I've been a long time reader but never signed up for the forums but the whole recent thing with Zoe possibly dying got me intrigued enough to start reading the forums, and now the lure of posting my own spec has become too great for me to resist anymore (plus i'm really bored at work). If someone could kindly approve my posting priviledges that would be super.

Hi there, Franger, and welcome to the Sluggy forums!

Be warned that you are about to be pestered for poetry. It's the tradition hereabouts, that newcomers be pestered into posting a poem. We don't ask for much. A small limerick, a haiku, an epic, whatever fits your fancy will do. Don't worry about quality, we certainly don't. All we ask is that it be original and keep to our Community Standards for language. Now it's not required that you post something -- that's not part of the tradition. But if you do post a bit of poetry, you will receive various and sundry gifts of the notional sort. So now, I must pester.

--tll

Hmmmm, I'm farrrrrrr too lazy to write a proper poem.

I am really bad,
at making up poetry
haikus are okay

Or if you'd just prefer inanity.

What the heck is that
Look out its a giant dog
Oh no, the slobber!!

My MPD/D has alerted me to a disturbance in the forum... Okay enough about what It is doing to that... hmm... I'm not sure what that used to be... Oh, it also said that you posted a couple of haiku -the plural of haiku is haiku- in this thread, and it said that you must by unnatural and must be dest... um, tolerated? That works.

You're here for less that thirty minutes after joining and, you've already posted poetry... Knew I shouldn't have approved you... The spammers are getting sneaky...

A guess, because you did breeze past the defenses I should give you a gift anyway for the poetry... I don't like it, but my contract says I have to... It also conspires with Meggy and rewrites/mutates the wording... I'll look in Dimensional Storage...

Let's see here... An antimatter power lock pick... No, it doesn't "pick", it more of "removes" the city block... Um... All of humanities music ever made on convenient 8-track cassettes... No, I can't rind a player. Otherwise... ...still looking... Hmm... Possibly... Sure, why not. The shielding is always in place...

Okay, your gift is a box of 103 miniature tenth sized robotic cattle. You keep them powered by feeding them meat, like cow/pig/chicken/dog/elephant/owl or some of those "other" meats that may be sitting/walking around your house. Be sure to feed them eight times a day or they will stampede... Like locust...

Ah, more poetry this eve -- how nice. Well, I must find you a gift, yes. Ah, here we are: The Horse of a Different Colour. (Hm, looks like paisley today.) Enjoy the ride!

--tll

Hmmm clearly the quality of poetry is not linked to the quality of the gift received since mine are clearly awesome.

I like my gift so much I wont even point out that haikus is technically an acceptable plural for haiku, no I won't say it at all.

That depends on what drug addled dictionary you look at. Also my human english spell checker doesn't like it...

Oddly, it also didn't like Megalomaniacal, but I threatened it, and it doesn't complain now...

Its a tough call cause its one of those weird words that we've essentially adopted from another language whos grammar is very different from our own. I mean if you are japanese of course you wouldn't say 'haikus' but in english we have different pluralisation rules. Another good example of this is ninja/ninjas, in japanese I'm fairly sure its just ninja for the plural but in english ninjas is perfectly acceptable.

Ok, all this grammar discussion is making my head hurt. All I know is that haikus doesn't make my browser underline it in red, so I'm going to keep using it. Anyways, on to gifts... yeah, for inflicting pain upon me this early I think you deserve a 12 lb. dictionary to constantly check yourself. And sorry, it really is just a dictionary, it's not going to explode or anything if you fail to use it properly. Though if that tickles your fancy I'm sure some of the others around here could probably help you with that. Enjoy!

Ah, welcome aboard. I see you've already seen the wisdom in giving in to pestering (not that I really ever did, but there must be some somewhere); so have this lovely color coordinated saddle to go with that horse. Not, I must point out, that it coordinates with the horse; it takes it's cue from the rider. Anyway, ride in good health; just don't look down.

Welcome! In return for the poetry, have this ellipsis...

Welcome. Your 'poetry' deserves a 'T'. It's one of the fancier letters available, from the private collection of Genghis Khan, who got it from a wealthy hungarian lord. I picked it up while I was desecrating his grave and ruining a valuable archeological site. It has history, it has class and it has both cases. Put it in italics or bold, Helveltica or Times, it's yours to do with as you please.