Seanachai

Sorry, some of that was a bit hard to follow, but Sajer is hardly likely, after having passed off his riveting novel as an autobiography for decades, to come forward and admit he simply stitched the whole thing together out of broad cloth. And the 'no more proof then other peoples stories' bit? Are you referring to the rather significant body of research that's been done by many people indicating that Guy Sajer's book is not the first-hand, autobiographical account it's always been passed off as? Frankly, 'first-hand, autobiographical' accounts, while important and significant, aren't always very accurate. Even where they're real. The author could be mistaken, have remembered incorrectly, have gotten things totally wrong, or have lied, misrepresented, or made things up for personal, political, or other reasons. And Sajer, as I understand it, doesn't have one single shred of documented evidence to show that he was what he claimed to be, or was where he claimed to be. He does, of course, have all sorts of reasons to show why that documentation no longer exists. But even supposing he was exactly what he says he was, where he said he was, and witnessed what he said he did, that wouldn't necessarily make what he tells us about it 100% true or accurate. Doubts have been raised in plenty about the veracity of Sajer's claims. And reality argues that no observer is ever 100% accurate or right. And human history has shown us that many, many 'first hand accounts' are so much self-or-other-agenda serving drivel. With all these factors against accepting his testimony as unvarnished truth, combined with his or others inability to provide confirmation from other sources, your insistence that his information be regarded as 'fact' seems to indicate a personal decision and agenda, rather than motivation by the historical record (even admitting that it is fragmented and full of holes as regards certain aspects of the German WWII experience). Many recent books have shown us the willingness of authors to try and pass off 'very good, and often realistic' fictional accounts as 'history'. The Jordanian/Australian writer about the plight of women in Islam comes immediately to mind. Nothing she wrote about was necessarily a lie. Except for the fact that it happened to her, and that she had first-hand experience of it. But, having told that lie, she can no longer be regarded as an objective or realistic source, whose every statement carried the weight of 'truth'. I fear the same is true of Sajer.

Yeah, like that! Only not so drunk. It's only 10:30 PM here...

But, just to give you the benefit of a response that does not involve images of your violent demise: They all have tanks in them? Mind, I once had a mental image of running over your torn and bleeding body again and again with one of those German/Czech rehabs. That is, until I realized that Hortlund would have probably sited it as an example of Armour overruns...

They're all disappointingly bereft of you being clubbed to death like a baby harp seal? Usually, which has led me to drink more heavily, I might add. But in this, I'm in the dark. I like the dark. It's safe, there, and quiet, and the images of gutting and filleting out Grog Dorosh like a walleye are more vivid than they are when there's all that light and noise...

Goddamn it. There's someone wandering around outside in the side-yard again; I can hear them through the open window next to the computer desk... It fills me with rage. I know it's probably just one of the neighbours, but I don't like people being able to approach me that closely without permission. I keep telling myself that it would be 'wrong' to go get the 12 gauge and pump 6 shots through the screen, but another part is offering the very helpful advice: "No, it would be wrong to go get the composite bow. You couldn't hit ****e with the bow in the dark, because it is an aimed weapon, and, moreover, the window screen would probably seriously impact the flight of the arrow, even if you use a target point, as opposed to a broadhead. Even using #6 gameshot, you'd do serious execution to everything within a 120 degree spread, and the screen wouldn't have any impact on that at all. Especially after the third shot or so..." It's damn hard when the voices in your head or so helpful in an unhelpful way... But that's not what I came to talk to you about. No, what I came to talk to you about tonight is— Seanachai: GODDAMNIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE? I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW! HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT STEEL SHOT, YOU MEANDERING PILLOCK?! Voice: Steve? Seanachai: Umm...yeah? Steve? my landlord is also named Steve Steve: Everything okay? Seanachai: No worries! Steve: It's just that you just threatened to shoot me. Seanachai: Well, you know. Ever since my car was stolen last Spring, I've been a bit tense about people wandering around outside. What are you doing out there? Steve: I'm walking my dog. Seanachai: Sonny? I like Sonny. He's a very nice dog. Steve: Uh-huh. You threatened to shoot me last weekend, too. Seanachai: Well, couldn't you walk him in the front yard? or the alley? I mean, I'm hardly likely to shoot you if I don't know you're out there, now am I? Steve: You told me last weekend that you didn't even really have a shotgun. What was that noise? Seanachai: I was just ejecting a...a DVD. From the computer. Steve: I used to go duck hunting with my dad. You have a pump-action DVD player? Seanachai: It's an installed 'sound effect' mod. Whenever I open up the DVD player, it makes the sound of a pump shotgun. Very hip! Steve: Look, I think we need to — Seanachai: Whoa, look at the time! I need to call Boo Radley! Steve: What? Seanachai: Boo Radley! My large and thuggish henchman! Steve: From 'To Kill a Mockingbird'? Seanachai: No, the other one! Steve: You're not going to shoot any of the neighbours, are you? Seanachai: Don't be ridiculous! They're wonderful people! At least since that idjit across the hall from me moved out. He was a pillock. I'd have shot him in a heartb— that is, no! Besides, one of them is a woman, and the other two are almost completely insane. It's not good luck to shoot people like that. Steve: We need to talk. Seanachai: Sorry! The phone is ringing! Gotta go! Love to Sonny the dog! Steve: I didn't hear a phone? Seanachai: It's an installed mod! Sounds like an open window being slammed shut! There it is again! So, as I was saying... I think I've become 'redundant' to the needs of this Thread. After all, I see that Peng has posted several times, lately, but there's no turn in my inbox from him. ... That may not have been my point. Believe me, I had a point when I came in here. Goddamn neighbours. I shall now go away to contemplate the inevitability of weirdness. But when I come back, you bastards had better have an answer for me. Right? I think I may be confused...

