I know! I realized at school the day you left. Stupid me being sick killing my ability to actually function.

Next time, Rune? There will be Jello.

The Revenge of the Vain Dane
 

My version of the Bostonmoot. (Also known as "How people I have never had any contact with lived up to my expectations")

Nienna: Nienna and I only started talking online after it was decided that I was going to the Bostonmoot and even then it was about practical stuff, so naturally I had no real expectations. Well, I did expect her to be taller than a smurf, but I turned out to be wrong. Nienna was a person that I did not have much direct contact with, it was always in a larger group (except for the last days). It is a shame because she is truly delightful, one of those people who always seem to be happy, even when she gets annoyed.

Brinniel: I had already met Brinn before and she is a lovely person, unfortunately she does not shine in big groups and that became clear during the Bostonmoot. I for one managed to neglect her and other of the more quiet downers during the moot and it is a pity, because I know what level of awesomeness they posses. Kath, Brinn and I did have tons of fun though, on a short run of madness through the center of Boston.

Feanor of the Peredhil: I expected Fea to be an intellectual, fun individual that would outshine the rest of the mootl. I did not expect her to have absolutely no immune system and I certainly did not expect her to like Aquavit. . . I got along with Fea better than I could have hoped for. To be honest, I kind of expected to be "star struck" and not know what to say, because Fea is just one of those downers that made a massive impression on me when I first joined. . . When talking to downers who have made that sort of impression on me, I often feel like a first grader trying to hang with the cool fourth graders. . . Luckily that was not the case here.

Formendacil: A wise man (me) once foretold that if ever Formendacil and Rune would meet great events where afoot, for good or evil. As it turns out I was right, great things did happen, but since this is a family site I cannot share all the details. And I shall let the future generations judge whether it was for good or evil. I had always seen Form as well balanced, highly intellectual and somewhat funny fellow, as it turns out he was a being of impure thought, much to my liking. (He was everything I imagined he would be and more)

Boromir88: I don't know what I expected Boro to be like. . . I guess I never really got a new mental image of him. In my head he remained "Old Boro", because it was back then, that we had all our talks about the European Union and other evil things. In some ways I think that Boro was surprisingly normal and very non-downer like. He is good laugh, great at sitting on laps and an amazing cooker of turkeys.

Lariren Shadow: Lariren likes history, so I like Lariren. She takes great joy in telling tales and is much more entertaining when doing so, than the rest of us.

Alonariel: I had never ever heard of Alona before, so I did the only proper thing to do, I introduced myself topless. Actually Alona turned out to be an absolute downer gem, not only is she a master of werewolf, but on a personal level she is truly amazing. She is a person who is there when her friends need it and as it turned out, also when strangers need it. [SIZE=3]

Mirandir: She punched me! Luckily she isn't that big, but for a moment I was afraid my pretty face might bruise. . .

Celuien: Another person I did not talk enough with. I especially regret not talking more with Celuien, the other people that I neglected during the Bostonmoot were people I had met before, but this was the first time I met Celuien. I really enjoyed the few times I talked to her, she was very nice to be around and seemed like one of those people who can talk about everything and actually seem knowledgeable. . .I could never do that. I guess she was quite like I imagined her, maybe a bit younger at heart than what I had thought

Encaitare: Encai is probably the love of my life. She is awesome incarnated, as she walks through life with her kickass boots and a winning smile. She is always up for adventure, random weirdness and is probably one of the most good natured people in the world. . .which is good, otherwise she would kill us all!

Shastanis Althreduin: For some reason I always imagined Shasta as a girl, even after I learned that he wasn't. . . I don't know how describe Shasta. . . I didn't see it coming. . .I would never ever have imagined him being the person he is. A bit too fond of Glee, but otherwise amazing. The first real impression he made on me was when he tried to sleep on top of the sofa-back.

Wilwarin538: Wilwa was exactly like I imagined her, the sweetest person ever! That is it. . .no more needs to be said about her

Glirdan: When I heard that Glirdan was coming to the Bostonmoot I became rather happy, as it reminded me of the days of old when I had just died and joined the wights on this site. Back then Glirdan was amongst the people I interacted quite a bit with and I believe we were even talking about co-moding a werewolf game at one point, then he disappeared and I was sad. I guess I was expecting to meet a slightly shy and kind of quiet guy, boy was I wrong. Glirdan totally blew my mind, he is the sort of person that it is impossible to dislike. He is funny, sweet, cleans up your mess and he fits right in your pocket!!! Everything you could want in a friend. . . and I must admit that seeing him and Wilwa get on the greyhound and drive away, was the worst part of my trip to the states

Diamond18: Unfortunately Di was sick for some of the Bostonmoot, which resulted in her being more quiet than normally. She was another of the quiet downers that I neglected during the Bostonmoot, which is a shame because Di truly is lovely company, she will provide pleasant conversation and a snappy remark when you least expect it.

