There really IS a secret "Pogs" forum.
There. I said it.
TGRR,
Knows that Pogs are not for the inexperienced.
:crankey:
I've been nurturring a secret love of pogs for years, and have gone to great length and risk to signal fellow pogs enthusiasts all these years. I know what's at stake. We all do, and have seen exactly WHAT happens to people who let out their love for pogs. The midnight raids, the harsh lights and harsher questions from employers and loved ones. Denouncing my passion for pogs just to get by a bit longer...
I can't deal with the fact that I've been so blatantly ignored and decieved. I've sacrificed so much for what I love, and now it's been thrown in my face.
I'm flouncing.
I'll fly home in impotent rage, trash my room, and burn my treasured stack of pogs before snorting draincleaner laced smack off the linoleum and fallign asleep cold next to the toilet sobbing and singing "You are my sunshine"
:richter:
See? This is why we keep it hidden. Most people cannot live with the sheer eldritch horror that Pogs reveal.
Like this poor bastard.
(http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/rr126/TGRR/pogs1.jpg)
This thread makes me plotz. :lulz:
:lulz:
Quote from: Richter on March 28, 2011, 11:01:04 PM
I'll fly home in impotent rage, trash my room, and burn my treasured stack of pogs before snorting draincleaner laced smack off the linoleum and fallign asleep cold next to the toilet sobbing and singing "You are my sunshine"
That just sounds like Tuesday to me.
You talk about it like it's a game, like it's something past. You act like it's a hobby, or reminisce about the times when the novelty was still new. But you don't remember. You weren't there. I was.
The tension of the two piles stacked up, ready for both sides to attack. The weight of the little metal piece in your hand. The hungry look when you were playing for keeps.
But then there was the one guy. Maybe you did pogs for the fun of it, maybe you did it for the game. I say did because you don't play pogs like you play with, say Lego. You did them. Like smack. Well maybe you played them for fun, and hey, maybe I did too. Not this one guy. I can remember the look in his eyes. Crazed and malevolent, not looking for the sport of it. Only the destruction.
He had these slammers. Oh god the slammers. Kept them in some little pouch that always appeared out of nowhere, like him. I don't even think he went to our school. Hell, he might not have been from our state. But whenever the thunder clouds were low in the sky he'd be there, those eyes shining like the lightning the proceeded. The slammers. I've still never seen anything like them. Custom, had to be, or maybe bought using whatever life that no longer shone from his corneas. Wrought iron, jagged and rusty, maybe, hell, it could have been a shuriken. I just remember the sound, and the look.
Thing is, he never flipped any of them over. He never needed to, or wanted to really. Not after what he'd done to them. What use did he have for a torn up little bottle cap, abused beyond even the loosest schoolyard regulation. You can't win that way, we thought, and technically no, he never did. But you always knew he'd won his own game - and you lost, hard. Didn't make any sense to us then. Couldn't talk about it much. Never had the right words and, well, talking just made it more real, didn't it?
So talk about your game of pogs, like you know. Like you were there. But you weren't fucking there. You didn't see the shit that I saw.
You couldn't.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
POGS?
like, pogroms?
(http://i.imgur.com/IbTQh.jpg)
I...
The time has come.
I must confess.
I worked at a comic book store, during the Pogs craze.
Yes... I was a dealer.
It's my fault.
Quote from: Suu the Infallible on March 29, 2011, 01:34:19 AM
Quote from: Richter on March 28, 2011, 11:01:04 PM
I'll fly home in impotent rage, trash my room, and burn my treasured stack of pogs before snorting draincleaner laced smack off the linoleum and fallign asleep cold next to the toilet sobbing and singing "You are my sunshine"
That just sounds like Tuesday to me.
Say, girl...where you stay at?
EoC and Richter: :mittens:
:lulz:
Quote from: Luna on March 29, 2011, 10:49:21 AM
I...
The time has come.
I must confess.
I worked at a comic book store, during the Pogs craze.
Yes... I was a dealer.
It's my fault.
