sparks_

Jesus. ASMB implemented an upvote system?

Ah, well, he was definitely the first, anyway. I’m not sure I ever even saw the new rank.

Everything. Mostly trolling. I might have the most—I don’t know. They should’ve just IP’ed me after the first dozen. I’m reminded of the funniest story of someone else’s ban. He won’t be here to tell it. It’s a long one. daREMONSTA, or Marvin, was a troll, but he was an okay guy. He never got really cruel or took it too far; he mostly talked shit about people on AIM. While rank was worthless to me and others, Marvin really valued his, so he’d toe the line. He really wanted to make OOTO, so when he finally did, he chilled out quite a bit. There was this photo floating around AIM between me, Gnome, Vintage, Ryan, Poet, Marvin, and some of the other usual suspects of a clown fucking a midget. Marvin thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. We’d all reference it in threads a lot, but no one had the balls to post it, until one day, when Marvin decided to really break bad. Of course, I egged him on, you know? To me it sounded like he was going to deliberately throw away his username by posting clown-on-midget porn and that sounded funny, like a slight to the value people put on their rank. Go, Marvin. After an hour or so of psyching himself up, he actually did it. He posted the photo of a clown fucking a midget. What I didn’t expect, though, was that he did it on a different account. Up to this point, Marvin had seen me getting banned and bouncing back with a very unambiguous fresh alt once or twice a week, so he figured that’s just how it worked—alts were disposable and the mods punished the username, not the user—but I didn’t have a main to ban. I asked him why he used an alt if he’s going to get banned on his main anyway, and his response was “WHAT.” I had to break the news that the mods could parse usernames and IPs, and that he probably shouldn’t use his main for a while to keep it off the log. Well, the first thing he did was get on his main, and just about the second thing he did was let me know it was perma banned. He made a new account and stuck around for a while, mostly to appeal his ban and navigate the stages of grief. After it was clear he wasn’t getting a second chance, he took part in some deeper trolling for a little while and hit the dusty trail. daREMONSTA was the first (and only?) Owl perma banned. The big red letters were a borg’s most powerful tool. I still have the heart, by the way.

That dude made a mistake. It’s hard to pick just one favorite. Some of my favorites were dposse’s ITN threads. Not because they were good but because they eventually devolved into pages and pages of one word posts: “dposse.” A memorable one is Pero when he was worried about his mom. He was alone at home writing long, incoherent, anxious posts about what could have happened to her and everyone was trying to calm him down and offer logical explanations. After hours of panic, Pero posted, “she home now,” and that was it—thread over. The best moments though were in hijacked threads, or spanned multiple threads, or multiple boards even. That’s when we really got on a roll and I just couldn’t stop fucking laughing.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong, guy.

It's hard. I lost social media a while back but remember how connected we all were. It was a hell of a web, and despite not really knowing each other, we shared people in common. It's usually Facebook or its equivalent that serves as a memorial page, but it's profiles like these that really reveals who a person was. Thanks.

It has been seven years today since we lost a good friend. Old Babblers might remember Ryan from the Shire, the folk singer of terminal wanderlust. I'm not trying to get too sentimental. I just want those who still think of him to know others do too. I'm still trying to figure out how to play it, cowboy.

You are not kidding. The bums are out of control. I lived in an alley that was a primary wander route. Landlords wound up putting locks on all our dumpsters. Hillcrest is nice for its centrality but other than that a total shithole. I'll look you up in the phone book next time I'm back home.

Alive for now.

No shit. I moved from there a few years ago. It'll always be home, but every time I visit I'm reminded why I agreed to leave. It's a nice place if you don't live in the soulless suburban sprawl with the other expats. I lived in Hillcrest before leaving for good. In fact, they just demolished my old building last year. Glad to hear you're liking it.

Probably. Poet shared it with me years ago. I haven't talked to that dude since Ryan left us, though. In fact, I've pretty much lost touch with everyone. And yeah, you were wearing boxers. It wasn't the most flattering angle, but I get the feeling that wasn't much of a concern. Where's "over here"? Did you take up permanent residence?

Yeah, he was a clown on the boards, but we grew pretty tight. I was no shit going to ask if it was you, but didn't want to hurt your feelings if it wasn't. Last I heard you were passed out naked on Tate's couch in Iowa. How you been?

That's only half true. It's been all right. I'll still listen to Dwight Yoakam every now and then. Since you were wondering: I haven't talked to Gnome since the boards, but Vintage and I stayed close in touch until a couple years ago. Was RainyDayJizz your username?

I never saved it, but it's pretty hard to forget. I made a video about it years ago that I would probably have to delete before running for office.

It's Dwight Yoakam. By the way.