvis by bumping it into a steel table a couple of days ago. This led into an interesting conversation about doctors and health. Larry figures that if the pain goes away in another day or two he’ll leave it, otherwise, he’ll have it checked for fractures. [Update: Larry has told us that he did go to the doctor and there is nothing to be concerned about.]

Larry had asked us:

[papa_bear] pradtf> why don’t you go to doctors? [pradtf] we never get sick

An interesting topic we intend to pursue in the future.

Ranjana announced:

[imvegan] i have a bunny beside me on this desk …. [Remora91] awww! [imvegan] yes… it’s Yoda! [Remora91] you mean the one that ate your stereos? [imvegan] he sometimes types for me … I’m sure you can’t tell the difference.. [Remora91] lol [imvegan] yes, the one that chewed the speaker wires.. now talking about having a purpose!! [Remora91] imvegan> exactly why i don’t have a rabbit! [imvegan] he just took Kyron off the internet… [Remora91] lol [imvegan] but Rachel…. he is sooooooo cute …just one look and you forget about all that stuff … unfortunately. you know, he has this attitude…

Ray joined us then to announce that Mena had been adopted:

[rgoudie] Well, Mena is on her way to her new home. A nice family came by and they seem very well suited to take care of Mena. [pradtf] mena happy returns to her! [rgoudie] Mena spent one month in ur computer room, but now she has a home of her own. [pradtf] well i’ve heard of computer bugs so why not

Suddenly, Doug flashed in after an absence of many weeks! Doug hadn’t met Rachel before, so Ranjana did her typical and excellent introduction:

[imvegan] Dough meet Rachel, Kirk’s daughter, and veggiechess family memeber

So I’m not going to say anymore about this other than Doug didn’t leave immediately.

Instead, we had a lengthy conversation about the state of the forums:

[flash] imvegan> Regarding RHP. Forums are not the best these days. [rgoudie] flash> I know! So many lame topics. [rgoudie] flash> Nothing but Christian versus atheist volleying. [imvegan] flash> yes, the insults are really bad … i had one hurled at me … it sure is a strange thing [pradtf] why are we allowing pimping threads on rhp? [pradtf] why was cribs allowed to go after rbhill? [rgoudie] pradtf> Yeah, even though it has become Cribs trademark schtick, I find some of them offensive. [flash] pradtf> I didn’t realize that happened. I need to read more. [imvegan] rgoudie> the whole idea of pimping is awful and “ho” are talked about as sub human - that’s not funny ever [pradtf] flash> i don’t know what the difficulty is - pimping is sexist, pimping “harms minors” a la TOS [flash] pradtf> I understand how you feel. It bothers me a lot and I don’t think it should be there. [imvegan] flash> I don’t think it should be there either Doug [pradtf] flash> i think the problem is that people think popularity justifies actions, but this isn’t a popularity contest [pradtf] it is a family forum [flash] imvegan> I understand how you feel. When I mentioned it to my wife she asked me what type of site was I visiting. [Michael] imvegan> thanks for the info, it is hard to go there for me nowadays …. i often find it disgusting what is happening there and how people can post dispite of the TOS [imvegan] flash> that kind of thing just isn’t funny - putting others down and laughing about it isn’t right - it’s just NOT funny [Michael] imvegan> I was really angry about the personal attack that this Dr. Cribs posted in answer to your post [Michael] imvegan> i really think that such attacks and many many others should not pass like they do now …. [pradtf] i don’t think people are sufficiently grateful for the job russ has done giving us these forums [pradtf] they are for building community - not abusement [pradtf] some people just treat the place like trash - and that is precisely what it will end up as [Michael] pradtf> i completely agree !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they misuse the forums for their personal attacks

One of the points to note is that moderators get abused as well. There are only 5 left presently!

There are some extremely nice people on RHP. There are some who act extremely inconsiderate and immature as well. The idea of a community is to work towards turning the latter into the former.

