Seanachai

Hiram, I'm sorry that you and yours keep going through this. My thoughts and hopes are with your sister, you, and your family. Keep us informed as you have time or energy, as we truly wish to know how your sister and yourself are doing. Good luck, and the gods bless you.

The wind blows, and sand sifts, twists, and moves like a snake over a landscape bereft of anything other than browns, grays, and blacks, with only a leaping, warm red glow of spotted flame on the edge of the empty plain. Three figures sit in the empty darkness. One is cloaked in writhing smoke deeper than the local darkness, red-eyed and brooding. One is a straight backed figure, staring at nothing in particular, and occassionally raising a tall clay mug to its lips. The last figure is hunched over, with whitening hair, drawing in the shifting sand with a stick, and singing softly to itself. From the figure of fire and smoke a resonant voice proceeds. Berli: They mock you, and you allow it. It is not fitting. Seanachai (distracted): Yes. They mock me. Peng: Even those you speak up for, they belittle you. Seanachai: Oh, yes, those most of all. A silence descends over the shifting drabness of the wasteland. The fire just visible on the horizon leaps up, brightening, and the sound of laughter and loud voices drifts across the Wasteland. Berli: Do you hear? They are laughing at you even now. Seanachai looks up, one eyebrow raised, and cocks his head to the sound, with a half-smile Seanachai: I hear. And they are. I can make out every voice, bless 'em. There's Hiram, ridiculing me and casting his own fears at my life. And there's R Leete, sneering at me and belittling my offer of patronage. Berli: You are weak. Seanachai: I am tolerant. Peng: You are foolish. Seanachai: I am amused. Berli: You are useless. Seanachai: I am...useless, yes. The silence extends on, save for the hollow sound of the wind, and the hiss of shifting sand. Berli: Why do you insist on playing the fool to those we're waiting on? Peng: Why do you keep us here, waiting on these fools? Seanachai: They'll be here, you know. And we're their best chance to show themselves, do ya' see. We open the path, and make the way clear. And we give them the chance to make their mark. And they will shine. Berli: They are still laughing at you. Seanachai: Of course they are, Berli. I wouldn't have it any other way. Peng: Bah! Where's the whiskey? The Figure of Smoke and Flame reaches to one side, and brings forth a bottle of green glass, and pours round. Seanachai: Who's for a bit of an Olde One sing-song? See you sparkle in the mud Like a diamond in the rough Ready for the cut Some stay dull, some stay blunt But you will shine Stand and say I am, the lion and the lamb I am Part of the plan I am, the lion and the lamb -Pete Morton

Serf no longer. Bold his name, all. I take R_Leete as Squire. Oh, and there's been more than a bit of discussion about elevating that idjit Pondscum to Knight. Far as we can tell, he's probably played enough games, faithfully performed penance, and been rather more amusing than new arrivals who use the term 'dudez'. As that sod Lorak has gone missing, I think it's in the hands of the Olde Ones to raise up the new Knights. Mind, to keep things on the up and up, and keep this from looking like some sort of Secret Society, we'll ask at least one Lady to second the motion, ask the Justicar to say yea or nay, and perhaps, just for the amusement value, another Knight (other than the sod's patron) to stand up, hiccup, and second the motion before falling over. In the gutter. Face down, so that no one will recognize him as a Knight of the Pool.

Oh, gods. Please, Persephone, I beg of you, no more juxtapositions of hideous Thread participants on the bodies of attractive young women. I'm becoming conflicted to a level that simply beggars sanity. I see a beautiful young woman on the street, and the next thing I know, Shaw's, or Bauhaus's face floats above her shoulders. Now, unlike Croda, my gaze actually rises up to take in a woman's face, and especially the eyes, which are the window of the soul, as the poet has said. What kind of vision of hell am I presented with when, eyes rising to seek out that window into femininity, I'm presented with a quick peek into the eyes of Shaw, or Bauhaus, or Mensch? Beer coming out the nose is the best one can hope for, and searing pain from the aspirated fluid. Besides, most of those 'babe bodies' are biosculpt flummery. There's something inherently disturbing about the plastic-surgery equivalent of Photoshop editing.

Cut off me rear? Cut off me rear?! What bloody rear is that, in this ever spiraling nightmare of burning buildings and Aussie led troops screaming 'me for out of here, too roight!' I haven't advanced more strongly against you because my lads are weeping over the shameful loss of life you've already subjected your lot to, and wondering how we can make the last hours of your wounded more bearable. We've found that what sends them to their rest most at peace is joining them in cursing your leadership.

