And we have returned. What did you do during the Great Black Out?

[Legato Endless]

It was long and arduous, but after an interminable time the Forum is back, and we return to it in all its new fangled glory.

How did you while away the hours without it?

Was it easy to ignore? Did you try logging in repeatedly in the vain hope of an early return?

Were you changed irrevocably? Is this post too melodramatic?

What did you get up to? Share!

[Asta Kask]

Not much. Gave the cats anti-tic oil, because they were dragging in two or three per day and possibly depositing them in my bed. Had a minor mental meltdown (defined as anything that doesn't require hospitalization) Wednesday-Thursday. And I'm getting close to finishing my conversion of DoD Trudvang* to GURPS.

*DoD stands for Drakar och Demoner, a Swedish BRP clone, not Dungeons and Dragons.

[felinoel]

I was happy to see the site back online!

[EmeraldRose]

Mostly the usual work, kids, books, school stuff. Had my parents here for the weekend and my oldest son's birthday. Spent way too much time checking to see if the Playground was back...realized just how much time I spend on here when I would go to surf the web and not know where to go besides here... :smalltongue:

[Karoht]

Gasp at the tale of Sir Karoht,
Who did indeed celebrate his 32nd Berfday.
Who very nearly did fight the kitten of the house of Karoht.
Who very nearly did lose his breakfast to a desk and carpet.
Who very nearly did obtain a new form of gainful employment.
Who very nearly did have a birthday with all his ladies and gents at hand.
Who very nearly did not enjoy Muppets Most Wanted, but therein, did so anyway.

Okay, so my 32nd birthday has come and gone.
I had put out the invite for friends and such to join me at the movies and dinner afterwards.
Most of my friends didn't show up because [reasons] and my fiancee had to work through the movie but was able to join in for food. As such, for the first time in my life I watched a movie with not one of my friends around. It was very very odd.

That morning the youngest of my 3 cats decided to be a butt-cat, as he often is. In this particular instance, he decided to wait for me about an inch behind my feet while I was rummaging through the fridge for breakfast. Sure enough I take that half a step back and step right on his tail. Kitty freaks out in a kitty fashion. Fine.
I go downstairs and my cat decides that the matter is indeed, not settled. He takes a running leap at my achilles, grabs my leg and bites down. Now, he's a tiny cat so this doesn't hurt or cause any damage, but it certainly shocked me with a plate full of food. Plate full of food very nearly falls onto my desk/floor. I set the plate down and turn to the kitten. I take a low stance and look big and mean and agressive. Kitten decides to spring at me. He gets all of 2 feet in the air and leaps about 3 feet forward, but falls short by about the same distance. And, like a proper coward, I chose to flee back up the stairs in face of such prospects as facing off against such a brave and mighty warrior.

A while later I'm at the mall go to see a movie, namely Muppets Most Wanted. And about an hour before the show, the calls start pouring in. Pretty much everyone cancelled due to [reasons] and [not such good reasons] and [complete bullshot reasons]. And you know what? Not one of them even wished me a happy berfday.
So there I was, quite bummed out because none of my friends were showing up for my birthday, and I get a call from another friend. I didn't get the job I was gunning for. I decided to go purchase a ticket anyway. Afterall, the dinner reservation wasn't until 8pm, I had 4 hours to kill, what else was I going to do? Those crazy Muppets did the trick and cheered me up, at least enough to remove the sting of my friends bailing on me. The shame of losing a fight to a kitten, it is a black mark which I will never be able to ignore.

So after the movie, I go pick up my fiancee, and low and behold, the calls start coming in. And yes, some were people cancelling on food as well, but some were asking for directions to the venue! So yes, we went to dinner and had a fantastic time, saw friends who I didn't expect to see, and all was right with the world again.
Until my fiancee brought up the kitten again. Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

[ShadowFireLance]

Every, Single, Day.
At least 3-4 clicks in vain.
Constant twitter pestering.
And vain crying.

Mostly just slept a lot more.

[sktarq]

Checked site once per day. Wrote more arc for the VtR game I've got going......which was good since they got to it a week earlier than I expected.