025-04-08-15

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was a very short chat and will also be a very short summary. This is just as well since there has been considerable events taking place on RHP regarding the behaviour on the forums. Here are some of the key threads:

*Thank you Moderators!! http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13511

*Don’t we all want the same? http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13488

*Missing the point. http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13467

*Enforce the TOS! http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13389

Another ex-moderator story http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13439

An apology from Cribs http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13456

I think as a Mod…. http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13461

*The best moderator http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13405

ex-moderator story http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13386

*Forums (Again) http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13378

A bit of moderation please… http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthr âŠ amp;page=3

Moderational Inconsistency http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=13366

I have asterisked the better ones.

Anyway, we learned that Larry was still in a bit of pain, but his pelvis was healing nicely.

Breaca managed to drop in even though she had had a really busy weekend visiting family. Despite this, she still had to ask Ranjana if she had me doing dance moves to the cd we got on her recommendation. I will comment no further other than to say that she ran to Ranjana for protection, which didn’t do Ranjana any good for I tickled her.

We all wondered about fjord who was moving to a new house and hasn’t been heard from for several weeks. It is possible that he has already gone off to the Zen monastery.

Larry told us that his daughter said her first sentence just a couple of days ago. She said, “Hi Dada!” I suggested that it was chatroom time for her. If you recall, she did try to get to the chat a few weeks ago, even though it was past her bedtime.

Then Lori came in after an absence of a few weeks. She had just returned from Trinidad. I told Lori about Breaca’s excellent gender agender thread and she went to look through it.

Everybody started to leave but then Doug and Michael came in and a massive discussion on making food started up. However, even that wasn’t enough because they wanted recipes so I told everyone to look at vegsource.com where they have an excellent database.

Doug told us that he still had a craving for cheese though he hadn’t eaten meat since January. I showed him why cheese is the ‘hardest’ to let go (as it had been for Ranjana):

“Several scientific teams have shown that the principal protein in cheese, casein, breaks apart during digestion to produce abundant amounts of morphine-like compounds called casomorphins.” http://www.pcrm.org/news/commentary030519.html

There was more talk about food and then we learned that Michael had lost nearly 50 pounds since becoming strict vegetarian. Doug has already lost 15 and felt he should thank Ranjana for this “The last time I got help from you all I lost 15 pounds.” I said that Michael had talked to her more which is why he had lost more. Then I suggested that “it is along the lines of talking someone’s head off - but applying it to weight instead.”

Of course, that got me into trouble, but because they were all discussing recipes and things, I was basically overlooked and able to leave before anyone remembered what I had said.

026-04-08-22

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:44 -0800

This was again a very short chat.

Dyl came early again because he didn’t know what time it was. Then he left.

Rachel and Kyron showed up followed by Ranjana, then Sangeeta, who told everybody that she and her ‘adoptee’ were enjoying Macgyver very much.

Rachel told us that her voice had almost returned fully after her tonsil operation, but admitted that she was sleeping all day pretty well so Ranjana said she was glad Rachel was a taking break from all that sleeping in order to join us.

Ranjana mentioned that Kyron was interested in chemistry recently and that he was setting all kinds of things on fire. She, of course, failed to mention how she had managed to burn down our kitchen.

I came in, but had to ask why I was surrounded by rabbits. There were at least three of them all around me.

Ray entered and told Kyron that he was downloading the RedHat Fedora ISO images. For some reason, the very next line on the screen had Rachel writing “Well I’m off to bed.”

However, just before she did, she tried one last time:

[Remora91] pradtf> i found the perfect one. the title is called, “Are you a good kisser?” [pradtf] Remora91> that’s terrible!!!!!!!!!!! you know my sentiments on that sort of stuff!!!!!!!! kissy wissy uck! [Remora91] pradtf> i’m sure. you get annoyed so easily. [pradtf] Remora91> well i’m too dignified to respond

Breaca came in then just in time to hear Ranjana complain “why does everyone have to chew on my transfer case???!!!!!! AAAAAAArgH!!!!!!!!!!!!” She meant the rabbits, of course.

