MuseBlog

Just for letting us know when your copy arrives. NO SPOILERS, PLEASE! There’s a separate thread for discussing the issue.

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 SPOILER SEPTEMBER MUSE SPOILER SPOILER SEPTEMBER MUSE SPOILER SPOILER SEPTEMBER MUSE SPOILER SPOILER

Continued from the original thread.

The questions just keep coming.

Continued from Ask the GAPAs, No. 3.

Anagrams are words, phrases, or sentences made by rearranging the letters in other words, phrases, or sentences.

Requested by Cedar and Red-tailed HAWK. (Cedar is also interested in words made from subsets of the letters in other words.)

Shadowkat’s original description:

a thread where everyone posts under a different (new) name, and pretends to be their alter-ego. We could even take it a step further, and have everyone try to guess who each alter-ego-name actually is. Once somebody figured out who you were, if they ever did, you would post under your original other-thread name, and just keep talking and trying to guess who other people really are if that makes any sense.

NOTE: Check your posts before sending them. The Administrators will not rescue you if you accidentally submit one under your “real” blogname.

The press office at West Virginia University says the 20th annual Pumpkin Drop is probably going to be held on October 26. Some Musers have said they’d like to enter this year, and we say “go for it.” To see what it’s all about, read the Koko Bomb Saga.

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

First installment: We take over Barnes & Noble.
Slideshow: Day One (comment #47)
Purple Panda’s movie (comment #63)
Slideshow: Day Two (comment #138878)

More pictures below. See comment #47.

And here’s something to argue about.

If you insist.

Requested by Disreputable Dragon, who describes it as follows:

all about the quirks of the English language and craunching marmosets – er, phrases that you want to find the origins of (oh dear, I ended a sentence with a preposition! *horror*)

First up, a selection from Glassboro:

And more from TNÖ Lilbro the Quartermaster of the Wraith and Dictator-Queen of
Hot Pink Bunny Land:

They walk among us. They want a thread. We hear and obey.

From the Administrators:

At the Washington, D.C., Kokonvention on August 10, some MuseBloggers exchanged “real world” names and e-mail addresses. Since then, some of you have compiled a big e-mail list of MBers — including people who weren’t at the Kokonvention — and have sent it to everyone on the list, again including non-Konventioneers. Some of the recipients have made it clear that they didn’t want to get the list and didn’t like seeing their names on it.

We think this is a bad idea. It’s one thing to send e-mail to individual MBers whom you have met in person and who have specifically said they’d like to hear from you. Sending e-mail to people who don’t want to get it, however, is spamming. Circulating contact information about people who don’t want it circulated is almost as bad. The Kokonventioneers we met are wonderful people who clearly mean no harm. But spreading information around just makes it more likely that someone might use it to harass MBers. We would hate for that to happen. MuseBlog and Kokonventions are supposed to make people’s lives better, not worse.

We can’t control what happens off the blog. But we’d strongly prefer that you

• don’t send e-mail to anyone you don’t know;
• don’t send e-mail to anyone who hasn’t asked for it;
• don’t reveal names or contact information of other MBers.

That’s how we run the blog, and that’s how we’d like you to help run our expanding Muser community.

Midnight Fiddler said it excellently in a recent post:

The GAPAs work really hard to make MuseBlog a fun and safe place to be, and I don’t think it’s fair to organize an email loop for several reasons. One, the health of the blog, two, it’s really exclusive to the people who have been lucky enough to go to a Kokonvention, and the others who didn’t make it get left in the dust. Three, I’d prefer to know, or meet in person the people that know my email adress. I’m not trying to be a spoil sport, but I think that this is an issue that needs to be discussed.

Thanks,

Robert, Rosanne, Rebecca, and Paul

We will post more sights and sounds from the DC Kokonventions in the coming days. To give you a taste of what to expect, here is the first installment of video highlights sent to us by Purple Panda.

What happened last year on August 11? Answer: We opened a Back-to-School thread on MuseBlog. And it looks like it’s that time again.

Requested by Alice. We’re a bit late in starting this thread, but there’s still material to be mined, mayhap.

For last year’s version of this thread, search under “obsessed.”

The Friday Washington Kokonvention is history (albeit recent and glorious history). The Wednesday Kokon’ is still to come. The kokonversation continues.

Continued from Part 1.

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

I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me!
I hear you high on Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.
The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea,
The snow-besprinkled wine of earth, the white-and-blue-flower foaming sea.

Beyond the bay in utmost West old Solomon the Jewish King
Sits with his beard upon his breast, and grips and guards his magic ring:
And when that ring is stolen, he will rise in outraged majesty,
And take the World upon his back, and fling the World beyond the sea.

–James Elroy Flecker, “The Gates of Damascus,” from The Golden Journey to Samarkand

Those indefatigable podcasters Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan have assembled their fifth MuseCast for your delectation. It’s twice as long as any of the others and is ver-r-r-ry interesting.

If you’ve come in late, you can also listen to MuseCast 1, MuseCast 2, MuseCast 3, and MuseCast 4, right here on the blog.

The story is complete. The next phase is underway.

Continued from Part 4.

Don’t worry if you don’t feel inspired to make pseudopies (“dry pies”). The GAPAs will whip up some quick-and-sloppy ones this weekend so nobody will go without.

If you haven’t made yours yet but plan to, think small. These pie-oid objects are symbols, not offensive weapons. The lighter and more portable they are, the happier you will be as you lug them around the scorching, steaming, sizzling streets of Washington, D.C., which non-natives have been known to mistake for the surface of the planet Venus.

This announcement will be repeated on the Kokonvention Kountdown thread.

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