This is a repository for anecdotes, about anything (within reason, please, this is a... mostly PG13 site) from a particularly epic event to a delightful Sunday afternoon upon which you discovered the wonders of jam-and-cheese sandwiches. Or gaming adventures. Or amusing drinking stories.
It is designed as a deep-time thread. That means you bookmark it and whenever something you think should be added comes up, you post. Similar to the "Artist" thread, it's not a matter of keeping it on the front page or any page in particular. Bookmarking means it'll appear at the top of your Off-topic forum window and any time someone else posts, it'll appear with a little "new" button. Please keep meta-posts (posts about content) to the relative minimum of interesting, informed discussion. "Lol! Epic Night!" is neither of those. Constructive criticism of storytelling technique is welcome. After all, we all want to develop our inner Raconteurs, right?
For long anecdotes, please spoiler. If you're going to quote someone, spoiler or snip. Other readers can always click on their name to read the original post in your quote. If there are spoilers for movies, books, games etc, spoiler. If there's 'mature content', let us know in the spoiler. All this is so we have a cleaner, more easily navigated thread. Pictures are fine to have in a story if they're related however they constitute a 'long' story, so please spoiler.
If this thread doesn't appeal to you, it's quite alright to not post in it. Loading derision isn't necessary.
[HEADING=2]So I present, Le Raconteur En Vous. In fact, you do. I'm just giving you the thread to do it in.[/HEADING]
It is designed as a deep-time thread. That means you bookmark it and whenever something you think should be added comes up, you post. Similar to the "Artist" thread, it's not a matter of keeping it on the front page or any page in particular. Bookmarking means it'll appear at the top of your Off-topic forum window and any time someone else posts, it'll appear with a little "new" button. Please keep meta-posts (posts about content) to the relative minimum of interesting, informed discussion. "Lol! Epic Night!" is neither of those. Constructive criticism of storytelling technique is welcome. After all, we all want to develop our inner Raconteurs, right?
For long anecdotes, please spoiler. If you're going to quote someone, spoiler or snip. Other readers can always click on their name to read the original post in your quote. If there are spoilers for movies, books, games etc, spoiler. If there's 'mature content', let us know in the spoiler. All this is so we have a cleaner, more easily navigated thread. Pictures are fine to have in a story if they're related however they constitute a 'long' story, so please spoiler.
If this thread doesn't appeal to you, it's quite alright to not post in it. Loading derision isn't necessary.
[HEADING=2]So I present, Le Raconteur En Vous. In fact, you do. I'm just giving you the thread to do it in.[/HEADING]
The first thing that my international audience should know about Australian Scouts is that, far from the hyper-religious and frankly uninspired stereotype which rises out of the US and such, we go out of our way to have fun.
You see, the Australian Scout's definition of fun often bears strong resemblance to that of an adrenaline-junkie pyromaniac survivalist. From Australia, which turns the Badass of anything willing to approach local wildlife up to 11. We can, but generally don't, start fires with two sticks. That is too long a process for your average Sydney Funnel Web-wrestling Australian Scout.
Far better to do what occurred at my most recent extended outdoor Rovering (Scouts 18-26) adventure. It was a week-long standing camp at a location which had a tendency to freeze off Australian bollocks overnight and as such, we had ample firewood available all the time. On the final night we decided to get rid of the rest of it. Did we start with kindling, slowly and carefully working our way up to the waist-thick logs like we were taught? Fuck no. We got 20 litres of petrol (approx. 5.3 gallons of gas for the Americans) and strategically poured it over the amassed tinder-dry wood. In a slight deference to OH&S, rather than just tossing a match and ducking for cover, we did in fact run a trail of petrol a good metre and a half away from the volatile pile, to light as a fuse.
It still made one hell of a bang, almost losing the nearest person their eyebrows. The flames were twice my height and roaring like a furnace within a minute, so hot that even mildly-tipsy Australian scouts with a cool stubbie in one hand had to stand back a distance. So that the beer wouldn't warm up, obviously. Australian skins are used to heat.
Of course our fun does not stop with pyromania and booze, nor with drunken circus performers doing fire-twirling with flaming beer-cans on the ends of poles. We have endured far less hospitable circumstances.
In my younger years I attended a New Zealand scout "Jamboree". A Jamboree is the largest scout event that occurs in any given country. Due to living in Australia, I was part of the Australian Contingent there. Far from the usual arid habitat of the Australian Scout, the 2005 NZ Jamboree was a place of rain and suffering.
"It's okay," we said, "we'll tough it out."
For 12 days of straight rain.
You know those old war movies with the trench warfare of WWI, how they showed beaten and weary soldiers trudging through knee-deep mud? Remove the warfare, the downtrodden spirit and the disease and you had the Fielding Jamboree. The troop of scouts I was stationed with (Hog Squad, we were called) were forced to dig trenches around our tents in order to keep the constant rain from them. We nicknamed the empty back-portion of our camp-site the Dead Marshes because it was the only appropriate title we could imagine. And there were Mudfights. They deserved the capital letter.
