ehowton ◾ ◾ Twelfth Night

I'm not much of a practical joker. I don't have the cycles for it, and I'm rarely amused by them, no matter what side of the joke I'm on. That's why I'm surprised that what I pulled was such a resounding success. In all honesty, however, practical joking was the last thing on my mind, which is why I suppose, it was such a success. Every 'i' dotted, every 't' crossed, the entire operation, from inception to completion, was brilliant. By far, my most flawless executed design, to date.

It began, more or less as a philosophical discussion (as these things so often do) on how awesome it would be if

schpydurx were to participate in our comments with more a singular-minded objective (i.e. posting relevant, engaging conversation) rather than what he saw as pithy retorts, and the rest of the blogging community saw as an online annoyance. in that frame of reference, if

drax0r posted something either outrageous or timely, schpydurx would respond in such a manner to foster further discussion, rather than killing the thread.

So drax0r and I plotted, and we created the

professortom livejournal site. Using his original text, user profile, avatar and color-scheme from his ProfessorTom xanga site, we took our time in crafting a history for this site - copying text from his later entries on xanga before authoring original material. now its this original material that I'm most proud of. First of all, to emulate Tom, you must first become Tom - a daunting task! I spent hours pouring over his old entries, reading passages over and over until I felt I had the theme, the emotions right. After that, it was just a matter of writing as Tom, and adding another level of self-degradation.

That done, it was time to put some life into these entries. I scoured the web for pointless meme's and answered all the questions as if I hated life, the universe, and everything. Most important, I answered as if I hated myself. When the most depressing results were returned, I would leave the link intact to authenticate, but change the resulting text to be even more degrading. I have to admit, most of the things I posted in the meme's had me giggling like a schoolgirl. And poor drax0r - wiping his monitor dry from the tears squirting from his eyes!

Collectively, when we felt we had the believability and history to support it, we began posting as him. First, on our own sites, to further the initial objective. But one cannot keep something as precious as this to one's self. Especially considering the amount of work which was involved to create it! Perhaps, now looking back, that was our eventual downfall; we posted as him, to our lady-friend's site,

galinda822.

Once he discovered our infiltration (again, by our own hands; a mistake looking back, perhaps) the results were initially as we anticipated. HE BELIEVED HE MAY HAVE POSTED THEM HIMSELF! Alas, this quickly turned to doubt, fear, distrust, and sadly, panic...Bringing our little game to a quick end. In fact, every selection we had chosen in creating this falsehood was so very accurate, that he himself had temporarily forgotten that the avatar & username staring back at him, and the words we had placed there, were not his own. Better than I could have ever imagined!

Thanks for being such a good sport, Tom. Sure was fun while it lasted!

In a completely separate scenario, drax0r was following links and came across a young, conservative christian girl here, in which he began to debate her. It was a wonderful exchange, and in a surprising move from the majority of young, conservative, christian girls I know, she didn't immediately delete his post! Unfortunately, his side of the debate was declared an 'attack' on this lady's site and in case she chooses to delete my post, I provide my response to her attack on drax0r, as she admits to blocking him from her site:

My friend who posted on your friend's blog (though they were 'unsolicited' she did post in a public forum found from a link to a link to a link - that's how the 'web' works) enjoys challenging himself through the answers posed by diametrically opposite people in order to learn and grow. After reading the exchange, I was impressed with two items of note. One, the girl was very strong in her beliefs and did not back down. I admire that. Two, my friend was very polite for the duration of his discourse with her. The exception of course being two other posters who were more or less inserting themselves into the conversation at random - I won't argue that. Having known my friend personally for nearly a decade, I cannot think of any other person who has grown so much by questioning himself, others, and his surroundings as thoroughly as he has. Do I agree with him all the time? Of course not! But I admire his strength and ability to get others, including myself, to examine their own belief structure and look past the paradigm of life.

When he blogs on my site, he may be more direct, or even condescending - again, we've known each other many years and that's usually his way of bypassing what he thinks my initial response will be; same with ProfessorTom - it's more banter, really. But on a stranger's page during an unsolicited comment, he's very careful to avoid making statements which could be considered false statements of fact intended to defame one's character. And you've chosen to already block him. Yes, that's your right, but it really sounds more to me like you just disagree with what he had to say. And I'm pretty sure given the scenario above, some of the more outrageous statements he made he doesn't really believe himself, he's just following a conclusion to its own eventuality.

It's been a fun, busy, blogging weekend.