Breaca told us she was watching the Olympics, but Rachel gave me this ominous message:

[Remora91] pradtf> brb. Bwhahahahaha!

and exited the room.

People started talking about what happened on the forums, but Ray put it best, perhaps:

[rgoudie] It had become more of a bar than a community forum.

Then Rachel returned and tried to bother me somemore:

[Remora91] pradtf> bwhahahahaha! http://web.tickle.com/tests/kiss/ [pradtf] Remora91> what a horrid idea! [Remora91] pradtf> you’re too paranoid about this. [pradtf] Remora91> i think that is your idea

This was too much for Breaca who left the room, but said that she would be back.

Then Rachel realized that Sangeeta wasn’t around so I was off the hook. But no, because shortly after I was threatened with:

[Remora91] pradtf> i just found out theres a whole page on the tickle website devoted to kissing! lol. [pradtf] Remora91> i guess some people need a whole page to figure out what to do

We talked a bit about how our rabbits were destroying the place and then Sangeeta reappeared having fixed her computer problem apparently, just in time to hear how Rachel’s dog destroyed her teddy bear.

Sangeeta told us:

[sangeeta] pradtf> imvegan> so my dad popped the big question– if i want them to look for a good indian boy for me! LOL!!!! [pradtf] sangeeta> well do you? [imvegan] sangeeta> here’s you chance!!!!!!!!!!!!! [sangeeta] pradtf> NO way…i told him that i am happy as i am and i don’t such things and i told him that i am dif from other indian girls as building families doesn’t give me happiness– but living my purpose and vision does…no sure he understood tho…but also he said if i don’t do it now, it will be too late to do it later…but he said if you are happy single, then they will be happy for me too!! which is surprising he siad that but then he went backwards and siad…make sure if you find someone he is indian! argh!

Then Lori appeared just in time to hear that Ray had to leave because Marsha wanted to buy him some new clothes. Poor fellow!

Lori told us her AR group was still having problems getting started in her school because the teacher in charge was being difficult, but that they were working on it.

Lori then left to eat lunch.

Sangeeta told me about a problem:

[sangeeta] pradtf> we had a scare in the house…something was burning in jannette’s room and can’t figure out what….but we unpluged everything and it’s fine now—weird [pradtf] that is weird - was it a food burning smell? [sangeeta] pradtf> nope- electrical burning smell

What they had done was to plug too many things into one outlet. Anyway, they took care of it fortunately.

Kyron and Sangeeta set a time to talk about string theory since both of them had some neat ideas about it.

Then Ranjana related some fascinating events a friend of hers had gone through:

[imvegan] you know, somehings wierd happened to a friend…. her husband died a few months ago and strange things have been hppening since . this week w really odd thing happened. she woke up and found her dog sleeping in front of the fireplace and the fireplace was on !!! she hadn’t turned it on in the blazing heat we’ve had here.

After relating this information, Ranjana took off to have a smoothie.

Interestingly enough, all of us left shortly afterwards.

001-04-02-28

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:43 -0800

The largest (11) and longest (4hrs) chat yet!!

It all started with an intercontinental music debate featuring Rachel, Dyl and Breaca the resolution of which is still forthcoming.

Ray and Sangeeta talked about her circus protests leading to surprising information about the World Wildlife Federation who are not as animal friendly as thought to be (see http://www.peta.org/feat/greenwash/wwf.html)

We were delighted by reizen’s 1st appearance at our chat - Andrew & Ranjana engaged in a discussion about healthcare and Andrew’s role in helping hospitals make better decisions. For those of you who don’t know, Ranjana is involved in supporting caregivers (http://www.familycaregiverssupport.org).

By now, Bear was getting hungry so as soon as he saw Michael, he shouted ’tofu’ not once, but four times and disappeared. Then he returned again and again till there were 3 of him (yes I know this is somewhat confusing). In fact, some people could bearly understand what was happening because they couldn’t get their bearings and found the situation to be rather unbearable and embearrassing. Fortunately, I was able to point out that all was not lost because we only needed a Goldilocks since we already had three bears.

