What was your FIRST post on ePlaya?

[Ratty]

I love to search back and see what people's very first post was on eplaya. Some seem out of character now that we know you. Some are screamingly hilarious. Others came in with a bang and never wavered. This was mine. Don't be embarrassed by what you wrote. We were all so much younger then. Try to include the title and date.

Re: New Burningman Ticket Process - 2012
Postby Ratty » Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:50 pm

Wow. I'm learning a lot here. I always mailed in my ticket money on the first day. I shouldn't say always. 2 years ago I bought my ticket at Berkeley Hat. I guess there won't be any more retail sales. I will go and i will have fun. I'm going to concentrate on the positive for now.

[lucky420]

cloning plants today, so i will have plenty... 3/10/2010 in the "One Item A Day" thread

[FIGJAM]

coming to bm this year.been reading the forums for months so i dont think i have stupid questions. gyres got me obssesed with !!@#$%^&&*() no mesh tents.elliots a genius. the list is too long of people with great info and snark. im 56, from az.,cactus mover, and ready to play.but a slow typer. cant think of anyting else right now so see you on the playa.

[Patsh]

Delle walked me through using this, my very first interaction on a forum. Bear in mind, my first post was the day everyone was expecting something to happen during the big ePlaya overhaul. June 19, 2011.

Hi There!!

Decided today's the day to officially Un-Lurk. This is my safety net: In case this intro sucks, there's a 50/50 chance it'll be wiped out tomorrow by the big update to the site.

My wonderful son has been trying to get me to go with him to BRC 4 years in a row... This year is the year!! 2 of my sisters, (one you know as Delle) and 1 brother in law will be joining us!!!

A little bit about myself... I love my family, live to ride my trike, work in electronics.

Although I was born & raised in Quebec, I have lived in Arizona 40 years, 30 of which were without electricity or running water, which I now consider to be the beginning of my training for the Playa, along with all the required reading on the matter.

I am so honoured to be a part of this wonderful experience and am looking forward to becoming a part of the big BRC Family!


Delle joined in along with several others whom I've come to love, and hilarity ensued for a few pages!

[BBadger]

Unfortunately, my first posts were in the 2011 ticket forums, which are gone now, or in cold storage. I still have a PM from that day, a thank you for helping that person retrieve his/her position in the ticket queue after the ticket site had a hiccup.

Here's one of my oldest posts that is still around though:

You can chock it up to inflation. Unlike the goods you buy, where they just give you less for the same price, the prices of products that can't be downgraded must go up.

Don't give us the schlemiel that capitalism to blame here. These things don't pay for themselves. It cost roughly $282/person to pay for BM last year, and I can only expect BM to grow in size. A $220/ticket price would leave BM as a shell of its current glory. The last time the price was $220 ($225) there were 20,000 fewer people; so the price has actually not grown linearly with the population (which would make it $370).

What more, the only price has gone up is the tier-4 pricing, and even so, only $20 more. Tier-3 tickets ($280, the same price as last year) were available without queues for half a day; if you didn't get in on that, that's your fault. Also, if $20 is breaking your bank, you probably shouldn't participate in an event like this anyway.

*sniff* Man those were the days, back before tickets sold out, when all we had to worry about were tiers.

[gaminwench]

Wow, Ratty, that was a rabbit hole!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty much me.

[Ratty]

So lets play it backwards. Who do you think this is??? It's pretty wild for an introduction. BTW Lucky yours was a dead giveaway.

hi, my name is ________________.

I did all of the upholstery for the chill / fuck dome and the octagon womb-room and the sofas and the big beds.

i was kinda pissed off for awhile, because the place was packed 24/7 for the whole week with smelly fucking hippies licking and sucking and fucking and kissing and probing and....

oh my fucking god, it was HOT!

i only wish i had actually a chance to use them....according to the nevada state health dept. after the first day, if you were off the pill, you could get pregnant....

so by the third day, when i actually had time to sit down, it was a spoogefest from hell....

needless to say, we BURNED THE MOTHERFUCKERS...

i'll make new ones next year...

and i'm glad everyone enjoyed them....it is my pleasure to make your burning man experience a hot and nasty one...next year....i'm covering it in see-thru vinyl covers like my grandma's sofa....we should be able to sponge those right off.

thanks for all the positive comments on the decor...i appreciate the feedback, it's sorta what artists live for....

and as far as competition goes, well, does it really matter if we all have a good time and nobody gets too hurt...

i dont think so...


