Sometime shorty after the attacks upon American soil a hard headed luddite, a hater of computers and all of the problems they seemed to be causing finally decided he had better figure out how to use the infernal contraptions. The world was never going to be the same he surmised and he has been proven largely correct since that time.
Knowing very little about computers, or even how turn the blasted things on or off, this stubborn middle aged codger ventured forth into the land of geeks, salesmen and flim flam artists to seek out one of these new fangled gadgets everyone had been on about. he was amazed at the selections of boxes and screens with the typewriters attached to them and the various cardboard advertising proclaiming each as better than sliced bread.
Funny, he thought, they all look the fricking same to him. What was the difference? So the guy plodded along back and forth between the stores with all the big card board signs screaming of how each box connected to all of the type writers was so much better than the horseless carriage, and on sale too. there were Roms and megs and hertz and squirts and all sorts of terms and phrases that seemed to have come straight from the annals of a Dr. Suess book or a Dr. Who episode or some-other place of magical made up wonder. and none of them made any sense.
There were little screens and littler screens that looked just like the old Zenith television set that he still watched his Cardinals upon and he thought to himself, "well at least I'll now how to change the channels", and he smiled a broken toothed smile knowing that this couldn't be all that hard after all. Who can't turn on a TV he said so took a break for a burger and beer.
As luck would have it a cardinals game was on while he enjoyed a burger and beer so he decided to enjoy another cold beer as the bases were now loaded with only one out. Seeing how the all the waitresses and bartenders were in their skimpy orange shorts and that the game was a close one he decided to stay in the Hooters, eating establishment until the game was over.
Now properly fortified he ventured forth back into the world of electric boxes, skinny looking typewriters and mini TVs to figure out which conglomeration of what, he was going to buy. One particular flim flam man in a store to remain unnamed but which had the initials of Radios Shack was a particularly good flim flam man and he saw his mark customer the moment he stepped through the door.
Now remember, this guy hadn't a clue about these newfangled devices and until his proper fortification had chosen to keep this little tidbit of his knowledge a secret from the assorted thieves and liars sales professionals who were just itching to provide fair service to the guy trying to enter the information age. "What do all these numbers and little funny words mean"? asked the fellow. And shortly after asking he noticed the fellow had a smile bigger than a great white shark only with more teeth.
Well said the guy in the store with initials like Radio Shack, this what they mean, and he went on and on with explanations and of rams and roms and CD's and all sorts of other funny martian sounding words. And the now properly fortified gentleman suddenly experienced a moment of epiphany, as properly fortified men often do, and said; "Did you say CD"? Heck, how hard can this be, he thought, Its got a TV and a CD player, its just like my entertainment center at home.
"Wait a minute" said the properly fortified fellow, " "So the bigger the numbers beside all this mumbo jumbo the better the computer"? "Oh YES" said the man from the store with the same initials as Radio Shack. And the fortified man thought he detected a bit of a dance in the voice of the flim flam man, as he proclaimed, the "bigger the better sir". With the fortification slowly slipping away and without wanting to sit by a pretty girl talking about little numbers he said to the fellow, Which one id the best one you got?
And the man from the store with the initials mentioned above indeed had a dance in his voice and in his step as he glided ever so quickly to his own contraption next to the box where they keep all their money and typed on his skinny typewriter with fingers that moved in a blur and said wait a second. Well about five minutes later some words popped up on his little television set and he moved them around by beating on his typewriter with his fingers, and said here it is sir and its only two thousand four hundred dollars.
Now the fortified man stood there for a second and one quarter and did his best to prevent his eyes from bulging past his thick coke bottles and said "Holy shit". Well the shark like smile soon shrank to that of a Cheshire cat as he said "well sir today we can let it go for 10% off" and with the onions from his burger now suddenly threatening to explode the fortified mans esophagus and not wanting to return to speak of little numbers as he spoke with the pretty girls in tight orange shorts, said "God damn thats expensive". "Will you take nineteen hundred cash, tax included."? Well a Cheshire's smile can turn to a frown pretty quick, but after a bit more conversation the flim flam man began to type out a receipt for about 2000 dollars tax included and a promise that all the wires, hardware and other gizmos that i ever needed would be included. And the fortified man handed him a check.
After about 1000 curse words, three trips from each niece and nephew, a half dozen visits from a sympathetic neighbor (who probably didn't want his children to hear anymore of a certain kind of words) the old guy finally learned how start and turn off his contraption and within a few more weeks how to get onto the Internet.
To make a long story short, this stubborn old Luddite who had finally crawled through the door of the twenty first century finally stuck his head into the world of the Internet. And said "This is it?" A few weeks later he found Slate and then its "Fray". Now before anyone goes out to burn all of the stores with the same initials as radio shack, remember that the sharks who work there did not say a word about the "Fray". The old Luddite found it by himself.
After many years of spending lots of time typing his scribbles across the various boards of the Fray the guy grew crankier and crankier. He began to procrastinate, the paint peeled from the trim on his garage and the basement was never cleaned anymore. Finally one night as he was reading the words of one of the greatest speeches in history he came across some words typed out on the bottom of the TV set that showed the words being typed on the typewriter and found them to be a hateful screed against the man who gave his life because of the magnificent words he had written and spoken on the lawn in our nations beloved capitol.
He was livid, angry beyond the ability to describe at what he had seen and he let the people know he was angry. he scribbled out his anger on a couple of the boards where he knew the typer of the words would see them and he went to bed.
The following morning, a few minutes or perhaps an hour before he scribbled the words on this page he read some other writing on the same page as the hateful words were witnessed the night before, and that writing suggested the man needed a time out.
Properly fortified with the caffeine from many cups of his morning beverage of choice the stubborn old man carefully considered the words he had read earlier and decided that he agreed with the writer of the words suggesting a time out. It was somewhat ironic as the stubborn fellow seldom agreed with anything else that the suggestor of the time out had ever scribbled out with his crayons, but this time he thought the crayon employer was right.
He had bee procrastinating far too often on the Internet doomagy thing, and spending time better suited for other purposes trying to convince stones that his ideas were the best ones. He learned alot about other people who also spent their time trying to convince stones that their ideas were also the best ones and he came to like a lot of them. He also came to recognize some that he felt belonged in a sewer lagoon and not with the company of himself or the people he liked or respected.
A time out, suggested a guy the fellow seldom agreed with, except this time he agreed with him very much.
So I am taking a time out to do somethings I need to do, not permanently of course as swan songs only embarrass people, but long enough to get somethings done and to re evaluate the amount of time I have spent here. Over the course of the next several days I will be coming in to delete some long unreplied to posts and replies in an effort to bring up some of my scribblings I never bothered to save. If you notice some views missing from posts or unanswered replies and top posts slipping into the ether its just me tidying up and trying to regain some favorite old doodles I let slip away.
I hope with sincerity that the experiment here is successful, that the board that was once truly the Best of the fray can return to a semblance of its former self. More importantly I hope all the good folks here and the few others left on the other board are all still around somewhere when i come back to visit.
Thanks to each and everyone of you for your courtesy and respectful treatment of this stubborn old slightly educated goat. He is not always easy to get along with, and sometimes his head is harder than concrete and steel, but he learned a lot from each of you and he is very grateful for it.
Some really nice folks you are.
I'll share a cup of coffee now and then as I tidy up a bit, but the guy was right, I need a time out.