Fjord gave us something to look forward to in the form of his talented 9 year old grandson who will be joining our family and the clan! I believe when this happens, Veggiechess will have the youngest and the oldest (Garth at 83) members on RedHotPawn!

Ray, Fjord and I discussed ratings on the site and started to examine RedHotPawn’s calculation algorithm, but then Ray realized that he was still at work and I realized that I had been at the chat for the whole 4 hours and we both realized that others had left so we took off suddenly realizing that Fjord was still in there. We hope he had an enjoyable time having that entire chatroom to himself!

addendum: i have just been informed (Sunday morning) by Fjord that he took this opportunity to paint the chatroom!

Posted by Fjord: Where is the end of this? I suggest an relay. With members all around the world it is not so difficult to hand over the baton 24 hours a day. Dyl will be delighted. Fjord P.S. And I can tell now from own experience: being on your own in the chatroom can be quite satisfying too. No one is contradicting you. (Except when you triple like LittleBear)

002-04-03-06

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:43 -0800

Hi all! Another great chat this week.

Ranjana was able to put in only a very brief appearance, since she had to go into the big city in order to sell tickets for her organization’s fundraiser which you can find out about here: http://familycaregiverssupport.org/events/yaya/ So if you are in the area, just come on by.

The chat started off with a mystery! Who was using the kirksey957 handle? Was it Kirksey or was it Rachel? That was the question Sangeeta and I were studiously trying to unravel. The kirksey957 personnage remained silent for a long time so it was a very difficult problem to solve for a long time. Then the handle identified itself as a Rachel who had recently found a dog that she wanted to keep. You would think that at this point most sleuths would figure the mystery was solved, but not I! Nay! I was not to be so easily dissuaded so I immediately put forth the possibility that it may be Kirksey himself, disguised as Rachel! This brought forth the response “Are you kidding?” and though I was willing to pursue the matter further, no one else was - well at least not the only other two handles in the room who were busy talking to themselves as though this serious matter didn’t warrant further investigations.

Fortunately, Michael arrived and so did Bear, but because the former didn’t bring tofu, they started talking about opera with Andrew who had also shown up.

At some point Rachel, while discussing academics put forth the following proposition “math = crappola”. I found this comment surprising since I was not aware that math had anything to do with that crayon company.

By this time, the opera group had progressed to the point where Michael had generated consensus within the party on the idea that Mozart, Beethoven and all the other operatic composers were famous because the particular members of the opera group listened to them.

That being resolved, Andrew felt he had to catch his plane. I conjectured that he must be participating in the chat through a cell phone if he were just about to catch a plane. Fjord then made his incredible suggestion that may be it was a landong. For those of you unfamiliar with computer technology let me explain the brilliance of his comment. In order to connect to the net, one often uses LAN (local area network) and to connect the laptop, which is no doubt what Andrew was using if he were on the road, you use a dongle. Hence, the remarkable creation landong a wonder of imaginative synergy!

At about this time, Kirksey had taken over the kirksey957 handle having spent the last two chat sessions painting his house. After hearing that Fjord had gone for a walk in the forest and that we had a forest beside us that had been cut down to accommodate a house that was built on a swampy piece of land, he started telling us about zoning laws. Apparently, in Louisville there are times when you can’t leave your garage door open!

This no doubt made Bear think of food and so Sangeeta suggested berries since she had just made a berry smoothie. Naturally, I reminded her that it may be because bears like these fruit that they are called bearries. Though I also pointed out that if bears use these as laxative they could be called bearease. That made Bear frown, but Fjord leave. So I quickly brought the subject back to chess by noting that Emanuel Lasker was almost related to a bear because his brother was almost called Bearthold. Kirksey thought I was on a roll until I suggested that it was a bearoll of fun after which he said something about “it never ends” followed immediately by “I’ll see you next week” and never stayed for Bear’s very imaginative multilingual pun, which I am saddened to say I didn’t quite get because I don’t understand the multilingual language.

