AbbyGasm

[Dimocritus]

Awesome! So what do you think about the date for buzz week? Too soon? Too late? Just right?

TBH I no longer think such impersonal GASMs have any use beyond the fun the have for the one perpetrating them.  So I really no longer care about AbbyGASM.

TBH your opinion is whack


but regardless--
we're not seeing a lot of people go "sign me up!" so maybe this idea wasn't fun enough to begin with

No, is good!

I'm in.

I have a few friends that can help out by writing some letters, too.

I say we do this shit. I don't know how to wikki, so if someone puts one together, I can spread it around a bit.

[Lord Quantum]

You know, on second thought, we should move the buzz week up to March 7th-13th. We don't need more than three weeks to prepare. No one with any programming experience has showed up, so we won't be able to do the website thing anyway.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm still totally into it; we just need to coordinate so that each columnist gets no more than ONE of each letter, from various parts of the country, if people decide to use the sample letters.

Say we have seven letters and seven volunteers. Each volunteer chooses one letter, modified slightly, to send to each of the columnists. Each columnist then receives seven different letters from seven different parts of the country. We stagger the sending dates by person so that the letters don't all arrive at once.

More than six or seven seems like overkill.

[Lord Quantum]

So right now we've got Nigel, dimo, Muir and myself. And maybe Crammulus ? Muir, since we're using email for this don't worry about finding UK columnists, just use an email account that doesn't have the ".uk" in it. So now all we need is..

• Two more volunteers
• Two more letters
• A mailing schedule

Or we could just go with the people and letters we have. We've got 5 & 5.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So right now we've got Nigel, dimo, Muir and myself. And maybe Crammulus ? Muir, since we're using email for this don't worry about finding UK columnists, just use an email account that doesn't have the ".uk" in it. So now all we need is..

• Two more volunteers
• Two more letters
• A mailing schedule

Or we could just go with the people and letters we have. We've got 5 & 5.

I think five is just fine; let's roll with it, and if anyone else wants to join in we'll come up with another letter.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

BUT ZOMG LOLFIVES!!!

[Dimocritus]

This is sounding good. Just let me know when exactly I should send one.

[Muir]

Sure thing! I have a ymail.com account that I don't use for a personal email account so that'll work.  I might still be able to get someone to do up a quick website or maybe even a wiki for this.  The person I had in mind hasn't been online for the last couple days, but I found out that another of my friends is discordian yesterday so I'll ask him.  At the very least, a wiki page will lend credibility in case these columnists do some online research.  I'll let you know by the end of the day one way or the other.  

Also, I think if we send an email a day to each person say...next week?  That way they have plenty of time to read it and reply (after all, most "agony aunt's" admit that letter's are queued up a couple weeks in advance.).  

Gotta love those 5's, eh Nigel? :P

Edit:  When I say website/wiki I mean a fake one about "Discordian Devival"  saying when it is and stuff like "contact your local cabal or discordian irc for exact location(s) and password for entry"

[Muir]

Right!  A friend has agreed to make a wiki page highlighting the "discordian devival" as well as make a simple website. (I've managed to get a domain name and 3 months free hosting which should be enough for what we need) My friend says some pictures to put on the site would be good, so if any of you have anything suitable, please link to them here.  He says "People would be nice. Hot dog stands perhaps Or anything vaguely Discordian."  Will post more info (links and such to the wiki and site) as I can.

[Cramulus]

I'm definitely in.

[Lord Quantum]

Good point, Muir. Since everybody's ready to go right now, there's really no reason to wait another 3 weeks. And the letters probably won't be read the same week that we send them, so that'll give your friend some extra time to whip up a website.

So yeah, let's bump this up to next week. As for the the mailing schedule, the dice told me to do this:

• Monday - Quantum
• Tuesday - Muir
• Wednesday - Nigel
• Thursday- Dimo
• Friday- Cram

And just to recap, each of us is going to pick one of the sample letters (or write your own if you want) and send it to all of the columnists (list on pg 9) on your day. I'm going to do this one

Dear Advice Columnist,

Me and my best friend Josh have known each other for practically ever... we even went to first grade in the same class. We always have spent almost every weekend together and sometimes we go on vacations and camping with each others families. We are both juniors at Lincoln High, and we are planning to start applying to the same colleges soon so we can go to college together. He is pretty much the person I am closest to in the whole world besides my sister and my mom... we tell each other EVERYTHING. About six months ago Josh started talking about this book he read, called the Principia Discordia. It was pretty cool and he got me to read it, but I guess I didn't think it was as deep or whatever as he did... it's mostly just a bunch of goofy stuff written a long time ago, like when our parents were kids. Anyway, after a couple of months of trying to talk to me about it, he said that he found some other people who are really into it online... The Discordian Society or something like that... and now he says his religion is Discordian and he's going to this thing called the Devival, which is a big festival where they all get together and, I guess, worship.

Here's the thing that I'm really having a problem with, though, is that because I'm not into the Discordian Society, this is the first time Josh has ever gotten all excited about doing something WITHOUT me. I feel so left out, and he doesn't seem to get it. I thought we were best friends, and it's like he's forgotten all about it. My mom says that when people grow up sometimes they can grow apart, and nobody seems at all concerned about what he's doing, but honestly it's WIERD. It's not AT ALL like the old Josh, and not like the stuff we used to do together. He's not even excited about looking at college brochures anymore, and he talks about doing things that sound, well maybe not illegal, but definitely things that sound like trouble, I can't really go into details because he doesn't talk about it to me very much anymore. Please help! Nobody will listen to me! All the adults I know just tell me not to worry or they say that I'll get over it, but I am not the one who needs to get over anything! I just want my old best friend back.

Sincerly,

Becky Strodtmeyer

I noticed that there wasn't an email address for Billy Graham's "My Answer" column. Go here http://www.billygraham.org/Contact_BGEA.asp And click "spiritual question" on the drop box labelled "Begin by selecting the primary topic of your message". Unless you really want to send him a physical letter. So now we just need some suggestions and pics for the website. Maybe the Devival should be an Erisian version of the Witches Sabbat. And we could have a list of people who are going to be ordained at the event by taking the sex, drugs and rock & roll vows.

[Dimocritus]

This is good. I'm probably going to write my own letter, but I have a question. Am I to alter the letter slightly for each coloumn, or will it not matter?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Good point, Muir. Since everybody's ready to go right now, there's really no reason to wait another 3 weeks. And the letters probably won't be read the same week that we send them, so that'll give your friend some extra time to whip up a website.

So yeah, let's bump this up to next week. As for the the mailing schedule, the dice told me to do this:

• Monday - Quantum
• Tuesday - Muir
• Wednesday - Nigel
• Thursday- Dimo
• Friday- Cram

Oh hey, hold on, how about no? I'm busy. March 7-13 is fine for me, but short-notice reschedulings do not work for me. I have shit to do next week, and I need the additional time to write & modify my letters and get snail addresses for the columnists. Since I'm busy all week & don't have one big free block of time for this, I have to do it a bit at a time in the evenings.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is good. I'm probably going to write my own letter, but I have a question. Am I to alter the letter slightly for each coloumn, or will it not matter?

I plan to modify my letter slightly for each columnist, but I don't think it's necessary.

[Muir]

The website domain I grabbed is http://www.discordian-devival.org  It isn't up yet, so right now all you'll get is an error message.  I'll post here as soon as it's up and running, which should hopefully be early next week.  The wiki-page will also be posted up once the website is up and running.

I'll grab the 1st letter - the one written by "Lita" and will modify it just a little with each person I email it to.