The Revived 667er - Edition Nine
Sept 28, 2015 10:57:02 GMT -5
Hermes, Cafe SalMONAlla, and 2 more like this
Post by Isadora Is a Door on Sept 28, 2015 10:57:02 GMT -5
Original idea by Akbar Le Grey
Editor – Mister M
Deputy Editor – Anka Anwhistle M
Design Editor – Lemona Snicket
Art Editor – Terry Craig
Gawky Editor – Zortegus
Deputy Editor – Anka Anwhistle M
Design Editor – Lemona Snicket
Art Editor – Terry Craig
Gawky Editor – Zortegus
Thanks This Issue to : Anka Anwhistle M, Terry Craig, Tryina Denoument, Akbar Le Grey,
Pandora, Peppermince, Linda Rhaldeen, Dante Rubens, Lemona Snicket, Zortegus
Pandora, Peppermince, Linda Rhaldeen, Dante Rubens, Lemona Snicket, Zortegus
Letter From The Editor
It's good to be back.
Welcome to another edition of the 667er! It's been a while since I've actually sat and done one of these, as the last two issues weren't edited by me, but by others. Sophie and various other Big Brother contestants edited the july issue, whilst Zortegus was in the editor's chair last month, and he did a really great job. So great, in fact, that he's been added to the staff team! Woo! Yay for Zortegus!
The eagle eyes among you may have noticed that Zortegus has taken Charlie's place as the 'gawky' editor. Don't worry, Charlie is only temporarily absent, and will return in the new year. As for what will be happeneing then.... I think I'll keep that secret for the moment.
Also, I have a question to throw out there - is anybody interested in doing a regular column keeping track of all the news about the Netflix series? I'm jsut interested to see who is, well, interested...
But enough about the future. This issue has some fun stuff in it. Dante pre/reviews The new Lemony Snicket book, Lemona rants about signage, Linda profiles some of 667's most notable members, and me and Anka do some cooking. It's interesting! I promise!
So without further ado.. let's get started!
- Mister M
~-//-~
667 Reviews: “Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?”
“Why is this night different from all other nights?”
Egmont’s United Kingdom editions take a bow. The United States editions are published by Little, Brown & Co. Reviews of the first and second volumes can be found here, the third here, and the supplementary volume (not photographed) here.
I was asked this question by the cover of a book. It was the wrong question, but it turned out I had the right answer, for me at least. The answer was that on that night, a series of books by Lemony Snicket was going to reach its end. Dedicated fans might point out that there had been such a night before, but they would be wrong. Last time, it ended differently.
Yes, this is the end, alright, but importantly, it’s not The End, the 2006 novel that put Lemony Snicket’s thirteen-part A Series of Unfortunate Events to bed. That novel was widely noted for its open-ended conclusion and its absence of a neat little bow with which the events of the series were tied up. “Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?”, the fourth and last of All the Wrong Questions, has other ideas – ideas about truth, about faith in the power of the written word, and about how understanding the past can help us to repair its mistakes. It knows that it’s the last book in a noir mystery series, and the mystery is solved and explained and acknowledged and the characters can move on from it, or most of them, at least.
It’s actually more like The Penultimate Peril, and there’s a significant amount of self-reference to that book, although once again the end of that novel is not an example that’s repeated. A significant proportion of the recurring cast, some friends, some enemies, and some who knows, all gather together in a single location on a night soon to be interrupted by murder. They all have different plans, and the collision of these plans creates an almighty puzzle – but this time they’re part of a single jigsaw, in which every single character represents a piece waiting to be put in its proper place. You might even put it all together first, but this time, it’s not your responsibility. It’s Lemony Snicket’s, and he lives up to it.
But if questions of fact are all cleared up, there are other questions that linger uncomfortably – questions of morality to which there are no easy answers, or perhaps none at all. It’s not so much self-reference this time as another of the author’s recurring fascinations, and the characters of this series are faced with difficult questions about the difference between what you can do and what you should do, about the right way to pursue a noble cause, and ultimately about what kind of world you want to live in. These are the real questions driving the main characters of the series – Lemony Snicket, Ellington Feint, and Hangfire – and we finally reach the end of the journey their decisions have taken them on. Shocking, emotionally draining, but overall optimistic, it’s an ending that will probably be discussed for a long time, and for all the right reasons.
