Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

I am just lurking (not doing anything else).

Nice work, fellow MOD ;)

I was thinking, this is where we should put the water cooler.

Good call. Maybe we should get one of those mini fridges too.

I've been lurking for about 2 weeks. Does that qualify me as a mod?

It definitely qualifies you as an accomplished lurker ;)

Once you announce that you are lurking, can you really be said to be lurking? Or are you now looming? Is lurking not a secretive activity?

Lurking and looming. I'm just looking...

This obviously all needs properly sorting out once and for all. So, according to my dictionary:

loom (verb): appear as a vague form, especially one that is threatening;
lurk (verb): be or remain hidden, particularly near refrigerating devices;

Hope that has helped everybody.

I think I like lurking better, especially as you can stay near refrigerating device. :-)

Well you are from Iceland.

Yes, but that means you cannot be lurking once you have announced your presence. Even near fridges.

It all depends if appearing on this thread is tantamount to actually lurking or announcing an intention to lurk...

And then fading back into the shadows? Good point, J.A., as always. Except when you tell me I can't have things I want; then you are not making good points.
Are we saying, then, that one can announce an intention to lurk and yet still remain undetected by the lurkees?

Michelle wrote: "Yes, but that means you cannot be lurking once you have announced your presence. Even near fridges."

At that point, you're just lazing.

Worst of all, you may be between me and the beer.

We're providing beer as well? (as if I haven't already got enough to worry about finding chairs).

When I said, back at the start of this thread, 'I am just lurking (not doing anything else)' I was talking to myself. It's the rest of you who have ballsed it all up.

You talked to yourself in a public forum, out loud, so to speak...um...so to type. You really only have yourself to blame here, Richard.
And beer is not kept in the fridge. It is kept in the cavernous ice-craters on the other side of the kitchen area.

Michelle has a good point. You can't talk to yourself in a forum any more than you can announce that you are lurking. In both scenarios, the act of participating in one disqualifies you from the other. What you've done is turned the term oxymoron into a verb.

David wrote: "Michelle has a good point. You can't talk to yourself in a forum any more than you can announce that you are lurking. In both scenarios, the act of participating in one disqualifies you from the ot..."

Ooh I like that last sentence...is there an actual verb that describes this action? I thought of the word "contradicting" but I don't think it really fits.

Hey, so long as you refrain from lurching, I'm cool with it.

David wrote: "Michelle has a good point. You can't talk to yourself in a forum any more than you can announce that you are lurking. In both scenarios, the act of participating in one disqualifies you from the ot..."

I disagree. Lurkers can talk to themselves via a soliloquy, if it's framed as a drama:
"The definition of a soliloquy is a speech in a drama in which a character tells the audience how he feels by talking to himself."

Just to finally, definitively, straighten all this out: when I said 'talking to myself', I didn't mean 'talking' in the literal sense of actually talking to myself (which might be seen as, at best, neurotic, at worst as an early symptom of some far more serious psychological disorder); I meant it in the purely informal sense of thinking (whilst also silently mouthing the words, granted, but essentially thinking). If I'd only thought to preface the whole remark with the word '(Thinks)' or put the entire post inside a thinks bubble, I could have avoided ever being drawn into this quagmire in the first place, but (wringing my hands) it's far too late for that now...

Nevertheless, I feel confident that this has fully clarified the position and that we can, at last, all now move on.

I talk to myself all the time.

No I don't.

Shut up, I was responding to the thread.

Making stuff up is more like it.

...etc.

I seem to have lost a load of socks. Has anyone seen them?

Observer effect - the act of observing the lurker affects their behaviour and renders the experiment void. Or possibly some form of mash-up of Schrodinger's Cat and the uncertainty principle - you cannot simultaneously lurk and tell someone you're lurking, yet if no-one knows you are lurking, can you be said to be present on the forum?

We need to create a thread made of exotic particles and dark energy where these princples don't apply, and one can simultaneously lurk and tell people one is just lurking.

Matthew wrote: "I seem to have lost a load of socks. Has anyone seen them?"

If I remember the life cycle correctly, they've probably just molted. Check to see if you have more coat hangers than you'd expect.

Thanks. I swear I've seen a large number of socks not too far away though...

To me it just sounds like the underpants gnomes are diversifying.

*rolling on the floor laughing*

Ah, but these socks have eyes...

Socks. What an interesting subject.

:)

As a MOD I couldn't possibly comment ...

J.A. wrote: "As a MOD I couldn't possibly comment ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEI2U...

I think it's probably about time I revealed the true purpose of this thread. It's actually part of a parapsychology experiment, the idea being to see if my hand-picked team of telepaths can project a certain word (which I have right here in a sealed envelope) into the minds of anyone in this Group.

With all the paranormal-romance authors we have, you'd think it would be a piece of cake, but I've got to say it's been a pretty dismal showing so far (and, despite what you're thinking, the word wasn't 'socks' either).

Dang, I was sure it was socks.

Nope - and it's not 'dang' either (nice try though).

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

No, although some of the letters were right so I guess we're finally getting somewhere.

Are you sure it wasn't socks? I've definitely got 'socks'

Either that or schlimbesserung

Or could be 'paperclip'. That was the name in the file I saw under your arm anyway

I think you may have been picking up interference from some of the other labs nearby. Or possibly you're just drunk (none of my business).

For me it was the latter. And I can't find my socks.

Ken I can't find my socks either. I have countless odds socks in my drawers and no idea where their paired partners may be. In fact, the divorce rates of my socks are higher than the Essex divorce rates. So, in keeping with the threads themes I decided to smash together the topic of socks, lurking and schrodinger's cat to query the mystery of the missing socks. I mean, can those socks be lurking, somewhere around my house. Do they even exist any more, or are they happily coexisting with their other halves in another bloody parallel dimension/cupboard I cannot access!

I believe the dryer usually eats socks. At least that's what I tell myself when mine go missing.

Also I would like to guess the secret word is lurker or any variation of it.

I have noticed that my socks are walking off at a rate proportional to the increase in my coat hangers. My theory is that either they're metamorphosing into their adult form, or I just need to wash my socks a little more often.

I just don't see how socks could possibly grow up to be coat hangers. No matter what kind of coat hangers you have, metal or plastic or wooden, I don't think the socks can transform into them. I would however believe the socks could grow up to be coats and your closet knows this and is somehow adding the hangers to accommodate them.

I'm on vacation. Socks are irrelevant.

Amanda wrote: "I just don't see how socks could possibly grow up to be coat hangers. No matter what kind of coat hangers you have, metal or plastic or wooden, I don't think the socks can transform into them. I wo..."

It does seem unlikely. It would be like some creepy crawly thing wrapping itself up, going to sleep, and then waking up to find that it's changed into a beautiful butterfly. Just can't happen.