PS....if you sleep, the clowns will eat you...


IMO OP all the way. Their line up was sick all week long. Root society had one good dubstep guy. The rest was ok.

That being said OP definitely gets worst, over payed DJ award for Paul Oakenfold. The guy didn't beat match a single mix well. We aren't just talking a bit off either. He was verging major trainwreck most of the time. Save yer money. Don't bring him back. He sucks.

OP also gets the best sound system award. Line arrays FTW. Being in the middle of them was orgasmic. RS had some sick bass though. Too bad it hit hardest 10ft OUTSIDE the dome.

Major props to both crews for doing their camps. It's that kind of effort and commitment that helps make BM something special for everyone.

[Ratty]

Boy, I can really get sucked in reading old threads.

Although, I suppose, the afterbirth, suitably cooked, could be fed to hungary burners. Placenta, it's the new Bacon.

Nope, it wasn't their first post but it's quote worthy. I love caustic humor.

[lucky420]

So lets play it backwards. Who do you think this is??? It's pretty wild for an introduction. BTW Lucky yours was a dead giveaway.

hi, my name is ________________.

I did all of the upholstery for the chill / fuck dome and the octagon womb-room and the sofas and the big beds.

i was kinda pissed off for awhile, because the place was packed 24/7 for the whole week with smelly fucking hippies licking and sucking and fucking and kissing and probing and....

oh my fucking god, it was HOT!

i only wish i had actually a chance to use them....according to the nevada state health dept. after the first day, if you were off the pill, you could get pregnant....

so by the third day, when i actually had time to sit down, it was a spoogefest from hell....

needless to say, we BURNED THE MOTHERFUCKERS...

i'll make new ones next year...

and i'm glad everyone enjoyed them....it is my pleasure to make your burning man experience a hot and nasty one...next year....i'm covering it in see-thru vinyl covers like my grandma's sofa....we should be able to sponge those right off.

thanks for all the positive comments on the decor...i appreciate the feedback, it's sorta what artists live for....

and as far as competition goes, well, does it really matter if we all have a good time and nobody gets too hurt...

i dont think so...


PS....if you sleep, the clowns will eat you...


IMO OP all the way. Their line up was sick all week long. Root society had one good dubstep guy. The rest was ok.

That being said OP definitely gets worst, over payed DJ award for Paul Oakenfold. The guy didn't beat match a single mix well. We aren't just talking a bit off either. He was verging major trainwreck most of the time. Save yer money. Don't bring him back. He sucks.

OP also gets the best sound system award. Line arrays FTW. Being in the middle of them was orgasmic. RS had some sick bass though. Too bad it hit hardest 10ft OUTSIDE the dome.

Major props to both crews for doing their camps. It's that kind of effort and commitment that helps make BM something special for everyone.

Simon

[Captain Goddammit]

Here's my original eplaya post (14 years ago!). I had just come home from BM '03, the post was a rant in a thread about people's asswipe behavior on art cars... I haven't changed much, but fortunately there isn't as much of the behavior I was ranting about anymore.

"Post By Captain Goddammit » Sat Sep 06, 2003 9:27 am

Capt.Hayes you said it!! I'm the operator of the Playa Cruiser, a 25 foot cabin cruiser art car (although there's no "car"; it's a custom-built vehicle with the boat hull serving as the chassis). I have denied many people rides on it for exactly the same reasons. And then I'm the asshole because I OWE them bus service since I did huge amounts of work creating the boat and hauled it on a big trailer + big truck at 5 MPG from Seattle! Who is allowed on board? CALM people who don't jump on and grab onto whatever and try to shake the boat side-to-side as hard as they can. The boat is supposed to be something that looks cool moving across the playa... ART! And if anyone reading this is someone who intentionally crosses a large art car's path as close as possible for fun, listen to Capt.hayes; I'm not going to hit the brakes with 10 people on board either! I'll bring the boat back next year and continue to serve blended margaritas, but I'm gonna have a canvas enclosure at the rear to block entrance without asking. I wish I didn't need to do that. I guess an ATV pulling a flatbed trailer with couches would be more idiot-proof, but SOMEBODY needs to actually build ART cars."