And so we bid farewell. We bid farewell to Stain’d-by-the-Sea, the fading town whose lonely streets have hosted this long mystery; we bid farewell to Lemony Snicket’s associates, brave and well-read and very good company; we bid farewell to the villains, from the misguided to the wicked, who have preyed upon both; we bid farewell to the wit and charm of Snicket’s narrative style, at least for the time being; we bid farewell, too, to Seth, who has done sterling work these past four years breathing a unique illustrative noir into the people, places, and events of this series, and without whose work defining its strange bleak charm the series would be much the poorer. Farewell, and thanks for letting us visit. I wouldn’t change a thing.
“Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?” is released on September 29th by Little, Brown & Co. in the United States, by Egmont in the United Kingdom, and by Hardie Grant Egmont in Australia and New Zealand.
>~-
Rant: When signage sucks
Melbourne Airport is, well, not ecstasy-inducing in general, but here's a particular thing that bugs me. When one enters the QANTAS local departures area, the bathroom is a mysterious elusive place. You'd think it would be a fairly important thing to sign properly, but nooo. It isn't nearly as obvious as it should be. I only know where it is because I've often travelled with my father, whose bladder isn't world-class, and is an expert, by necessity, at seeking out the bathroom in any building.
And now, my personal favourite, or rather least favourite. In Melbourne we have a smartcard-based system for paying for public transport. It requires you to touch your smartcard to a kind of scanning device (called a reader) before and after journeys, so the system can know how much to charge you.
Here is how one is supposed to use the readers: press the card flat against the - er - flat part of the reader.
Here is what the supposedly instructional image printed on the reader looks like. WHY WHY WHY? The image looks almost NOTHING like the action, except for the fact that a hand and a card are involved. When this system was new, a lot of people had major problems understanding what the hell they were meant to do, and many interpreted the image as saying that they should wave the card in front of the reader.
Now that I'm done with my examples, ask yourself a question: how freaking hard is it to get simple signage right? IMO, getting it wrong takes creativity.
Author's note: here's a fun fact about this rant. I wrote some of it on a plane, and quite a lot of it on a train. So if you were wondering why my rant on signage was transport-focused, I draw inspiration from the world around me.
And now for something very exciting
History of 667
A column by Linda Rhaldeen
Welcome back to History of 667. Today's topic of interest: other notable members!
So now we know about Hermedy (check out last edition if you missed it), it's time to learn about some of the other movers and shakers on 667. Disclaimer: if I were to talk about all the members who are important we'd be here all day, so I just picked 10. Some are still posting, others are not. Also I have tended to skew old member; there are plenty of amazing newer members who do amazing things but hindsight is 20:20 and it's easier to tell who had a lasting impact if they've been around a long time.
So, to start:
BSam - BSam is the oldest member who still regularly posts; he joined in January 2003 and has been a presence on 667 ever since. He currently holds the title for the most posts (spread over multiple accounts) and is known for his humor, wit, and intelligence. Many of the running jokes on 667 (Sweet Caroline, who?, etc.) were started by him. He was also one of the founders of 667 TV Club, which evolved into the Google+ Hangout that many of us still enjoy. The social aspect of 667 is much richer for his contributions.
@swans - Swans joined the forum in May of 2003 and quickly rose through the ranks to become a Global Moderator. She was 20 when she joined, which at the time was much older than the average 667er (Tragedy was only 14 at the time), and brought with her experience and wisdom, at least as much as it's possible for a 20-year-old to have. She did not stay on 667 long - in early 2005, Dante and Swans had a falling out and she had left the board by the time I joined on April 22nd, with only the occasional visits to 667 since then - but much of the early organizational structure of the board was put in place by her.
champ103 - Dupin joined the forum in July of 2003 and immediately began making a name for himself. Only 10 years old when he joined, he nevertheless became a talented writer, both of fanfiction and of the burgeoning genre of 667 stories (here is an example). He was also a big organizer, creating 667 Big Brother and 667 Factor and winning the title of G-Mod in the 667 Apprentice (a multi-week contest patterned after the Apprentice tv show where the contestants put their organizing skills to the test). He stopped posting in 2007 due to being busy in real life, and has not returned, but many of his creations still live on.