It's ok, Luna--it was a sign of the times. You can't fight the sweet, sweet music that fills your head when you see those round disks of cartoon characters...the slickness of the coating on the cardboard...the way they stick together when they're new...it's madness that just takes a hold and doesn't let you go.
You were held hostage, Luna. You, are a victim.
But you broke free, and that's what's important here. And if you're still feeling that tug when you see baggies of them round the 'hood, I know there are probably support groups you can join. Pogs Anonymous would probably be happy to help. Seek out your local social worker and let them know that pogs are a disease, and should be treated like one.
You're not to blame, Luna. You have a good heart.
I... I still have a couple slammers around the house, just in case...
You never know, really, do you?
Really, I just kept them because they were pretty... I don't really NEED them...
One of them lights up and sparkles when you use it...
Quote from: Luna on March 29, 2011, 02:58:59 PM
I... I still have a couple slammers around the house, just in case...
You never know, really, do you?
Really, I just kept them because they were pretty... I don't really NEED them...
One of them lights up and sparkles when you use it...
The first step, Luna, is just to admit you have a problem. You need to give your emergency stash to someone you trust to get rid of it, legally, for you. (Clearly, this does NOT include Richter...)
And be careful about the company you keep--you can fall into bad habits easily. You don't need the kind of "friends" that allow you to "use" again. They should know you can't handle even ONE hit.
Also, make an appointment with your doctor. Let him/her know that you are having a hard time fighting this urge. They might have something you can take to take the edge off.
After a while things changed. A lot of people grew out of pogs, I've heard. A lot of others just grew bored with them, forgot them once the craze died down. Heh, I envy the innocent. Our change didn't come from time. It came from the guy with the razor slammers.
Our little regular group stopped getting together. Not just for pogs, either, really entirely. Couldn't even meet one another's gaze in the schoolyard. Mikey was the first to go, now that I think about it. He didn't show up to do pogs one day, and this is when we just did it because it's what we did, not out of any sense of sport or fun. Anyway Mikey was at home. His mom gave me the whole "can't come out to play" routine but I knew what was up. I walked around the back and looked into his window. It looked like he was trying to clean his room or something, but every time he came upon something disc shaped, he stopped and stared for a minute, then calmly put it down and tried to move onto something else. Coins, soda caps, at one point he was all fucked up by the little paper rounds left by hole punches. He turned out okay in the long run, I hear, some kind of doctor. I was happy to hear that.
Danny is one of those guys that shapes the events in a positive light. He's an advocate now, got himself a social work degree and everything, and he specializes in cases like ours. When I ran into him at the supermarket the other week and found this out, he was holding a box of Ritz crackers. I was walking by and he became suddenly very interested in the nutrition label. Didn't say a goddamn word.
Eric. Shit, Eric was the star of the show back then. He had this flick of the wrist that would send your pogs flying. Thing of beauty, it was, real talented kid. We were glad to have him around, but I think we all knew he wasn't going to be in our little group for long with the kind of ability he had. He turned out the worst. Had the hardest to fall, I guess. I never had the nerve to see him again but the stories tell themselves. Turned into what he hated. Went from game to game, sniffing them out on the wind like prey, toting some kind of homemade slammer he'd been working on. Just mutilated the pogs from that point onward, his considerable skill gone totally awry. I wonder if he ever got out of it.
Me, I'm done, you know, moved on. Still have my moments, of course, like anybody. I'll be rummaging through the old junk drawer and a little metal disk will slip into my hand, the weight still familiar after all these years. Danny and Mikey and Eric flood back into vision, just some kids with a hobby. Gotta drop that thing shortly after, shut that drawer up tight.
Hell of a fucking thing though, pogs.
WUT? I never understood pogs. I must be one of the lucky ones.
Once the pogs faded, it was the Magic cards.
I swear, I thought I'd gotten rid of them all.
I found a stash last night in one of the boxes we moved last Saturday.
Quote from: Luna on March 29, 2011, 03:47:09 PM
Once the pogs faded, it was the Magic cards.
I swear, I thought I'd gotten rid of them all.
I found a stash last night in one of the boxes we moved last Saturday.
(http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/032611/animal-trading-cards.gif)
Well, this thread certainly went farther than I'd hoped.