What eyewitness accounts? Steve </font>

Hortlund, you Tool of Oppression and Class Warfare. If you were a horse in a race, you wouldn't come out of the gate running, you'd come out biting, kicking, and attempting to maim all the other horses, eyes wildly rolling and foam already girdling your muzzle. You're not simply a competitive poster, you're posting with an 'enemy' list in one hand! Frankly, if I adopted your style, and combined it with my native wit and intelligence, I could be the most Hated Man on the Planet without even breaking a sweat. So I may owe you one there, for the tip. I think you have anger issues, lad. Perhaps we should simply go somewhere quiet and talk. Let things out. You could even put your head on my shoulder and cry, if you like. I won't tell. Don't be offended, though, if I wear a Kevlar vest. Human bites are nasty, and tend to become infected.

Don't you owe me a turn? Wow! Is that irony, or what? I had to ask someone else about a turn!

So, I've been gone. You don't need to know where. Someone bring me up to speed. What's going on? Anyone interesting been happening lately? I had a weird dream early this morning in which I met Andreas at a party, and he was wearing one of those 'flaps over the ears' forager hats that even Minnesotans regard as marking the mentally slow. I gave him a big hug, and he gave me this humourless look and asked me to let him go. I kid you not. Not sure what that was all about, as I'm not even currently playing one of his scenarios.

Send her in. I'm tired of dealing with JV 'Anger and Hate'.

Good God, didn't I just abuse you about this?! What time is it? Are these my hands? Seriously, Philippe, with a bit of urine and a big ball of clay, I could completely recreate you...

You're pandering. You heard me: PANDERING! That I should live to see this sort of... Pandering...pandering...bugger. The word's lost all meaning. How come Madmatt doesn't send me emails anymore telling me how to deal with the Server?

I demand that the poster styled as 'stoat' submit to mandatory drug testing before he/she/it is allowed to purchase CMx2.

Dear God, what? Have you been spending the last few nights listening to old Meat Loaf albums and drinking two-fours of Coors Lite? The only thing that keeps me from utterly destroying you is the rather fetching mental picture I keep of you wearing fluffy bunny slippers and, wide-eyed, asking for another story about the Dieppe Raid.

I went away to that Gyrene fellow's site, and I wrote a long bit about how tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary of my younger sister's death. It said a lot about what I'm feeling lately. But I'm good and drunk, and I closed the wrong window and lost it all. It was so appropriate and fitting that it was almost...magical. So now I'd normally be almost insanely pissed off, but for one thought that stays with me. In those last few weeks of her life, I was coming home from the hospital every night, and I was buying a six pack of beer, and cheap cigars (and I'm talking really cheap here...), and I would sit up every night, smoking hideous cigars, drinking far too much, and posting here. It took me out of myself, and made the world somehow endurable. And then I would get up the next day, groggy and barely coherent, and I would spend another 2, 4, 6 or more hours at the hospital. But there was always this hideous, worthless, wonderful place to come to that night, and you lot of complete and utter swine. Kept me going, that it did. Stupid bastards. Take care, and may nothing trouble your days or nights.

Shut up, you tit!