Kath: Kath is the downer I have met the most times and she is always brilliant. Unfortunately she also has a tradition for ruining things for me, by questioning my divinity and right to rule. . .the Bostonmoot was no different

Macalaure: I expected Mac to be tall, dark and to lurk in shadows. Much to my surprise he turned out not to be a super villain. Instead he had a friendly face (and personality) and did not try to kill us all, even when he had the chance. Instead he made us a lovely meal. I am sure there are much more to Mac's personality than what I saw, he seems like he holds back in large groups

Rikae: I also got the feeling that Rikae is better in a small group of people that she knows well, but even so she managed to leave a quite good impression. Just like Fea she enjoys a bit of aquavit and she is a master of wicked comments.

the wereduckling: Adorable. . .Unfortunately she was so much in demand by the other downers that I hardly got to play with her, I did try to speak Danish to her though. . . I thought the response was rather positive.

the phantom: In some ways the Phantom remains a mystery, though not in the same way as on the downs. Here he is a dark shade of ego and awesomeness, in real life he is more like a bag of mixed nuts. A very pleasant and tasty snack, where every bite is from the same category, yet at times you get a nut that is not what you expected and does not go well together with the ones you just ate. . . (yes it is a rather poor analogy). The conversations with the Phantom would be very interesting and funny, often including sports, werewolf and English comedy, but I was left with the feeling that I never got to know the "real" phantom.

I hope I did not leave anybody out. . .

People are going to start thinking I'm this violent crazy person who just goes around punching people! (only the ones who deserve it, just for the record). You left out the bit about my sparkling personality. :P
Aunty Shasta!

Heh heh, pocket Glirdan! That is a fabulous mental image.

*coughhackthat'swhatshesaid*

Bubbly wifey, we're using bubbly. :D

Oh truth! Amendment: Rune, you left out the part about my bubbly personality. :cool::p

Awww, :D Rune you're the bestest! ♥


This is the best thing in the universe....

Hehe. I have undergone the screen name to real name transition. And first-first, not my usual online middle-first! :smokin:

Bostonmoot was, in fact, all of the epic awesomeness that was advertised, and more. The quest began with an early morning trek to the local airport, an early departure made easier by working night shifts 7 days straight through until the day before leaving. The plane touched down in Boston, exactly on time, and I made my way to the baggage claim.

While waiting for the conveyor belt to deliver my bag, I turned around and spotted a familiar face... Formy and the rest of the welcoming group! We trekked back to the apartment on the T, where there was much cold-huddle singing on the platform, and a "Cheesy Broccoli!" from Boro88. We did, by the way, go back for the cheesy broccoli on a later shopping trip. I think most of the subway trip has been previously documented elsewhere.

I suppose I do fail at large groups in general... and this was magnified exponentially by suffering from the equivalent of jet lag from China due to those overnight shifts. I feel bad about that because I know I was falling asleep/very quiet in quite a bit of the large in apartment group times and wanted to get to know everyone better. However, it was still a great time, and talking in the smaller settings was great! And really, everyone was amazingly fun to be around.

Major highlights include cooking the turkey with Boro and Glirdan and the Harry Potter exhibit, followed by wandering around the science museum, where this photo was captured, which I offer as incontrovertible evidence that the phantom is, in fact, as ruthless as previously rumored:

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._2913757_n.jpg

...to be continued...

Sorry about that!

When I wrote the thing I used peoples first names and edited the names later, I don't know why I missed yours.

For some reason it took me a long time to post this, but while we were playing some smaller WW games I happened to record some audio:

Annika the cobbler gets me lynched.

and

Werewolf fail.

(Basically the story is that Mac got lynched and the following Night he discovered that alona was the wolf and he made such a face which caused alona to burst out laughing, basically giving herself away. Us innocents who had our eyes closed were rather confused, but nonetheless, alona was promptly lynched by Rikae and me the next Day.)

I have more audio from during that twenty minute period, but it's not as interesting and a lot of it involves Annika attacking my computer. I wish I had recorded more audio during Bostonmoot, but I realise that with so many people, anything that might've been recorded would just be incoherent. But perhaps I'll make a better effort next meetup.

Funniest. Moment. Ever.

So funny!

I forgot I was 'modding' at that moment. I like the sense of impending death that my inability to talk right gives... "Ranger... is... *gasp for air* dead..."

I'm also amused more quietly that in the first clip when they're counting votes and the phantom doesn't vote for Brinn, it's because he was a werewolf and was trying to get fenrised by voting for himself. And the statement, "Two for Philip, wait, you can't vote!" was directed at me. Because while I was there for a lot of ww games, I was rarely actually playing and spent most of my time trying to vote to wreak havoc for the mods.

