What ever happend to Dan Carroll? Warning: Serenity spoilers!

Hi Phat, No, not because Dan isn't here, although it would be good to here from him again.I have said why the site is sinking, it has become clinical and stale.Why should we have to be editors and criticise every new proposed topic? I know we had some shitty topics started off, but some were entertaining, and when they did get too stupid they got shut down. Now though, a member could ask someone on a thread if they wanted to discuss a side issue by opening a new thread. Now they may have to wait a couple of days before continuing the discussion and during this time the urge to discuss this may have subsided.Half the fun here was reading the crazy OP's of some of the creationists that used to post here. There are hardly any here now and part of the reason is that they cannot write a topic proposal that will pass Admin inspection. No wonder they bugger off to other sites, hell we had to drag Buz and Mike back here to try and inject life into the site! How desperate are we that we get Mike back And you guys need more realism From a guy whose entire being centres on the return of a 2000 year old guy. Bring back the good old days!!!Bring back Wise and the 'Eye of God'!Bring back Willowtree and that damn Pyramid!Bring back Davison and his Darwinian myth!Bring back Lysimachus with the crooked Ron Wyatt stuff!Bring back Ron Wyatt!! Oh wait, I've gone too far! Brian.

Well, I heard from Dan and he's fine. He's been busy with the move and also got bored with EvC, but may return someday soon. He did have some interesting comments that I'll include for your consideration. Often I echo his feelings.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jar did indeed drop me a line, thought I'd swing by. And oh lordy be, I think I'm gonna cry. But a manly kind of cry. The kind where you clench a fist and listen to Johnny Cash. You people are beautiful.Mike is, for once in his life, right about something... both about the spelling of my name, and the fact that Chicago was safely out of the path of the mighty wrath of YHWH that recently swept across America. Good work, kid. You'll go far.Schraf is, as usual, absolutely right. "The Windy City" refers to politics... specifically, I think, to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Although thanks to Lake Michigan, it happens to be an exceptionally windy city. I like living in a city that has a redundant meta-nickname. And for the record, it was only through great strength of will and intense physical control that I avoided having an orgasm in the theater while watching Serenity.As for me, my departure wasn't so much a planned disappearance as it was a gradual sorta disinterest. As I said to Jar, it wound up feeling like it was the same merry-go-round over and over again, cranking out the same stock responses to the same stock arguments every day. Eventually you kinda wanna beat your head into a wall. Combine it with the fact that I moved up North, which kept me busy and off the internet for a while, and I just sorta trailed off.And yeah, I'd be lying if I said the fun of this place hadn't gone downhill. (As some have pointed out on this thread.) When I first came on, it was a bit of a hoot ripping on the occasional (or really, intensely frequent) nutcases that populated the board. Say what you want about Wise and Willowtree, they made for some exceptionally entertaining flamewars. And it was a solid formula... some crackpot would post his theory about a bear's paw as a symbol for the Adversary, or about how Jesus can be seen in a floating cloud of stellar gas, his lips clearly mouthing "repeal Roe v. Wade", and we would all smack him down with the immature ferocity of a thousand 15 year old gamers. Good clean fun every time.Then the boot camp came along, along with a general crackdown on tomfoolery. And yeah, given that my role around here was to provide some much-needed sarcasm, the forum didn't so much seem like the place for me to be.That being said, I think the crackdown is ultimately a good thing. For the love of crimney, look at the country over the course of the past five years. The President of the United States actually just got up in front of the nation and proudly reccomended teaching Intelligent Design in schools. I mean honestly, Intelligent freakin' Design, the academic equivalent of medical leeches. The country is on one big downslide of nonsense and ignorance, and the more venues ther are for freely available hard science, the better. There are scads of smart folks around here, perfectly capable of providing some mental two-by-fours to the skull, and that kind of thing generally works better if it's not drowned out by dick jokes.Generally, at least. It's a case by case basis, really.

