Summer

I am lucky to live on an island that has a visible population imbalance. In the winter, only the native kids are out at night, and during the day the streets are usually desolate. Then comes Memorial Day, when everyone surges in from the south in order to keep their balance of environment temperature and thus occupy the mansions homes that have been bought to serve as a temporary residence. It started only today that the volleyball courts were set up on the sand and square sections were cordoned off as an inconvenience to sunbathers that park right by the sea and about ten metres away from the pickets. The Great Summer Migration has officially begon, although tomorrow is Memorial Day and summer doesn't officially start until 21 June.

I personally am scared. When school started, I had been bogged down by long lines of $300-plus food orders at the supermarket and I'd turned away from the beach to avoid the masses that had collaborated down there. I also had expected to be in a relationship and found out what I wanted to major in when I attended college. Neither prediction was correct, and this day marks the resumption of the long orders and the likelihood of being ambushed by the girls on the beach and being struck head-on by a discus. Well, it's not fair to be that damning about the beach; after all, I went down there today and walked from the store to the edge of the wildlife preserve as one of my customers had prescribed, and I did notice a few pretty girls as well as territorial marks in the sand that showed that the groups of co-eds were coming to invade the town. Yet, seeing as I'm still in high school and I'll be there for another year, there were no girls my age without men to be seen on the whole of my walk — but that's not to say I was exactly on the prowl; I was checking to see who would stop me as I walked to the preserve and then home to moderate for the Pokémon Community.

It's amazing that the school year has gone so fast. Throughout the year, a lot of notable things happened in a timeframe that seemed so small. In the beginning I took my PSATs and subsequently received information from many venerable colleges, including West Point. Later, TPL fell apart and I returned to PUK. After that, I attended a youth summit and fell in love, but due to distances I can't consider that a relationship. Later still, I became an administrator at Super Cheats and was required to watch over a mechanical baby for a weekend (it died on Saturday, after a friend of my brother's punched it and my little sister removed the battery — that had to be the luckiest day of my life). Now we have until 14 June to get out of school, a few weeks before my friend gives birth (she left school in April, ironically in the middle of our birth control course!), and one more year of high school to go through before I hit college and the fun really begins for me — provided I stay celibate (especially to Ms Abarno, that!).

For me as a native of an island with such a population imbalance, it surprisingly dawned on me that I've got a lot of new faces to meet over the summer. I had gone to youth summits to meet new faces, but my walk on the beach and the glimpse of things to come has made me rethink my assumption that the island was a boring place to be in.

'Treehouse Saga' reprisal

LOL! Gawd you are sooooo dumb. Now that I'm a mod, it seems like my rants get closer together. Anyway, as I was looking through the Kissshipping thread for SPAM, this person's sig jumped out at me. I clicked, and well, there ya go. Wow, how much more of a n00b can you get? There's warning for reasons - so that little kids won't have to see it if they choose not to. I don't know how much more clear I could have been. I announced that there would be sex and crap throughout the fic. Get it through your [expletive] head!!! And Serebii isn't doing a "bad job" at all! He's letting the authors have their freedoms and the readers should have enough of a brain cell to know what NC17 means. I can't believe people these days. Stop being stupid and deal with it, or you can just go kill yourself. If this is the sort of things you're saying about TS's "February" I wonder what you did about "April"? :P

Seems as if the author of this Freewebs blog was a little angry about the comments I made on the Serebii.net fic 'Treehouse Saga'. The entry suggests that the author was Encyclopika, the author of the actual fic, and that she had recently become a moderator at Serebii.net. Below the post were several other comments about her fic, including one that included a member that rated it badly for the content and another that praised it for its realism. This was the obvious mark of someone who had gotten drunk on the laxity there.

How she managed to get to the review was through the sig I had attached to my profile on Serebii.net, which I hadn't bothered to update ever since I shrank away from there to do work on Super Cheats and the Pokémon Community. At first I thought it was moot, seeing as no-one with the power to ban me came across the sig, but with this coming up I think I need to keep that link up there to see how other people react to it.

