Sunday, June 13th, 2010
Issue: 32   Editor: HowlingMadMika


Delicious Thoughts DeliciousX
The first thing you should know is that I'm a forum whore.

Any 'Belle de Jour' fans? No? Then that was wasted on you...

On one of my regular visits to the forum- no, not a slang word for toilet- I would read topics, reply with a humorous smiley, and basically interact with the same half-a-dozen people all the time. Occasionally, shock-horror, somebody new would come in our midst- no, that's not an innuendo- and we would revel in the opportunity that had just presented itself to us.

Fresh meat. Somebody new to corrupt, to mould into our image, to build our 6-strong army of forum whores into a 7-strong one. Soon we will take over Bootleggers... and when we do, your head will actually hurt from all the '' smileys that will have been ejaculated onto the forums in joy.

But that rather unintentionally graphic topic is not what I set out to write this article about. I went off on a tangent before I'd even begun. Let me adjust myself. NO, I'm not talking about my underwear.

I play Bootleggers for a rather embarrassing amount of time every day. Much more than I'd care to admit. For me, that means anywhere from 7 o'clock in the morning (my, that looks strange... we only seem to deal with the 7:00 format nowadays) until 12 o'clock at night. Or 12 o'clock in the morning... midnight. I mean midnight. Stupid, ambiguous meanings!

This works out as anything from 1:00 AM-6:00PM in Bootleggers time. Usually between 3:30 AM and 5:30 PM.

So, while traipsing through the forums, interacting with the same few people that are always on there, and wondering why the rest of the world of Bootleggers is not at home, a thought hit me- maybe, just maybe, Bootleggers IS at home. Only it may be at home when I'm out shopping, sleeping, eating, or painting the town red. I go round to Bootleggers' house, wanting to play, but little Bootleggers is busy with homework, and he hasn't cleaned his room yet.

I wonder what living in GMT means I'm missing out on. True, when I log on after a good night's sleep, there are just a handful of new topics, and it doesn't take much searching to find the last topic that I said goodnight to. But I like to think that a huge party happens every night in my absence... somebody's just REALLY good at tidying up.

I'm sitting here, wondering when other forum jockeys will make an appearance. Wondering if I'm a part of some disturbing, hated minority... that I should banish myself to the inane clicking of the crimes page. But there's probably a guy or girl in Alaska, or Korea, or Brazil, who is wondering the exact same thing.

Our time difference means there is a significant percentage of the Bootleggers community that I will never get to meet. Quite possibly a whole other culture, maybe even a whole new language, dominates the forums and the BMs. Two sides of the world that, through need of sleep, and responsibilities of work and relationships, will never meet.

It'll be like a parallel universe, only on a much smaller scale. We'll have a Japanese version of iPoison, a Russian version of J4m3s, a Bangladeshi version of NvermindGames, a Hawaiian version of EternalExploition. The Bootleggers background turns pink and fluffy, BSF2000 does a striptease, bemused players autoburgle an ice-cream van and a girl's bike, and BLOODY HELL, there's beer for sale in California!

One of these days, I will play for 24 hours straight. Knowing my luck, little Bootleggers will be busy painting it's extension.

And no, that's not an innuendo.