Charles Vane - Pandora joined the forum in August 2003. Especially in the early years, there was a tendency on the forum towards intellectualism and elitism, and Pandora has always fought that - which isn't to say she isn't smart, she's incredibly intelligent, but she's not stuck up about it. She has been creating groups of friends from the beginning - the Plastics, the Team Squad, Something Beautiful and New, etc. - as well as openly crushing on women since before it was socially acceptable to do so. Pandora is unofficially in charge of hangouts. She is also the reason we all watched Teen Wolf - and then stopped. Everything she does she does passionately, and I am glad to know her (#Lindora4ever)
Dante - Dante joined the forum in August of 2004 under the pseudonym FFWF (short for Fight Fire With Fire). In April 2005, he wrote a Dante's Inferno-esque story calledThe Abyss, and that seems to have brought about a change in name which he uses to this day. I think we can all agree that Dante belongs here; we tease Dante a lot, but the fact of the matter is the Lemony Snicket part of the forum probably wouldn't exist without him. He has been a moderator for Burdensome Books for over a decade and had a hand in reorganizing the section before ATWQ came out. He also has a contact in publishing which allows him to share insider info about the Snicket books before they come out.
All Due Respect - All Due Respect, or ADR as we knew her, originally joined the forum in December 2004, but it was not until October 2006 that she really began posting. Tragedy was thinking of retiring as admin, and had made a contest to choose his successor - a contest that ADR happened to win, despite having no qualifications to run a 5000+ member forum. I kind of feel bad now, she was just a clueless kid, but at the time she was running the forum very poorly and everyone was very upset with that (and probably at least a few of us, including yours truly, were envious of the job ourselves). We eventually convinced Tragedy to return and ran ADR out of town, and the whole experience united us as a forum in a way we had never been united previously.
Emma “Emmz” Squalor - Emma joined the forum in July 2007, during the dark in-between years after The End had been released but before the new series was announced. Her kindness was infectious, and she was instrumental in changing the tone of the forum from the elitist place it had been before to a much kinder, softer place. Fanfiction was where the majority of the action was taking place then, and she was both a big writer (here is an example of her writing) and commenter on others' fics, eventually becoming the moderator for Forsaken Fanwork. She also hosted the Darkies for a couple of years. Although she left us years ago for mental health reasons, she is still remembered fondly and universally adored.
Hermes - Hermes joined the forum in November 2008. When he joined he was active in the Burdensome Books section and at one point a rivalry developed between him and Dante over who was the best Snicketeer; they have since come to a truce. He still posts in the Burdensome Books sections where his thoughtful posts are appreciated, but he is also the Head of Birthdays, and with very few exceptions makes a thread for each active member on their birthday. He also participates in the Penthouse chats every month, and while he was never a contestant on 667 Big Brother he was always the most faithful voter each week for evictions. He is currently the oldest in age member active on 667 (there have been older members, but they no longer post).
Isadora Is a Door - Mister M joined the forum in May 2012. While he started out on the forum being nearly universally hated, he's kinda grown on us. He is known for his typing mistakes (quite ironic since he is the editor of The 667er) and we like to make jokes about him not understanding pop culture references, but he has a good heart. He has written some good stories in his time and been a great organizer (or organiser, since he is British), both in restarting this paper and in the current incarnation of 667 Big Brother. He is also one half of 667's most adorable real-life couple.
Kit's tits kick ticks - Anka joined the forum in July 2012. She started off making a lot of people angry in Disturbing Discussion (667 tends to skew liberal), but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it kept us from becoming an echo chamber. Other than that, Anka is very sweet. She created the 667 Advent Calendar, organizes the Darkies every year, and last summer helped with the organizing of 667 Big Brother. In 2013, she and Mister M began interacting more and more and are now a real-life couple, with her making plans to eventually move from her native Germany to the UK so they can be together.
Interested in seeing a specific topic covered? Send me a PM and I will do my best to cover it in a future issue.
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Well, after a mildly succesful first attempt, here we are for more cooking! Woo!
Only this time we wont be taking you though one specific recipe.. more like 7. ish. And I (Mister M) wasn't there for all of them.. Let me explain.
There is a tv show that you may or may not be familiar with called 'The Great British Bake Off'. If you are aware of this show then well done to you. If you don't then shame on you, but I'll explain.
People bake stuff.
So anyway,
Week 1 – Cakes
For the first week Anka made a madeira cake with grapefruit stuff in.. it kind of didn't work, but then you can't be perfect all the time
Week 2 – Biscuits
For week two, Anka made shortbread! This turned out a lot better, although it was less shortbready and more biscuity, but at least it tasted nice!