I assume, you bugger, that you're not simply referring to me going off on someone. Sometimes I worry about you, though. I would prefer that you not explore your fetishes in any sort of 'detail'... You're as daft as a fecking brush if you think anyone under the age of 35 carries that kind of knowledge around in their heads. Anyone with the chance of ever having sex, Grog or otherwise, wouldn't dedicate the number of brain cells necessary for remembering all that AFV ****e as opposed to using them for mumbling something safe and conciliatory and reassuring after sex. That's what the freaking Game is for, you halfwit! It provides you with information that is, plain and simple, too bizarrely esoteric to base your day to day activity on. If I want to play a game that helps me capture the ultimate emptiness of things I need to know to get through the average interaction at a restaurant with strangers, there's the Sims, versions I thru XX. Hey, Philippe, what's your sign? Why 'instead of'? There's all sorts of space that could be used to include a 'Hi, my name's Lance, and I never thought I'd be writing a letter to the CM Forum before, but last Friday night I found myself going head to head with a King Tiger...' level of information. Your willingness to spend your own, otherwise pointlessly inane and annoying personal time to do so earns you the respect of the entire CM community. Except me. I still think that a sound thrashing followed by inadequate medical attention is the way to deal with you.

Who cares? Who do you work for, Campbell Metheun? The only thing I hate is when the freaking Scenario designer can't be bothered to catch more than half of the 47 errors in spelling, grammar, and use of the word: Panzervergrottenanstugspiel. I demand that all Scenario Designers be held to very definite standards of English Usage, and that Berli be forbidden from doing any more scenarios in which it is completely incomprehensible as to what your side is supposed to be doing, and that Rune be forced to give up English all together and learn Finnish, and not do any more scenarios until he's fluent (by the exacting and almost pathological standards of the various 'Let Me Tell You About What My Grandfather Did To Kill Russians' community Finns). And right after that, we'll all put on dresses and sing 'I Want to Be Loved By You' in the classic Marilyn Monroe style! And you know nothing about PIATs! When I first arrived on this Forum, Nancy, I had only the most basic of 'High School Infatuation With WWII' knowledge on which to base my understanding of the Game. In fact, in my initial play-through of the Demo scenarios, I was actually sneaking my soldiers from 'tree to tree' on the map, because I didn't realize that the graphical representation of each 'tree' didn't mark each particular Norway Pine! Have you had to worry about that?! I thought not. Be so good as to put the 'I'd Like an Animated Cut Scene of a Nazi Instructing Me in the Fine Points of Leading Men Into Battle' into the same slit trench that you put the despised and unclean product of your bowels. Sounds interesting. Where is this info to be displayed? Still, of everything you've said so far, this makes the most sense to me. Which, ultimately, means it is probably hideously wrong. Ask anyone about me, if you're in doubt. The burned hand teaches best, but the brutalized and aching testicles are a lesson that is never forgotten. 'Live and Learn', the saying goes. But 'Live and Die Horribly Because You're So Fecking Half-Witted as to Think a Sherman Can Go Head to Head With a Tiger' is what you learn by actually playing The Game. Oh, so you want the almost Encyclopedic, and basically inane knowledge of lunatics like Grog Dorosh, or Redwolf reduced to a simple pop-up chart? Pick a fecking tank, any tank, and see how it freaking well does! Did you come here to play, or simply to win? Dear CM Diary: Today, I used the built in 'Select Me the Perfect Tank For a Wednesday In the Park Wearing Taffeta' tool to defeat my Opponent, who had most horribly chosen to use T-34s after Labour Day. I do hope that Ladder Player I met at the Fall Frivolity thought well of my playing! Kiss, kiss, and remember: A PanzerKampfWagon IV, Ausfahrung G is an all-round good tank! By all the gods, if I had you here right now, I'd take an axe-handle and beat you within an inch of your horrible little life. Everything you've proposed (with the single exception of the one thing, which you didn't explain how it might be executed differently than how it's currently executed), left me feeling hollow, sick, and ashamed that we were both inhabiting the same planet, let alone of the same species. Frankly, it wouldn't hurt if the game were a bit more 'newbie' friendly. But I'll be goddamned if I'm going to watch a whole puddle of recently decanted poodle urine come in here and... What the hell was I talking about, again? Boo was chattering at me. The last thing I remember was thinking: 'Suffer, bitch!'

That seems to be buggered. Try something else.