A true Mudfight is not simply a matter of flinging a handful of mud at an already dirty opponent. Oh no, our scouting ingenuity would not permit such laziness. We crafted mud-slings from whatever was available and waged an inter-camp war of clothing attrition. Last person with relatively clean clothes won, and was promptly dumped into the nearest puddle of mud.
Such a contrast to the 2007 Australian Jamboree I attended. It was a dustbowl. The "Elmore Tan" as it became known was the faux-pigment developed when one wore sunscreen then went to stand in the wind for 5 minutes, front and back. A very fashionable earthy red which washed off in the shower, ready for a second day of similar treatment. It was hot. It was dry. There were watertrucks spraying down the dust on makeshift 'streets' who were gleefully followed by scouts looking for a dousing. The most fantastic invention there were metre-wide fans which also sprayed water. They were as close to air-conditioning as one could get in the circumstances.
I was most amused when, at the end of the Jamboree, the various state HQs informed the camp that 'souveneering' was permitted. NSW had a miniature panorama of Sydney constructed outside its command tent. I watched as a patrol worth of scouts walked past and each nicked a particular icon to keep. The Opera House went first, then the bridge, then Centrepoint Tower. I myself procured a banner upon which my various compadres left signatures and messages. I still have it somewhere, lurking amongst other camp memorabilia.
Much fun for all.
You see, the Australian Scout's definition of fun often bears strong resemblance to that of an adrenaline-junkie pyromaniac survivalist. From Australia, which turns the Badass of anything willing to approach local wildlife up to 11. We can, but generally don't, start fires with two sticks. That is too long a process for your average Sydney Funnel Web-wrestling Australian Scout.
Far better to do what occurred at my most recent extended outdoor Rovering (Scouts 18-26) adventure. It was a week-long standing camp at a location which had a tendency to freeze off Australian bollocks overnight and as such, we had ample firewood available all the time. On the final night we decided to get rid of the rest of it. Did we start with kindling, slowly and carefully working our way up to the waist-thick logs like we were taught? Fuck no. We got 20 litres of petrol (approx. 5.3 gallons of gas for the Americans) and strategically poured it over the amassed tinder-dry wood. In a slight deference to OH&S, rather than just tossing a match and ducking for cover, we did in fact run a trail of petrol a good metre and a half away from the volatile pile, to light as a fuse.
It still made one hell of a bang, almost losing the nearest person their eyebrows. The flames were twice my height and roaring like a furnace within a minute, so hot that even mildly-tipsy Australian scouts with a cool stubbie in one hand had to stand back a distance. So that the beer wouldn't warm up, obviously. Australian skins are used to heat.
Of course our fun does not stop with pyromania and booze, nor with drunken circus performers doing fire-twirling with flaming beer-cans on the ends of poles. We have endured far less hospitable circumstances.
In my younger years I attended a New Zealand scout "Jamboree". A Jamboree is the largest scout event that occurs in any given country. Due to living in Australia, I was part of the Australian Contingent there. Far from the usual arid habitat of the Australian Scout, the 2005 NZ Jamboree was a place of rain and suffering.
"It's okay," we said, "we'll tough it out."
For 12 days of straight rain.
You know those old war movies with the trench warfare of WWI, how they showed beaten and weary soldiers trudging through knee-deep mud? Remove the warfare, the downtrodden spirit and the disease and you had the Fielding Jamboree. The troop of scouts I was stationed with (Hog Squad, we were called) were forced to dig trenches around our tents in order to keep the constant rain from them. We nicknamed the empty back-portion of our camp-site the Dead Marshes because it was the only appropriate title we could imagine. And there were Mudfights. They deserved the capital letter.
A true Mudfight is not simply a matter of flinging a handful of mud at an already dirty opponent. Oh no, our scouting ingenuity would not permit such laziness. We crafted mud-slings from whatever was available and waged an inter-camp war of clothing attrition. Last person with relatively clean clothes won, and was promptly dumped into the nearest puddle of mud.
Such a contrast to the 2007 Australian Jamboree I attended. It was a dustbowl. The "Elmore Tan" as it became known was the faux-pigment developed when one wore sunscreen then went to stand in the wind for 5 minutes, front and back. A very fashionable earthy red which washed off in the shower, ready for a second day of similar treatment. It was hot. It was dry. There were watertrucks spraying down the dust on makeshift 'streets' who were gleefully followed by scouts looking for a dousing. The most fantastic invention there were metre-wide fans which also sprayed water. They were as close to air-conditioning as one could get in the circumstances.
I was most amused when, at the end of the Jamboree, the various state HQs informed the camp that 'souveneering' was permitted. NSW had a miniature panorama of Sydney constructed outside its command tent. I watched as a patrol worth of scouts walked past and each nicked a particular icon to keep. The Opera House went first, then the bridge, then Centrepoint Tower. I myself procured a banner upon which my various compadres left signatures and messages. I still have it somewhere, lurking amongst other camp memorabilia.
Much fun for all.
