(This is my favorite Christmas story. Take 2 minutes to read the entire thing, 'tis the season!)
Once there was a store that sold lots of jingle bells- and only jingle bells. As the customers came in, and picked the jingle bells up, the bells would jingle their best, hoping that they would be taken to a nice warm loving home.
The littlest jingle bell had many problems. Customers would pick it up, and it would ring for them with all it's might. "Jingle Jingle," it would say. Then the customers would set it back down, and say, "This little jingle bell won't do," and they would walk on, and pick up other jingle bells.
As the season went on, there became fewer and fewer bells. At last, Christmas Eve finally came. All of the bells had been taken except the littlest jingle bell on the shelf towards the back.
As the storekeeper was about to close down for Christmas, a man with black snow covered boots walked in and said to the storekeeper, "I have been in my sleigh. One of the jingle bells has broken off, and I need a replacement before I can leave." The little jingle bell raised its head high as it looked toward the man. It was Santa Claus! The bell became very excited.
The storekeeper said, "Well, I have one last jingle bell, and I can show it to you if you want, but it's probably too small for your sleigh."
Santa replied: "Now, see here. Jingle bells are one of the most important things I need. They help my reindeer know where to go. They serve as a warning when I touch down on people's rooftops. They remind people that I am coming. They help keep my elves awake and alert in the long hours of the night. And most importantly, they spread Christmas Spirit whenever people hear them ring. It doesn't matter how big or loud any jingle bell is. The important thing is that it tries its best, it tries its hardest, to jingle and spread this Christmas Cheer. Show me this jingle bell that you think is too small."
The store keeper led Santa to the back of the store, picked up the little bell, and gave it to him. Santa held it up in his hand, close to its ear, and gave it a little shake. The bell, realizing its opportunity and brimming with inspiration, gave its best little "Jingle jingle" that it had left in him.
Santa replied to the shopkeeper, "You're right, it's too small" and left.
plussing and negging? There's no challenges that can be enhanced or hindered. There's no eliminations or rankings directly influenced by them. And PoV is so unimportant in fastings, it might as well not exist until the last 3 days where alliances always take over the game anyways. If anything, plusses and negs feels like a cheap way to artificially inject drama onto the game.
Wow. Nice, relaxed day today. First, I have to say I've cooled down over Vernon. Yeah, I'm not happy about it, but I don't have to be angry about it. Whether I TRUST him is a completely different matter, but I can say I probably will be able to deal with it if I ever get in a game with him again.
Second, I finished one of my favorite fastings ever. And no, it wasn't my favorite because I got 10th. It was quick, almost entirely free of inactives, and full of funny and interesting people. One contestant, Avalon, was nommed. They didn't do anything wrong, I guess they were just in the wrong place at the wrote time. But they survived their eviction by a wide margin. Avalon was nommed again. He survived again near-unanimously. Avalon was nommed again. He survived. The "Avalon Curse" spread. NOBODY was able to survive against Avalon on the block. Eventually I think we started nomming him just as a running gag. I joined a chatzy just to watch. Eventually, Avalon was voted out by the randomizer after surviving SEVEN nominations.Wow. Check it out here: http://www.tengaged.com/game/32713
All in all, it's nice to see the lighter, happier side of tengaged without all the drama and hatred from earlier. After all, (and I realize I may be breaking one of the cardinal sins of reality TV by mentioning this), I DID in fact come here to make friends. Today showed that I just may be successful.
Okay, I might not be feeling my best right now. I've take the original post down. I'll reread it again in the morning and see if it's something I want to keep attached to my name forever, or if I'm just going to let this go. I don't trust myself to make that decision right now.
Sweet, I'm not sucking as bad as I was earlier! Only moderately better. But I'll take it over nothing. Now what shall I do, just sit back and wait to randomly get plussed? Or shall I write something else?
I'll write something else.
Meeting new people, making friends. There is some drama going on over negs, which in fastings really doesn't matter since the POV is Nerfed into an almost triviality until the final 6. I don't understand the point behind even having plus-minus comments in fastings. I guess it's a catalyst for creating drama if anything, but it seems so artificial. My alliances don't seem to last, but I'm figuring out strategies with voting and all that which should help. Fastings is pretty much raw strategy, once the inactives are gone. But as I said, I'm not here to make enemies. I don't care if it's good strategy or not, but I would much rather lose a game without severely offending somebody than win and making an enemy for life. (I'm talking about swearing and trash talk, not gameplay. If you get voted off because of my alliance, it's not personal, it's just business, and I hope you're mature enough to handle it.)
I wish there was an easy, readily available wiki or rule guide for noobs who are jumping up from fastings to castings to other games. It's quite hard to understand without just jumping in and playing.
And also, I hope to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not panicked and screaming like the passengers on my grandfather's bus.
