The half-empty side is that practically speaking, the memo means next to nothing at all.
When is good news really bad news in disguise?
When it's the transformer, half-empticon.
That it is news and not a secret memo makes me highly suspicious that it is real news.
Speaking of Transformers, anyone see the preview for the new Michael Bay Transformers movie? Holy shit, that looks bad.
Well, given the title of this thread, which seems somehow relevant--although I'm not sure how--this seems like as good a place as any to leave my virtual suicide note.
It is with great sadness I report that the integrity of my handle has been seriously compromised. Of course, I suppose if one hangs around the Mineshaft long enough one's integrity is bound to be seriously compromised at some point. Nonetheless, with the anonymity stripped from my pseudonym I'm going to have to stop posting here, at least for the time being. (Complicated reasons I can't really go into now.)
Should circumstances permit, I hope to be back in the future, though a new handle would be a necessity, so no one would know it was me. (Wow, what a choppy sentance that was. I don't feel like fixing it though.)
I'll miss you all; my days will have less laughter without you.
And I can't leave without confessing: I love you too, B.
Condolences. Hopefully you can still lurk and laugh quietly.
Oh man, Urple. I'm so sorry to hear it. We'll miss you. If there's any way the site admins can help or anything, please let me know (feel free to email privately or IM [Bec/ks/AIM, no slashes]). I really hope this isn't due to that troll but I'm guessing so.
Hope we don't haze you too much under your new handle! Look forward to the day you can get a new fruit basket.
Oh dear. Hope there's no fallout from the compromised pseudonym. Fare thee well, Urple.
You copied. I typed it first, but my mouse finger slipped.
How can I copy what I can't see?
You're giving people the impression we're sitting side by side, commenting at the same time, using our respective laptops.
See you later (under another name), Urple.
Oh, sad!! I'm so sorry, Urple. I know well the fear of being outed to the wrong people. Best of luck sorting whatever-it-is out.
(Oh, and you know, you can email us if you come back with a new name and tell us it's you. Use the fancy distribution list.)
(Unless, of course, you want to email me privately.)
Compromised identities suck. I'm sorry, Urple. Hope to see you back here sometime.
I guess this is as good a time as any to say I will also start posting here under a new handle soon (like, maybe tomorrow or the next day or something). I'm trying to go pseudonymous on the internets, and this place (and my blog, which I'm shutting down) is the only place it really matters, since I have some kind of persona here. I kinda wish I hadn't written about all kinds of personal stuff under my current name here, but oh well. Hopefully that person will just disappear into the ether.
I guess this continues the pattern of commenters becoming pseudonymous.
We should pick a day, and all of us start commenting with new handles. Maybe. I think the idea rates half a frisson at least.
Alas, poor Urple! Someone knew him.
Sorry, man.
It always seems weird to see one of my old comments under my original pseudonym show up when someone links an old thread. I mostly lurked back then, so it doesn't happen often.
I wonder who would be easiest to pick out. I guess Standpipe, w-lfs-n, and Farber.
Emerson's comments are pretty distinctive too.
I also get the feeling that eb's comments are distinctive (possibly because there have been several "was that you, eb?" episodes) but that I am not quite smart enough to understand why.
What we should do is have a day when we swap identities and see if we can convincingly play someone else.
What we should do is have a day when we swap identities and see if we can convincingly play someone else.
But, but, that would violate our only rule. Highly uncongenial.
I would volunteer to play the annoying troll, if we had one.
Hardest to play convincingly? I say SB.
Alameida's style is so distinctive it probably compromises her Batgirl identity on its own.
B is easy to pick out because of the b/c shorthand and the tendency to use *s to highlight points. Farber's easy, too, as he's the only one that uses his quotation style here. I might confuse Emerson with McManus. Apostropher is pretty recognizable: look for the link to the weird shit. I think I'm the only one with the calabat. Actually, I think everyone is pretty recognizable given a long enough paragraph.
And Urple, that totally sucks. Sorry to hear it, and I hope you lurk.
apostropher would be the hardest, as I don't have the internet tucked in my bra.
Oh and "max" has a carefully cultivated style.
apostropher would be the hardest
Naturally.