Richter & EOC are GOLD when you can get them to jabber. Luna & Jenne are a nice surprise as well.
Incidentally, why am I the only one that has Elder God Pogs? I thought everyone did.
Rog, 1) I think you're the only one with Level 4 clearance. 2) I think you might be the only one that would ADMIT PUBLICLY to such largesse... 3) I think we need to introduce you to Luna's social worker. 4) Be careful with those, they have unknown powers. 5) Keep them away from EoC, he's clean.
This thread is now in the top 5 threads for 2011.
I had to trim this down a lot, from my original story. It's been a long, strange road, and a lot of it is disturbing. I've done things over the years I'm not proud of, and things that would come off wrong, to those who just don', who CAN'T know the world of pogs.
I was the worst in high school.
It wasn't the "thing" then either. The craze was already over, and there were just a few of us, in it for sheer love of the pogs that held on.
The regular games were suppressed pretty quick. No more keepsies at the lunchroom table, or out in the courtyard between classes. A hurried strike or two, just to keep you going for the next class.
We caught hell for it. Not just from the teachers, who tried to bring the craze in, make it safe. There was the after school "Pogs Club", the no-keepsies, sanctioned matches. Boring. It was just piling up one person's stack, and seeing how many alternating turns could take down. No thrill, no taking.
The other students were the worst. Hell, I figure one in ten was a user, but you'd get teased and bullied for it like nothing else. Hah. Watch that big fucker from the football team locker slam you one minute, then nearly break down crying when you drop his stack in a shot later.
The best matches were the underground ones. The detention room bouts where you have to sin just to get in to play. A quick stack and throw between stern glances of the school discipline officer. I kept metal under my tongue for those, some kind of obscure coin for Charon. It was a well used aluminum striker. Not as much weight as a steel, or an epoxy and ball bearing homebrew, but perfect for a quick throw. Light enough to hit maximum speed when you can't do a full arm motion for fear of attracting attention. It was my favorite.
Not that I was ever THAT hardcore about it, mind. Some of the really twisted ones, they'd smuggle in slammers up their ass. Had to watch you matches with them, one throw, and it might not be worth winning the pogs. Strictly bragging rights and clever negotiation over who went first. Those slammer packers were an odd breed all right. I half respected them for the lengths they'd go to, half reviled them. It had to be about the pogs too, right, and they were making them un – useable. Forever soiling what they loved just out of chance of a competitive edge. There's a lesson about people in that.
I had to quit before I went to college though. Didn't want to be "That pog guy" anymore. I wanted to start over away from that pseudo childish shame, and I did, in a school three states away. Those were goo years, fucking halcyon years.
I graduated, and I got this summer camp job, a holdover as I looked for more real world employ. They do their background checks, and got nothing. Of course they got nothing. It was all before I was 18, and even then coach put in a word for me with the judge so nothing hit my paper. Almost didn't get FAFSA over that shit...
So yeah, I'm at the camp. The first day, the fist FUCKING day, there the kids are, lining up a stack. Some kind of retro trend resurfacing. Some were ragging on them, but the ones playing there, they knew what they liked.
I went over and told the haters to bug off, then asked if I could take a throw. They just nodded, all thrilled that not only could they play, but that a counselor was into their game too. Still had that old metal striker under my tongue too, old habits die hard, huh?
I take my shot, look up, and the fucking camp preacher's walking by. He somewhere between delighted smile at me participating and playing with the kids, setting a good adult example, and sheer revulsion over what we were doing. Was I just trying to help some kids being bullied, or was this some darker urge, leading his flock astray? Had he hired a wolf in sheep's clothing?
I still don't fucking know. I don't remember that summer much either.
I woke up in the tattered remains of my red staff shirt and a big pair of jean pipe shorts up a nature trail in late September. Camp was LONG over, and I'd been slamming piles out in the bush solo. Sad and alone in the absence of any other players, who were now all long gone back to their schoolbooks.
