Here's something fun to ponder

[littlebeast13]

On the ABC Bored (and it's various iterations) I put "100" after my handle because the original was already taken (surprisingly, since "earendel" is not commonly known even by Tolkien readers). Rather than try "1", "2" and so forth, I just picked a number that I figured would be available. When the search for our new home began, I used my handle without numbers on every one, just because I could.

Of course, that still doesn't explain the mysterious d00d00.....

You remember that, don't you?

lb13

Yes, I do (or is that "d00"?? ). I do recall trying to register some of the alternate possibilities for my handle, to avoid the "litt1ebeast13" phenomenon, but it became too troublesome. I do think that I claimed earende1100 and earendel1OO. But evidently I wasn't worth imitating because I don't recall anyone other than myself using an alternate spelling.

There were three BB's around the early part of 2001 who got cloned with 0/O variations. They were.....



okiepat2000





PSUDoc90






and tremolo20.






I couldn't tell you what colored car I parked next to last night, but I can still remember stuff like this.....

lb13

[SportsFan68]

And to think, that ratio was much higher back in those days. And your delurking coincided with the rise of the Verbose Class, which was the start of the spiral of that ratio downward....

There may have been more on-topic posts, but a lot more off-topic ones, too. Isn't that when Sprots racked up her 15.7 billion post lead on me?

If I've told him once, I've told him a billion times -- don't exaggerate!

Besides, what's the difference between a few hundred and 15.7 billion anyway? Sigh . . . not much, in the national debt.

[andrewjackson]

Aw damn, I didn't even think that it mattered anymore. Don't anybody let Marley see that! Would it help to know that I got 5 right on one of them and didn't get called (I got 4 on the other one).

I'm not bitter or anything. It didn't really start bothering me until a bunch of the longtime Ofers started getting callbacks towards the end of the phone game and I still sat R2-less....

And that's one thing Marley can't grumble about since he did get his shot at it.....

lb13

How many of us Ofers are still around? Me, KT, lb, the Big Kahuna (infrequently) ... who else?

Should I drag out some of my callback songs?

I'm kind of a marginal 0fer. I went 0fer about 100 on the normal R1 game but I did get a call-back on the modified single-round phone game.

And I got in the hotseat and a check so I'm sure I'm not part of the official 0fer club.

[wintergreen48]

I never used numbers in my original Bored registrations (antistius, suetonius and Boris_Godunov) because none were necessary. I changed my screen names each time after I was outed, and when I gave up Boris, I found that I could not use 'wintergreen' alone, the system required a number, so I used my age at that time. I thought about re-registering each year, but never did. When we came over here, I just kept the numbers because, well, I had been using the same name for over six years, and it seemed to be The Right Thing To Do.

[gsabc]

Charlie of the Millionaire
(apologies to J. Steiner, B. Hawes and the Kingston Trio)

Now let me tell you a story of a man named Charlie
In that tragic and fateful year.
He sat down by the phone, kissed his wife and family
And went to try out for Millionaire.

Well, did he ever get on? No, he never got on
And his problem's just begun.
He may dial forever to that one-eight-hundred,
He's the man who never got on.

Charlie dialed in the number and he heard Regis greet him
And he punched in security.
Then he listened real closely to avoid mouths of marble
And he aced questions one, two and three!

Did he ever get on? No, he never got on
And he's looking rather wan.
He may dial forever to that one-eight-hundred,
He's the man who never got on.

Now next PM Charlie waits and he cries out,
"Sitting here between 12 and 3,
How can I go out to get that business in Akron,
Or make that meeting with our VP?"

Did he ever get on? No, he never got on
And his finger's badly worn.
He may dial forever to that one-eight-hundred,
He's the man who never got on.

Charlie's wife cooks dinner, brings it to the table
Every night at a quarter past six
He just gulps it down, doesn't really taste it
Then he calls for his daily fix.

Did he ever get on? No, he never got on
And he's envious of John (and of Dan and Joe).
He may dial forever to that one-eight-hundred,
He's the man who never got on.