40: Exactly! Also none of our styles are a match for his monkey style.
You could just tuck me into your bra, Cala.
Urple, that sucks. I've very much enjoyed your presence here. Hope it has no further consequences.
Maybe someone else can be Urple? It could throw the hounds (whoever they might be) off the Urple-y scent. The new Urple -- who everyone is pretending is the old Urple -- would have to have an identity entirely Un-Urple-like. Like, maybe, Urple will suddenly apologize for head-butting that Italian guy in the chest. Ah, the hounds of the internet will think, Urple is really Zinedane Zidane; who saw that coming?
I think what i am saying is that comment 22 should be adapted to require everyone to switch handles, rather than simply adopting new ones.
[on preview: I comment once a month and still can't work up an original thought. 35 beats me to the handle switching.]
I would volunteer to play the annoying troll, if we had one.
If Labs keeps sticking his hands in the beehive, we will soon. I can't believe we've made it this far unscathed.
33: It seems like the two things I do most distinctively are imitative: poetry, uh, modifications, and excerpts from someone's writing posted under that someone's name signed with a link to the full text.
The signature on comment 7 looks to be googleproofed, by the way. I don't know if that's significant.
Oh, and on 50, other people do the quotation thing too, so it's not always me.
Oh, Urple, I'm so sorry. Have you looked into the anonymizing services like Tor and soforth? That's only a technical option, and it sounds as though you've got some other considerations; I certainly wouldn't want to presume. Maybe I'm just reluctant to see anyone forced out.
If you come back anonymized with a new handle, I bet we'd find a way to know, even those of us who don't check our email.
36: But if we all agreed to do it for a set 24 hour period, it would be all carnivalesque and shit.
The bad news is that this is just the next rhetorical strategy. The executive doesn't get to decide whether the Geneva Conventions apply, not according to Hamdan. But they can still decide what those Conventions actually require, and come to the inevitable conclusion that what they require is what we are already doing. Those who are willing to make specious arguments can generally find an endless supply of them.
Urple, I'm sorry. I third all the comments that say you should pick a new handle and email us all.
Urple, maybe your reincarnation will finish the conversation for you on the other thread. Good luck.
sometimes I think half the commenters here are sprung from the mind of standpipe. some know about this and some don't.
ditto everyone else about urple coming back, perhaps as lurpe.
Oh great, text. You just totally outed lurpe.
And, I'm very sorry to do this, but Alfi G., you didn't happen to have an aunt who owned a hatshop? And, erm, you didn't happen to date in a casual, conflicted way a Mormon girl with frizzy hair in eighth grade? If so, I'm sorry to have given such mixed messages; if not, well, I haven't met enough men named Alfi.
How does one pronounce Urple in pig Latin?
64: Verlan would render it "perlu."
63: I really am sorry. It's been itching at the back of my brain for a while now.
Verlan would render it "perlu."
Yes, that's true, but not really an answer, Ackmormonjay.
So, has it not been proven that verlan produces more euphonious backwardsizations?
Urple- Aw, that stinks. One more for the chorus of come back if you can, and ask for any admin assistance that might help make a return more anonymous.
63: Well, if by "aunt" you mean 'uncle' and by "hatshop" you intend 'unemployed', and if by "Mormon" you mean 'Hindu' and by "frizzy hair" you mean 'looks as though she cuts her bangs with a sharpened rock (like with one of those chipped obsidian rocks you learn about in Intro to Antropology)'; unless you meant these substitutions, then, no. And, even if you did intend these substitutions, the answer would still be no because everything I wrote after the word "uncle" is untrue -- except for the "no" part. On the other hand, the "date in a casual, conflicted way" sounds eerily familiar. So, on a certain level, I'm right there with you.
If it is OK with you, I am just going to go ahead accept your apology for mixed messages because I really, really, really need to. I hope that now, at long last, the healing can begin.
Aw, fuck, Urple. Come back soo--maybe as Avender?
73: No, Chopper, this is U/rple's big chance to choose a less gay handle.
"Ink" has a nice ring to it, but really, he needs something seriously butch, like "Lack", or "Ed", or "Eafoam".