And as for 'April', that was when the two (Drew and May) had the actual sex. Shortly afterward, Drew is dead in the hospital of hypothermia.

Site review 2

Pathetic Motorways

I may not be British, but from looking at the reviews of small, disused, outdated, and demolished motorways in Britain may seem at first to be something inane, but it comes out gold when you delve deeper into it.

The site is part of a larger group of sites, the Society for All British Road Enthusiasts, whose focus is to convey the history and habit behind roads running across the world, but primarily the ones in Britain. Several of the sites are photo galleries and sites that focus on one specific area of the UK, but this one is generally universal in that respect and full of comedy value to boot. Steven Jukes, the owner of the site, is also the current President at SABRE's forums and is usually revered as an expert on highways.

A lot of what he says is brutally honest. Firstly, we have the M271 in Southampton. It starts at the A3059, crosses the M27 through an inconvenient rotary interchange, and remains in poor condition up until the sharp bend at the Redbridge Towers complex. Then we see the unfinished Glasgow Inner Ring Road, which kind of reminds us of 1970 Boston with the protest against the I95. And then we see a large map, the Might Have Been Map, tht compares the existing motorway system in the UK against the original schemes — we see roads that failed to come to fruition, such as the M64, and the motorways in London that once were up until an independent agency took control of them all. Amidst it all we have the occasional 'Truly pathetic!' that indicates laziness or inefficacy in the road's planning, and the dismay at having to stop for a traffic signal whilst charging down at 70 miles per hour (115 km/h).

Beyond providing a vivid insight into the transport system in the UK and its flaws, it's a good reserve of laughter induction by means of dry humour, which I expect you to take account of.

PC and Wikipedia

A few weeks ago members of PKMN.NET tried to get the site posted to Wikipedia. In doing so, unfortunately, they received a remark from the staff that it disgraced them to have an article about them written poorly and with emphasis on partial commentator opinion. The page was removed within a few days.

Later I have seen that the Pokémon Community is going through something similar in fashion. As was seen in the Pokémon Community's Daily Chit-Chat, Digital Phoenix, a banned member, had created the article from the get-go and filled it with content that attacked the administration. Immediately others came in and added their leftist views, and soon afterward the page was open to deletion. (One moderator I contacted, who has requested anonymity, was able to determine him as the original author of the article and the author of the comment to my rant about the Community, partly due to his trademark contempt and his having been a moderator in the past.)

At first I thought the marquee was enough to bring this out, but now I see that this extends well beyond the fact that the forum has received unwarranted space on Wikipedia. I have seen Paul try to be banned once more by agreeing with the revisions of the article (thanks to Chibi-chan for clarifying that) that the moderators' judgement was to blame for a bad reputation. Unfortunately, this has only caused the moderators to show their more respectable side as people that exist to keep the Community glued together. Yet, unlike the PKMN.NET admins have (yes, I still believe this, even after seven months of clemency), they haven't ever had the intentions of making themselves targets because of political affinities. That's where the spam traffic going between both forums start to divide; we have Richard Mansfield trying to recruit Blue Mew into spamming on PKMN.NET, whereas spam (the DCC notwithstanding) on the Pokémon Community is not as prominent.

It's strange to see that one member, whom James would say resembles me in the respect, will go out of his way to try to unmask the forum for bias. Wikipedia entries are definitely not the way to do it; posting such would only cause a far worse reputation for theposter than any decrease in reputation for the afflicted forum. I wonder if a similar attempt has been made for SPP?

Update: Below is the inquiry into the matter:

