So. Well. I just graduated from university. Was nervous as all hell during the dissertation discussion, but all went well overall.

...

......

.........I'm FREEEEEEEEE! *jumps out of the window, runs off into the sunset*

Even though I no longer visit StarChat, some of my friends still do, and at times, they tell me tales of the Wondrous Land Of Much Great IRCing that I left behind. The newest tale is related to this one channel called #40plus, which is one of the largest channels on StarChat (or at least was when I still wandered around Those Hallowed Halls). It was noticed that the current channel topic is this:

Please remove 'kickchat' mirc script if you have it. Also 'serene mirc or serene pirch'. They are not permitted on starchat!

I was the one who scripted SereneMIRC, incidentally, and I'm quite flattered that people like it enough that they go to the trouble of adding StarChat servers to it (it only has Serenity-IRC servers in the servers.ini by default) and use it on StarChat as well. I'm even more flattered that StarChat seems to think SereneMIRC and SerenePIRCH so dangerous that they need to be outright forbidden. True, those two clients advertise Serenity-IRC in their default quit messages, but so do pretty much all "branded" clients - including StarChat's own ones, StarMIRC and StarPIRCH. Which we see wander through Serenity-IRC fairly often, and we just grin at.

I dunno. If I saw people consistently using the "branded" clients of another network instead of mine, I'd take that as a hint that maybe, just maybe, my own branded client isn't quite up to par. (Just five extra lines of code and a fugly background to differentiate it from plain mIRC? No information or documentation on shortcut keys introduced? Unnecessary soundfiles? Say it isn't so.) But I guess that requires coherent thought beyond "wahhhhh, they're evil, make them STOP!"...

I hear one or two of the opers there are somewhat able to script mIRC, maybe they could help. Just gotta be careful about those endless loops, I hear they can cause a client to ping itself out...

*yawns and stretches* So I'm actually done with university now. Well, not done done - I still need to do one essay (which I will probably do later today or tomorrow), and then I need to discuss my dissertation (that's on the 30th) - but no more exams, my last one was on Friday. Yay!
Now I have to find the will to tidy my room. Granted, it needs it, it's not really been tidied in months, I have stacks of manga everywhere... but I'm a bit grumpy that I'm now out of excuses to not tidy it. :P
And then after tidying my room, I get to upgrade the OS on this computer and play Thief 3. Now that I'm looking forward to. :D
And yes, yes, I'll also update my poor neglected websites. And catch up on everything else I need to do. Even though I don't know how I'll manage to do everything, since I only have a month before I leave for Edinburgh for the summer... ahh well. We'll see.

And now for stress relief, once more. This one I'm hiding in an extended entry, because it's long and not particularly polite. Not that the other rants were polite, but this one is going to be quite worse. I'm really fed up with this jackass.

(La Traviata is one of my favourite operas, for the record. I hope Verdi will not be beating the world record of grave spins... I just could not resist.
I'm putting it in the extended entry, both because it's a bit long and to spare those of you who don't like operas.)

Lookit here, jackass. If you got banned from a channel, it is because the ops there were getting fed up with your shitty attitude. As are we. Coming into the help channel and demanding to know why you were banned from a channel, following it up with "am not impressed", isn't quite the right attitude to keep. When the oper helping you responds that she doesn't know, telling her "well find out then", then storming off in the middle of her explanation that you should ask an op of that channel because you didn't like it, is quite frankly inexcusable. Newsflash, buddy, the world does not revolve around you.
Oh, by the way? I checked the akick list of that channel you got banned from. There are two entries for you, with two different hosts, the second one mentioning that you used your second ISP to evade the ban. Ban evading is an offense that's punishable with an akill. You're lucky the channel owner (who is also an oper) decided to simply ban you again rather than enforce that rule.
I thought you should know that you have several opers watching you like hawks now, and I frankly doubt any of us would feel very forgiving if you were to do something else that's akill-worthy. But please, don't let that stop you. Do keep acting like crap. I look forward to the fireworks.