We noticed that Fjord, though gone, had not exited. This should prove to be significant at some point later.

Sangeeta started talking to Ray about string theory and provided a very interesting website showing fascinating videos about this remarkable physics topic:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

and they discussed several interesting ideas concerning dimensions and realities that led us to some intriguing ideas by Seth:

http://www.secretoflife.com/seth/

Kyron showed up because he had some linux matters to discuss with Ray while I talked to Bear about languages for a bit, but then he had to go so he didn’t notice that Michael had eaten and fallen asleep though he claimed he was only digesting.

Flash suddenly appeared and told us about his recent dietary successes which have been significant! We are looking forward to his story on our forums before too long.

We concluded the chat by discussing the need for eating to completion in order to maintain the honor of the table and how some people, like myself, have had to carry this burden alone for years, with minimal assistance from family and friends and that this luxury will no longer be extended to said family and friends who really must do their part in this endeavour.

We all noticed that Fjord had not exited the room and as Michael left him a final message regarding paint, we wondered when he was returning to enjoy the solitude it would offer after our departure.

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 8:30 pm by reizen To solve the mystery - I was on my laptop at the Asheville regional airport NC which was kind enough to offer a free business center with high speed internet. I had an hour to spare - my original flight being canceled. The flight I took on a small turboprop plane to connect in Charlotte was indeed the worst flight I have ever been on as it was extremely turbulent. I usually can’t come to the chatroom, even though I enjoy it, because I like to spend time on Saturdays with my family - whom I don’t see often enough because I am at airports.

003-04-03-13

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:43 -0800

Pretty big turnout this week and a long chat too!

Michael, Ranjana and Sangeeta started it off discussing the latest information regarding Bacon, the pig some students are trying to save from slaughter. Here is the thread on RHP on this:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=9330

The discussion continued as Dyl (who just got home from work) and Rachel arrived. Rachel told us that Kirksey was in Louisville at his best friend’s wedding.

Sangeeta and Rachel started talking and for some reason Ranjana informed the latter that the former would be back in half an hour because she’s taking a cat to the vet. Yes I know this sounds very confusing. Think about how Rachel felt. Think about how Sangeeta felt wondering where she really was. Think about how I felt when I was informed that Ranjana had broadcast this information, because I had told her to!

It turned out that Sangeeta had already taken the cat to the vet and she was fine. The cat was too and was apparently just lonely because her ‘mommy’ had been away for 2 months.

Then I entered the chatroom - yes I know this is very confusing - and was thoroughly confused like everyone else when Ranjana wanted to run paper through a sewing machine, but I was able to explain that she was making perforations on raffle tickets for the big fundraiser tonight!

Then Rachel announced that she had beaten all the boys in her class in basketball and received a round of applause! Andrew entered at roughly that point in time but was just a bit too late to share in the applause.

Then the strangest thing happened! A Gary appeared followed by a GaryMin. This set everyone aspeculating except me, because I knew who had arrived, but just not which one was the real one. Michael, who had not brought any tofu much to the distress of Bear (who hadn’t arrived yet), naturally thought that Kasparov had joined our chat, but since Gary nor GaryMin would say anything, it was never clear.

While Dyl, Rachel and Sangeeta plotted pig rescue strategies, I went to find both Gary and GaryMin who for some reason was hopping around from chatroom to chatroom. Then both of them completely disappeared, but fortunately, I didn’t.

Then Ranjana revealed a fascinating chess strategy that she really didn’t use, but still worked for her. She was playing this game and was taking a few days between moves (nowhere close to her timelimit), but her opponent kept sending her reminders. We thought it was because he was being nice, but then she realized that it was because he was actually trying to hurry her. Well, it seemed that he was concentrating so much on sending her reminders, that he overlooked a mate in one against himself. In her other game with him, he has not sent a single reminder yet, so it appears that Ranjana will not be able to use the strategy she did not use for that game in this game.

