Rutabaga

Thankfully both FrontPage and Internet Explorer are now history. Not a moment too soon. R

My counterpoint to your Ted Louis anecdote is the novel "Hotel" by Arthur Hailey. He entwines together a multitude of separate and intricate story lines that develop through most of the story and seem almost impossible to resolve, then [spoiler alert] solves a large number of them by having a hotel elevator suddenly fail and crash to the bottom, killing the key players and mooting the issues. I could not believe how sleazy that tactic was. R

I'm not nearly as down on epilogues. This one may have gone on longer than necessary, but it didn't really bother me that much. It definitely did shift the tone of the story. But I think of Cole's epilogue in "Duck Duck Goose," particularly the scene with Matt, Kevin and Becky's son Ben, and the scene with Brent Colliers's son in the principal's office. I thought those vignettes really added to the overall story. Every author and every reader brings something different. The most I might do with this story is shorten the epilogue a bit. R

Friends -- This came in this morning from Jeff at the storylover.us site: I wanted to reach out to you before I simply can't type anymore. I have contact with Comicality and his family due to his recent illness and was informed earlier this evening that on Tuesday, he lost that battle. She said he was his normal "self" right up to the very end and his family was with him. All the sites that we host for him will remain and we are going to need to regroup to figure out how Imagine Magazine can proceed. Could you please let the AwesomeDude community know? This is such a huge loss for everyone and I want to make sure those who knew him know what happened. Thanks, and best wishes, - Jeff More discussion here and here. And thanks to the AD forum member (who apparently prefers to stay out of the limelight) who referred this message to me. R

This refurbished Pick from the Past is found here. The story was first serialized at AD in the 2005-2006 time frame. @Alien Son asked me to go through and bring it up to modern web coding standards as a prelude to making it an April Pick from the Past. It was a somewhat arduous task, because the old-style Microsoft FrontPage coding is awful and difficult to update, but it is now completed. This story is different from any I can recall reading here, and has intriguing intertwined story lines. It is long, and will require some time commitment. And it is full of surprises. If you have a chance, take a look at it. And let me know if you see any glitches that I missed. R

There definitely is a kind of eerie Animal Farm-like quality to the manner in which the GSA members have become the bullies here. The school would need to suspend that organization pending review of how to preclude a repetition of the events involving Perry. Expelling Jason and Dante would help send that message, but the rest of the organization needs to feel some pain as well and understand that all of them who had any awareness of what was going on bear some responsibility and must face some consequences. I realize how radical it is to assert that people should bear consequences, but that's my view. R

Why assume there is a rational explanation? Jason, the ringleader, is a sociopathic narcissist who lacks any moral compass or empathy for others. It is all about him and his ego. He lies freely (as in his false claim to Ross that they weren't going to do anything to Perry) when it suits his purposes, and would not understand why anyone would see anything wrong with that. Perry is a challenge to his ego, and must be dealt with. There is no logic to it. Inflicting pain or discomfort nourishes Jason. He will grow up to be a career criminal or a politician. Dante, as far as I can tell, is just a thug who gets off on acting as Jason's enforcer. I doubt if he has had an original thought in his life. Adam is just an idiot who has never had to face real consequences for his irresponsible actions and loyalties. Which I suppose is another way of stating that he is very immature. There is no hope for Jason, and probably none for Dante either. They don't belong at that school. The others are probably salvageable with proper guidance. R

Though a little out of season for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this new story will brighten your day. Good job. R

In sixth grade there was a guy, I'll call him John B, who was the same age as the rest of us but already was about 6 feet tall. He was taller than many of the teachers, and I think this made him uncomfortable. He would often be asked to reach things down from a high shelf. He was the nicest, gentlest guy imaginable, but I think his unexpected maturity made him shy about dealing with the rest of us. I'm not sure whether he continued with us into 7th grade and beyond . . . but I can see how the issues you mention could easily develop. R

My suggestion would be to contact this person and say that we are looking for candidates to take on this project, and ask not only if he would be interested but also whether he can think of anyone else we should talk to, especially if he says he is not interested. R

Here is the path over the U.S. and Canada:

I have the impression that there was significant influence from The Mail Crew in the early days of CW. I'm not sure but what Blue, one of the early architects, was part of that group. But The Mail Crew is long gone, as noted here. I don't know if there is a similar group still in existence somewhere in the English-speaking world. It may be that the internet was still new enough in the early 2000s that there was a sense of adventure and pioneering then that does not exist any more. On the other hand, a nearby (to me) magnet school still has quite an active robotics club. We need to find one or more people with the same blend of nerdiness and adventure that Mike brought to founding the original AD site. The need is still there, as we see when reading about adolescent depression in today's world. Let's keep thinking, and looking. R

I wonder if someone who works (or had worked) as a teacher or counselor of teens would be a possible choice? R

Thanks @Talo Segura for the shoe leather in research. There is some very high quality stuff at Codey's World if a visitor knows how to find it. We have added a Google-linked site map to help this happen via searches. The design of the home page has been fairly similar over the years, after an initial bit of weirdness. 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20070621221109/http://www.codeysworld.com/home.html (glad the garish red theme is gone now) 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100105032825/http://codeysworld.com/ 2014: https://web.archive.org/web/20140625122929/http://www.codeysworld.com/ 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180706175204/http://www.codeysworld.com/ 2022: https://web.archive.org/web/20220630233034/http://www.codeysworld.com/ I did some experimenting to see whether it made any sense to look at a Wordpress installation to facilitate the site, but so far I don't see it as helpful -- it just moves the same amount of effort into different places. The Castle Roland story site uses a custom Wordpress theme but I'm not persuaded that it really helps things -- in its own way, that site seems as mysterious to navigate as Codey's World. I also agree with Cole's philosophy and that is why we need someone to be the "conscience" of Codey's World. Other thoughts, anyone? R