You, dearest foul-mouthed asshat currently polluting this one forum I moderate, appear to be suffering from a terminal case of cranial rectitis. A proctologist has been contacted, and will get in touch with you as soon as possible to assist you in dislodging your head from your ass, as well as removing those two ten-foot poles which also seem to be stuck there (although I am not quite sure how they fit). In the meantime, please be kind and breathe through your nose, keeping your mouth firmly shut. You'll avoid spewing shit everywhere that way.

Hm, that's odd, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou. You seem to utterly lack reading comprehension skills. I quite simply stated that I have decided to not help with anything related to filesharing; this because the filesending capabilities in mIRC were not intended for that, as evidenced by the fact that the official mIRC forums will offer no help on that matter. I am not quite sure how you managed to read that as "I will stomp on you because I am a moderator on a powertrip! You are a thief! The person who programmed mIRC is deliberately facilitating the trade of illegal files! I am a narcissist! I am afraid of sharing knowledge! Please do feel free to insult me!", but it was quite the amazing feat.
What's that? You are a retired cop? Ohhhhh. I am deeply sorry, then. Let me grovel and bow down to you and kiss your feet.
And while you are lost in that particular fantasy, I will lock the thread as I should have done days ago, when it started being apparent that you were unable to conduct a conversation in a civil manner. It's too bad you weren't taught how to be polite to people while serving as a policeman, isn't it?

To my well-intentioned family members: look, I know I have to get up at 10am at most because my train's at 10:40 and if I don't get there in time I risk missing the exam I have this afternoon. That's not a particularly good reason to keep waking me up every five bloody minutes when it's still only about 9am and I'm trying to sleep as much as I can so I'll not be a brain-dead zombie during the exam, kthx.

To the Thief 3 installation on a computer at my local comic/game store: nononono. Stop looking at me like that. I'm not playing my first ever Thief 3 game on a computer in a too brightly lit and too loud computer store. I already have the game, I'm going to play it as soon as I have the time, so stop tempting me. Please?

To the lady who cried in outrage: look, lady. Your kid plays near the heavy doors of a restaurant, which is dumb. You let him do it, laughing and gabbing with a friend of yours and not really looking at what he's doing, which is doubly dumb. Somebody comes out of the restaurant, pushing the doors forward, and when the doors swing back your kid jumps in the path of the doors and is hit. You screaming in outrage at the person because of what they did to your precious kid is really, really dumb. The kid jumped in the path of the doors. The person had already stepped forward and could not physically see the kid (it's not like average humans have eyes on the back of their heads). It's not like they did it on purpose. I'm sympathetic and all, but really, take better care of your kids, ok?

To the "sysadmin" of the university computers: I understand you want to keep an eye on the activities of the students and all that. However, if you do so by installing a firewall / filtering program, you should at least make sure the computer has enough resources to run said program. On the old, old computers the university has, the wonderful program you installed causes the whole computer to completely freeze for 15 seconds every time a webpage is loaded, while the program does its work. Congratulations, brainiac.

*looks at Thief 3 box sitting in front of her*

:D

Now I really can't wait until I finish my exams, can sort out my computer and finally play...

:D

Dear Mr. I Want To Be An IRCop: you asked how to become an IRCop, and you were told the usual process. You were told that you had to spend time on the network first, and then you had to be sponsored as a helper by a current staff member; if you did well as a helper, you would then be considered for an IRCop position. What's that? You don't know any current staff members? Well, see, that's the point of spending time on the network, IRCops do notice good users. Why the hell are you asking how to be a helper now? You have already been told. Also, if I were you, I would think twice about using "well, I don't speak English well enough to understand your Acceptable Usage Policy" as an excuse for not wanting to follow a rule, when you want to be an IRCop. DUH.

Dearest WebTV User: you pay to get online. You don't pay to chat on IRC. We do, however, spend both time and money to set up and run the IRC network you chat on. We're not paid, and we're spending money out of our own pockets. We try our best to make sure things work out for you. We offer extra services. We spend hours of our time trying to set up things for you. We're doing our best to make your IRC experience comfortable and fun, even if that involves us coding something we have no way to troubleshoot or doublecheck because we don't have that abortion of a box you're using to get online WebTV. Whining that typing out commands is too much work and demanding that we do something Right Now Immediately to cater to your laziness and your inability to wait while we are doing our best to work things out for your convenience is so the wrong thing to do. Telling us that "if we can't open doors you may have to think twice about staying here" when we're doing our best to set things up and running into repeated failures because of that piece of shit you're using to get online the fact that your WebTV box is an environment that's impossible for us to test in, nevermind that WebTV does not offer any coding documentation is such a crap thing to do I can't even find the will to shout at you because of it. You know what? If you want to leave, leave. The health of our network does not depend on you staying. I'm not going to be begging you to stay. I am, however, going to smile, and turn my back, and go back to working on things for the people who appreciate it.

