Other Deleted Posts
I found out in LA that I may have one of the very first (if not the first) deleted poster on the MB. Is anyone surprised? I think not. The post in question was, as are most of my posts, meant in jest. It was before FOTR opened (this really was ages ago), and there was much good-natured rivalry abounding between Harry Potter Fans and LOTR fans. "Our box-office can beat up your box-office" and such.
In my local weekly off-beat paper, there appeared a small blurb about anti-Harry Potter web sites. I thought this would be amusing to share with my fellow Ringers, so I posted a link. One of the sites listed was all about how Harry Potter is satanic and is trying to draw children away from Christianity. I'm Jewish, and I could give a rat's ass about the Christian implications of Harry Potter, I just thought it was funny.
I was away from the boards for a bit after posting, and when I returned, mayhem had ensued in the form of a heated religious debate. The fur was flying. Woohoo! And by that afternoon the entire thread was deleted. And my illustrious career had begun.
Enter the Elfrog...
This was a post a few months ago in response to a number of threads in which people were detailing how they had chosen their Board handles. Since "Rasputin" is clearly not an LOTR-themed name (I was a Russian and East European Studies major in college, if you really want to know), I decided to create an identity for myself.
So I put up a post that described my Rasputin persona as an "Elfrog": half elf, half Balrog. That would be an elf that thinks dirty thoughts, I explained in my post. It was deleted within five minutes.
This particular incident was the catalyst for a rather lengthy sabbatical form the Message Boards on my part. After emailing a moderator to verify that I had, in fact, been deleted and not just the vicitim of a technical glitch, I decided to quietly slink away. No fanfare, no flames, just a descent into lurker status. Another deligthful weekend in LA with my fellow Fan Club members inspired me to peek my head out again. *sigh*
Cocktails anyone?
I won't bore you with the details, but I had a number of posts just prior to the Elfrog incident deleted because they made explicit reference to imbibing alcoholic beverages. To quote a wise person, "I'm not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings. I'm a drunk." 'Nuff said.
Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay!
A few of my posts that I believe were deleted for referring to alcohol may have also been deleted for using this verboten g-word (I have a tendency to go out drinking with gay boys). I shared Sir Ian McKellan's dismay at this outrageousdisplay of censorship combined with bigotry on the part of the MB, and I was pleased as hell that they decided to change their policy. That was one of the things that encouraged me to come back and give it another go.
What's next?
Ah, who knows what delightful standards of propriety I may violate tomorrow or the next day? Stay tuned for updates! At least I've finally learned that if I'm going to post anything interesting, I should save a copy on my hard drive for later retrieval. Thanks for listening to this rant. I really just adore LOTR and everything about it, and some of the folks I've met through the Fan Club and TORN are some of the neatest people it's ever been my pleasure to associate with. Good friends, good times, good movies, good books. And infinite opportunity for me to find new ways of being tacky and offensive. Who could ask for anything more?
Until the next deletion! Cheers!
~Rasputin the Evil Balrog
Home
Fan Club
TOR.n
RingsOnTheRange