Now you Millionaire viewers, don't you think it's a scandal
That we all try but can't compete?
Fight for more tape dates! Make that your final answer
And we'll all get to that hot seat!

Did he ever get on? No, he never got on
And his mind is nearly gone.
He may dial forever to that one-eight-hundred,
He's the man who never got on.

For those who prefer happy endings:

So did he ever get on? Yes, he finally got on
And became a millionaire!
He met Reeg and Rosie, said hello to Michael,
Charlie's now a millionaire.
originally posted Sept 20, 2000

[SportsFan68]

You know, I think I remember the question I had now! I had only played two R1s and gotten the callback both times so I just assumed that if you got all the questions right, you got a callback. Then I played a third time and didn't get a callback, so I was searching to find out if it was common not to get one.

I thought the same thing, except even more hopefully than Fanny -- I thought it after only one all-correct R1.

[gsabc]

You always remember your first. Song parody, that is.

The Sounds of Silence

Hello callback, my old friend,
I've come to wait for you again.
Because I beat the marbles in her mouth
And arranged things from the north to south
And the novels that were written by Ann Rice.
It was so nice.
But now's the sounds of silence.

In restless dreams I beat them all,
Fastest fingers great and small.
Then I leap up and shook Regis' hand,
Sit in the seat to make my stand
When my eyes are stabbed by the thousand-watt klieg light
It is so bright,
I wake to sounds of silence.

Fools, say I to the TV,
Why don't you know about TB?
Or about the rhymes of nursery,
Or the street that is called Sesame?
But my words just bothered my family,
Who answered with the sounds of silence.

Hello callback, my old friend,
I've come to wait for you again.
Because I beat the marbles in her mouth
And arranged things from the north to south
And the novels that were written by Ann Rice.
It was so nice.
But now's the sounds of silence.

And in my dreams I see the set
Two hundred folks I never met
People voting to help me out
People choosing without a doubt
People telling me
which soda pop was first,
Good thing no Durst
disturbs the sounds of silence.

But now at work I wait alone
Sitting by this silent phone
And the time ticks by ever so slow
Three hours pass, where did they go?
And the rules said,
They'd call back at random to a total of forty - Just not to me
And so I hear the sounds of silence.

originally posted April 21, 2000

[christie1111]

I never used numbers in my original Bored registrations (antistius, suetonius and Boris_Godunov) because none were necessary. I changed my screen names each time after I was outed, and when I gave up Boris, I found that I could not use 'wintergreen' alone, the system required a number, so I used my age at that time. I thought about re-registering each year, but never did. When we came over here, I just kept the numbers because, well, I had been using the same name for over six years, and it seemed to be The Right Thing To Do.

And I wonder why I have such a hard time remembering Who is who sometimes.

And I forgot mellowmom was Joe's mom.

Sigh.

[TheCalvinator24]

So, would you have ever come out to play if you hadn't gotten that R2? Inquiring _TPTB_'s want to know.....

Partly, there was some fear about TPTB being prejudiced about folks on the Bored. Ironic, that, considering that 2000 was the heyday when they actually gave the Jipters recognition on the show.

The only part of my banter with Regis that got edited out was when I mentioned how helpful the ABC Message Board had been. I was even careful to point out that it was the official Bored on the ABC website.

[Bob78164]

In Bob's case, I believe that was his student ID number in college.

My '0' is a substitute for the letter 'o'; it's a hacker thing...

The handle spelled with an 'o' happened to have been unavailable when I first went to register it for an Yahoo message board. Since then, well, it's my trademark now!

My student number was actually 78164. That's why I switched when we moved over here.

I reversed the numbers at the old Go bored because when I first registed Bob78164 at espn.com, I forgot my password. Unfortunately, I'd changed employers before I realized that I'd forgotten the password so I couldn't get back in to the account.

