Huh?
Wot, covering the midgets?
Explaining jokes tend to ruin 'em. But no biggie. We'll just chalk it up to having no sense of humor or some such.
I think it could qualify as real life, to the extent that it compells us emotionally as much as does "real life." Who is to say what is "real" to anyone. I've met people at AFUZZ, and then in person, when Lovey and I went to Boston two years ago. Absent any avatar, i really had formed no picture of the persons i'd met at AFUZZ, but i already knew them fairly well. I'd say as well as those whom you say in the coffee shop, or at lunch of a weekday.
There are time when you look at a thread, and see someone's name, and you back right out, and go off on your merry way. Same as walking down the street to the coffee shop, and seeing someone you don't care for, whom you could not avoid if you went in, so you just turn on your heel, and cross the street--go get your drug fix with a double-mochacchino somewhere else. By the same token, you might see someone's name when you're just lookin' around, and decide to drop by that thread, and fool around for awhile. No different than walkin' past the coffee shop, but seeing a valued friend walk in, so you turn on your heel, and cross the street to go in and say hey.
Were i skeakin' with ya, Soz, in a coffee shop, there would be gestures, body language, eye contact, smiles, laughs--there would also be noise, distractions of persons and events, sights and smells which draw one's attention. Speaking to you in person, we both might miss much, and not recall precisely what one or the other has said. In writing, at this site, i cannot convey the non-verbal communication people have with one another "in real life," and cannot express tone (except with "emoti-pukes," er, sorry, anyway, i consider those for grins, and not really expressive). But i can go back to read what you've written, you can do the same--in a spoken conversation, we'd be constantly inspired to a reply or an idea by what someone said, but it slips our mind by the time our "turn" in the conversation comes up. Here, you can read what it was, and respond as you'd wanted to.
It's a different kind of real life, but real it is. I have a very clear picture (if incomplete and mistaken in parts) of who you are, Soz, without reference to appearance. I'm sure you've formed a picture of me in similar fashion. In ways one could not sitting in a coffee shop, we know one another; sitting in a coffee shop, we would know one another simply in different ways.
I have a pretty fair idea of when the Brits will be playing here, when it's daytime in Oztralia--there are many cues and routines we recognize in friends, whether we hope to meet them downtown, or on-line. We know to a certain extent where to go look for those whom we like, and when to look for them. Finding them downtown or on-line is the "real life" aspect of the transaction, not the details of perception.
I've writtin elsewhere that i think the greatest value of this type of real life is being able to meet people from across the globe, and have with them the same sense of community as i do when Lovey and I and the little dogs and her M & P are walking on the lake shore.
Nice, Setanta. I have literal tears in my eyes, which could be attributed to the beastly cold I have and attendant medications, but something about your fourth paragraph really got to me.
and if there are further Lovey references online, there will be IRL trouble. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Hee hee.
I LIKE all the Lovey references, though. Especially when coupled with doggie references. Very sweet.
Yep, ya see Boss? It's them two lil' doggies you see in the pikchurs . . .
you may like it, soz, but i really really dislike it. a lot.
Ah.
Can I say I like the doggies a lot?
Why, of course you can say anything positive about the doggies, Sozobe! They are brilliant little critters. I signed Cleo up for advanced obedience today. I anticipate a lot of hard work for all of us.
Ya know, the whole L. thing feels like a jinx to me every time I see it. Kind of like telling people about a job interview. I've never been able to do that. I figure if I tell people about the job, and how great it seems, there's no way I'll get it. If I keep quiet, everything will work out well. <<sigh>> A lot of people just don't get these superstitions and 'feelings'.
Wot's 'advanced obedience'? Is it like the 'looking's free but touching will cost you' rule?
ya know, you're kinda on the right track. part of Bailey's exam for AKC CGC involved him tolerating a stranger touching his ears and paws - so you can touch the dog, not just look at him/her from a distance. Cleo was a snapper when I adopted her, so this going to be another big step forward.
Craven was actually manufactured out of extra parts the previous owners of my home left in the basement.
Well, you will all die - especially Craven - that I said it - but you did a fine job of creating him, Jespah!!!!!!
...why, at times he is almost human.....(running - or hopping, away - very fast, flashing my white tail bit as a warning to sundry and all to escape.....)
Well, I didn't actually create him. See, we were having a yard sale (hey, those spare parts had to be worth something) and suddenly there was a massive storm. You know, thunder, lightning, hail, fish falling from the sky, that sort of thing.
Next thing we knew, the pieces had reattached themselves and reanimated. He was yelling "It's alive! Wait a second, I mean me! I'm alive!" and well we lost several customers that day, is all I can say about it.
