JerseyJohn Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 General Jon_J_Rambo Like the title says, I just want to express my sincere thanks for your moderator suggestion. After your posting, Martin's one word response of "NO" had me laughing like hell. Liam I'd like to extend the same gratitude to you that I've expressed just now to Rambo. This Forum reminds me of a place myself and other kids played in when I was around eight or nine. It was a partially demolished building which had somehow gotten by without being boarded up. So we went in and shot at each other with imaginary guns, all of us picturing the place as some sort of shelled fortress being fought over. Meanwhile there were gaping holes in the floors, and it was five stories high. Adults used to come up to within a few feet of the brick walls and tell us to get out before someone had an accident, and of course none of us listened. And none of us had an accident. I'm sure if that same place appeared in my yard tomorrow I'd be scared stiff to go inside and walk along floors creaking under my feet, in some places only a wooden frame sixty feet up, ready to collapse, where little kids would walk across exposed beams, laughing like hell and not getting killed. After a week or so some city clerk must gotten word about it and a wrecking crew finished the job with an old, noisy bulldozer. The entire area was afterwards sealed off. We were all angry about it but I'm sure if it would have been left standing one of us would have wound up dead inside. Or perhaps not. After the war there must have been thousands of similar wrecked buildings all over the world and I'm sure little kids were constantly playing in them with very little loss of life and limb. So maybe we tend to worry too much about the structure of things and have too little faith in our own abilities to use them. At any rate, nobody at Battlefront ever put up a help wanted sign and even if they were to do so it's probably a job that has to be done at their location, which would be a pretty long commute for almost any of us! Basically, it's their business (Martin, Madmatt etc.) and they should run it, and they are running it. I doubt that either myself or anyone else of the membership would want to do that moderator job in any case. When Martin says most of it is boredom I'm sure he's telling the truth. What's worse, imagine having to read every posting of the General Forum as part of your days work. We're talking about cruel and unusual punishment! Fortunately there aren't any city clerks sending a bulldozer to flatten our play fort. [ August 26, 2003, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konstantin V. Kotelnikov Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 Originally posted by JerseyJohn: So we went in and shot at each other with imaginary guns, all of us picturing the place as some sort of shelled fortress being fought overGood post JJ, reminds me of when I was a kid so many years ago. Of course some of us don't outgrow it. We still are running around shooting at each other. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted August 26, 2003 Author Share Posted August 26, 2003 Appreciated Konstantin. "Of course some of us don't outgrow it. We still are running around shooting at each other. LOL" A great point and right on the money. Going further, I don't think any of us outgrow it, either we play chess, bridge, poker, golf or bowl as adults or have an equivalent carry-over from childhood. In our case, I mean all of us wargamers, even if we do those other things playing games such as SC helps keep that part of us alive and well. Upon reaching my fifties it suddenly occurred to me that a four year old sitting at a normal chair, imagining himself at the controls of a jet fighter and believing it 100% is very lucky indeed. We all have that beyond reality sense as kids, vivid imaginations allowed free reign, then gradually lose it as we grow older. If your reenacting helps fill this void then you're the better for it. In a lot of ways I envy these people who shoot colored dyes at one another, playing guns as the little folk call it, it must be immensely enjoyable. In place of that my wife and I developed our own war game called "Gain control of the remote!" But my cranky adult personality took over and bought a second TV. Which made a lot of people happy, especially the cable company which was able to put a second line into another room, and also the people who made the second DVD player and the second VCR. Now I kind of miss the wrestling matches we used to have. I also kind of miss my wife because with her in the Living Room watching her TV and me in the Den watching mine, we hardly ever see each other. What we really need is a play fort out in the yard. [ August 26, 2003, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 JJ: I remeber the days up in the woods, the boonies 8 or 9. We'd be up there preparing ourselves for war. I remeber I was considered a good shot... and the place was filled with some significant dangers. Like the trees we'd climb twenty thirty feet high. All the creatures, brambles, leftover amunition from Army Depot Of course we loved it. Noone could take it away from us, they mowed it down once but they couldn't cut the trees down cause they protected<I'm sure being Californian Coastline> and it was the biggest protest. It's like "Hey, Teachers, leave those kids alone!" I miss the good ole days. I know they do their best but ::yawns:: the moderating is hypocritical. You either ban all unrelated subjects or none at all. If you're not interested in doing it, then quit We can pick and choose what we shall read... I'm certian most would agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konstantin V. Kotelnikov Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 Originally posted by JerseyJohn: What we really need is a play fort out in the yard. I have to drive 5 hours to get to ours, but it's worth it. An old WWII era munitions factory in Minnesota. To crawl around the old buildings and foundations always looking out for the germans. As we grow older the material things change, like now I can carry a PPSH, but the game still remains the same. Of course for me the factor that endears me to SC is that it has that classic wargame feel to it. The kind I grew up playing on the table tops. Sure I don't play it much anymore, but neither do I play Squad Leader or Panzerblitz very often. When I do it takes me back to those younger days and for that I am truly greatful. The play remains the same it's just the fort has changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted August 26, 2003 Author Share Posted August 26, 2003 Liam "All the creatures, brambles, leftover amunition from Army Depot" It's