[FinnLassie]

Agonising my life, although that didn't mostly have anything to do with the forums being down. :smalltongue: Met with friends, got elected treasurer of RPG society (out of pure damn surprise)

[Grinner]

Went to work.
Watched TV.
Checked the site.
Went to the library.
Read about conspiracy theories.
Played Cosmic DJ, producing a large library of terrible to moderately tolerable music.
Attempted to write a program which would turn pi into music. Relearned long division in the process.


The site's formatting is really messing with my head.

Edit: Oh, hey. I love the new subforum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?62-Mad-Science-and-Grumpy-Technology).

[Mauve Shirt]

I watched all of netflix and youtube, and read all of Cracked.

[FinnLassie]

I watched all of netflix and youtube, and read all of Cracked.

Oh dear lord, Netflix, yes. I watched the first two seasons of American Horror Story and now crying they don't have the third on there. I NEED IT. NOW. :smalleek:

[Morbis Meh]

I read wayyyy too much SCP fanfic, checked multiple times in vain, played some SMT IV and decided to learn inkscape to make myself a new avatar... hopefully that will be finished within the week but that is optimistic since I decided to make one of Thanatos from Persona 3 :smalleek:

Edit: Btw, happy belated birthday Kahrot from your slightly northern neighbor

[RdMarquis]

The same thing I do every time I go home for vacation (the Black Out coincided with my Spring Break)...drive kids to school and work, and whatnot.

I caught up on my sleep, though.

[JustPlayItLoud]

I played a lot of Pokemon. Like, all the Pokemon. I played it.

I also obsessively checked the forums.

And I started watching the Clone Wars since it's on Netflix now.

[qwertyu63]

I did the same thing I do every day, try and take over the world make D&D 3.5 homebrew.

[Lord Raziere]

lets see....

I've watch some One Piece and wrote my reactions about it.....

I've read webcomics....

read Dresden Files books....

watched the last episode of Kill La Kill....

read more RPG books....mostly space opera ones....

posted on a couple other forums....

hashed out spellcasting in Mutants and Masterminds....

read some fan-fiction....

took my geology final....

made Yang avatars...

lots of stuff really.

[Randomguy]

I played a lot of Pokemon. Like, all the Pokemon. I played it.

I also obsessively checked the forums.


Basically this. I kinda got addicted to online competitive pokemon battling to fill the void left by giantitp. I'm not much good, though.

[Duck999]

I checked the forum 10ish times each day, maybe more, possibly, maybe, definitely.

[Solse]

I played a lot of Pokemon. Like, all the Pokemon. I played it.

Exactly the same as what I did. About 3 days in, I felt a sudden urge to be the very best, like no one ever was. I also tried out competitive battling on Pokemon Showdown. I'm sorta kinda maybe good, I guess.

[Admiral Squish]

I first-draft finished a top-secret project during the dark week, which at up a lot of my time.
I checked the forum at least twice a day, often much more, particularly on either end.
Lots of netflix, lots of TV, entirely too much facebook...

[OracleofWuffing]

I bugged The Giant on Twitter that he should do a Video Chat with Rawhide and ask him if the forums were back up, just to see the look on his face.

Okay, it didn't really work, but I still giggled.

Now that it is done, though, I would like to assert that the forums have been dumbed down and turned into a MMORPG. :smalltongue:

[Codex]

I read books and lurked around the pathfinders forums. :smallcool:

[EmeraldRose]

Oh yeah- lots of reading. Finished 4 books, halfway thru the 5th.

[AtlanteanTroll]

Talked in the chat a bit, but most of the time I was just enjoying my spring break. Which included, learning to drive the new car, applying to summer jobs, and hanging out with my friends. Didn't draw enough. Oh well.

I have a job at McDonald's when summer vacation starts so ... woo.

[Grinner]

Now that it is done, though, I would like to assert that the forums have been dumbed down and turned into a MMORPG. :smalltongue:

Yes, The Giant is clearly pandering to the masses. :smalltongue:


Oh yeah- lots of reading. Finished 4 books, halfway thru the 5th.

Four and a half books? It's only been a week!

[EmeraldRose]

Talked in the chat a bit, but most of the time I was just enjoying my spring break. Which included, learning to drive the new car, applying to summer jobs, and hanging out with my friends. Didn't draw enough. Oh well.

I have a job at McDonald's when summer vacation starts so ... woo.

Job = Money

This is a good thing! Woo!

