Ghost of Lurkur Past

Boo Radley! Good to feel the ol' boot on the back of my head again, my liege! Not so much bail, more like work-release except you don't come back and need to find a saw to cut the chain that links you and the other nine guys together. Fear not! I ought to be able to make it to your neighborhood in time to celebrate "Shoot out the bastige's porchlight night."

I was never more than a gnat on the MBT, but a gnat can be highly efficient in the mass-to-annoyance ratio, if employed correctly. I never met any of the posters in three dimensions, and that might be for the better, as they loomed large online. In spite of the reputation of the cesspudlians, I knew they were an inherently silly and decent lot, with the possible exception of Dorosh. It needs to be remembered that the real unspoken purpose of the thread was to allow civil men to get in touch with their innate hate. Now for the youngsters out there, I don’t mean the discounted, pouty and petty everyone-I-disagree-with-is-literally-Hitler, Instagram-empowered, overly-hyphenated thing we call hate these days. No, our aggressions were macro and very pointy indeed. The challenges were a form of preparation, like a meat tenderizing hammer on the insensate slab of meat that was your opponent. The verbal blows would rouse them to awareness, get them engaged, because that was the only way to extract the right kind of hate out of them. Make them pull themselves up only to make the fall that much better, for nothing brings out the pure hate than having the mandala of your beautiful strategic vision blurred by an opponent constantly banging the underside of the table. Your Tiger’s been defanged by a lucky shot. The ATG in the perfect position uncrewed by a stray artillery shell. Discovering the hard way the tank you thought was hull down isn’t. Turn after turn the design gets contorted, deformed, and corrupted, and you can begin to smell the hate coming from the other end of the e-mail. This form of hate goes deeper than politics, religion, or even relationships. It is primal, a liquid black opal straight from core of your opponent. One drop in the city water would give 1000 children scabies, but to a proper knight of the ‘pool having your opponent hate you was far better than victory. It kept you warm in the darkness… In those days event the gnats swaggered. Women clutched their heaving bosoms for fear of being overcome by the sheer testosterone dripping from every post. Yes, we had women in the pool, erm… three of them I think, and one of those ended up being a dude, but it was NOT NEARLY AS LAME AS THAT JUST SOUNDED! Special recognition to my liege Boo Radley. I shall always be the Wormtongue to your Sharky. Wherever some mouth breathing halfwit is being upbraided, a garter being verbally snapped, or plans are thwarted by happenstance and lesser men, the Pool lives on.

...and my hygiene!

More like fungi. I always said my liege was a fungi...

Well yes. Although they didn't have computers when I went to Kent. I was handed an abacus and told to pound salt; and that's assuming we could find salt. Mostly they left us to draw on the walls with our own filth; good times, good times. Right, newbies of the scum-sucking variety. How I do enjoy the tart, home-spun wisdom of the young lads. [Eyes the BOOT] Is there any challenging done any more, or are the old boys not "up" for that, if you know what I mean?

Why thank you my Liege! I'll buy a round, and if I had tales of my adventures, I'd tell them. Sadly, all that time in the green camps only resulted in me acquiring a taste for stale rice and fish heads. They'd have shot me on the first day, but only I knew the secret location of the Salmon Nurses Calendar Models. It's been a while since I've racked up any losses or defeats, and I returned figuring that a little while here would make me want to kill something right quick. In the meantime, I have continued creating (ahem) suitable materials to keep young men's interests in the martial arts erm, on point.

No, it's yinzer country. Philadelphia eh, wasn't that ceded to New Jersey?

What in the name of Peng has happened to this place? I've spent years telling those who would listen* about the dark, epic cesspool of my youth. When Olde Ones still roamed the earth; where knights jousted and jested for honor, or at least a smidgen less dishonor. Where fair maidens, queens and several deeply conflicted 50-year old men posting as maidens were treated with the utmost dignity as knight after knight lay prostrate in the muck and mire lest Queen Yk2 smudge her dainty slipper. Back then the devil himself would pour molten derision on the pathetic, witless fools who would tumble into the pool, hoping to bend it to their own unspoken ends. How well I remember their screams and the smell of roast pork. Who could forget when Mad Meeks himself set fire to the kingdom (not terribly difficult given the methane issues) and laughed maniacally as his burning edifice collapsed on top of him? Now I make my way back after escaping from an Emerald Empire re-education camp only to find a portrait of my former (tor)mentor Boo Radley above the reception desk?! Good Lord, did we sell this place to an immigrant family, or worse, one of those podunk european countries? Who do I talk to to complain about this?! *ding*ding*ding* HELLOOOOOO!!? *ding*ding*ding* And what was up with that guy in the creepy rubber Joe Shaw mask? Wait, that was really Joe? Oh that's too bad. Time has not been kind to that guy. All right Boo, I sense your campy, madcap and cramped yet creepy vibe close by, what is the meaning of all this? *granted, most of these people were strangers in the streets of Detroit or mental health professionals.