tl;dr - What have I missed?

[curiosityandthecat]

Been gone some time... close to six months, if not longer. Anyone want to catch me up? Pleeeease?  

[hismikeness]

Welcome back Curio!

Whitney imposed a 50 post rule to step outside of the laid back lounge to try and discourage trolls. Japan was hit by an earthquake. Other than that, not much.

[McQ]

Been gone some time... close to six months, if not longer. Anyone want to catch me up? Pleeeease?  

Good to have you back. You have been missed. Things have gone from fairly crazy to somewhat normal. We had the usual pre and post Christmas crush of trolls/spammers/warriors for god. It calmed down a lot when we instituted the 50 post rule for new members.

You'll have to get us caught up on yourself. I've been thinking about you and how things have been going with you.

[curiosityandthecat]

I believe we briefly talked about the post buffer some time ago... glad to see it's been implemented.

I've been finishing up the coursework for my Ph.D. One more class and I'm duuuuuuuuun.  Also took a new job, one in which you have 40 hours of work to do each week but since you spend 25 hours in meetings, you only have 15 hours to do it in.  lol Other stuff going on too, but nothing I'd want to burden the Lounge with. I see a lot of new names ... guess I should break out my old gif gallery and start getting them used to it.  

[Cecilie]

guess I should break out my old gif gallery and start getting them used to it.  

[Tank]

guess I should break out my old gif gallery and start getting them used to it.  

I don't recall ever seeing them, so please roll them out again!

[curiosityandthecat]

guess I should break out my old gif gallery and start getting them used to it.  

I don't recall ever seeing them, so please roll them out again!

This is probably the best known around these parts:



The go-to derailment for troll posts: the switch from the troll topic to men's shampoo.

[Tank]

This is probably the best known around these parts:



The go-to derailment for troll posts: the switch from the troll topic to men's shampoo.

Might not get a lot of use. Trolls are a rare species around here nowadays.

[Cecilie]

This is probably the best known around these parts:



The go-to derailment for troll posts: the switch from the troll topic to men's shampoo.

Might not get a lot of use. Trolls are a rare species around here nowadays.

And that makes me sad.

[curiosityandthecat]

This is probably the best known around these parts:

[spoiler:9g5kwuto][/spoiler:9g5kwuto]

The go-to derailment for troll posts: the switch from the troll topic to men's shampoo.

Might not get a lot of use. Trolls are a rare species around here nowadays.

And that makes me sad.

Oh, it's gotten its fair share of use over the years.

[The Magic Pudding]

My rubber chicken award got an unfavorable response when last used.
I think I'll just go with the more subtly cryptic "Tom, Bert or William?" next time.

[Recusant]

Two somewhat memorable recent god-botherers who helped liven the place up (neither of whom seems to be currently active, though the second logged in not too long ago):

Jac3510: A very sincere Christian who really seemed to put a lot of effort into his posts here.  My only objection to his stuff is that as far as I was concerned he relied too heavily on philosophy jargon.  Several members were involved in some complex and earnest discussions with him, but I think he burned out on this place.

Achronos: An Orthodox Christian with a prickly side (or maybe all over; don't know him well enough to say) who seemed to have a penchant for posting chunks of Orthodox apologetics without attributing them.

A ding-dong calling himself "Chandler M Bing" who got himself a one week ban, but apparently had something too important to wait that long, so sewed himself a sock puppet and earned a permanent ban.

A amusing little snot of an enfant provocateur calling himself "Bubblepot" who was working on his trolling chops. They do need work, but if he keeps at it he may become something worthy of a county road bridge some day. His suspected sock puppet, a member who uses proxy servers, has not been seen recently.

The pathetic serial spam-troll, Mabus, (aka Dennis Markuze) hasn't been around in a few weeks, but there was a bit of drama when he showed up at an atheist gathering several months ago.  If you want to read an account of it, google his real name (the aka above) and click on some of the links.  Not really worth it though.  He showed up, somebody got a photo of him, then he scurried off to brag about it.

One of our (not especially prolific) members managed to get himself arrested for raising a stink about prayers held by his local school board before the start of their meetings.

And lots of other stuff of course.  If anything springs to mind in the next few days, I'll post it here.

(By the way, I like the "Tom, Bert or William" thing, Magic Pudding.   )

[curiosityandthecat]

Recusant, I saw a tweet by Whitney about the school board thing. I found it... well, boring, to tell the truth. I was neither enraged nor disappointed by it. I just chalked it up to yet another one of us being annoyed by another group of them to the point that, after having a really shitty day, they snapped. Can't say I'm surprised, but can't say I'm hurt, either.

Mabus has long been a thorn in the collective atheistic side and I've posted many a shampooing instruction on his posts. But good to know that one of my favorite comedians is still up and at 'em.

Thanks for that.

[curiosityandthecat]

Incidentally, this time around you probably won't see much of me in the philosophy or religion section. I'm still a diehard atheist, but when I joined HAF nearly three years ago, I was working on a Master's degree that focused on religion, atheistic adolescents and the public school system, so I was constantly fired up. These days, I'm working on a Ph.D in Instructional Technology so my days of battling well-meaning but misguided Christians are pretty much at an end. I'm back pretty much solely for the company, the comradery, and the friendship I've come to enjoy from HAF.

Again, tl;dr; I'll post funny shit and don't expect much more.

 

[Asmodean]

Cat is back!  

*remembers doing something similar* Eh... Nevermind...