Ranjana, Michael and Dyl apparently then formed a team called ‘Short Term Memory Loss’ to utilize this strategy, but I can’t remember anything about it.

We then found out that Andrew hadn’t been saying anything because he was making chess moves, but since he continued to do so, we didn’t learn anymore.

Then Gary who was lost, suddenly entered the chatroom. We were very glad to see him, since this was his first chat with us! Gary calls himself GaryMinford on RHP and posts using bold, italic, and even bold italic which was an innovation I learned from him!

Suddenly, out of the blue, Dyl thanks me and I have no idea why so I reply with a series of question marks and he has no idea why I did that and I can’t remember if we ever figured it all out eventually.

Then followed a short discussion about the posting antics of a certain member of RHP whose name shall not blemish our forums and thankfully it ended soon. However, on a similar note, one wonders whether we should make a stronger effort to maintain an appropriate level of decency on the RHP forums.

While I showed Gary how to use the green laughing emoticon, Dyl gave us the inside story of the intracasies of the word ‘boofhead’ which interested Andrew so much that he stopped making moves and provided us with a link regarding that word! This counterinterested Dyl to the point that he made a general announcement!

There was a little talk about marino which became merino which became marina who was someone whom I taught math to, but fortunately, Bear entered just in time so I didn’t have to remember what I was talking about or that Michael announced how in the small country of Austria, he never had a girlfriend called Marina.

Then Ray showed up and that brought Kyron into the chatroom as well and again a massive conversation on Linux ensued.

Gary disappeared for a moment because he said that duty called, but Dyl misunderstood him and the two of them engaged it a fascinating discussion about reconfiguring the molecular structure of one’s shorts while Andrew and Ranjana dicussed the impact of technology on hospital administration.

Then Andrew left and Michael left as Gary and Dyl started to exchange puns, but Fjord arrived. Ranjana apologized to him for taking so long to move, so Fjord asked if he should move for both of them. Little did he know that Ranjana was setting the ‘Short Term Memory Loss’ strategy, but since she didn’t either, it was fine.

Dyl then left because he finally got sleepy and Kyron did as well because he was going to take the rabbits out but not to the cinema or dancing as Gary thought. Ranjana left as well inviting everyone to come to the fundraiser dance, so Gary took this opportunity to leave as well.

Fjord wondered about when his opponent was going to return to play, but since it didn’t look like he was, he probably wasn’t. Then he asked about the Grob opening, but since I didn’t know much about it, I thought I’d leave him with Bear who hadn’t even heard of it.

004-04-03-20

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:43 -0800

This week’s chat started with me talking to myself since there wasn’t anyone else in the chatroom. This exercise didn’t appeal to me greatly so I left.

Soon some others arrived and began to talk to themselves, but the activity, for some reason, did appeal to them.

Fjord informed us that his grandson Orin is playing in a chess tournament. Orin is very keen on the game and is interested in learning the openings now!

Fjord also told us that Pericles, his cockatiel friend, had a confrontation with a sheep dog and had saved herself by making herself extremely large. However, she had been somewhat traumatized and wasn’t feeling that well. Hopefully, she will recover soon.

Sangeeta called to let us know that she would be late in arriving. She was also busy following the events of the Bacon situation. The auction for Bacon the pig is this Saturday at 7pm est. For some details see

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=9330

Kirksey replaced Rachel at this point and more talk regarding Pericles ensued. Fjord said she had been to the vet who really couldn’t find anything wrong with her. Fjord said he would be patient, prompting Michael to ask if he meant paytient.

The discussion moved to bird behaviour, prompting me to point out the eccentricities of our very strange cockatiel, Luther, who has been with us for 14 years in all his strangeness!

Kirksey and I talked about events taking place on the RHP forums which have certainly gotten more interesting since the introduction of the debates section. No doubt this discussion got him even more interested, because he immediately took off to post in the debates section I presume.