I pulled my ass out and got my life back together. My old aluminum was missing, but in it's place I had the heavy wood one. Woodburned lovingly "For Councilor Richter", signed with initials of campers I barely remember, and messily sealed with a load of shellac still bearing a few childish fingerprints.
Damn I hope, wherever they are, that they're OK
Sweet mother of Jesus. :lulz:
Damn, Richter.
I had them too in my childhood.
But where I live we call it syphilis.
:rimshot:
Richter, the early years, when he just let go of the spincter...
Quote from: Jenne on March 29, 2011, 05:31:49 PM
Richter, the early years, when he just let go of the spincter...
You'll note that he isn't talking about The Incident. It was a fucking mess, and it was all the school board could do to keep it out of the papers. Today, of course, he'd have been booked on terrorist charges and taken away...The "Final Solution" Pog was utterly uncalled for, and yet another reason we can't have nice things.
You fuckers are crazier than I thought. And I already thought you were goddamned barking.
Quote from: Sigmatic on March 29, 2011, 05:37:08 PM
You fuckers are crazier than I thought. And I already thought you were goddamned barking.
...Woof?
Shit, thanks
Had to edit that a lot. It started last night to Tom Waits and vodka after I was done staring at my state returns. :lulz:
Quote from: Jenne on March 29, 2011, 05:41:07 PM
Quote from: Sigmatic on March 29, 2011, 05:37:08 PM
You fuckers are crazier than I thought. And I already thought you were goddamned barking.
...Woof?
"Barking" = mad as a hatter.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 29, 2011, 05:35:24 PM
Quote from: Jenne on March 29, 2011, 05:31:49 PM
Richter, the early years, when he just let go of the spincter...
You'll note that he isn't talking about The Incident. It was a fucking mess, and it was all the school board could do to keep it out of the papers. Today, of course, he'd have been booked on terrorist charges and taken away...The "Final Solution" Pog was utterly uncalled for, and yet another reason we can't have nice things.
...what he's
forgotten is that he's actually part of those god-damned government experiments. You know the ones. But they gave him something to forget, and now all he has are those false memories, the same they give those kids whose faces reside on the backs of those milk cartons. Richter was Specimen X287. He was to be given The Treament
TM and sent out into the wild.
But they didn't know that the power of pogs would actually create superhuman efforts to subvert the experiment's plans. No, instead, Richter broke out of character and cared more for his hide than his latest stash he could slam all day, forgetting about sleep, food and sex.
In fact, he learned how to Black Market that shit on the streets. Ever hear of Voodoo Pog Gaming? Yeah, that was Richter. See, he figured out that kids just wanted to stay out late at night, slamming Pogs till the dawn came, and didn't give a damn who they lied to, who they stole from or who they bamboozled into getting them some game. Voodoo was the latest craze of the mid-90's, and Richter invented it so kids could pull the wool over their parents' and grannies' eyes.
Little Jimmy had his parents thinking he was going to Wednesday night Bible Study...in reality, he was on the dark side, playing Voodoo Pog down the road with Richter. The fact that this game master looked and smelled like a preacher's wet dream of a camp counselor worked to his benefit.
Oh yeah, those were the hey days of Pogging the Big City, alright.
Those government fucks have a lot to answer for--so much wasted youth, so much wasted time.
:lulz:
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on March 29, 2011, 03:23:07 PM
After a while things changed. A lot of people grew out of pogs, I've heard. A lot of others just grew bored with them, forgot them once the craze died down. Heh, I envy the innocent. Our change didn't come from time. It came from the guy with the razor slammers.
Our little regular group stopped getting together. Not just for pogs, either, really entirely. Couldn't even meet one another's gaze in the schoolyard. Mikey was the first to go, now that I think about it. He didn't show up to do pogs one day, and this is when we just did it because it's what we did, not out of any sense of sport or fun. Anyway Mikey was at home. His mom gave me the whole "can't come out to play" routine but I knew what was up. I walked around the back and looked into his window. It looked like he was trying to clean his room or something, but every time he came upon something disc shaped, he stopped and stared for a minute, then calmly put it down and tried to move onto something else. Coins, soda caps, at one point he was all fucked up by the little paper rounds left by hole punches. He turned out okay in the long run, I hear, some kind of doctor. I was happy to hear that.
