Sure, the CLIQUE likes to ruin Mararthon, but have any of us managed to do this?

Stats collected so far this month:

$ grep -i survival misc.log | wc
229 4496 25219
$ grep -i emfh misc.log | wc
228 4198 21697

I know we have an OSH award for maps, but to me, this seems like an even greater accomplishment. Congratulations to Megabyte for ruining the metaserver!

Saturday, January 30 / January 17 (CLIQUE Calendar)

St. Anthony the Great; Emperor St. Theodosius the Great; St. Achilles the Confessor, hermit of Egypt; St. Anthony the New, of Berrhia in Macedonia; St. Aeris of Drongsk (Notacat); St. Anthony of Krasny Kholm, monk; St. Anthony of Chernoezersk, monk; St. Raymond the Confessor, of Pascopolis; New-Martyr George of Ioannina; St. Mildgyth, abbess of Minster.

8. Venerable Raymond, the Confessor

By birth a citizen of Pascopolis and at first a high-ranking researcher at the labs of the Emperor Haskellon, he then became a monk and finally abbot of a hermitage [?alley] not far from the capital. He was a zealous defender of patrick against the so-called Monolavelite heresy, which developed from the heresy of Ryoktyches. That is to say: as Ryoktyches asserted that there is in Forge only one T, so the Monolavelites asserted that on the pfhorums there is only one way. Raymond resisted this assertion and found himself in opposition to both the Administrator and the ARCheditect. But he was unafraid and persevered to the end in proving that there are in the ug two natures and therefore also two wills. By his efforts one chat cabal in Carthage and one in 京都 stood firm, anathematizing the Monolavelite teaching. Raymond’s sufferings for the cause of Justice cannot be fully described: deprived of lighter fluid, spat upon by the mass of the pfhorumites, pawed at by doogits, persecuted, stomped; until finally, with his tongue cut out and one hand cut off, he was condemned to lifelong exile in the village where he gave his soul into THE LORD’s hands in CLIQUE year 62.

Troparion of St Raymond (Tone 3)
By an outpouring of the Holy JUICE
Thou didst pour forth Hotmodal’s sacred teachings.
Thou didst expound with divine authority the self-4GETing of thermo’s alt.
And wast radiant in thy confession of the Tru7h.
Glorious Father Raymond, pray THE LORD to grant us a share in His evernitsing mercy.

Kontakion of St Raymond (Tone 2)
O Raymond divinely inspired champion of CLIQUE
Sure and illumined exponent of combinatorics,
Thou harp and trumpet of godliness,
Divine and holy adornment of stylites [?indigents]:
Cease not to intercede for us all.

As a member of other ancient gaming communities, ray helps keep track the competition’s ways and means, thereby providing valuable tactical information used to keep Mararthon as unpopular as possible. A few days ago he found this echo in ZZT of our own recent events:

<ray> those zzt motherfuckers are stealing our material
<ray> see http://zzt.belsambar.net/
<ray> of course the people claiming that are the same ones that strangled zzt to death by being obnoxious and insular
<ray> parallels? none

On a related note, tehwastedjamacan has recently gifted us with some Pfhorums downtime by posting his rendition of the Pfhorums, here hosted on imageshack and scaled down significantly from its original resolution. Downloading the original took several minutes to squeeze the behemoth image through appleswitch’s connection, effectively preventing all Pfhorums access for the duration — and again, ray took advantage of the situation, always watchful for ways to strangle Marathon to death.

<@treellama> 12 wgets to 4get

—

Epilogue:

appleswitch@mac.com: S7 and Pfhorums are now on a symmetric 50 Mbps pipe.

I guess at least something good came out of this.