Suddenly Ullichamp arrived because Michael had invited him last week. However, Michael had fallen asleep by now so it didn’t do Ullichamp any good. As a result, Ullichamp had to settle for knowing how to create smiley faces in the chatroom and then left.

Fjord suddenly told us that spagate means fork which I found very interesting because it sounds a lot like spaghetti which you can eat with a fork and can spell as spagati if you really wanted to.

Fjord didn’t seem too interested in this observation, but after I indicated that Kyron and I were thinking of giving Gentoo linux another try, it proved to be too much for him and he left immediately! A few moments later we found out that he had really left because he crashed his computer - he had come all the way back to tell us and continued to stay because he didn’t crash his computer again.

Sangeeta arrived just in time to agree with Fjord that Gentoo sounds like a bird. She also told us that there was a very good chance that Bacon would be saved!

Sangeeta then engaged Fjord in a most uninteresting and irrelevant discussion regarding my past which both seemed to delight in, but fortunately, Gary arrived just in time to direct attention elsewhere - specifically, the fact that he was having trouble getting into the chat room again, just like last week.

Fjord watched the proceedings with some amusement, I think, and then wondered whether VeggieChess could provide his other clan, HCPS, with a forum till they get their own website. I explained that we possibly could in this situation, even though in the past we have given these only to the winners of the VeggieChess Goad to be Friendly competition (which was actually inspired by Breaca):

http://towardsfreedom.com/VeggieChess/g2f031101.html

Sangeeta at this point stated she didn’t have any idea what we were talking about, but when I asked her, why she didn’t, she was completely at a loss for words. However, Gary, who had managed to finally find his way into the chatroom, wasn’t at a loss for words, because he stated that he didn’t have any idea what we were talking about either and so I had to explain everything!

I also tried to generate some sympathy for myself, but that didn’t work too well, because the conversation degenerated into who was being picked on by whom. Fortunately, I was successful in winning this competition, because I was able to declare that Ranjana has been picking on me since the early 1960s!

Gary and Fjord wanted to pick on me then and there, I think, but didn’t after I pointed out that I needed some material for this SatChat summary.

At this point, a classic exchange ensued between Fjord who said his grandma said “Was sich neckt liebt sich” followed by Gary who said “sounds like she had a sore throat”.

Ray emailed me at this point indicating that he was too swamped with work to come to the chat today.

Gary proceeded to engage in some name calling, but Fjord pointed out that “When you tease someone, you love that person”. Unfortunately, Ranjana jumped in and threatened to use that against Kyron and myself.

Andrew appeared but didn’t say anything for a while so Fjord left and then Sangeeta did as well. Andrew then said he had just come by to say hello and left as well.

Well now there were only 3 of us in the room, but Ranjana wasn’t really paying attention, because she was thinking about her smoothie. As a result, Gary had to be serious and told me some very interesting stories about his travels in Europe. It is really rather neat how you can go from country to country just by driving a little bit. He plans one day to drive along the pacific coast in the US.

Ranjana left for her smoothie after this so Gary and I continued talking about the political situation in what used to be the USSR. This got us into a potentially fascinating discussion regarding why people don’t seem to work together for mutual betterment. Some of the ideas are very well illustrated in some of the episodes of Star Trek and particularly The Next Generation series which we both like very much. Unfortunately, I had to depart at this point, but hope to continue this discussion with Gary possibly next week!

005-04-03-27

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:43 -0800

So this time it was Michael who was talking to himself in the chatroom - in fact, he was singing from Tannhaueser, so melodiously that both Rachel and Ranjana waltzed in on waves of sonorous ecstasy!

Rachel said she liked music but didn’t like her voice, but Ranjana reassured her that all can sing with a little training. Michael then explained how the neighbours felt about his singing. Rachel then revealed that she knows how to play the cello! However, we didn’t get to hear much about this because her computer started experiencing difficulties as Kirksey came on to explain.

Fortunately, I arrived just at this moment.