Dearest Paragon Of Brightness: if we tell you to type something exactly as it is, just replacing one single word in it, follow the instructions. Do not, for the love of all that is sacred in this world:

• Arbitrarily remove bits and pieces from the line you're supposed to type


• Arbitrarily replace bits and pieces of the line


• Ask "should I type xxx and yyy or leave them out?" (well gee, what do you think I put them in there for? just for fun?)


• Arbitrarily remove spaces from the line

Dearest User In A Hurry: if you're going to quit or part in the middle of my explanation, at least don't complain that what I told you to do "doesn't work". Of course it doesn't work. You didn't bother to listen to the complete instructions.

Dearest Shit-for-brains: do not waste my time asking for help with another IRC network. I know nothing about the commands on that other IRC network, whichever it is. Ask them for help. They're not as helpful as I am? Well then, maybe you should move your channel to here. Either that, or deal with the unhelpfulness on your current network. I'm not going to help you with that.
And if you pretend you need help with something on this network, and get help from me, then say it's not working and you're being told "unknown command" when the command exists on here; and I ask what channel are you trying this on; and you reply with "oh, it's on another network"; do not get annoyed when I tell you I only help you with matters on this network.

Dearest Selfish Bastard: no, there's nothing we can do about people idling in their own channel. No, we will not tell them off for you because they all happen to be idling at whatever ungodly hour you join their channel and try to chat. No, we have a rule against bots idling in a channel and holding it open, not people. No, we will not akill them for idling in their own channel. They have a right to do it. Get lost.

Dearest Annoying Twit: if you ask us a question ("who was xxxx he gave me shit in my room"), and two of us give you the same, very simple answer ("it's a spambot, it's gone now"), and for some reason you do not understand it, the good thing to do would be to say you didn't understand it and ask for clarification. The worst thing you can do, on the other hand, is leave the help channel with a "ok got no answer bye", then proceed to join a different channel (a "chat with the opers" channel) with the same opers in it, ask your question again, and when told you already got your answer, and it's a spambot and it's gone now, say "wasn't a good answer at all, ok, bye" and leave that channel too. The only thing that will do is make sure none of us will go out of their way to help you out anymore. You'll only get standard help from now on.

Dearest Moron: our network's policy is that we don't allow warez or any sort of illegal material. Now I'd like you to write a list of all the reasons why kickbanning an IRCop who just joined your newly registered #XDCC channel to inform you of that policy is wrong and stupid. Think about it, I'm sure you'll get it someday.

Dearest Person Who Would Like To Link Their Server To Our Network: loading a bunch of clones in your newly registered channel isn't exactly the best way to make a good impression on us.

Dearest Spambot: no, I'm not interested in joining that site and giving whoever sent you to our network referral points. And it takes quite a dumb spambot to spam in a channel which has only one person in it, and that's an oper. kthxdie.

Dearest Jerkwit: you may not remember me, but I remember you. Oh, do I remember you. You are the WebTV user I stalked for ages on another net, due to the inability to permanently akill you because of how WebTV is set up, even if you were a harassing fucktard. Seems you've graduated to computer now. Congrats! Aw, you didn't get a braincell upgrade with the computer? That's too bad. But hey, at least you'll be easier to akill, eh? Incidentally, "fuck you" is not really a good answer when you're being told to stop banevading and harassing a channel. I'm just annoyed another oper got to akill you before I did. Ah well, there's always a next time.

Some days, I really feel the need of a mousepad with a target and "bang head here" on it. x_x No, I didn't get all of those idiots today, luckily, but they're all relatively recent. Go hug your nearest IRCop, it's not always the funnest job in the world.

"Your order for "Thief: Deadly Shadows" has been posted.
Please allow 3-5 days for delivery."

:D