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Mrs. Bark

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Posts posted by Mrs. Bark

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    A quick note to some of last night's Prop Hunters:

    I have a shaved undercut, and have since 2000. My hair is long on top and 1/16" underneath, when freshly trimmed. Bark's comments about going to shave my head are just that - he's just trimming my undercut for me. He isn't pinning me to the ground and forcibly shaving me. So for those of you who expressed concern or dismay, it's ok.

    LOL.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I considered that, but it's also not the only way to get a reserved slot.. it's more of a convenience to me to just add our most active players, since it's easier to add people in bulk than one at a time. They are also people who invite other people to the server. People can also request one directly from me... assuming they know me.

    P.S. I'm also interpreting this post as a request for a reserved slot.

    P.P.S. Which I've now added.

    It wasn't really a request - more a commentary on the logic of the situation, but thank you. I do appreciate it. :) I like to play when Bark is on - it's been frustrating to have to sit and watch him play without being able to connect myself.

    I also realize that connection time is affected by time zone, as well; OCR tends to fill up fast between 8 and 9 EST, drops off between 10:30 and 11:30, and then gets a second wave at 12 AM Est/ 8-9 PM PST. It is easier to connect later at night.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I find the connection situation is a catch-22. I would play more often, except quite often I cannot get on the server because it's full. The people who consistently can connect to the server, to be in the top 50 in connection time, now can get on...more consistently.

    Just saying.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yeah. In my case it's a bit of the game either doing that or the reverse (appearing to move me just fine for an instant and then returning me to where I just was).

    I've had this problem for months. It's constant, and it makes my game unplayable. Hense my absence.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Five nights in fabulous Ft. Meade, MD at the Brushfire House Spa and Resort. Fine Dining and relaxed atmosphere await you in the Nerd Room, a 5-Star Rated hotel surrounding you with serveral hundred large breasted Anime Women. Enjoy luxurious 25 MBit High Speed Internet. Shotime, HBO, Cinemax, and Starz included!! HOT POCKETS!!

    Dude...that's like an all-paid trip on some luxury spaceliner, and then realizing you're spending the trip with Ruby Rod.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Hey all. I'm sure some of you heard of that project I was working on that involved the whole modification of weapon attributes to attempt to create a new and (hopefully) balanced TF2 game. I'll probably be running it on IJ's server when I have it going...However, no fun hosting a mod when there's nobody to come and test it. If I could get an event up and running--would any of you be interested in attending?

    Will there be punch and pie?

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    We are getting pretty crazy with the rules.

    Just putting that out there.

    Remember when we were supposed to be a not srs bsnss server.

    No I guess not.

    I just want to see the "No Hate Speech" rule applied evenly. Either all slurs - whether it's about someone's race, their colour, their religion, their sexuality - are hate speech, or none of them are. It makes no sense to me to totally ban some things, and be tolerant or lenient towards others.

    I'm all for 'Not Srs Business'. I'm not interested in playing in an environment where it's ok to be abusive towards or make jokes of others at their expense.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    If you make a big issue out of it, it will always remain a big issue. Political correctness is self-defeating. The more derogatory slurs get thrown around, the more meaningless they become, which is GOOD. Do your part, call someone a faggot every day.

    I sense that in this instance YOU're doing the throwing. You're not having them thrown at you. Try it sometime - even just a couple weeks, day in day out, at least once. It sucks.

    When someone's told you that words hurt them, don't fucking turn around and say "But words can't hurt you". If I hit you upside the head with a brick, and you say "It hurts, don't do that", should my response be to tell you to get over it, and hit you again? Maybe you'll eventually get used to it, but I'm willing to bet I'll crack your skull open first.

    Children - literally CHILDREN - are killing themselves because their peers harass and abuse them for being gay. In some cases, they're not even - they're just children whose peers have decided they're different or don't fit in in some way, and they're using gay as a catch-all slur.

    And I seriously hope you thought you were trolling.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'll try to keep this short. I've never been too good with debates.

    Personal feelings aside, it's clear that we have a fair number of regulars who feel strongly towards the issue and think we need to take action. What sort of action is that? It's one thing to ask nicely to clean up one's language, but is this the sort of thing we need to clamp down on as hard as racism? By which I mean, racism warrants an instaban if the admin in question isn't feeling particularly generous. Do we want something similar for anti-GBT slurs?

