Oh man, now there's this expectation for me to perform, and I'm getting stage fright. This isn't very nice, guys, goading me into responding like this!
Let me first assure you all that I thank you all vigorously somewhere in the closing region of this post. There's also some apologizing. Extensive apologizing.
This is going to be even more horrible because I am writing this past midnight. I don't mind if you guys skip most of this, I'll likely regret this in the morning like Gunnair and SheperdsDog do when they wake up drunk and half-naked in the sheep pens to the bleating of the ewes. Usually because they can't remember the night previous, or how they managed to make those woolen condoms on the spot.
I suppose I could just end this here and now with a succinct "thank you" to the folks out there who voted for me in this round. I have to admit my mind was kind of split on managing to avoid getting enough nominations for this dubious honour the last time by a single vote, and I'm not too sure if I'm more inclined to be proud of my massive stacks of text which give people a lot to read but little to chew on.
It's actually kind of funny that this comes up now, when I'm actually trying to shorten my posts down a bit, lol! I have to admit that I have a horrible memory on this site -- I always forget to check if I got Karma recently, then by the time I do notice I feel guilty for not having sent a thank you note and then go hide, hoping no one will notice that I was too much of an inattentive dork to notice when I got the rep up. This sort of memory slip up is pretty common with my other posts, since I do just begin writing and I don't stop.
Now, I'm going to say here that from here on out I am just going to ramble about why I write long posts. I don't actually expect people to read but I'm doing it out of a sense of necessity in devotion to the Holy Order of the Brothers of Unnecessary Verbage. I could have been funny and innovative and pulled a sandorski in my response, with a single word of "thanks" encapsulating the entire meaning of the multi-paragraph response you are about to receive. However, clearly something different is expected and I really do wonder how much I can write on the topic of nothing interesting. Nada. Squat. I wonder if a topic will emerge from these words as they race along behind my cursor, eventually forming a coherent thought or brain drizzle (full on storms hurt my poor underdeveloped brain!) of some sort. So here's to you, raydan, Brenda, SheperdsDog and QBC (this is well into the sixth page and potentially longer at this point, so your prediction is confirmed. You should have bet money!) -- you guys made the mistake of mentioning it and now I must carry on through. SUFFER!
I will admit that it's partially for me rather than for you guys that I write a ton -- well, to be honest, I think it's a massive inconvinience for you guys to have to read my posts. When I write, it gives me the opportunity to order thoughts from top to top, have conflicting thoughts tangle and contradict each other, and see if they can be untangled or if they both wrap around the same point equally and cannot be shorn away. The more I write, the more time I have to kill my first reaction and try to travel to the happy medium where I can argue down my own expertise, my own bias, my own reactions as much as possible before I actually post (and they no doubt will continue to glimmer through, and I do try to point it out from time to time). I still find that I often go back and try to edit it as much as possible before someone actually responds, which is a nasty habit of mine I'm also trying to kick. These edits almost always make my posts a lot longer when I try to explain something so as to show I'm not trying to be confrontational or to anger anyone in particular. At other times I'll edit a lot of times in a row to try and write something in a way which doesn't sound offensive, or to add a caveat about an example or some such.
One of the great things I've experienced on CKA is the learning environment. I like this really poetic view of the brain, with all it's little strands connected like a spiderweb, from point to point, concept to concept, meaning to meaning. When we get into these debates or discussions, it forces this web to twist. Some strands are wrapped tightly, forming rope to strengthen it's important, whereas other strands twist apart or become ephemeral. Some thoughts are gilded in gold by those who attain them, the gold either beaten into imperfection by the thoughts of others or by one's own rationalization shaped into a cudgel, and those thoughts which are particularly brittle break apart with the hammer's blow. If someone's mind is glistening gold, the stark beauty and lack of contrast in the glinting, otherwordly vista is numbing without the contrast. There is beauty in beaten gold, and I thank you all for beating the shit out of my gold into some new, interesting shapes and providing me some of your own pre-beaten gold on topics I've never heard before as well! I don't know why I am posting this other than to potentially make this longer. Also likely because I haven't slept for the last three nights all that well because of illness and I'm a bit loopy because of the meds! No doubt tomorrow I will wake up and go "what the hell was I thinking," wishing I hadn't missed the grace period to delete the post or edit it without someone noticing you have done so!
Basically, I write a ton so I don't offend someone. A good chunk of words which add on to the length of my posts are "perhaps," "maybe" or "possibly" statements or words to avoid putting words into someone else's mouth or out of concern that I might have taken something the wrong way. As a result, I almost always end up writing a lot more than I initially plan to so that I can fit in the myriad apologies for potentially misleading someone. Lately there's been that trend of pseudo-skepticism and fallacy discussion and for me, inherently, forcing myself to watch for those more than usual requires that I end up adding a lot more bulk to make sure that I am making clear the distinctions between a thought which is my own and not backed up, a positive statement, etc. I'm not sure how I feel about that being in so many threads because of it, and to be honest I am not sure why I brought it up now. My stomach is twisting out of concern that I might have begun a new debate in this thread so I am going to run away from that topic very, very fast now.