[AntiM]

we went out to the spiral for spring equinox. Got the driving instructions off the internet, someone else provided the link in an earlier post. We live in Ogden, north of Salt Lake; we take I-15 north, get off at Corinne and head for the Golden Spike Monument. There's little signs from there, the driving instructions are actually a little outdated.

The water was low enough to walk the jetty to the end. There was a small group of people when we arrived, and some coming in when we left, but we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Go earlier in the summer rather than later, the flies and lake stink are baaaaaad mid-summer. Oddly, we passed my brother and his family going in, they were there the same day, almost the same time. We simply didn't recognize the borrowed vehicle or their faces in the dust kicked up on the dirt road.

Here's my page with some pictures. I have trouble copying the url, it doesn't always come up ....

http://home.comcast.net/~maggiemayday

You have to go through five old pictures before you get to the jetty shots. I was thinking of going out there camping pretty soon, there's a couple flat spots. Have to bring a shovel to move all the horse and cow plops though.

Have fun!
AntiM

[Thecatman]

I don't remember. I dug into my archives and couldn't find it.
I'm sure I spouted off about something without introducing myself first.

[EGAZ]

My first post is here.

Here is my second short and sweet post. Getting my feet wet.

This is my third post in the Greeters station.

This thread is going to kill my free time......

[lucky420]

I don't remember. I dug into my archives and couldn't find it.
I'm sure I spouted off about something without introducing myself first.

yeah i was to shy to introduce myself first too. Hence, the weed cloning reference...

[Thecatman]

So you made the post on March 10th.
You should have waited another month and 11 days

[lucky420]

Ha! Good call

[ygmir]

I don't think my first post is there.
seems a couple of months are missing? ah well
seems about a thousand are missing. ha, back then that could just be a couple of months......

[mgb327]

I think your first post was before electricity...prolly hieroglyphics...

[Papa Bear]

Found what appears to be mine, from September 3, 2003, in the "Thank You!" thread. Looks like I was still way over the moon after my first burn:

Thank you to all the guests who showed up from around Black Rock City and pitched in alongside the residents of the HeeBeeGeeBee Healers camp.

Whether you were a pro working in the back tent, an amateur giving a foot rub in the front, loaned us a table, or just wandered by with a treat or a misting or a kind word for whoever needed it, you brought healing energy to the camp that helped to lift and sustain us throughout the week.

It made for an especially great experience for this virgin burner, who will most certainly be back next year. Thank you!

I did indeed make it back in '04, which turned out to be a very good thing. Had I not, I might never have met the lovely woman who is now my wife. Nor would we have the two great kids who will experience their first burn this year.

[Meat Hunter]

My first post: Aug. 18, 2013

"The article "If This Doesn’t Scare You, Maybe It Should" can still be read as a PDF file here:

http://villa.lunacite.com/docs/Archive.pdf

I have never been able to attend Burning Man, but I have wanted to participate for some years; I was planning on attending in 2014, but I am now having some doubts.

As a 70 year old and one who has never been attracted to anything stronger than a rum and coke; with all this talk about ever increasing LEO presence and the postings about so many citations for so many minor infractions, I am not sure if I wish to expose myself to the possibility of an over eager searcher or pay a fine for an accidental and non-intentional minor motor vehicle infraction.

I must give this more thought...."

-----------------------------------------------

Looking back now, I must have given it more thought and I did decide to attend in 2014 and 2015 and 2016 and soon to be 2017. And, I have yet to be pulled over. I must be the short cut snow white and my former USMC drill instructor growl & scowl that scares LEO off. It has been a good ride and I intend to continue returning -- until I cannot.

Now at age 73, I might need a little change of pace, I am planning on wearing my hair a little longer this year and having my snow white hair died steling-silver with some very-very subtle blue high lights. So this might be the year for LEO to check out this old hippy. Or possibly not. The USMC stickers remain on the back windows of both my truck and little fiberglass egg trailer.