amazing how many things we do when we're young that we would never dream of doing when we get older. Looking back on my psychotic baseball days, for example, I find it hard to believe I ever did any of that, things like spiking and getting spiked, deliberately crowding the plate against hard throwing pitchers, reducing their strike zone, being hit dozens of times for it and once actually beened and knocked out by a blazing fastball to high and tight to get away from. Today I'd no doubt stand as far away from homeplate as the umpire would allow! Climbing trees, scaling steep hillsides -- walking on unsafe planks a hundred feet above the ground! It seems as though one minute you're ten or twelve, doin all those crazy things and howling with laughter, and the next minute you jump to being a worrying grownup doing your best to stop the current crop of youngsters from doing exactly those same activities. Kids are best off when they're beyond the range of adult interference, including my own. One of the things that drives my wife nuts is we'll be watching some action movie where someone is running through a jungle or perhaps hides in a handy opening on a rocky hillside and I can't help but say "Oh come on, if he jumped in there on a sunny day some napping rattle snake would have chomped on his cajonies!" Not at all the way I'd have viewed it forty years ago. You've got a point about the site, but after a while I think any of us doing that job would be viewed the same way that many of us -- as always I include myself see -- Moon and Madmatt. Those inserting the padlocks will always come off as the tyranical bad guys. When I first began posting I thought Martin was arbitrary and unfair, but I was wrong. The problem is it's hard to be perceived as persistant when you yourself have to keep defining what the posting rules do and don't cover. There are plenty of posts I'd have locked that he hasn't and plenty I'd have passed on that he locked, so it's only a matter of who's interpreting those things. And I think he does a fine job and is pretty tolerant. Another thing I know is that, though I'd accept something like that if offered, I very much doubt that I'd enjoy it. Also, if it were done on a volunteer basis, where I could also be a regular member, it would very soon destroy my ability to post in the forum. You're right, things have to either be set one way or the other; the pitcher can't also serve as umpire! Konstantin "Sure I don't play it much anymore, but neither do I play Squad Leader or Panzerblitz very often. When I do it takes me back to those younger days and for that I am truly greatful. The play remains the same it's just the fort has changed." Very elequently said. Reminds me a little of an old tune about the song being over but the melody lingers on. SC is definitely in that nostalgia category. I play it and remember friends from forty years ago, remembering how 90% of the fun wasn't in the game, but in taunting each other, joking around and bouncing off the walls when more than two bad dice rolls happened in succession. Chess Grandmasters have a high deathrate from heart attacks, which show how hazardous it is to remove the dice from a game. [ August 26, 2003, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted August 26, 2003 Share Posted August 26, 2003 Great stories JJ, and... even greater... insights into the common human tradition, as evidenced by... Konstatin's reply. :cool: I myself can a'times be... too-too serious, and so, thanks for the reminder... (too much the SDS kind of cat, dressed in black, and not enough... the very merry, rainbow-glowing... prankster!) ... anyway, the reminder about... the difference between... being child-like and childish. Can be perceived as tiny and tenuous, but usually is... immense. **BTW... in that other thread, is that really? You and the Missus? arm wrestling, or just another ringer Pic you plucked off the internet? Desert folks down Albuquerque way are... rabid avid, to know! ***#2.... yeah, LOL! We fight over the stupid tee-vee remote as well... now, in order to prevent marital mayhem, we trade it... every other evening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted August 27, 2003 Author Share Posted August 27, 2003 Immer Appreciated and very much enjoyed your posting. There's definitely got to be a meeting in this Forum of competitive and non-competitive playing. What happened with Kuni yesterday reminds me a lot of what happened with Brian the Wise months ago. Needless to say I've seen scores of people go off the proverbial deep end in tournament chess. I plucked the photo off the internet and, when I showed my wife her first comment was that people would think it was us. They seem like a pair of happy people enjoying themselves, I like to think we have that sort of essense even if the specific appearance differs. You and wife have a great system with the remote. I'd like to do that with the wife but our TV viewing is absolutely incompatable. She loves shows like Touched by an Angel and I love shows like Near Earth Crossing Asteroids . She saw me watching a Discovery Channel program on plankton and asked how many times I needed to get through High School! Here's hoping we see more prankstering and very glad to see a resurgence of that Desert Poetry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurt88 Posted August 27, 2003 Share Posted August 27, 2003 Although I have not been so active on this forum as the most of you (and certainly not as JerseyJohn,the guy has over 2000 posts!) I would like to add that that this forum rocks! Why? Because it's funny!All these different personalities come together here,you got Rambo,THE LEGEND,you got Kuniworth,THE MERRY PRANKSTER,you got JerseyJohn,a f#cking encyclopedia of knowledge and poster of the most amazing pictures, and so many others all contributing in their own special way. And they are all wargamers,... wargamers and they all manage to be funny! Guys I may have not been here for long but I vote this is the best forum community in the world!!! So despite all the recent events,let's not abandon SC,if not THE greatest game ever! And as far as Hubert and the moderators go, if they're smart they'll give us some inside information on what's coming or ain't coming! PEACE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted August 27, 2003 Share Posted August 27, 2003 JJ: Applause, exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself I miss being a kid too. I think we all play these games to relive the kid in ourselves! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted August 27, 2003 Share Posted August 27, 2003 Off-topic, locking it. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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