Yesterday I ended up in pure teenage helluva bar because I thought I'll
go just drink something before going home. Everybody looked like ten
years younger than me and it really looked like I was the coolest person
around there. And things are really not looking good, when I'm the
coolest person in the bar. Of course these teenagers couldn't even notice
my awesomeness. For a while I had a feeling they're taking wagers whether
that old ugly guy has a van parked outside. Well, the company really didn't
matter because it was like any other bar trip where nobody comes to talk
to me. Except those 10 people who came to root for Barcelona because I was
wearing my Barcelona jersey. And none of them were women! We really need
to get that sport more popular amongst women.

Since the bar was damn boring from my point of view, I started to put
effort in my own behaviour of becoming the most awesome person in the bar.
I went on the crowded bar counter and the bartender asked what I'd be having
I just pointed some random guy next to me and replied "I think this guy
here was before me." and the guy was like collecting his eyeballs from
the floor "Huge respect. Never heard anyone do that!"

The next time when I went to order something, I took a whiskey and surprised
some teen girl behind me by saying "So, what are you having?" and she
then ordered a cider. I just paid for the drinks and took my whiskey and
disappeared barely giving a chance for the girl to even thank me for the
cider. I couldn't have cared less about these people, but these stupid
antics gave much joy to myself, just looking at how people react to them.

But people are tiresome. By addressing people, you're already reducing the
conversation into generalizations. Like, "the old people are cutting in line"
or "teenagers are loud and obnoxious". Usually when talking about people as
some kind of groups, it often includes some negative stereotype.

Individual members of groups can often be nice. When you actually learn to
know an individual, they can be completely different than a random member
of a group. Perhaps they might actually have some of the stereotypical traits
but they may have different kind of qualities that make knowing the person
worthwhile.

Then again there's no saying individuals are always better. In some cases
some individuals can be a lot worse than an average member of a group. But
we can't all like each other, can we? I think it's quite impossible that
there is a person that everyone would like, unless your Fonzie. Sometimes
when I'm going to mudcons, I have had a funny discussion which goes like
this (I won't be using anyone's real names):

- "So Darol, heard your going to mudcon this weekend?"
- "Yeah, I am."
- "Did you hear that Turbosamurai is coming too?"
- "Yeah, but isn't he an asshole?"
- "No, that's him in the mud. In real life he is okay."

Okay, this bothers me. I know about 250 people in the mud and they're awesome
online. I've met at cons probably the same amount of people and I'm glad to
say that they're awesome in real life too. So how am I supposed to rank these
people? Well, I might be a little blue-eyed country girl if I'm saying this,
but I kind of want to rank these people who are nice all the time on the top,
and the people who are okay in real life but assholes in the mud kind of
share the ranks below the first 250 people. But that's just me.

With this logic you can basically form this kind of sentences, which are
of course valid:

"Turbosamurai is a nice guy, when he is not online. Online he can't act."
"Turbosamurai is a nice guy, when he is not drunk. He can't behave drunk."
"Turbosamurai is a nice guy, when he is not armed. He's known for shooting
people."

So this group of people is awesome if you include some sort of condition
there. Of course there's one thing that I have completely omitted. Let's
take the previous conversation and add a few more lines to the dialogue:

- "So Darol, heard your going to mudcon this weekend?"
- "Yeah, I am."
- "Did you hear that Turbosamurai is coming too?"
- "Yeah, but isn't he an asshole?"
- "No, that's him in the mud. In real life he is okay."
- "That's nice to hear. I'm looking forward to it."
- "Me too! I'm so excited. These cons are only once a year and Turbosamurai
doesn't participate that many cons. This is one of those rare
opportunities to meet the real person. It's like this was the only
day his doctor has given him his right medication."
- "Yeah, tell me about it! I can talk to these 24/7 nice-guys all the
time, but Turbosamurai is a one-time-thing. Like a full solar eclipse
or something."

Okay, I think you got my point. And we can continue the discussion a little
bit further:

- "Eclipse? Isn't that some sort of Java environment?"
- "It is. And what a coincidence by the way. I actually saw a solar eclipse
when I was in Java. That's also an island in Indonesia."
- "That's quite a coincidence. Java is coffee too."
- "Go to hell! I don't drink coffee."

Of course continuing the conversation didn't have anything to do with my
original topic, but I can't just pretend these people would stop the
conversation to point blank. I think it's more realistic that they would
drift away from the original subject and eventually slip in the Nazi card
somewhere.

But my original point was that you can include some condition that makes
some of these individuals tolerable. You can even say that people who
spam you with Viagra mail or Nigerian scam letters are really nice guys,
when they're not online. I personally hate spam though. I cannot stand it,
but luckily the spam filters are quite good nowadays. I've been just
thinking who actually started this. I think it was the Christians. That
Paul the Apostle guy. Even when there was no email, this guy was
relentless. He sent a letter to Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, two letters
to Corinthians, two letters to Thessalonians and many more. Did these
people ask for these letters? What were the people in Corinth thinking
about it? Were they happy they got a penpal or were they wondering what
the heck is this Paul preaching us about. I'm just trying to run my
vineyard here!

I was thinking this thing before on my trip to Lapland and came up with
modified lyrics from "Rule Britannia" that would have been suitable
for Corinthians.

Excerpt from original song:

"Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never never never shall be slaves."

And the same modified for Corinthians. If there are any Corinthians
playing BatMUD, you are free to use this if they're still spamming
you with letters you don't want:

"Return to sender! These are letters from Paul.
We Corinthians want to hear no more!"

Well, it doesn't fit perfectly, but I'm sure Paul the Apostle hasn't
even heard the original.

I also came up with some new words to Marseillaise, but maybe it's
best to leave that to some other time.