Sometimes, I just MISS stuff that comes up again later and is referred. But, I don't know of many times where anyone has intentionally tried to be overtly covert!!! (Does that make sense??)

<<<<< Tape dispenser -- long-running gag here. Conceptual continuity is good for "bonding" and such....people who want to participate in the whole tape dispenser/llama/caulking gun/duct tape/Kimmy Gibbler/profile satire/etc. scenario are always welcome to join in -- just ask Eileen or Whisper or Marie or Tanya or about 50 others --

You'll never see my friends and I engage in a 37-page "popularity contest" thread where only 6 of us actually respond to each other, and everyone else who tries to chime in is ignored. It DOES happen here -- not as much as it used to, but more than it needs to -- I mean, there are people whose threads I won't even touch because they've made it quite clear that they don't want to interact with anyone who isn't part of their little group -- but my friends and I, we're just not into the whole clique thing.

Inside jokes, yeah. But you're always welcome to get in on those if you like. Excluders are losers, or something like that. I just wish that would have rhymed better.

It makes me laugh to read some of the sideline comments. I wonder if people realize how out of the blue and goofy they can seem to the clueless.

It can make for some interesting exchanges, though -- I remember a new member who inexplicably took offense to practically everything I wrote -- and I can only assume it was because she never had any understanding of the context, or of the way things work around here --

When I first signed up, I read the forums for awhile before I ever started posting, just to get a "feel" for the place -- better to do a little homework than rush on in and look catastrophically unprepared....!

I thought I'd jumped in the shallow pool. I could be wrong...or am I right?

No offense to anyone. I'm just being fresh.

I can't imagine anyone being offended. It's a legitimate question and a legitimate topic, and it has come up before, too. It's a concern on any site where the "old-timers" mix in with the newer people. What we have to remember is that it's OUR site -- and that means all of us.

You don't get extra points for being here longer, you just know the terrain a little better....