[some seeing eye]

Hahaha 2008. I think that was the year I volunteered for Hot Wheelz pre-playa, but did not go to the event itself.

Let's be realistic: Burningman reflects values in the real world.

The Cacaphony Society who founded it has always had creative Bay Area people, some of who later became rich off of technology.

The Cali culture is that there is no limit to the money to be spent (or fossil fuel consumed) to appear cool. That is the overall organizing principle of today's Burningman.

The organizers wisely engineered a transition from pure chaos and blowing up things to art, esplanade as midway and costumes.

Burningman expanded rapidly, hit the tipping point, and with November 1997 coverage in Wired magazine, fueled dot com boom show camps. When the dot com boom busted, Burningman became a vacation for Hollywood creatives. Now the shift is international, with single region camps funded by million+aires. In the world at large, the wealthy are getting more so and everyone else less so. It's reflected in Burningman. (prediction 2009 - oligarchs, future, Chinese entrepreneurs, not sure how the oil shieks would fit in)

While alpha males established the value system of grand camps with flowing intoxicants or grandiose artworks, newly alpha females who didn't quite fit in in junior high were back with a vengeance in an escalation of costume warfare. The ancient rituals play out with alpha males after hot babes and alpha females after tribal boy/girl toy arm candy. California!

So while Burningman supports a dopamine fueled utopian community fantasy, real world values are not that far away. And at 50,000, it's unfortunate, but not unexpected, that exclusionary tactics emerge.

The org tries mightily to preserve the image of burningman as outside society, special, non-money making, gift economy, utopian. Other commercial festivals, like Bonnaroo, Boom, Coachella haven't caught on. Not to harsh anyone's mellow, but for a business that makes money charging for it's attendees to spend upper hundreds to six figures plus each, and/or hundreds of hours costuming to impress, the image they have built is brilliant. Welcome to the new (post mid '90's) Burningman.

You can make it what you want if you go in with the right mindset, but don't believe the hype.

Better run out and create that business "festival services for oligarchs"...Maybe the org should create a position oligarch ambassador to communicate Cali-burningman norms of behavior and appearance and connect them with grand camp building visionaries and costumers (for pay)?.

In the Billionaire Camps thread viewtopic.php?f=107&t=26242

[Token]

Mine is buried somewhere in the wayback machine, circa 2001 when it was the burningman bbs.

WayBack Machine

Things were different back then

[trilobyte]

It's probably worth pointing out that this board was Burning Man's third incarnation of a message board, it went live following the 2003 event. Also, my understanding is that during some of the time I was away there were some issues that resulted in chunks of time being basically lost. That, and as in Bbadger's case some boards do end up being removed from public view after the season ends.

My first post here was to plug an event I was helping to put together for my old camp & art collective. I think I had been lurking here for more than a year before that first post, this place was a lot tougher on the newbies back then and as I remember it most of the community was using the message board system on a site called tribe.net.

[BBadger]

Trilo retrieved my very first post from the deep archives of the board:

First 602, multiple connection problems, 595, multiple connection problems, 602 again, multiple connection problems, 525, multiple connection problems, then 602 again, MANY connection problems, and now it refreshes and doesn't show my place at all (but at least no connection problems). Edit: Now it's just blank; I guess they don't want to get pinged every 60 seconds while they fix things.

Skygod: the animation is just part of a static page, and it will not update your status unless there is the countdown timer. So you need to refresh the frame with the countdown. Right-click (Control-click on Mac?) the space below the animated blocks and tell it to reload the frame.

That was a pretty good spot in the queue!

[SevenDreams]

It's this one here

[Simon of the Playa]

for clarification the first part is me.

it ends at the clown line.

the second part is someone else and their "critique" of the line ups.

that is not me.

1491394006541.jpeg

you should know my syntax and distinct punctuation patterns by now...

geez.

[lucky420]

I thought it was you from the upholstery comments.

[goathead]

it was some time back in 99, a couple of editions ago.

first post here had to do with thieves, and a bad end to a great week.
found out more later on, stories I will not tell here.

[TT120]

My first post was a standard introduction. Not very exciting. My third post however, was a little better...

I think the ass is nice. Add some bacon and it'd be close to perfect.