Pretty much everywhere you find me on the Internet, I've got the same User ID, and that's why I kept it here (after unreversing the numbers). --Bob

[Bob78164]

Aw damn, I didn't even think that it mattered anymore. Don't anybody let Marley see that! Would it help to know that I got 5 right on one of them and didn't get called (I got 4 on the other one).

I'm not bitter or anything. It didn't really start bothering me until a bunch of the longtime Ofers started getting callbacks towards the end of the phone game and I still sat R2-less....

And that's one thing Marley can't grumble about since he did get his shot at it.....

lb13

How many of us Ofers are still around? Me, KT, lb, the Big Kahuna (infrequently) ... who else?

Should I drag out some of my callback songs?

I'm not sure whether mine counts. I got a R2 callback once. But I was in court that day and therefore missed the callback. I think that was the only time I was ever forced to be away from a phone on the day after a R1 success. --Bob

[frogman042]

I'm kind of a marginal 0fer. I went 0fer about 100 on the normal R1 game but I did get a call-back on the modified single-round phone game.

And I got in the hotseat and a check so I'm sure I'm not part of the official 0fer club.

OK, so I'm assuming that an 0fer is someone who would dial in using the old way of triying out for PTBOM, selected their air-date, and waited like an idiot for hours the next day for a call that never came - rescheduled meetings to fall out of that window, and was extremely curt with anyone who dared calling during that window. If that is correct, then I'm an Ofer as well. Passed the evening screening/arrange from loser to winner order contest, but never got the call for additional tests (if that was the process). IIRC, there were different flavors, sometimes they let folks try more then once if you blew it, othertimes you had just a single shot per evening. Sometimes it was 3 questions, sometimes 5. All in all, I did pretty well and passed r1 (round 1 I guess) a fairly high % of the time, replied to the recording with all my personal info, but alas, never got the call.

But given my current situation, I have no complaints.

17 days and counting.

---Jay

[Vails]

Excellent!!! Song lyric flashbacks!!!!


I dropped my forced number, 11, when I came aboard this boat. I also capitalized the "v".

[MarleysGh0st]

I'm kind of a marginal 0fer. I went 0fer about 100 on the normal R1 game but I did get a call-back on the modified single-round phone game.

And I got in the hotseat and a check so I'm sure I'm not part of the official 0fer club.

OK, so I'm assuming that an 0fer is someone who would dial in using the old way of triying out for PTBOM, selected their air-date, and waited like an idiot for hours the next day for a call that never came - rescheduled meetings to fall out of that window, and was extremely curt with anyone who dared calling during that window. If that is correct, then I'm an Ofer as well. Passed the evening screening/arrange from loser to winner order contest, but never got the call for additional tests (if that was the process). IIRC, there were different flavors, sometimes they let folks try more then once if you blew it, othertimes you had just a single shot per evening. Sometimes it was 3 questions, sometimes 5. All in all, I did pretty well and passed r1 (round 1 I guess) a fairly high % of the time, replied to the recording with all my personal info, but alas, never got the call.

But given my current situation, I have no complaints.

17 days and counting.

---Jay

Your interpretation of an "0fer" is correct, Jay.

It was a pretty exciting time to be on the Bored. Each day of the Phone Game, we'd compile a list of people who had passed Round 1 and then we'd be rooting for their phones to ring while they were "on the clock" during that 12 to 3 call-back window. While most were disappointed, there was a steady stream of people getting that call, some of whom would be in NYC in another week or two.

And for those of us who weren't so lucky...the next round of the Phone Game would be just a few hours away and we could look forward to a fresh start with that.

Unlike going to an audition to be judged and found wanting by an AP.

[Thousandaire]

I don't like numbers in my ID. I'm surprised thousandaire wasn't taken. I guess no one wants to own up to being one on the show.

[ulysses5019]

I don't like numbers in my ID. I'm surprised thousandaire wasn't taken. I guess no one wants to own up to being one on the show.

Are there any llamas around?