I'll also be honest that I have this nasty habit of shortening down the wrong sections of posts. The last time I took a post and really shortened it down, I managed to equate Soviet Russia with communism in general, because I just melded two paragraphs without looking at it closely enough, hoping that if I cut enough away it'll be of a more acceptable length. At other times I feel that I am not thorough enough I'll be called out on it and I really do hate those back and forths where it feels like an argument because it makes me feel a scrunched up inside, probably more than other people because I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to sharing my own opinions. In a conversation, someone can ask for clarification on the spot -- when you are trying to make a point, you can't post it mid-way through for people to have the time to write out questions or concerns at that point, you have to finish the thought and post it. If I flesh out the thought more the first time, than it's much easier to flesh out in the long run since I have ready access to what I've already said and can build upon any areas of concern.
Another part is because I really hate writing short, positive statements because positive statements which are nice and short and succinct can be interpreted sometimes in many ways and can be taken as absolutes. This is just for me, most of you use them wonderfully, it's just that I can't seem to manage it myself on a forum medium. I take it to the other extreme where I write a ton to explain a nebulous point of view. In this effort to try and make sure people do not misunderstand me if I write something I tend to avoid the succinct state outside of my formal writing, where I am the exact opposite -- fitting a lot of information into a very little tiny space. While you'd think I could translate this over to forums well, I really, really can't.
I also tend to post on topics I'm really interested or excited about, or which I personally find contentious, or which I don't know much about. For example, I love posting on threads about Economics and I tend to begin rambling because I see a lot of other little tidbits I would like to include in a post and suddenly I need to write about them. I figure if I am going to take up some of the time of other people around Canada I might as well make the effort to add on as much as possible.
On top of that, the more words which I add onto these posts, the more words which could potentially be picked up by various search engines. The more links or videos, the better it does for the website as well, I believe, especially since we have all of these lovely spiders wandering around CKA. Since I think CKA is an excellent center for education and discussion on Canada, I want to make sure I add as much as possible to make sure that each post is as fleshed out as I can make it... before I inevitably go back in and edit a few more words in, or another paragraph -- or in the case of that "Hijack this thread" thread, an entire second post when I ran into the character limit of CKA's forums for each post. Which was amusing and actually did get a smile out of me, since I haven't managed to get a post of that length on any more for a while.
As an ironic side story, I actually came here from a gaming site where I am in the five digits for posts. In fact, come to think of it, I'm not too far off of 20,000 posts. Even there, I am known for my crazy long posts, so I guess I should be thankful for the fact that CKA is not more active or I'd be spending a lot more time writing out all of these ridiculously long messages! I'm actually scared to see how many characters I have posted on these two sites, probably some ghastly or horrid number which are in digits beyond my comprehension. Admittedly, I also do a much poorer job of suppressing my inner pervert (don't give me that look, all of you have spent a long time on the internet now, you're moral compasses are forever damaged) over there, so maybe typing so much here is a release. Sometimes it's hard to forget that you can type really fast until you see how quickly you can churn out a pile of words which looks like a lot while saying very little. In a way my posts are very much like a salad with light dressing. Perhaps a little interest, but largely bland and with little real substance inside all of that volume, haha!
I suppose I should also be thankful for contractions, which have definitely probably saved me entire hours in the time I've taken to write posts on this site! It's scary when I think of how many times I have had to use a contraction, or made use of an elipse, or made use of those dashes so that I would not have to stop and write out more, or so I could add on a thought without actually taking the time to add on even more. In a way, if not for these tools, you guys would be reading even MORE monotonous, empty, vapid posts on the site with even less sentence variance for your reading pleasure. My posts are the bane of English and Writing professionals everywhere. If you know one and want to piss one off, simply link them to one of my posts and don't let them look away. I assure you, you will soon have a whimpering pile of ooze to play with as my mediocre writing style slowly drains away their will to discuss the topic.
I'm actually always worried that the interest of a topic will wane because people have to work to read my posts. Frankly, I understand you all have time, and a life, and will take no offense if you decide to skip over my post entirely because really I do not expect you guys to suffer and sacrifice for my inability to be succinct in my thought processes. I won't be hurt if folks decide not to read my posts, but most definitely appreciate those of you who have and hope that what you have read was informative!