I love that the fail got recorded, Brinn. Excellent work.

Alaskamoot!!
 

I have met my very first Downers! As many of you probably knew, TGEW, Lauri and I are all in the Alaskan Model UN, and we arranged to meet during this year's conference. And I'm so glad we did! They're both wonderfully random and funny, and we stole wonderful moments of PandA quotes and evil plotting in between doing what we're supposed to be doing. (Work...:rolleyes:)

TGEW is soo energetic. She's always bubbling over with words and moving all the time. She's random, and acts so very British (yay) and really fun to be around.

Lauri is insanely nice. I don't think I ever saw her *not* smiling. She's one of the sweetest girls I've ever met. Meeting them, plus PandA quotes, plus Downer gossip, plus evil plotting...I love Alaska moot! :D

Oh, and pictures are following, but they're on Lauri's camera, so I don't know exactly when they'll be up. Only one more day of Alaskamoot...we'll have to make it a good one! Mebbe kidnap an important global leader or something...:Merisu:

Thank you. I'm flattered. Don't forget yourself, Loslote!

Lottie was a very kind person, who actually listened to my rants rather intently. She was great fun to be around and never failed to find us during a break! When she did get a word in edge-wise (thanks to my monopolising the conversation) it was well said and we got to talk about intelligent things. Lottie is a brilliant person who says knowledgeable things.

Of course, I've already met Laurinque. But it doesn't ever hurt to say nice things about somebody. ;) She is a good person, and is very intelligent. A great person to talk to, who, when not acting insane, has good insights.

We talked about the Downer a lot and confused some people. I believe we also talked about the wings controversy. Every single break we got we got together and discussed something or another. We also spotted a few people who looked like Downers. Rune, Formy, and Squatter is who I saw. Well, people who looked like them, anyway. Then we decided that we are very bad Tolkien nerds, but a least we don't go to Harry Potter exhibits during our meet-ups. :p

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, Alaskamoot. I look forward to meet-ups between Lauri, Loslote, and I in the future.

It was the best thing ever. Epic, wonderful, magic times!

I had of course already met TheGreatElvenWarrior, but it never (excuse me, rarely) hurts to see her again. Loslote was amazing. TGEW and I were hunting wild signatures for my resolution when I spotted a rather familiar-looking person in a very large and wonderful hat standing several feet away. I think I terrified the Nigerian delegate from China when I started jumping up and down and waving my arm to attract Lottie's attention. I'm sure her first impression of me was a rather strange one. ;)

Unfortunately out time together was severely limited by the constrains of the conference and my odious cold that kept me from attending most of the third day. We badly wanted to make amendments to provide wings for all balrogs but fear of being kicked out of the conference always kept us back. Silly rules! I DID however take up about five minutes of a page's time by demanding a cryptically encoded message be sent to UNCTAD Brazil (aka Loslote). It contained the words 'Downer' and 'Alien' but was COMPLETELY on topic I swear!

When Tabby gave her a second or so to talk Loslote proved to be every bit as wonderful as we predicted her to be. She is a lovely person and waaaay too tolerant of TGEW's and my own insanity. It's great fun being able to make jokes that NO ONE ELSE understands and then laughing hysterically about them. I just wish I posted more on the threads Lottie prowls so we could discuss those too.

We simply MUST meet up more often! The Valley isn't more than an hour's drive away after all. :)

And in the tradition of Bostonmoot, Lauri and I went the extra mile. We both got sick. :rolleyes: But despite the flaming red cold-nose, constant sniffling, and random hacking/coughing, I had a great time, and was very sad to leave. :(

I saw Boro, too! The resemblence was uncanny. :eek:

Ooh, xed. Yes, I was wearing the most ridiculus hat in the history of ever the first time I met TGEW and Lauri. I'd say you weren't the only strange first impression (not that I noticed anything strange).

Haha, yeah, I remember that note! Both times they tried to send me page notes, something went weird. I got Lauri's just when I was thinking that I seriously needed to blow my nose, and TGEW's ended up being given to my teammate by mistake. I got it later, and realized what reference I had missed earlier. :p

Well, it didn't seem to impair your . . . um, judgment very much. You still were as crazy as you are on the Downs.

Oh yes! I forgot Boro! I remember now!

Oh, yes. My judgement was excellent! I chose exactly the right people to assasinate to pave our road to - I mean...I chose good food at lunch...:Merisu:

We should have had our picture taken with the pseudo-Formy and Rune.

Also:

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...h_IMG_0634.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...h_IMG_0649.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...h_IMG_0631.jpg

What?No more than four images in a message? Bleh!

:eek: That would have been awesome! Only, there were, like, three Rune look-alikes. How would we have chosen?