Oh, and she even made two different types of shortbread (show-off). The top one has marzipan, the bottom one has chocolate. Yum
Week Three – Bread
Err... yum.
For the third week, me and Anka teamed up and made this cheese and garlic bread. It was kind of spectacular. Probably entirely down to me.
Seriously. Yum.
Week Four – Desserts
Week four didn't turn out as well as the victory of week three. We made caramel slices. The caramel didn't turn into caramel properly though, and the chocoalte was a bit burnt. And also the biscuit base kind of failed and was broken everywhere. But despite all that, it still tasted nice!
Week Five – Alternative Ingredients
Okay, okay, so this time we cheated. For alternative Igredients week you were suppsoed to bake things without things like sugar or gluten, but only use alternative ingredients to those things. Only we didn't do anything like that. Instead we just made brownies. I've posted the recipe for these brownies on 667 before, they have nutella and chocolate chips and stuff, and then lots of chocolate on top. Yum.
Why did we break the rules like that? Well, because we wanted to! And also because we were going to Germany and Ankas family liked those and wanted us to make them. Yes, that's it, blame it on peer pressure.
But anyway, Thats it for now!. Next time i'll cover weeks 6-10! I decided to break it up lest you get to bored!
Keeeeeeeeeep cooking!
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And now for something totally unexpected by Peppermince
I made a story based on this thread
He sat on his computer, an empty Word document sitting there in front of him, almost mocking him with the discouraging words of his own parents.
“YOU WILL NEVER BE A COMEDIAN, PEPPERMINCE!” They yelled, spit flying off their lips onto his crying face. “GIVE UP YOU CHRIS TUCKER WANNABE!” They were very passionate about crushing their child’s dreams into pieces.
Bad memories always got the best of young Peppermince, and he began to cry. Escaping this place was his plan A, finding out why his Mum had used Chris Tucker as an example was plan B. He put on some music, it was his favourite music video, Stressed Out by twenty one pilots. All of a sudden, he had an idea.
Peppermince got his Mum’s attention, striking up a casual conversation about his favourite people with beards. When the convo started, Peppermince paused the music video onto a very punny frame.
Laughing out loud, Peppermince asked him Mum if she liked the joke and she replied by laughing. Not about the joke, about the fact that he actually just asked her that.
Angry, Peppermince stormed up to his room and packed his stuff. He was contemplating leaving and becoming a circus act, or better yet, a child comedian that is also terrible at writing stories.
To be continued…
By Peppermince
I wanted to do something new for this issue, but I'm already late late late since I've been a week in another city working more than 10 hours every day but HEY that's some stuff you probably didn't know and you probably don't care about and that's what my column is about. Basically, I'm going to be the blind and you're going to be the other blind and I'm going to lead you somewhere. Please make sure to not hit me with your white cane, thank you very much.
✖ BLIND: In between ✖
A kind of poem I wrote two years ago called "In between".
------------
I am forever between landmarks and days full of luck,
and missing my chances to just give it up.
I am forever between thoughts, a fight and a rove;
the hope I once had in you now flees like a dove.
Between knives I am dancing, in dead trees I hide;
in libraries I am diving as I turn back around.
I am forever between comparisons of future and past,
ignoring the fact that you will not back me up.
I am forever between cities, a push and a shove;
the letters of my old friends and re-joy and love.
Between cameras I am frowning, and train seats I am down;
in car parks I am sighing as I turn back around.
✖ DEAF: Paper Lions ✖
A great Belgian band that basically no one knows and I think doesn't exist anymore but has great songs and lyrics and style. This one is dedicated to all the people who seemed to be great and special but turned out to be not as cool as you thought. I had a lot of those in my life.
✖ MUTE: Lost in translation II ✖
During Summer (that means January here in Argentina) I work in a Spanish Program my university helds for international students. Every year a group of students from Hunter College in NYC spend a month here studying and learning Spanish.
Two years ago we went to a restaurant to have dinner and a girl wanted to order eggs. One of the keys when you're learning another language is to not translate literally what you want to say from your language to the other, since the structures are usually not the same. In this case, she wanted to say "I want to have eggs", so she said "Quiero tener huevos" to the waiter, who started laughing. What she said can be translated to "I want to have balls", and that's why the waiter recommended her a surgeon who's specialist in sex change.
✖ BLIND: In between ✖
A kind of poem I wrote two years ago called "In between".