Blue says:
There
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Eh?
Who would David be?
Blue says:
Axel
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Oh....Hello there.
Let me guess, you decided to introduce me?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'm a ghost >o
Sorry bout that, I'm a little exhausted. It's kinda getting to me
Anyways, hey
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Oh, so why did you want to speak to me? Is this about Wikipedia?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Not really, I'm trying not to worry too much about it. You just seem like an interesting person to talk to
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Ah.
Well, I have to say that you lot have the right idea once again....
But to be honest, I never expected the article to be this hot....
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I just can't stand banned members, of all people, critisizing us. XD
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So Jorge, you haven't registered your opinion on the matter yourself....And you were around for the article being spawned....
Blue says:
To be honest, I don't really care about their opinion if that's how they're going to act on the matter. So I see no reason for me to waste time replying to childish insults.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Ah, I see.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Oh sure, make me sound irrational >>
Blue says:
Can do
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Well, I have his assurance that he agrees with me, at the very least.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'd like to ignore them, but it's just come to the point where It's hard
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
I even discussed with another mod the possibility of having an inquiry into possible bias.
Blue says:
It was easy for me not to ignore them when I first became staff and it happened all the time. After a while though, you learn that a lot of these people really are just bitter.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I owe too much to the community in its members to let it take insults like that
and its*
I guess in some sense, we're being bias ourselves, since we're being attacked by them
Blue says:
Not really
If you can look at it from an unbiased POV, then you can admit your own faults, but a lot of what they're saying isn't true.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
That's why I was thinking of an inquiry. get to the bottom of the matter and see what drove them to believe that you lot were biased.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
A lot of the members in their group are banned members who got themselves on the bad side of the staff. However, they break obvious rules and then claim we ban them because we dislike the,
them*
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Still, I need to know what the initial offences were before I make a judgement.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
It'd be hard to track down every single thing again
Plus we aren't aware exactly who is on their side
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
We can at least start with Shinin, Saniigo, and Dakota.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Shinin was a loooong looong time ago. I dont know if his offences are even recorded. Oo
Saniigo just asked to be demoted and started spamming everywhere
As for the reason, we are still unaware
Blue says:
Dakota's is a loooong story
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'm still not even sure what'd up with Dakota. Oo
what's* I am having a horrible typo night
Blue says:
Basically
It started about a year ago
He was become too inactive and when he was on, he wasn't modding, and hardly posted. When he did post, it was really on the spammy side. Eventually he was warned for messing with the user titles in the admin CP. He kept saying he messed up and didn't mean for it to effect all the members, but it did and the fact still stands that he shouldn't have done it. Then he was warned by a former admin, Claire, for general spamming. Then the nail in the coffin for him as a staff member came when it was decided that he was far too inactive and wasn't contributing enough to PC.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
was becoming*
Blue says:
Yeah
After that, he flamed Claire a lot because the two used to be paired and something happened to him that made him think nothing that happens online matters at all. He was warned again for that, but for some reason he thought he could work himself back up to the S-Mod rank. All the higher staff said no to his remodding, so he got mad and said that we backstabbed him and should have at least told him he was up for demotion. Someone said that he needed no warning and that someone who's been at PC for nearly four years should know by now what should and shouldn't be posted. So then he flamed some more, got himself banned. Said the banning was unjust, when he was unbanned...he got himself rebanned pretty fast. He evaded which lead to him getting his original ban time of two months doubled to four months. A bit before his ban was to be lifted, he was saying that the moment he got back to PC, he was going to mass spam. He didn't, but he flamed and that was basically it for him.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So we're never seeing him again.
I never liked him myself. Ignorant ass.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Chances are, no. I'm pretty sure if he didn't learn his lesson after 2 bans, he certainly wont change
Yeah, he was quite ignorant
Anything else you'd like to know?
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Do you believe he could have coaxed the other people into making these remarks?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
No, he doesn't talk with many people. These ideas came from a totally different source
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
I just thought that he would be the only one to trip across the blog, since I have a huge link to it in the sig.
Blue says:
Ty's already said why he did what he did. Paul's just bitter about being banned.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Ty gave reasons?
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Second time for Paul, isn't it?
Well, I think it was Signomi that told me that Ty was the culprit.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
He created the originally wiki thing, yes
Blue says:
David, yeah. He basically said that a lot of his friends were making fun of him for being banned from PC and stopped talking to him for that reason
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...so?
Blue says:
So...he was kinda pissed
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
And tripped over into the hole again.
Blue says:
Basically

Sothe「サザ」 was added to this conversation. Handwriting is no longer supported because not all participants can view handwritten messages. Handwritten messages will be sent as text.

Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
All right, Jake wants his say.
Blue says:
Though the way he said it did make me feel bad for him
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Yo, Jake
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
We got into the Dakota incident.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
He's pretty... silent
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
That's odd....
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Maybe australia sink into the ocean...
sunk*
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Sorry. XD
Dakota incident?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
There goes another theory of mine out the window...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I want America, or at least Washington D.C. to sink. D:
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...washington is pretty far inland to sink... XD
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I know. D:
Blue says:
Hey! I live in America!
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
But me and Jake don't =D
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So do I, and I should be concerned due to the fact that I'm on an island.
Blue says:
Can't wait for people to bomb Australia and Canada...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
o_O
Jorge! D:
So "what" about Dakota?
Blue says:
Canada's easy, all you need is two water guns and you've doubled their military power
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Who would bomb Canada? We're worthless, other than the oil in Alberta D=
Which America will probably tap...
Blue says:
...that sounded so wrong
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Jorge, you have a dirty mind. D:
Blue says:
Yes, yes I do
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Only you could make a conversation about oil sound wrong
Blue says:
You said tap!
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
And living on an island is evil, Crystal Walrein.
Blue says:
I need sleep
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Jorge, you find all the excuses in the world. XD
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
No, he's always either tired or sick when he screws up. XD
Sothe「サザ」 says:
First saying that one said "tap", then saying you need sleep. D:
Blue says:
I screwed up? XD
Even if I had sleep, I'd still say what I said XD
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Anyways, back on topic
Love how that just killed the conversation...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
What were we talking about?
Because I'm unclear.
So, I decided to be quiet.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Crystal Walrein is inquiring as to why the anti-staff may think us to be bias
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Ah.
Well, most of them are banned.
Blue says:
...
And that's basically all you ever need to know.
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Our policies are less strict to accommodate such opinion holders, but they still take it too far anyway.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
It's the more obvious reason, but there are probably others we aren't aware of
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Which is what concerns me.
I think this staff can pat themselves for a job well done, but I still need to see what went on behind these members being removed....
Because all I see is that the banned members are accusing the mods of hypocrisy and people like Paul and Dakota being banned....
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
well, the wiki page was finally deleted
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Members are banned for reasons. Most of them like to call us **** for small moves and such.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
It was?
/me checks
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
yup
Sothe「サザ」 says:
It should've ended in a week.
Ah well.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So Steve finally did something for once....Or maybe the dissidence was too great....
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I guess ending it early was okay.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
It was 98% Delete anyways
Sothe「サザ」 says:
There was doubt the two days would accommodate more againsts than that?
Guys, remember to "search for PokeCommunity" to stumble across any revenge articles.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I still don't understand why they accuse us of hypocrisy...
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
I had a word with Steve when he was planning to revise the article to make it less biased, but I think I convinced him to turn his back on it.
Sothe「サザ」 says:
[. . .]
Articles on PC have been deleted 3 times. Inclusive of the recent one.
Ironically, none of them have PC's proper name.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
XD
Sothe「サザ」 says:
"PokéCommunity", not "PokeCommunity".
*poke*community? XD
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Haha, you'd think that they'd try to disguise the article as such.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'm just going to grab a snack
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I don't think people even know how to type the darn é.

Update: As stated accordingly above, Chibi-chan has told me that Paul himself was not involved in the creation of the article and that his ban was attributed to his defence of the statement only. I regret the error.

One new super mod, two new admins

It seems events now are requiring me to write more than I really need now. I approached Rich this morning about hyperlinks (some members had managed it) and it evolved into the discussion of the letter I had written earlier concerning departure. Once I had made it clear that the letter was a product of anger (as I had infuriated a PC moderator about leukoemia earlier), it became a question of whether I wanted the admin position. I expected it to be a work in progress — but I saw this morning that he was able to flip the switch on Nintendo_dude and me. He also promoted Annefranman52 to super mod.

So once more, the place is in a dither. Well, not this early in the morning, but come the afternoon it will become a hotbed for discussion, as the other three staff bumps have been. Now I just have to wait for the letters to flow in about my position, people asking me how to do certain tasks on certain games....It's going to be a tough job, but I'm ready after more than two years on the site.