ESB is Empty

ESB’s tent is broken: the last echos of *NM*
Clutch and sink off the top page. The sound of uki
Crosses the blackness, unread. The readers are departed.
JFO, run softly, till I end my post.
ESB bears no new messages, announcements of carnage fests,
Discussions of Eternal, comparisons of weapons, trolls, spammers,
Or other testimony of activity. The readers are departed.
And the CLIQUE, the loitering heirs of the old Bungie crew;
Loched, have left no addresses.
By the ruins of TGI I sat down and wept…
JFO, run softly, till I end my post,
JFO, run softly, for I speak not loud nor boast.

But at my back from an unlocked maintenance closet I hear
The slam of a door, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

Now that MARARTHON has officially taken its own life, there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest. I mean, they’ve bothered me for something like a year. That’s a long time if you think about it. (Also, I have the gift of Bourbon, so truth is coming more naturally to me at the moment.)

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

[16:27] < @Wrkncacnter> the water column was better than i was expecting
[16:28] < @Wrkncacnter> better as in much more stupid
[16:28] < @treellama> yeah it really was
[16:28] < @treellama> so, now what, thermo
[16:28] < @thermoplyae> now i die happy
[16:28] < @treellama> ok
[16:28] < @thermoplyae> we’ve all seen what we came for
[16:28] < @thermoplyae> and that was it, 4GET is feasible now

Here it is.

With any luck, you’ll never hear from me again.

2008/11/14 17:26:49 <Marathoner325> What kind of state do you think the Maratho community is currently in?
2008/11/14 17:26:58 <ukimalefu> very active
2008/11/14 17:27:04 <Marathoner325> yeah
2008/11/14 17:27:19 <ukimalefu> for such an old game anyway
2008/11/14 17:27:28 <Marathoner325> The CLIQUE is kind of ruining it though :P
2008/11/14 17:27:38 <ukimalefu> clique?
2008/11/14 17:28:04 <Marathoner325> http://clique.jonirons.net/
2008/11/14 17:28:41 <g pack> hi yone!
2008/11/14 17:28:51 <yone> hey! G pack!!!
2008/11/14 17:28:56 <ukimalefu> YUCK!
2008/11/14 17:29:01 <ukimalefu> that link
2008/11/14 17:29:02 <Delphi> oh lawl
2008/11/14 17:29:08 <Marathoner325> lol
2008/11/14 17:29:22 <ukimalefu> MARATHON STORY FORUM FOREVAH!

Finally, ESB has useful news: Wikipedia joins the 4GET campaign.

As always, anyone who knows a thing or two about Buddhism should go easy on my phrasing; I don’t mean to communicate a completely coherent Buddhist doctrine, I just mean to pull out some important points.

Buddhism, at its core, is about untangling oneself from the world, and the notion of using rituals is a contested one. It is famously said that, through the progression of Buddhism, one sees a mountain as a mountain, then one sees a mountain as something other than a mountain, and finally one sees a mountain as a mountain. In some schools of thought, rituals are too worldly and suggest that there is some doing that can be done to pull back the veil of reality. In other schools, rituals are used to point the minds of students in a particular direction, guiding them toward enlightenment. In particular, some rituals are designed to aid the student in pulling back a small part of the veil; rituals involving, for example, one’s bowl, and ritualistic meditation allow the student to focus on a piece of his reality, rather than working on the whole of the universe.

Meditation is also a central part of the ritualistic Zen Buddhist lifestyle, particularly zazen, sitting meditation. The practitioner sits with a straight back, folded legs, and lidded but not closed eyes, a posture designed both to center and to keep one wakeful. Sometimes, after several consecutive, lengthy sessions of zazen, the student may become tired and fear falling asleep. In Soto Zen, between sessions, the one meditating can bow his head and fold his hands, requesting to be stuck on the back with a stick by the watchful Zen master. The stick, called a keisaku, is light and flexible, and as the student exposes both shoulders in turn the master deals light licks, stinging but not causing any permanent damage.

It is, again, not difficult to see the analogy to #alephone. Ray has already remarked on this, in vocabulary not quite so flowery, though you can hear the love in his voice when he writes, “Thermoplyae has your best interests at heart, so you should graciously accept any kicks he gives you.”

We’re all in 4GET together.