Rachel taught us that the word ’luters’ means websurfers. We discussed the successful outcome of the Bacon incident. Two other pigs as well as a lamb were rescued thanks to the courageous efforts of some very brave girls at that school. The pictures of the animals, safe in their sanctuaries can be found here:

http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/crhs.htm

It turns out that Sangeeta, who couldn’t attend the chat because she was at a conference, there met Frank Cobo, one of the primary individuals responsible for freeing Bacon, now renamed Daisy.

Rachel asked me if I watched MTV so I said no and that I hardly watched tv at all except at dinner. Michael wondered if that interfered with concentrating on eating, but when I pointed out what the alternative to not watching tv durinng dinner was, he understood completely.

Both Kirksey and Ray arrived then while Ranjana started wondering whether she missed anything while she was gone. Ray revealed that he and Marsha were contemplating moving out west because they were tired of the cold weather. However, Ray explained that he would need to find a job programming in Clarion which there aren’t too many of.

Then Ranjana suddenly exclaimed that she had found it, but fortunately, before she could do anything about it, Bear entered. Kirksey told us that his computer wasn’t working too well and that brought on some suggestions including getting another computer.

Michael left to make food and that got Ray inspired to eat his lunch. Ulli put in a brief appearance that brought Michael back for a bit but then they both left.

Bear was saddened because his uncle had recently died and we send him our regrets. However, be assured, Bear, that you will always have friends beyond the 100 acre woods.

Ray thought that the system was missing lines so we explored some of the ways we could bring the lines back. This investigation led to the discovery by Ray of the emoticons and soon he was brightening up the chatroom with colorful faces!

There followed a few moments of consternation as I legitimately questioned the honey consuming technique of Winnie the Pooh - you know, dipping the paw into it and all that - and we all hoped that Bear did not resort to the same. We did wonder about this somewhat though, because Bear made mention of his keyboard’s sticky keys.

Kyron entered at this point and an inevitable Linux discussion started. I joined this one because I was so pleased with Gentoo Linux. It turned out that Fjord and Sangeeta had been right last week when they said that Gentoo sounded like a bird, because Ray discovered that this was a type of penguin. Kyron and I started arguing about the merits of Gentoo vs SourceMage which is rather strange considering both of us prefer the former, but Kyron was determined that I not malign the latter unduly. Both Ray and Bear seemed very interested in visiting the Gentoo site and Ranjana thought it might be a party so she figured she would go there too.

Then Ray mentioned that he hates to lose his code, but Bear said he loves to lose his. They didn’t argue about it though.

Kyron and I finally figured out that we didn’t need to type to each other in order to have our argument since we were sitting beside each other. This amused Ray greatly and he sent 3 huge smiley grins to me. I immediately sent 3 of the same to Kyron who promptly sent another 3 right back to Ray! Bear found this circular exchange especially funny and added a huge smiley grin himself before proceeding to discuss whether alter egos have alterior motives with Ray.

We asked if Kirksey was still with us but no answer came - however, Fjord did. He didn’t say anything for a long time and when he did, it was to type only a single question mark. The profundity of Fjord’s gesture brought gasps of admiration first from Ranjana, then from Bear who expressed it in the form of 2 exclaimation marks! The rest of us had no idea what was happening.

Suddenly Fjord told us he was ‘kaughing’ but didn’t know why, but since we didn’t know whether he meant ’laughing’ or ‘coughing’ we couldn’t help him.

Fortunately, Doug flashed into the discussion at this time and we talked about the Bacon story and eating in general. Then Doug mentioned oranges in Florida and that got us inspired to plant fruit trees (but after the chat). Michael suddenly appeared wanting a fruit smoothie and Ranjana indicated she would put up a recipe for it on the website. Michael will also put up his tofu technique there.

Michael, Ranjana and Flash left at this point and Fjord told me about Pericles and her eating habits. The chat came to a very happy ending as he told me that Pericles was doing just fine these past few days.

006-04-04-03

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 23:27:43 -0800

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.