Very early this morning — that is, around 2 AM Central Standard time — I remember thinking to myself: Seanachai, old sod, although we, that is, you and I (I often speak not merely to myself, but with myself; probably because I enjoy intelligent, erudite and witty conversation), still feel that it is Thursday night, it is, in fact, Friday morning. Which means we should go online and wish our own Old Foul Joe a HAPPY BIRTHDAY. That we should take the time to write out a post to him telling him that on this, his natal day, how much his being around this Thread has meant to us all. How thoroughly, unrelentingly, and, in fact, almost pathologically he has filled the office of Justicar of the Peng Challenge Thread. And that, all kidding otherwise aside, what a great guy he is, what a pleasure it has been to come to know him, and what a delight he's been as a member of this community. Yes, I told myself that all this, and more, should be posted instanter. And then, mercifully, I passed out. Yes, that is what I would have posted had not I been overtaken by demon drink, and clubbed into insensibility like a well-pickled baby harp seal. And when I awoke this...rather later this morning, I thought to myself: Best $135 I ever spent. Thank the gods I can buy liquor wholesale. Happy Birthday, Shaw, you low and especially loathsome fellow.

You know, there's singsongs, and then, there's singsongs... There's a party down at Kale's Vinnie Charles is out of jail again His ex's will be there And his daughter Nida has bought him an easy chair He kicked the cocaine in the can An eightball a day is not cheap for any man His street clothes have all shrunk in size But most of the weight that is gained was in his eyes Most of the weight that is gained was in his eyes He did nine of a possible twelve He still says he didn't know what the package held He still says he didn't know Just a favor for a friend But big Buddy Cara left him to swing in the wind Big Buddy Cara left him to swing in the wind He made it through Mexico The car threw a rod below San Diego A copper pulled over to help But poor Vinnie's poker face could not control itself He was always a likeable guy The women passed under him as if he could fly The women passed under him as if he could fly Three more years on parole Time will tell how much the time inside took it's toll Time will tell how much the time inside took it's toll "There's two things I know well" he says "The ways that I hurt and all of the ways to hell" "The ways that I hurt and all of the ways to hell" Vinnie Charles is free Vinnie Charles is out of the pen Vinnie Charles is free for now Mightier than the sword (and then) Vinnie Charles is free Vinnie Charles is free "Vinie Charles is Free" -John Gorka

And I remain an Olde One of the Peng Challenge Thread. Your claim reads like the pitiable mewling of a Homeless person concerned about his possession of a shopping cart taken out of the K-mart parking lot. You dumb bastards. You newcomers. You stupidly glorious halfwits. Do you know what this Thread has been to me? I started this goddamn thing. It was glorious. My gods, it was glorious. I Challenged Peng. And when I did, Berli showed up, and told me I was a feck. This Thread has been there through my job loss, my re-employment, my second job loss, the death of my sister, and everything in between. I'm so fecking old that my family worries every day over the fact that I have no Health Insurance. I'm not insurable. And so, you tell me, you're the 'Messiah' of the Peng Challenge Thread? So, when are you going to make me smile? Going to let me know that nothing bad is going to happen to my nieces and nephews? My friend, Small Emma? You're a good lad. I'm after giving you a new deal. I'm not going to live forever, don't you know. So, what say you desist from this annoying 'Messiah' bit (which, frankly, lad, is just pissing people off, especially me), and help me write...a Greater Story.

Ass. We're not responsible for your almost complete fecking inability to understand humour, satire, or any other freaking thing to do with why this Thread exists. So, I'm to take it that you started a thread, and it was locked? And maybe it was about the wrongness of what threads get locked? This fecking Thread has been going for...I dunno, somebody give me a hand, here. Four years? Five? And we've racked up something on the order of...Christ...we must be approaching something unnatural, like 100.000 posts... Oh, you're leaving? Oh, no! See the tears? Don't let the attack donkey trip yer arse up as you stumble your sodden, aimless, dumb-arse way out of the Thread, mate! Because, frankly, you won't know Hell until you're prone and defenseless with the Attack Donkey standing over you. Oh, really? I know that my arse cheeks will remain puckered with anxiety until your next visit causes them to sag with relaxation. Sorry, I won't be going there, as I don't feel the need for another adoring lickspittle looking at me with puppy dog eyes asking me 'Master, how can I make your existence more perfect?!' Bah! Why do they allow these fecking little boys out to wipe their noses on their sleeves in front of their betters?

Everyone shut the hell up. I'm crabby. Someone bring me some lower life-form piece o' ****e whose existence even God doesn't find credible, so that I can make them realize how freaking worthless it is that they're a monument to the wastage of human sperm. Also, I'd like to hear a very nice song in which people find true love and no one dies in agony. Beyond that, I think that the floor in my bathroom may be rotting out because the toilet is no longer properly seated. And do you know what? I'm not happy. This is my favourite time of year, and I'm not happy.

Well, that was a relief. I thought from the title of the thread that Michael might be raving about his freaking testicles again...