I will always be willing to shrug past the occasional super-long image, but it *would* be sort of slicky-dick clever if there was an easy way for the site upon upload of an image to check for some threshold on height ratio and apply a general automagical "this image is quite long indeed!" div class that'd do a like fade-to-white gradient and a "more..." link at the bottom for anything over, I dunno, 2600px or something.
and people would be like "oh, ha, like, Tony the Pony! That's--"
and then he'd give 'em a look like he could already see the hoofprint on their face and be like "don't call me that"
and I'd have to talk him down, and he'd cool it but he'd be real quiet, like too quiet, like you knew he was making an effort to control his anger but the result wasn't a whole lot less worrisome
he'd work on it, he'd try and work through it, and there'd be progress, the sort of slow, three-steps-forward-and-two-back stumble that comes with heavy emotional baggage, with having been hurt before and wanting to trust again but not really knowing how
sometimes he'd see a couple on the street, just walking together hand in hand and smiling, and you'd catch his mouth twitching a little, his eyes starting to gleam, and then he'd blink hard and his mouth would tighten up
he'd never want to talk about it, except every once in a while over drinks something would slip out
eventually he started seeing a therapist and it helped some, he seemed to have a better sense at least of the strange swerves and troughs of his own emotional landscape
he'd cut himself off in the middle of getting worked up and just go for a walk, eat some grass and sort of putter around in meadow for a while
only person allowed to call him Tony the Pony is his moms and that's just because she's his moms and she's been on the downslide from dementia for the last few years so its not like she'd know if he told her not to, but he wouldn't
eventually we'd drift apart after an argument about Java's garbage collection routines that wasn't really about that at all
that I wasn't the protagonist in Tony's story and if I had to lose a friend for him to be happy, or whatever he found that was more like happiness than the conflicted hell he'd been in, that was a fair trade, or at least as fair as anything could be
I'd see him a few years later, at his moms' funeral
weird place for a reunion but funerals are like that, you feel guilty for looking forward to seeing someone given the circumstances
he'd be doing well, all things considered, on edge a little because he loved his moms but at the same time she'd been gone for a long time before she went and everybody understood that partly it was just a relief for him even if nobody wants to say it out loud
him dressed up in a black suit, his main brushed out nice, you forget how someone can clean up when they're not the clean-up type usually
we'd say hi, and sort of pause and then go for the hug, and it feels good, you know all in a moment there that things are different but they're okay, we're okay
and then Richie Dekum comes up and that guy was always an asshole but it's a funeral and he's doing the closest thing he can to a decent respectful smile
and he opens up for his own hug
and he says, and you understand as he says it that he's been drinking today, too much, he says Tony
@stereoplex Well remember, the plan sort of went off the rails at Yavin. Tarkin was not choosing to die, he wanted a better way to find the Rebellion's base, which he did. But for Little Johnny Force, his proton torpedo vituosity and some bad timing, the plan worked.
Yeah, Larp Trek is probably the only sustained writing project I could point to. I write plenty of words but most of them are Metafilter comments and tweets about farts.
@joshmillard Good lord, Sir. I do believe I may have just shat myself a bit due to eruptions of hilarity. Also, Jim Beam through the nose is not a particularly pleasant experience. Well worth it though.
I just came back here to say that the same mechanism which inspired the above rant, namely "getting halfway down an image, then starting to scroll, and scroll, and realizing that 'holy shit this is long...'"
and then he'd give 'em a look like he could already see the hoofprint on their face and be like "don't call me that"
and I'd have to talk him down, and he'd cool it but he'd be real quiet, like too quiet, like you knew he was making an effort to control his anger but the result wasn't a whole lot less worrisome
sometimes he'd see a couple on the street, just walking together hand in hand and smiling, and you'd catch his mouth twitching a little, his eyes starting to gleam, and then he'd blink hard and his mouth would tighten up
eventually he started seeing a therapist and it helped some, he seemed to have a better sense at least of the strange swerves and troughs of his own emotional landscape
he'd cut himself off in the middle of getting worked up and just go for a walk, eat some grass and sort of putter around in meadow for a while
eventually we'd drift apart after an argument about Java's garbage collection routines that wasn't really about that at all
I'd miss him
weird place for a reunion but funerals are like that, you feel guilty for looking forward to seeing someone given the circumstances
he'd be doing well, all things considered, on edge a little because he loved his moms but at the same time she'd been gone for a long time before she went and everybody understood that partly it was just a relief for him even if nobody wants to say it out loud
we'd say hi, and sort of pause and then go for the hug, and it feels good, you know all in a moment there that things are different but they're okay, we're okay
and then Richie Dekum comes up and that guy was always an asshole but it's a funeral and he's doing the closest thing he can to a decent respectful smile
and he opens up for his own hug
and he says, and you understand as he says it that he's been drinking today, too much, he says Tony
Tony the Pony
thanks for coming out, man
@buttermilk Have you seen http://larptrek.com/larptrek/1/? Because if you like the @joshmillard magic, you should really check it out.
This is very MLKSHK.
@joshmillard a good morning to you too! and Tony if you see him!
That mechanism now applies to this thread.