For some really fun discussions on subjects that range from food to deseases of the horser kind to the best wax for removing body hair, drop into chat sometime when our gaggle of creators of tomfoolery, Trixie, The Queen and Lady Schraf are around.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Glad that you made an appearence, Dan. EvC is the sum of its members and maybe a bit more (or less!) That means that you DO really help us, and for that reason we all made you cry by saying, collectively, "Save us"!!!You can respond several ways.1) Rise up and walk2) Dan has a life. Perhaps all of you should try and get one as well.3) Of course I will drop by more! The site IS still occasionally entertaining, if not enlightening!Thanks for dropping in, Dan! I hope you pick #3!PB (Come meet us in Chat!)This message has been edited by Phat, 10-25-2005 02:07 AM

Hello, Dan. Good to hear from you. You've been dearly missed. Willowtree is still around now and then, he goes by the name of Herepton nowadays.

Oh man, I just read a couple of his threads; I take everything back. Somebody gimme a handful of poo to fling.

Did you ever arrive somewhere just as the fun was ending? You know, when the regulars say, "Boy, you shoulda been here when we really had a good time!"I hate that.Still, I did notice a while back that when Faith was banned from the science forums and randman was generally banned, it was damned dull. I gather a decision was made at some point to tighten up to limit the especially, exceedingly crappy garbage...but I've read all of randman's recent posts, and I have difficulty imagining they represent improvement. We could have a thread devoted to questions that randman is actively ignoring, and it would outgrow the original threads.Maybe I should join some Creationist boards, put EvCforum.net in my signature, and start posting excerpts from Dawkins (Omnivorous rides hellbent for leather back through the forum gates, pursued by packs of heaven-hounds...).

I agreed with your merry-go-round assessment of what happens at EvC. I've considered changing my name to Sisyphus.As a side question. I've heard from people that chicago has been changing a lot over the last two years. Lots of crappy new buildings replacing the cooler sections of town and everything getting expensive (including public transport).Is this true?And if so, are you to blame?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Depends on where you go. (Although yes, the CTA is jacking up fares from $1.75 to $2.00 pretty soon.) Lincoln Park and Wicker Park/Bucktown are pretty much gutted, and Lakeview is getting there. (Although Lakeview's been getting there without actually... you know, getting there... for years.) Andersonville and Ukie Village are still okay. Although I think Ukie Village's days are numbered... it's become the new Bucktown, so it's really just a matter of time before it shares Bucktown's fate. Yes.

When you say Lincoln Park or Lakeview, does that include Belmont/Boy'sTown (which kind of sits beside both)?That was one of my favorite parts of Chicago, and it'd suck if that went all trendy and lost its soul.Also, do you know if Demon Dogs off the Fullerton stop is gone now too? At least I know what shape to make my voodoo doll.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

What about Hyde Park?

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"Turning out pigs for creationists makes me blue and blurry."--Brad McFall

Boystown is still okay. (That's where I'm living now, just south of Belmont.) It's more when you get up into the closer-to-Wrigleyville end of Boystown.And I should specify... it's not so much that the excellent shops around Boystown or anything are gone... it's more that somewhere along the lines, gay people became a target demographic. So an area that was formerly immune to huge billboards and a Starbucks on every corner is suddenly fair game. (Although it seems to be sticking with a Caribou on every corner, which is if not a small victory, at least a tiny defeat.)And like I say, it's been hovering at about that point for years, so it's probably no different now than the last time you saw it. 'Fraid so.This message has been edited by [Dan's Clever Alias], 10-24-2005 01:01 PM

Hyde Park is exactly the same, except that UChicago continues to buy up land at a horrifying clip.Oh, and there's a Borders now.I'm sorry, there's just not much excitement to be told when it comes to Hyde Park.

How I've missed you!Seriously, Serenity?Can you stand it?I cried and cried and cursed Joss Whedon mightily, and then, in a couple of days, went back again.Delicious pain, how I need thee.