Danny is one of those guys that shapes the events in a positive light. He's an advocate now, got himself a social work degree and everything, and he specializes in cases like ours. When I ran into him at the supermarket the other week and found this out, he was holding a box of Ritz crackers. I was walking by and he became suddenly very interested in the nutrition label. Didn't say a goddamn word.
Eric. Shit, Eric was the star of the show back then. He had this flick of the wrist that would send your pogs flying. Thing of beauty, it was, real talented kid. We were glad to have him around, but I think we all knew he wasn't going to be in our little group for long with the kind of ability he had. He turned out the worst. Had the hardest to fall, I guess. I never had the nerve to see him again but the stories tell themselves. Turned into what he hated. Went from game to game, sniffing them out on the wind like prey, toting some kind of homemade slammer he'd been working on. Just mutilated the pogs from that point onward, his considerable skill gone totally awry. I wonder if he ever got out of it.
Me, I'm done, you know, moved on. Still have my moments, of course, like anybody. I'll be rummaging through the old junk drawer and a little metal disk will slip into my hand, the weight still familiar after all these years. Danny and Mikey and Eric flood back into vision, just some kids with a hobby. Gotta drop that thing shortly after, shut that drawer up tight.
Hell of a fucking thing though, pogs.
:potd: ?
There has been a good number of posts today that I won't soon forget. Hard to say which is best. And it's early still.
Quote from: Sigmatic on March 29, 2011, 06:24:35 PM
There has been a good number of posts today that I won't soon forget. Hard to say which is best. And it's early still.
Can't decide if I'm in awe, intimidated as fuck, or both.
When it happens, you just gotta grab hold and ride it.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 29, 2011, 06:32:16 PM
When it happens, you just gotta grab hold and ride it.
Excellent multi-purpose advice, that.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 29, 2011, 06:32:16 PM
When it happens, you just gotta grab hold and ride it.
Yes, PD's sorta the "mechanical bull" of the interbutts when this feeling comes over us. But we get the Spider stories, the Highway stories and the Letters of Strange out of it, so it's totally awesome when it does.
You know, I got all worked up when pogs came up. I tend to sometimes. Fly off the handle a bit when such a big thing is talked about so casually. I can see Richter had his demons, too, and I respect the pog dialogues for helping me out with my shit. Come to terms with it, I have, for the most part, ever since the first tidal wave of the memories rushed at me.
It was two years ago. I was new here, working at the jail. I guess I'm still new, when I'm in a room full of twenty year guys who still have a while to go. Anyway, they bring the new hires on a tour of the facility as part of the orientation. Brought me through the high security wing, and even the other jail we operate, old ass facility where you can still see the trap doors and worn beams they used to use for hangings.
The inmates get their kicks out of trying to scare newcomers. Got paraded through the segregation wing in a little group, all office staff like myself eyes wide and movements stiff. They love that shit, eat it up, it's entertainment. So we're getting our little view and they're all banging on the doors and yelling. Except for one guy. He was just standing there. Thought it was weird, shrugged it off, turned to leave.
Then I caught his eyes. Felt like I'd been shot. Or, given whose eyes they were, struck by lightning. The storm didn't rise outside like it used to when we were kids, but there was a fuck of a tempest turning up in my stomach. Fought it down while I got pelted like hail with words like GAME - SLAMMER - ERIC - METAL - FLIP - MIKE - WIN - PLAYGROUND - POG - DANNY - MAY - STORM - POG - POG - POG. POG. POG.
I left there a wreck. Looked him up later in our system, turns out he's just a local, probably drinks at some dive bar. Got picked up for destruction of property, was serving good time but for that stint in seg for a fight he didn't even start. Fuck, he might've just been a victim, like Eric. Gotta wonder where the whole cycle started, how many poor fucks got turned around in a fate so much bigger than just our own.
After that, after seeing who he was. I felt alright. Even in the years between the incidents when I'd go without thinking of pogs for a log time, I never felt so at peace. Comes up now and again, still hurts, but I'm good. I'm good.