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Many of our threads have continued over numerous parts, which sometimes makes them baffling to newcomers or even intimidating. Without a guidebook, it’s not always easy to know where to begin, and the prospect of reading through hundreds of comments is daunting to say the least. Although a quick reference isn’t a substitute for reading, it can help someone decide if the thread is ens cup of tea.

We’d like to add a summary page to the HG2MB to give MBers a guide to the continuing threads, but we need your help. With all the newcomers around lately, there’s no time like the present, but GAPA schedules are pretty full right now. Therefore, this thread will serve as a place where anyone who wants to help may draft out useful descriptions of the threads they’re involved with. RRRs and RPGs are obvious candidates, but any multi-part thread — Wungs, Hot Topics, the H&H — also has its traditions and expectations.

These should be BRIEF descriptions, not detailed plot summaries. A reasonable paragraph would be ideal, somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150 words. Think catalogue listing. Course descriptions. How would you answer the question: what’s going on here?

Thanks!

~the GAPAs

Whether your medium is traditional, digital, or in a realm of its own, if it’s visual (or you hope it will be one of these days), here’s a place to talk about it, dream about it, or share ideas, no matter if you’re an artist or not.

Continued from Visual Arts, 2008.2.

These silly threads fill up almost faster than we can create them. You know the drill: pick a pseudonym; guess and be guessed.

Continued from version 2009.2.

NOTE: Check your posts before sending them — remember that now you can use the preview button. The Administrators will not rescue you if you accidentally submit one under your “real” blogname. Many an alter ego has fallen victim to a careless “submit” click.

The challenge is to write a story within the 10 levels of nesting. Sort of a Round-Robin ‘Riting in miniature. The term “story” may be interpreted loosely. Experimental fiction and prose poems are also acceptable.

The rules:

> If two (or more) people reply to the same entry at the same level, the story divides, and each comment may be built upon separately.

> The “tree” may branch where it will, except that the 10th nesting level must always close out that story line.

> You may copy a piece of one story to use as the beginning of a new story.

> More than one story may be in progress.

That should do to start us off. This is an experiment, so don’t be afraid to branch out have some fun with the format.

The idea is to start with an image and each person writes about it as s/he sees it, in the writer’s choice of style. See the original thread for clarification and inspiration.

Current prompt: Someone or something finding three identical footprints in the snow.

Next up: “Two go in, one comes out.”

Previous:
an unusual shop
someone or something on the border between wilderness and civilization

The May Random Thread continues to celebrate past predictions for the future by being as random as you please. Read more »

Read more »

Just upstairs from the ballroom: fresh air and a respite from dancing and music.

Known MBers’ birthdays this month.

05-01 Pentatonikk’s birthday (1992 – puce)
05-02 Nora the Violist’s birthday (1993)
05-04 Cat’s Eye’s birthday
05-07 Nancy Kangas’s birthday
05-08 Peace*’s birthday (1997 – turquoise, black, hot pink)
05-09 Axa’s birthday (1992 – natural blues)
05-11 Dancergirl13’s birthday (1994)
05-15 JJjetplane-girl w/cats’s birthday (1996)
05-15 Thanks For All The Fish42’s birthday (1996 – red)
05-18 Midnight Fiddler’s birthday (1992 – blue/purple/green/brown)
05-22 RoseQuartz’s birthday (1995 – pale pink and silver)
05-28 Syllabub’s birthday (1996)
05-28 MissSwann’s birthday (1996 – deep purple)
05-28 Elizabeth’s birthday (1992 – black and white “like a cow”)
05-29 Andrew’s birthday (1995)
05-31 Tesseract’s birthday (1994 – turquoise)

Turquoise will be 5,000 days old on May 6.
The Man For Aeiou will be 5,000 days old on May 23.

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between August 24 and September 23, 1995.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between November 27 and December 27, 1992.

*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.

In 1958 when Ward Kimball produced “Magic Highway, U.S.A.” for Disneyland, the vision of the future looked a lot like…1958. Aesthetically speaking, that is. Much of the technology still waits to be invented. This month’s Random threads celebrate how imaginations of the past portrayed the future, but in the present, of course, you may be as random as you like.

For the curious, an 8:47-minute excerpt of “Magic Highway, U.S.A.” may be found on YouTube:
youtube.com/watch?v=F6pUMlPBMQA

(Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!)

It’s the biggest event of the academic year. The decorations are up, the food is ready, the musicians are practiced, rested, and in tune.

The ball lasts just a few hours in Musiverse time but unfolds over a whole month of blog time.