Three. The fourth was merely a bastardized excerpt of the third for the edification of those inhabitants of the pool who cannot read long words, and pound on the space bar till they see their own name bolded. But, what the hell, eh? I feel that the matchup of the three quotations to the three Old Ones is particularly pleasing. Viz, Monty Python for Peng, source of all amusement, Don Quixote for Seanachai, a squireless knight tilting at the windmills of his delusions, and Machiavelli for your own evil self.</font>

Indeed, in a decline I have been, Lad Stand up when I'm talking to you, you goggle-eyed pilchard!, but I am not yet your student. What's it all about, Algae? You mock me, sirrah, and do not deny it. You think me wan, past my time, and quite extuingished beneath the silly red cap. You fancy yourself, perhaps, fit to bandy words with me. Think it not, fool. Were you to live to a far greater age than you seem likely to achieve, absorb a far greater share of literature than you've ever yet encountered, and prove a far greater benefit to humanity than you have, you would still not begin to concern me. I shall set you a penance, simply because you are filled with hubris. Bring to us a quotation from literature worthy of the Peng Challenge Thread, or begone. And only the Olde Ones will judge if it is worthy.

There, Lad. You're a pillock, and no mistake, but we've all had a look down that path. Why, I was twice importuned by GunnyBunny himself to come to his Usenet site and begin an incarnation of the Peng Challenge Thread. He thought that the inclusion of 'Peng Thread Celebrities' would help popularize the site. Ah, yes, 'celebrity' status. "Look, Mummie, that man has donkey piss in his hair!" "Hush, child, that's the Seanachai! He's famous in the Peng Challenge Thread!" "But Mum, he's all icky!" "Of course he is, child, but at least he's not Grog Dorosh!" The bastard absolutely refused to take a hand in renaming the Thread! Grog Dorosh! I'm calling you out, lad. Do you even play the game, you almost dizzying spin of amorphous facts? You pensively Canadian cleric of Combat Mission minutia? Silence! No Seconds, No Maps, No Scenarios, No Ladders! A Quick Battle! Nothing between Grog Dorosh and eternity but me, and my steed! goddamn it, Yeknod, where are you? We're Challenging a goddamn Grog

Ahem. The dear Persephone, who has brought us all much mirth, shown mercy to some of our less deserving lackwits, and who, like that Goddess of the Seasons who regulates the excesses of her Evil Husband, adds that touch to the Thread that keeps us from billowing testosterone poisoning, is quite right in whatever she says, should it be even just monosyllables regarding fish. BUT YOU, YOU ****E-SITTING, 'SELF-TOUCHING BECAUSE EVEN THE CARRION EATERS WOULDN'T GIVE IT A LICK, DEAD AS IT IS' SACK OF PUS! WHO TOLD YOU, LADDIE, TO SEND YOUR USELESS, POINTLESS, EGREGIOUS THOUGHTS THE WAY OF ONE OF THE LADIES OF THE 'POOL? That I should live so long, to see this sort of dis-service done. Mind, it's woken me up a bit. Been in a bit of decline. [ March 28, 2002, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

They are a handsome couple. The heads, not the bodies. I mean, the bodies belong to some sort of beach movie backlot. But the countenances, they belong to the Fair Emma and Marcel, The French. I'm not completely sure what the piece of heavy equipment hanging off of Emma's arm is all about.

Check with Forensics, lad. The report indicates it was some sort of 'donkey'. Ohmmmiiiiigoddddd!

These are words that shall live in Infamy (which is a suburb of Houston) Speedy, I had thought better of you. Do you really want to spend eternity in Texas, you pillock?

Errm...because the General Forum is where all the whack jobs, gun nuts, and cultists hang out, and you wouldn't trust most of them with an empty matchbox, let alone the power to alter the fabric of the Board? I think an exception should be made for you, of course. I trust you to use the powers of HTML only for good, and never for evil. My guess is, because they allow a greater latitude of 'expression' on the General Forum, and because that greater latitude of 'expression' means that a whole lot of weird gibberish is discussed, they don't patrol it quite as heavily, and therefore don't want to wander in one day and find that some pillock has posted multiple direct links to their favourite your obsessively and slavishly served cult site here all over their website, making it show up on the radar screen as 'linked, however unintentionally, to innumerable sites so questionable that they are headquartered in Florida'. After all, the General Forum is the zone for 'free range' lunatics on the Board, with less chemical additives (read: medication) applied, which gives the posts there all the natural goodness of true and unadultered madness and idiocy. Mind, most of them are still septic enough to kill carrion eaters. [ March 24, 2002, 09:28 PM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

Look an outsider, BURN HIM!</font>

No, the title's okay, but I'm almost sure I've used a variation on it before. Help me, Peng! They're trying to crucify me!