[MarleysGh0st]

I don't like numbers in my ID. I'm surprised thousandaire wasn't taken. I guess no one wants to own up to being one on the show.

We do have BBs who were thousandaires on the show--and, yes, some who were llamas--but they already had Bored names by that point and didn't feel compelled to change them.

BTW, Thousandaire, why didn't you want to use your screen name from the J! board? I presume that's you, using the same avatar over there.

[eyégor]

I tried to sign up as Beast (My nickname for the mongrel of a dachsund my Dad once stupidly bought my Mom

So that's who the original Beast is!

I think mini's the only one who ever remembered.

The dog's still kicking too. The original Beast will turn 11 on September 8th....

lb13

Ahem.

[littlebeast13]

I don't like numbers in my ID. I'm surprised thousandaire wasn't taken. I guess no one wants to own up to being one on the show.

I'll bet it was taken on Go, so you'd have probably had to have been Thousandaire1000 or something....

lb13

[littlebeast13]

So that's who the original Beast is!

I think mini's the only one who ever remembered.

The dog's still kicking too. The original Beast will turn 11 on September 8th....

lb13

Ahem.

I usually don't equate you with memory unless it's some obscure Bored history that eluded my notebooks....

Speaking of, I wonder if tubadave's ever gonna finish Bored Game 11......

lb13

[Thousandaire]

BTW, Thousandaire, why didn't you want to use your screen name from the J! board? I presume that's you, using the same avatar over there.

Uh oh! Outed by my avatar. I don't know, I thought thousandaire fit this board. I have several different IDs but most are variations of my first name.

[kayrharris]

I got banned from the J! board yesterday and have never posted one time!

Apparently someone was sending private messages with some kind of video
attached. I saw it and my virus protection picked it up and deleted it right away without even reading it.

Last night when I went over to check the board after the show, I was no longer allowed to even view messages. I sent them an e-mail explaining I was the victim, not the bad guy. Guess it worked, as today my account is back to normal.

It was a strange event and at first I wondered if it's all this bad influence over here on this bored. j/k of course....but the funny thing is I am a rule follower and have been all my life (that middle child syndrome) and I was mortified when this happened to me.

[Thousandaire]

I got banned from the J! board yesterday and have never posted one time!

Apparently someone was sending private messages with some kind of video
attached. I saw it and my virus protection picked it up and deleted it right away without even reading it.

Last night when I went over to check the board after the show, I was no longer allowed to even view messages. I sent them an e-mail explaining I was the victim, not the bad guy. Guess it worked, as today my account is back to normal.

It was a strange event and at first I wondered if it's all this bad influence over here on this bored. j/k of course....but the funny thing is I am a rule follower and have been all my life (that middle child syndrome) and I was mortified when this happened to me.

Doesn't the middle child break the rules? Or is that just boys? Or just my older brother?

I didn't get a spam PM on the J! bored so I felt left out.

[Here's Fanny!]

I got banned from the J! board yesterday and have never posted one time!

Apparently someone was sending private messages with some kind of video
attached. I saw it and my virus protection picked it up and deleted it right away without even reading it.

Last night when I went over to check the board after the show, I was no longer allowed to even view messages. I sent them an e-mail explaining I was the victim, not the bad guy. Guess it worked, as today my account is back to normal.

It was a strange event and at first I wondered if it's all this bad influence over here on this bored. j/k of course....but the funny thing is I am a rule follower and have been all my life (that middle child syndrome) and I was mortified when this happened to me.

Doesn't the middle child break the rules? Or is that just boys? Or just my older brother?

I didn't get a spam PM on the J! bored so I felt left out.

It differs depending on the number of children and the genders involved, but the basic lines are:

Oldest - Responsible, mature, controlling
Middle - Hates conflict, conformist
Youngest - Spoiled, depends on others

[moonie]

This thread brings back a whole lotta memories!

Unbelievable how many years we go back, huh.

My name comes from the band I started way back in '95! I really should change it (its my email addy too) since that band had a nice 8 year run, but its only a memory now.