Formal attire required. Fortunately, all clothing is virtual and incredibly comfortable to wear.

Help others navigate the blog by signposting your favorite threads here, when they’ve scrolled off the main page.

(Note: Please include the URL (Web address) with your requests. It also helps if you limit your requests to a few at a time, four or five at the most.) Read more »

Attention, MBers! — Please Read

For your gravatar pictures, please do not use images that are photos of recognizable human faces. This includes celebrities.

The only exceptions would be famous people whose portrait Lady Bunniful has painted. Otherwise, she can’t make out the difference between a celebrity’s face and any random person in someone else’s yearbook.

WARNING! Will definitely contain spoilers!

To spare MBers reading the “Recent Comments” columns, please paste the following message in at the beginning of your posts:

SPOILER MUSE SPOILER SPOILER.

*The hyphens are continuing the experiment to try to fool spambots into ignoring this thread.

Let us know when your issue arrives. NO SPOILERS, please. There’s another thread for discussing the issue.

For the 2nd Annual May Day Ball, a formal occasion that is the highlight of the Muse Academy social calendar.

Welcome home, MuseBloggers! The April Random thread awaits your posts.

(Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!)

A perennially popular series of threads in which MBers vent their frustrations and display their creativity by abusing the blog’s favorite scapegoat, . It really does seem to make people feel better.

Continued from Dissing Mr. Joe, Part 3.

A thread whereon MuseBloggers can guess what other MBers look like, continued from 2008.2.

And so it continues. From Part 4.

Howdy, stranger! You new around here? Come right in! We’ve got some pie waiting for you, and friendly locals ready to answer your questions and help you feel at home.

For starters, we recommend that newcomers (that’s what “neophytes” means) look over The Rules and The HG2MB (Hitchhiker’s Guide to MuseBlog), which contains more helpful information than you can shake a stick at. We don’t know why you’d want to shake a stick at it, but now you know you don’t have to bother.

Don’t forget to stop by Who’s Here (see the menu at the top of your screen) and announce your arrival in a comment there, so we’ll be sure to add you to the official list.

MuseBlog Veterans: Please use this thread only to welcome newcomers as they arrive and answer questions that they ask.

Help others navigate the blog by signposting your favorite threads here, when they’ve scrolled off the main page.

(Note: Please include the URL (Web address) with your requests. It also helps if you limit your requests to a few at a time, four or five at the most.)

Current categories:

ADVENTURES IN THE MUSIVERSE
Other Muse Academies https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1317
Ships’ Logs https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1555

LIFE BEYOND THE VIRTUAL DIVIDE
College / University / Higher Education https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1288

SILLY FUN
Harry Potter Trivia-Off, Part 2 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1492
World of Piecraft, Part 4 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1644
Ble! Newluj!-No Fulst, Part 2 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1577
Quotations, 2009 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1633
Coy Woodnesse https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1621
Song Parodies https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1531
Polling Place https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1516

DAYDREAMS
Reclusive Gardens https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1520

ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
Superheros and Mary Sues https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1642

RRRs AND WRITING
Searoc https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1412
Etheterre https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1167
Alchemy https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1554
Books in Progress! https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1659

OTHER THINGS WE LIKE
Computer and Video Games, v. 2.0 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1508
Books and Reading, 2009, Part 1 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1597
Music, v. 2009 https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1598
Song Lyrics https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=905
Visual Arts https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1574

USEFUL ITEMS
Suggestion Box
March’s DFTT
HG2MB v.2008.1

To relieve the congestion on the Random thread.

For those just tuning in, Cleverbot is an upgrade of Jabberwacky, described on Wikipedia as “a chatterbot created by British programmer Rollo Carpenter. Its stated aim is to “simulate natural human chat in an interesting, entertaining and humorous manner”. It is an early attempt at creating an artificial intelligence through human interaction.” It can be found, cleverly enough, at cleverbot.com. More information available on Wikipedia under the topic “Jabberwacky.”

Axa brought up the idea: “I always thought it’d be cool if we all took a picture of what the sky looked like outside our respective windows/houses (no scenery for the most part) but I think it’s be too much work for the GAPAs. And maybe boring? I dunno, I like stuff like that.”

Later in the conversation she added, “It sounds like windows are the window to the soul then, huh? haha. It’s definitely interesting to see things that are commonplace for someone else, how they perceive things.”

Why don’t we try it with verbal descriptions? You could even describe what you’d like to see. (But tell us about your real-world view first.)