No, as a matter of fact, about a year after I graduated with my BFA, I fell head over heels for a Greek much older than myself, was married within six months of that, moved to St. Louis (most decidedly NOT in my prior plans), and am currently swimming along enjoying the unplanned gloriousness of life.

To make this somewhat less off-topic, I stuck my head in the chat room today and saw Sharku. Does he ever say anything these days?

Kate!!! *big re-welcoming grin* How nice to see you here again! I do hope we look into the chat room simultaneously some time - I am a rare guest there these days.

Let me present you with seven stars and seven stones (or Chrismas tree bulbs, as a suitable substitute - you wouldn't have wanted those dangerous palantíri anyway) to decorate your one white tree for the holiday season! ******* OOOOOOO

Hullo Esty! I remember you very fondly! Thank you for the welcome back. I have been reading some of the recent posts in Books and a couple of the RPGs, and feel woefully inadequate to contribute. Clearly, I need to brush up! I find the slow pace of the boards comforting, and I would not wish for a much more bustling crowd. It's the quality that counts, and the downs, as always, is at no shortage of that.

Kate, congratulations backatcha on your nuptials. I seem to recall chatting color theory with you once upon a time, which makes this foggy brain of mine think you were an art student... Is that so? Still following that up in grad school?

As the great Sean Connery once said, "Who would claim to be that, who was not?" ;)

Still, if you like, you can throw me a proper interrobang and we'll call it good.

I've sent you a new password for onewhitetree via PM.

Your foggy memory serves you well - my degree is in Art History, one of the most interesting and useless fields yet discovered by man. My grad studies incorporate further studio work with education fundamentals, so maybe one day I will be able to completely entrench myself in uselessness as a tenured art professor. ;)

Welcome, welcome back, beautiful!

Several of us are in the chat room right now and we have a bit of advice for those who look in: please allow some time for those who are logged in to notice that you're there. We/they may be multi-tasking or away from the keyboard for a little and will be happy to chat with you as soon as your presence is known.

Well that wasn't good.

(What an bad time for my internet to die for no reason!)

Poor Steve. It's okay: we were all actually gone within about 20 minutes, so you didn't miss much.

Ah for the old days! Where have you all been?!

*starts humming "Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end . . ." ;)

Maybe what we could do is advertise a time in advance, after the Christmas rush.

Maybe even some sort of New Year's Levee chat? (Here in Canada, a levee is a New Year's social event. Maybe we could even nudge the Barrow Wight into making an appearance! Or Mister Underhill. Maybe we could even get Sharkey to put in a word or two! That would be in keeping with Canadian traditions. :D

Anyhow, twas fun even though brief. The days are getting longer now though, so . . .

I think I would faint if Sharkey spoke! Which would keep me quiet.. some people would pay good money for that ;)

When I saw Esty's post this afternoon I actually took a stab at signing in using the Chatzilla plugin for Firefox, but it wouldn't let me connect to sorcery.net. I tried a few different tweaks, but I wasn't having any luck and I don't have the time to solve technical difficulties like I used to. Sounds like I would have been way late in any case. If something gets scheduled (and I can manage to attend), I'll put more effort into getting connected!

www.mibbit.com is an excellent web based client for anyone interested

I believe he once told me to be quiet. ;)

Chat competition for Bostonmoot!
 

So, what time/times would people be free to come for a chat?

How does Friday, January 1st sound, 1 pm EST (6pm GMT)? Late enough for all those hungover to get over it? That will allow some of the eastern Europeans time to chat as well as the West Coast New Worlders.

Any other suggestions? Would the weekend be better than New Year's Day? I'm assuming that the Bostonmooters will have other things in store for New Year's Eve. :D

Oh yes. That they will. With cocktail dresses, too!

Lordy, I don't know that I've ever owned a cocktail dress. Ballgowns of many periods, yes, but an ordinary modern cocktail dress, no. :)

It's been ages since I was in a chatroom, but the thought is intriguing, since I'm feeling a little cooped up at the moment. I'd be interested, since I'm not into watching New Year's Day football, and the mahjong tourney isn't until Saturday.

I'll be busy with family on the 1st (missing Bostonmoot on account of family+school+money, as well). I should really just start popping in every so often, though, eh? IRC through Trillian has been giving me issues, so I might try something else.

I think some folks might be planning to look in on Saturday and Sunday as well, at around that time. It's not a good time for our Downers Down Under and in the Far East, so if anyone can suggest a compromise time that still balances West Coast and East Europe, that would be great. :smokin:

And of course, there's always the good old random visit.:D

If you happen to read this and are interested, how about a common toast at 9PM GMT in the chat channel?

That's an interesting idea, Mighty one, although it modifies the usual procedure. (Still, nothing to stop others from also toasting at 9 pm their local time.) What do others think?

9 pm GMT = 3 pm EST = 10 pm German time = 11pm Lush's time. :D (I think)

For those who might be interested . . .
 

. . . burra's back in town. . . .

Oldies on IRC
 

A few of us are still around on IRC.. including the elusive and rare species of Burrahobbit!

You guys have an IRC channel too? :P

The Barrow Downs haz it all. :smokin:

Like Finland. Except the part of being a 'poor second to Belgium when going abroad'.

Nostalgically it seemed like an excellent idea to procrastinate by logging into the chat room. Behold my wonder when nothing I tried worked to get me there.

Does the chat room... still exist?

I've just popped in it via XChat. So, it's still a registered channel and the server is still up. Maybe the server was just down for a little while.

Does it have a maudlin quality rendering it unsuitable as a holiday destination?