------------
I am forever between landmarks and days full of luck,
and missing my chances to just give it up.
I am forever between thoughts, a fight and a rove;
the hope I once had in you now flees like a dove.
Between knives I am dancing, in dead trees I hide;
in libraries I am diving as I turn back around.
I am forever between comparisons of future and past,
ignoring the fact that you will not back me up.
I am forever between cities, a push and a shove;
the letters of my old friends and re-joy and love.
Between cameras I am frowning, and train seats I am down;
in car parks I am sighing as I turn back around.
✖ DEAF: Paper Lions ✖
A great Belgian band that basically no one knows and I think doesn't exist anymore but has great songs and lyrics and style. This one is dedicated to all the people who seemed to be great and special but turned out to be not as cool as you thought. I had a lot of those in my life.
✖ MUTE: Lost in translation II ✖
During Summer (that means January here in Argentina) I work in a Spanish Program my university helds for international students. Every year a group of students from Hunter College in NYC spend a month here studying and learning Spanish.
Two years ago we went to a restaurant to have dinner and a girl wanted to order eggs. One of the keys when you're learning another language is to not translate literally what you want to say from your language to the other, since the structures are usually not the same. In this case, she wanted to say "I want to have eggs", so she said "Quiero tener huevos" to the waiter, who started laughing. What she said can be translated to "I want to have balls", and that's why the waiter recommended her a surgeon who's specialist in sex change.
And now for some guest art!
~~~POWER RANKINGS~~~
I'm not feeling very creative right now so this list might end up being the first people I think of so that just means that you should all endeavor to make me think of you more. I also don't remember anything that happened in September so also try to be more interesting.
10. Anyone who has been in a hangout in the past month, and I know this includes Poe's Coats Host Toast but oh well, such is the cost of saying that hangouts are cool and you should all join them. I think we're having one tonight if this is posted on Sunday and if we do have one on Sunday.
9. lorelai - You're the random person I don't know who's making the list time because you were online at the same time as me, congrats! Who is your favorite Gilmore Girls character?
8. Esmé's meme is meh - for taking over the 667er that one time and being slightly interesting.
7. Charlie hasn't been here this month but his truest love Teleram has, I honor him in Charlie's honor.
6. Don't know if Linda Rhaldeen has ever not been on a list, but it's not going to be this month.
5. To show that I am not bias, I'm giving myself the number five spot and it's not at all because I already put people in the lower spots and didn't want to have to redo the numbers. I am pretty great, but the people ahead of me are slightly greater. This month.
4. I'm pretty sure B. made some threads for MM, even though shes busy being a Ravenclaw or something, I forget what color her tie is, so you go Bee.
3. sophie also made threads and I feel like she made more so she gets the #3 spot even though most of her time seems like it's being spent by smoking pot and being lovely.
2. bryan came back!
1. BSam had a birthday like today or yesterday or something I don't how time zones work. You're a sweet, hilarious guy, thank you for always bringing kindness and humor to 667. Have an amazing year being however old you would like to be.
ADVERTISMENTS
~If anybody wants to contribute something (whether positive or negative) then feel free to PM me or any other staff members with your ideas~
~Also, feel free to make Lemona irritated so she has something to rant about~
~Send Anka some advice questions~
~Who wants to be a guest artist? If you just shouted ‘ME ME ME’ Loudly at the screen then calm down, I can’t hear you. Instead I recommend that you PM concerning the guest artist slot~
~Who wants to be a guest writer? If you just shouted ‘PLEASE PICK ME, PLEASE!’ then hold your horses, you’re talking to a computer. Instead, why not PM concerning the guest writer slot~
~Make History! Then Linda can write about it~
~Does anybody want to be interviewed by Anka? There will be more interviews next issue! Please PM me or Anka if you are interested~
~Come to the penthouse on the 11th of October!~
~I need more random jokes! Jokes are funny and stuff, so joke.~
~Read ?4. Get some fancy book learning you.~
~Anybody interested in doing a regular column about the netflix series please PM me~
~If anybody wants to advertise something here, than please PM me!~
THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING
- 'Why is this Night different from all other nights?', the last book in All The Wrong Questions is about to be relased. Theres a
countdown thread, which is wildly inaccurate because its
already been released
- It's BSam's birthday!
- A thread about piracy went wildly off topic
- Augusts Member of the Month is Bee!
Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the strength to deal with them.
Next Time : Halloween