The Smiley Smile Message Board

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We need RDZ back. He was not a good cat, he was a great cat.

Runnerz … ? Wha'happen?

Long story, but here's just one part of it...we banned a spam member the other day, not realizing it was runnerz with a second account. Already were considering action, though, when he quoted part of a PM as his signature.

Reading RDZ's signature, it seems the previous one contained "offensive" words, and I don't remember reading anything of the sort. What kind of words did he use? EDIT: nevermind, found them by viewing a cached page of the board.

Anyway, RDZ is one of the funniest/best posters here. I hope he'll return soon.

You can ban him, but you'll never make him go to school.

Ohh that's a shame, I laughed myself to tears to some of the dude's posts.

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Just a suggestion first: Please for the sake of anyone reading these threads do not make a punctuation mark the topic of the thread. It's very confusing, no one knows what the topic is or was, and there is really no reason for doing that.

This thread is as good as any to bring this up, I'm offering a question and some commentary in between.

This board has so much to offer, 99% of the direction of the board is in the hands of the membership itself. If something is not being discussed which you'd like to see discussed, it's as simple as starting a new topic. And there are enough sub-forums to accommodate and organize most topics that could be put on the table.

Can someone in this thread or outside the thread help me understand something which perhaps I'm just not getting, or not seeing beyond the surface.

In the middle of what was the biggest event the forum has been involved with recently, what possible motivation could there be to log in under an alias, with an account that has been dormant and totally inactive for some time, and using a screen name which no one knew? There was a chance to post a question to an actual Beach Boy...you know, the guys we talk about on a daily basis...and that opportunity is less important than assuming a new identity on the board and posting to that thread something other than a real question?

Again, I'm just looking for some explanation here. If it comes off a certain way, I apologize: I'm not trying to point a finger of blame at, nor challenging directly, anyone who is not here to defend themselves directly, but at the same time I'd like to hear the thoughts of the members in this thread who might know more than me. Maybe I just don't get the joke, or understand the motivation behind it.

I'm genuinely interested, and my apologies in advance if I've put too much personal opinion into this...but I just need some more info to help me understand the whole thing a little better.

As I for one, never saw the post in question it makes it extremely difficult to comment on the motivation. I'm also wondering how anyone else, other than the poster in question would be able to comment as to same.

AS to naming threads with punctuation, I think it's even more ridiculous than making >period< comments.  If you have nothing other than that to add, just don't post

Halblaineisgood doesn't make ">period< comments" -- he makes comments that he then deletes at a later point. I, for one, am okay with it. The posts function as grim reminders that our assumptions about permanence, eternality, and timelessness are nothing but a bourgeois fantasy. Hence the use of a period -- the period represents a closure, an ending. With the period, halblaineisgood resists the more recent postmodern calls for porousness. While such calls suggest an open-endedness, and a space for audience participation, halblaineisgood's period foreclose these possibilities. Here, there is no agency for the audience. The period goes beyond the interpretable - the period is pure sign that signifies only itself. And yet not. Importantly, the posts are not deleted, but are, rather, replaced. The period does not simply stand in for itself but it is also a phantasm - an ongoing reminder of the post that once was. The period is both itself and the post about Brian's fluctuating weight in the 70s, for example. And yet the insurmountable fact remains that, for some, what halblaineisgood once said will always be an unknown - a set of words that evaporated before even being read by an audience (thereby rendering problematic the pervasive notion that readers attach meanings to texts) or, in the cases where one did read what he wrote, it is rare where one could replicate word-for-word precisely what he said. And even if you could, this repetition would only serve to reinforce just how distanced the copied text is from its origin - out of context, it would become an Other, itself a kind of phantom for what was. In this case, the period represents our failure to grasp anything objectivity - it reveals how our attempts to capture knowledge in its entirety is a futile effort, and our need to to always have mastery over what was once but can never be again, is derived from our ideological position of consumers, a position largely constructed for us. So I'm okay with it.

all I got from that was bla bla bla existential crap

In that case, you are severely  misreading my post. The existentialist position is that existence precedes essence, that values, our concept of human nature, etc. are constructed and constituted (and in some cases, re-constituted, or even Re-Constituted) by humans, not by some sort of a priori telelogical universe. The period, as it functions in the work of halblaineisgood in many ways disrupts the very concept of existence and essence as a binary opposition. The period is, in some sense, an exisence or an esstence, a parodoxical figure that problematizes our general conception of timespace. As I have already noted, the period challenges agency but, in many ways, from a secular point of view, since it also re-constitutes the very meaning of free will, foreclosing both questions of choice and determinism. Like Foucault, halblaineisgood may challenge the very notion of essence, but not necessarily from a post-Heideggarian, pre-Derridian space that makes Knowledge a thing that humans create rather than something that is always already available to us, waiting to be grasped. Instead, halblaineisgood reinstates notions of authorial control with the ongoing sentiment in place that such control works to remind us that we always only ever after the event, never during it. That this is not happening now but is happening then and that we will never actually get to experience this because it is already over. The period is finitude.

I'm not sure how you didn't get that.

Meh. I've taken screenshots of many of his posts (before he edits them). I may upload and post them one day, in an attempt to prove that permanence, eternality, and timelessness are not a bourgeois fantasy, but a reality in the time and space we occupy at the moment.

Ah, but you don't take into account this point:

 this repetition would only serve to reinforce just how distanced the copied text is from its origin - out of context, it would become an Other, itself a kind of phantom for what was

It shows the time and date of the post, as well as the thread title - it would be rather easy to find the context if one had the desire to do so.

Regardless, in the internet age where every single word and image is dispersed into space, it is a rather far fetched notion to assume that everything that you're writing is mortal. Every original post that Hal has written is currently floating completely untouched through the vacuum of outer space....rendering them eternal and timeless. And if these post-edits/periods are some sort of statement or experiment, I would suggest that Hal find another place to conduct this activity, as seeing periods peppered throughout the board is somewhat perplexing and annoying.

I'm just parodying academic language.

To be honest, though, I think I can understand halblaineisgood's motives - I wouldn't want to necessarily be associated with the statements that I made on a message board 10 years ago. Kafka burned a lot of his writing. Halblaineisgood replaces it with periods. Personally, I don't have a problem with it.

;D I was just playing along.

I totally understand not wanting to associate yourself with old posts that could be embarrassing some years down the line...but perhaps before Hal writes something he could ask himself "Is this something I will end up deleting within a few minutes?" Just to save himself time, as well as the slight irritation from others who have to sift through the periods that are posted.

runners has been my friend for a year & a half by now. During the ban we talked a lot in mails, before that frequently PMed each other. He's one of the few people who's always been nice to me & I will treasure that forever.^_^   Now, on topic, he told me yesterday that he should be unbanned by now & I said yes, you are, since Feb. 26. But he says he wasn't doing well recently, so I hope it all gets sorted out & he will soon be here writing both educative & entertaining posts that you all so like him for. :3d

Btw, I too think his 30-day ban was a little harsh. But I'm clearly not a mod, & it's way too late anyway, so my rant is over.