...and why were all the Downer look alikes male?

Because you are not allowed to post more than four images in a message I have conveniently double posted. What will the Dear Leader think? I mean . . . the mods . . .

EDIT: Lottie saved me from the wrath of Our Dear Leader and posted before I re-posted.

THE HAT! And me planning to kill someone. As usual. It's my job. Click to embiggen.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...h_IMG_0626.jpg

I love this picture and I'm not really sure why. Probably because Lottie is chewing and TGEW is looking annoyed by the camera.
http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...h_IMG_0628.jpg

There WERE an unusual number of Rune look-alikes weren't there? And possibly more than one Formy. As for why they were all male, well, we'll just have have a serious discussion with our subconsciouses about that.

The mods are related to our Dear Leader? Onoes!:eek:

Why do you enjoy taking pictures of us at inconvenient moments, Lauri?:p

Possibly. TGEW said she saw a different Formy than I did, but I didn't see him...

And, *snickers*

Who is the Dear Leader? The Barrow Wight Himself? ... that reminds me....

I think this should be required at all future Moots. What say you, Dear Leader? ;)

ALL the mods are Our Dear Leader don't you know?

Oh yes! Unconditionally.
And TGEW, you need to give me back those precious page notes. I want to take pictures of them. Everyone should be able to see my flag of the United Barrow-Downs! It's like the UN one only with bones and a reaper. And no disaster relief whatsoever. We LIKE disaster.

THAT makes perfect sense.

Ooh. Shiny. :p

Of course you would say that. :rolleyes:

Sally has corrupted me. You guys have, too. I call cookies biscuts now, and chips crisps. ... this is not a *bad* thing.

Has our Anglophilia rubbed off? Shame on that.:p

Anglophilia or just common sense?

Also, a biscuit is a biscuit and a cookie is a cookie over here, or at least to me. Do you call everything cookies over there?

edit: Did some research. So your biscuits are almost the same as scones?
This is just confusing...

COMMON SENSE! :D

To my (American) knowledge scones are sugary things usually involving fruit; often in the shape of a 45-45-90 triangle. Our 'biscuits' are cardboard covered in lard . . . excuse me, they are flakey spheres of carbohydrate. Or something like that. I have a low opinion of most of them, save for the ones TGEW's mother makes. In short, scones are sugared; 'biscuits' are not.

You call biscuits 'cookies'? Whaaat? Every British language book I have ever read calls these things them biscuits. But I think I would trust a real Brit more than a book.

But let's not get too off topic now . . . :cool:

I do not know of this 'common sense' you speak of. It is Elvish to me. :p Apparently there are a lot of books on Britain that are off in some way or another. We've found a lot, seemingly.

I am not off topic, see:
Alaskamoot was fun. We talked about our Anglophilia and I think we enlightened Lottie. :D

Oh, I am very enlightened! I learned so much about proper ways to speak. Did you know it is possible to include a Downer referense in every sentence? Trufax. :p

Then they would all be wrong I'm afraid. Those are most definitely cookies.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...26tbs%3Disch:1
These are biscuits.

And these are what were called biscuits while I was over there, which do look a lot more like scones!
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...26tbs%3Disch:1

Kath speaks the truth.

Also:
Am I the only one who read the skier as an M to make SPM? :rolleyes:

I must be more addicted than I thought... :eek: ;)




I'll try to stay on topic from this point.

I'm still confused. Someone will just have to slowly and calmly explain it to me when I get there. :confused:

SPM? Sorry, didn't see it.

Here is a picture of a page note I wrote to Loslote. It's not the one I encrypted so I had to give it to her by hand rather than through the page system. If I had it would have been confiscated.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...loran/NOTE.jpg

You know, I object to this message. Sponsered by Rune's Quality Beef? Loslote's Better Quality Bacon was better, even if it wasn't real bacon. :mad:

Plus, why a *small* side salad? Capitalists deserve to be eaten with a large side salad (half off the croutons if you also buy the tomatoes).

Hey, you weren't the one that paid me £30 to send page notes! :p Where is that money you promised me Rune?

Capitalists do not deserve such good treatment! Ah hem. That was an inside joke involving my friends in the DPRK delegation.

Anyway, this is the sort of rubbish that went on during Alaskamoot. If anyone feels like travelling to Alaska some time soon you may be unfortunate enough to receive similar treatment.

[/QUOTE]
Now I'm confused. There are clearly chocolate-chip cookies among the biscuits in that picture. Can a biscuit be a cookie and a biscuit at the same time? Or is a biscuit a biscuit and a cookie a cookie no matter what?

Don't let them confuse you, it's quite simple. Cookies are what websites put in your computer. Biscuits and scones are what you put into your stomach.;)