    It's still discrimination and abuse of a group of individuals simply on the basis that they're different in some way. It's not any different from any other kind of bigotry.

    There shouldn't be room to use abusive or derogatory language towards anyone on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, or religious differences, on OCR or elsewhere.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    That's my point. "Gay" didn't mean homosexual until at least 1951, and I can assure you plenty of people were none too happy about that either. It's 2010, and now it's taken another meaning. It's your choice whether or not to be offended by it. My gay friends have no problem with it.

    It's taken on a new usage, certainly. A new meaning, I strongly disagree with.

    A word's historical usage will always provide context and nuance to the modern usage. Even if it has miraculously changed in definition to mean something radically different, as perhaps it has done once already between "merriment and joy" and "homosexual", there is always some sort of historical commentary in the background.

    Let's assume there is a new meaning for gay. What's the new, official definition of the word, if now it does not refer to homosexuals or merriment?

    Can you explain how you think the usage of gay to mean "stupid/lame/bullshit/wrong" developed? When did "gay" become a derogatory term, but completely separate from its' usage for "homosexual"?

    It's your choice whether or not to be offended by it. My gay friends have no problem with it.
    Funny...I've read the same statement so many times, as a defense against derogatory behaviors of varying kinds. It's easier to make it someone else's problem, than it is to think about what you're doing and possibly have to change, I guess.

    Do you ever tell your friends "Stop being so gay?". Is it a usage or meaning you direct at them all the time, or is it (as I suspect) a word you may use in front of them occasionally, in a social setting where there are strangers to them or a very mixed crowd, not all of them friends?

    If you don't use it towards them directly, try it. Or maybe you should ask your friends if they have a problem with it, in a setting where they're not going to feel threatened or unsafe for disagreeing with you. People swallow a lot of shit, trying to keep social interactions smooth and free of conflict - and gays have been on the wrong end of a lot of conflict, simply for being who they are.

    Might avoid an argument, or a beating, but in the end it still tastes like shit. You may discover they're not as fine with it as you think they are.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    ITT people don't realize that words can have multiple meanings.

    "I feel pretty and witty and gay" does not mean Maria is homosexual.

    "That is so gay" does not mean an event likes other events of the same gender and that is bad.

    So...tell me. Is it that you are saying something is very joyful, as a means of being derogatory towards it? Or is there some history of the word "gay" and its' usage in the english language that I am not aware of?

    From http://www.etymonline.com:

    Gay:

    late 12c., "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry" (12c.); cf. O.Sp. gayo, Port. gaio, It. gajo. Ultimate origin disputed; perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"), though not all etymologists accept this. Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays, but the word evidently was not popularly felt in this sense until later (cf. the stage comedy "London Assurance" written 1841 and popular through early 20c., with its character Lady Gay Spanker, famously played by Mrs. Nisbett). The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1630s. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.

    See, to me...saying "This is gay" to mean "This is stupid/lame/bullshit/wrong", and it's no different than any other slur - it still comes down to the fact you're equating "gay" as any or all of those things. Chances are you're not saying that joy and merriness is negative.

    OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    To put in my own two cents on the matter, saying something like "What is this faggotry" won't make me bat an eye, mostly because it's a well-established expression that a) is not aimed at a specific person as a slur, B) removes said slur from its original meaning to the point that it's more or less lost completely and c) is really annoying to phrase it to remove the slur completely. Unless we have an overwhelming urge to change it to "What is this politically correct homosexuality?" So I guess what I'm trying to say is...context, people. It's important.

    I'd also like to point out and apologize for my tendency to tune out goings-on in both text and voice chat that others may find objectionable.

    The problem with this, even with this "well-established" context, is that it still presents the concept that homosexuality is bad, wrong, or unnatural, and that gays are the root cause of the person's problem with the issue at hand, not crappy game physics, lag, shitty computers, or a lack of personal skill.

    The fallacy here is the appeal to popularity. Just because everyone's doing it, and has done it for a period of time, does not make it right.

    I am not a delicate, or particularily politically correct person. However, as a member of the LGBT commmunity, I can't say I'm pleased that it's ok to insult someone by sexuality... And I may not continue to play on the server, knowing that it's officially condoned, even in a supposedly less-offensive context.

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