[Sylthia]

I definitely clicked to see if the forum was back up a few times a day. I was pretty busy the past week. I've been on call and spent most of my time at the hospital.

[Cuthalion]

Hung out in the chat and played Cards against Humanity.

[nyjastul69]

I didn't start checking the site until Wed. I only intended to check it once per day after that. Muscle memory got the best of me and clicked the icon on my phone waaaay more than I meant too. Other than that I focused a bit more on my CoC game and perused other, seemingly neglected, boards.

[Rain Dragon]

How did you while away the hours without it?

Was it easy to ignore? Did you try logging in repeatedly in the vain hope of an early return?

Were you changed irrevocably? Is this post too melodramatic?

What did you get up to? Share!

It was easy to ignore indeed as long as I didn't open a new Chrome window because I set the new window page to these forums and couldn't be bothered changing it. Useful though, as I would theoretically notice when they're back fairly quickly but there appeared to be reasonably frequent updates on twitter about that, so...

Heh, changed irrevocably? Likely not, though there is always the possibility I have merely not noticed...

The same thing I do every week Pinky. Try to take over the world!

...and watch a lot of YouTube though this is not news. Mostly industrial dancers.

I believe I bothered to visit FaceBook slightly more than usual.

[banthesun]

Started learning Japanese again, and did some more Fire Emblem mapmaking.

I definitely did miss the forum though. Last night I had a dream that Rich had invited everyone to a party to test the new forum at his gigantic mansion. Everyone was lovely, except for one troll who'd turned up, but the reporting system was confusing and Rich got mad when everybody messed up their reports.

All in all, I'm glad the forum's back.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Spent a lot more time prowling the lurker-coves of the Allspark. Stared at the various spaceships available through Shapeways, became impossibly covetous of one or two. Watched old cartoons on Teletoon Retro. Read through Lords and Ladies aloud to my mother, just because we've been doing that whole read-a-Discworld-book-aloud sort of thing lately. That way we both get a laugh at the time. Hoarsed up my throat on the Ridcully voice, gave up on the feminine voices three books ago. Bred some poké-dudes. Tried a FTP browser-based game about lasergun-wielding cowboys riding overly-spiky dinosaurs in a dinosaur-infested Old West. Checked the forum every day. Twitched occasionally.

[Trobby]

Nevermind, someone has explained to me how to access it...rassin frassin... My own dang fault for not looking harder.

[Starwulf]

Pressed refresh more times then I'd care to admit on the browser page that had GITP loaded in, patiently waiting for it to come back up.

[banjo1985]

I checked back once per day to see whether the forums were back up, and spent too much time on the BookFace. Then I came back and threw up a little when I saw the new forum look. I may get used to it, but it'll take some time.

[Feytalist]

The same thing I do every day, Pinky.


Got a lot of work done. That was the surprising part. So much that I'm essentially free for the moment.

...free to browse the forums :smallbiggrin:

[Rain Dragon]

The same thing I do every week Pinky. Try to take over the world!

The same thing I do every day, Pinky.


Got a lot of work done. That was the surprising part. So much that I'm essentially free for the moment.

...free to browse the forums :smallbiggrin:

I think you said that better than I did.

Ah, as expected I simply found other ways to procrastinate and as such didn't get /anything/ useful done...

[Feytalist]

I think you said that better than I did.

Ah, as expected I simply found other ways to procrastinate and as such didn't get /anything/ useful done...

Heh. Such an obvious joke, isn't it.


they're pinky, they're pinky and the brain brain brain brain...

[Max™]

Tried to log in, cried, curled up in a ball, watched the last episode of Kill la Kill and Space Dandy (at least for several months in both cases), cried more, started to drown on tears, tried to log in today and it worked, all is well now.


No, really I got Bravely Default and I've been obsessed with it, fingers hurt so I took a break and checked to see if the forums were back up.

Edit: What new forum look? I used the nosquint add-on some time ago to make the whole internet a nice pleasing http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o396/maxarutaru/whatcoloristhenetinyourworld_zps3b424519.png
and never looked back

[KuReshtin]

I was on holiday in Sweden, getting my passport renewed.
Followed the posts on facebook by Rawhide, though, so I think I got some decently frequent updates.

Haven't been on the forums a whole lot in the past couple of months, though, so it didn't really impact me a whole lot.