Thank you, Monty. Your almost complete lack of comprehension has been duly noted, and will not count against you unless you post again.

Peng, fellow Olde One, I understand your pain. My posts have, indeed, lacked. I have promised Persephone more stories, Berli more histories, and I promise you, Oh Curmudgeon of the Holy Thread, more Judgement. Peng, this Thread belongs to the gods, and they shall, by this hand, have their pound of flesh. As shall you. Now, you sorry lot of idjits, make your way over to our New Home. If you can't find it, then you don't belong there, now do you? [ March 23, 2002, 03:33 AM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

Bugger, and Roight! Now, then, it's almost become a burden to attempt to pass the Rules on to you lot of New Chums. But here they are. We cherish you. Truly we do. You are more meaningful to us than the stars above and the earth below. Except for the fact that you're a lot of useless, wanking halfwits who can't be bothered to take even one hand out of your trousers long enough to scroll through the Rules to find out 'The Way You Are to Go'. For this, we hate you, and, as an almost religious observance, demand that you SOD OFF! Now, if you've mastered your need to stop un-bunching your underwear, and have a desire to know what your choices are, and how to gain acceptance here, please follow: We are, like Sisyphus, constrained to post here, for all eternity. And, would you join us, we ask that what you contribute makes pushing that sodding Rock up the hill just a bit more witty, a bit more entertaining, a bit less like vomiting on the shoes of the arresting officer. We know you are all quite capable of the latter, as these documents are a matter of publice record, as is this Thread. Also, we ask that your posts have all the weight, heft, and thunder of that Rock rolling back down the hill. Sound off, as it were, as though you had a Classical Pair. Again, and we beg this most sincerely, do not sound off about your perceived 'Classical Pair'. Anyone can unzip themselves and posture. These people are arrested, counseled, recidivist, and, after stealing articles of women's clothing at night, end up as society's most newsworthy mass-murderers and perverts. Is that what you aspire to? Finally, and this is the most important thing of all (except for the half-witted bastards who actually want to be arrested): Challenge Someone. A Person. An Individual. An Entity. It's not that sodding hard. Pick someone out, and determine, in your heart, that you shall make mock of them to such an extant that they shall say: 'here, you little toad, you can't say that about me', and then offer to play you a game. [ March 28, 2002, 02:12 AM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

I see no sign that anyone with any forethought is likely to come forward, and the Aussie's are all playing mumbledy peg with Mace's dates, so I will begin, again.

Sadly, the Aussie's keep breaking the circle for things like this. [ March 23, 2002, 02:53 AM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

We are an improvident lot. The time comes round, the knacker man stands forth, knife raised and all a-grin, and what have we, between us, and eternity? A few, quite drunk, Australians. Now, does anyone begin to see, as through a glass, and darkly, why I have dragged all these sodden Australians in here? One of you did, recently, but I can't be troubled to remember who the bloody hell it was, but he was gifted above all other pillocks. And here it is, lads and lassies: My goal has been, from the get-go, to see that the Sun Never Sets On the Peng Challenge Thread. As simple as that, and certainly as simple as most of the Australians. I would love to see a rolling wave of honey-golden sunlight spill each morning over the Mother Beautiful Thread, with each day it's attendants and devotees rising, greeting whatever they consider the day, and singing its praises. Well, actually, more like belittling the last lot of Peng Challenge Threaders that posted, but it's all part of the Scheme. What was it that idjit said: "Genius round the world stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round"

I'll be buggered. Where did you get him? Wonder if he can keep that level of energy up. Who was he playing, Lawyer? Or did Slapdragon get smarmy with him? I'd light a candle if someone like that showed up here and could post consistently well. Does he do literature and good quotes? Here in the Peng Challenge Thread, it's not enough to be abusive, you have to have half a brain. Still, well done, Treeburst155, for sharing that with us! It's lovely to see a bit of invective that reaches for the soulful depths, as that one did. [ March 23, 2002, 01:06 AM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

No, I'm already familiar with that concept. An Aussie told me they 'bout laugh themselves sick when Yank tourists keep talking about their Fanny Packs. Same thing for the Brits, according to some I've met.

Actually, Mace your sense of causality is weak. They broke the mould, and then they made you. The results are then much more understandable.

Because we thought we could set him up with the goat in the back room instead</font>