Most of what I write doesn't make it onto the site, as sad as that is. There's been a lot of filled up reply boxes before I sat for a moment and decided I didn't want to respond. If I had to estimate, I'd say only about a third or a quarter of what I write actually makes it onto the site. For varying reasons, I tend not to put up a lot. This could be because I feel I have not yet developed an idea enough, or that I do not know enough to even ask for more information on the topic, or I'm not happy with how a post reads, or I'm worried I'm being confrontational. There's a few I didn't write because I still had those NDP tags and Conservative tags next to me name (thanks out to the admin for fixing that for me!) and I was worried I might be misleading people unintentionally (since I don't really support any party and was toying around with the parties and I was quite stupid). There's even a few out there which I've deleted because I was simply not happy with them on a re-read and decided that if I wanted to contribute I'd actually put something into a thread worthwhile instead of just dumping a pile of gunk into it. Quite a few of my own posts I've deleted as well, once or twice when people were already replying to them to my great chagrin. I apologize to you folks, but if I delete it I'm not happy with it.
Sometimes I just have so many thoughts, often times on specific topics but other times just in general. To be honest, I think my thoughts are often ridiculous and don't actually mean anything. A lot of the time I end up actually avoiding the topic and instead, attacking a side topic of minor interest to others or verifying a point of interest which someone has brought up. This paragraph is hence an apology to all of you who have been forced to read my rambles, my nonsensical words which dripped out of my ear and smacked down onto the keyboard. Sorry for those of you who have gotten nothing from my posts', I am sorry if I really did make you read too much for too little (which I feel like I do ALL THE TIME).
Thanks to those who have replied to me. Man, you guys must be some serious masochists or something to want to waste so much of your life responding to little ol' me! You guys kick ass, seriously, I have learned so much from just reading your posts as a wayward lurker a few months back, since I began posting I have gotten to learn so much more on a variety of topics and I am finding it quite exciting! Thanks a ton to you all!
Here's to betting I have a few "rights" instead of "writes" and "sights" instead of "sites" in here somewhere. Here's also to betting that this will look like a giant stack of words without any colour because I forgot to use colour
again. Mr. May gives us all these smilies and I end up typing so much so quickly that I keep on forgetting to actually use them. The mass majority of the time I write this with either a grin, a nice sense of calm (cool, I'm going to learn something) or with a blush out of concern that I might insult someone (I write a ton to try to avoid this). Very rarely do I get irked -- I think it's only happened twice on the site, and I have made it clear that I was irked out of concern that it might be affecting my posting behaviour before leaping out of the thread! Rest assured, even though I miss out on smilies, feel free to use any happy for frisky ones where you see fit and I will most certainly approve! It's not my intention to forget smilies or never use them, I just begin getting going on something and I don't stop. And since I don't stop, I don't have a moment to think, "Hey, you know what would be awesome here? Smilies!"
It's actually quite funny. Even though I edit like crazy after the fact, often the first time through I just go. When I do edit, I tend to get smaller posts but I say a lot less and feel guilty because of it. A lot of times, I don't ever stop typing unless I need to move something into the post like a quote or a link, from the beginning of the post until the end. That's right folks, in a post the size of this, I will likely only go back without using the backspace a handful of times, maybe three or four times, to make a minor correction or move a certain paragraph in there. Usually when I finish a post I am cutting myself off before I begin writing more, as I don't think I've actually finished a post on this forum save for a few of my short, more joke ones where I've actually wanted to finish, but a decent bit before.
So I guess this is going to be the end of this post because even though it's fun I seriously could keep on writing and I think this length will be considered "acceptable" by the various judges who hinted at the possibility.
A giant thank you out to those who read my posts, a giant thank you to those who responded, a giant thank you for those who critiqued my thoughts and a giant apology for forcing you all to read my sub-standard posts! It's actually kind of awesome to have a medal in my profile, I didn't think I'd ever have one, let alone with so few posts to my name!
A special thanks to Bruce for tolerating my rambling rhetoric in his threads. I think I've annoyed him more than anyone else in this thread! Another special thanks out for my nominators in both threads, I'm not quite sure if this is that kind of special with a capital R and a shortbus for me yet, but either way, helmet and mittens or not, I am quite flattered you guys all took the time out of your day to nominate me for this one!
If only bara had stuck around, the two of us would have a ton to say to each other... potentially about her name, since it just struck me that I remember her being an anime fan and I don't think most people know about that particular anime subgenre.
Thanks for welcoming me into the group of people who talk too much (even though all my fellow Typewriters have long learned moderation previous to getting the award and I still haven't take the subtle hints of "too long" and "tl;dr" and "jesus christ Khar shut the hell up!"
Screw just saying "thanks," that's for wimps not seeking onset carpal tunnel syndrome! If a small man drives a hummer, and a real man drives a Mini, what do I get for putting so much into nothing at all?
Okay Khar, stop. Stop.
STOP. Don't write that! Someone whack him with a newspaper!
CKA Elite 
