In response to unFalln's suggestion [goats.com], this is the first time ever that i'm starting a new discussion.

The people who participate in these forums seem to be very diverse, yet there also appear to be a number of things we have in common, in addition to our interest in this great web-comic. So i'm interested in hearing people describe two subjects:

First, what are some of the things that are unique to you? For example, who are you, where are you, in which time-zone are you located, and what things would you say might make you somewhat unique. Or, if you think it would be more interesting: what attributes do you have that are common?

Second, how did you happen to find Goats.com, and what do you think keeps you interested in the forums (rather than just visiting to read the comic, and never joining in a discussion)? What interests and ideas do you think you might share as a common denominator with most everybody else here?

Since i asked, i'll start. My name is Kevin, i live in Bellingham, Washington (state), USA. I'm in the Pacific time-zone, which means all the time-stamps on this website are three hours ahead of me. I'm not sure which of my personal characteristics are possibly unique (vis-a-vis the rest of you folks), but i'm pretty sure i'm not the only queer who participates in these discussions. I'm curious whether i'm the only one here who has AIDS.

A friend of mine pointed me to Goats.com around the 1st of this year, so i've been reading for eleven months. I eagerly rushed through the entire archive during my first few weeks here, then through most of the Ask the Animals, and nearly all of the forum discussions. It seems (to me) like most people here have excellent computer usage skills, many of you have excellent written communication skills, and i would bet that most of us have somewhat strange senses of humor.

Even though i think most people here have some familiarity with alcohol, pubs, and life as wage-slaves in the rat-race, i personally am at a point in my life where i no longer get involved with any of those areas. What about the rest of you?

Thanks for making this thread..
This could be very interesting, I'm curious to see everyone's answers. *giggles*

Let's see.. Who am I? I'm 18-year-old-pisces-freshman-vegetarian-Diane... someone who dabbles in just about everything, as I have notice many of you also do. I love art, writing, music, my university, nature (beach and mountains are great), volunteering, partying, working out, sports, comics, videogames, computers, spending time with friends and family, make people happy or at least smile once in a while. I was born in Colorado, but moved to Las Vegas, NV when I was 9, so I basically grew up there. Now I attend college in Oregon (So that's pretty close to you, Kevin. I share your time zone and I read Goats the night before.. Hehehe) I don't know what makes me unique exactly. But I know there is no one like me. I haven't ever met anyone like me. Neither has anyone else I know. Unless they're holding out on me. But really I don't know if anyone could be quite the same kind of dorky that I am..

I actually found Goats through my boyfriend. He thought we relate in the same way that Jon and Megan relate... and in a weird round about way. We do. Minus all the space mummies....
So anyways. It was the middle of the term and I was avoiding studying and really putting effort into being antisocial for what-ever reasons, so I went through and read all of the archives. Then, I noticed the forums.. and that I could post on them... and then.. the rest of my "stupid", "incoherant", "pathetic", and "informative" comments are just history...

As for Alchohol, Pubs, and life as wage-slaves in the rat-race.. I drink, but not at school. I go to a private school that 50 dollar fines for just about everything.. picking flowers, throwing water off your balcony (my dorm has a balcony.. i love it), climbing trees, having candles, parking in the reserved section of the parking lots.. and drinking gets you not just a fifty dollar fine, but classes on the weekends too. I only get smashed in Vegas. Besides there's a train that runs through the middle of campus.. and I don't want to get wasted and go out and sit on the tracks or something stupid like that. There are a lot of other reasons that I don't drink on campus, but yeah. I just don't. As far as pubs. I've been in a few, but never drank in one. Just played pool and sang kareoke. Wage slave? Well. Yes and no. I have work-study. I'm an office clerk. Very exciting as you may imagine. I like most of the people I work with, but they don't treat my job very seriously even though it sucks more than any other job in the office. I was working at JCPennies for a little while. that is drama... lots of drama. Then before that I was a carhop at Sonic.. many-a-people got there milkshakes served right up close and personal to their windshields..

Well this is getting particularly long. So I will just end with this..

I have a wonderful boyfriend and a rockin' roommate, and seem to attract 30 year old men like no one else.. Seriously. *laughs*

Well.. now that that novel is finished... I want to hear about everyone else!

Diane

In Response to delight (#11647):

Oh yeah. And I used to have nightmares. Lots of nightmares. Less now that I've been in Oregon, but I have some of the freakiest most realistic dreams.. I wish I didn't rememeber so many of them.. But when they are good, they are amazing.. What about you guys? Do you remember dreams? Have them at all? Have abstract or realistic ones? Do any of you know how to have lucid dreams? (I did a project for one of my classes on lucid dreams and now I'm completely enthralled with it).

I'll actually end this time..

Have a lovely day..

Diane

In Response to delight (#11648):

I'm very interested in lucid dreams; but as far as i can recall, i've only had a couple over the years.

To my knowledge, i've never had any dreams (lucid or otherwise) which involved anything that appeared at all like a cartoon or a comic. However, many of my dreams seem to involve dialogue, conversations and circumstances which stronly resemble the same kind of set-ups that recur constantly in Goats: two or three people hanging out, gabbing, joking, discussing strange things that sometimes don't even really make sense.

I just wish the "conversations" in my dreams were as entertaining as the crazy repartee in these comics.

In Response to Teledildonix (#11650):

I occasionally dream ludidly, but more often my dreams reveal things about my psyche that should probably remain hidden.

--------------------
For example, last night I had a dream which, after a ridiculously complicated set-up, resulted in me watching a kid playing a Star Wars based arcade game. He was really really crap at it. He was stuck on this one level where you (as Luke Skywalker) hide underneath a table while Jar-Jar Binks hurls fruit at you. To be fair, it was particularly deadly fruit.

Then, in one of those rapid transitions that occur in dreams, I became Luke Skywalker. I was still being controlled by the idiot kid, though. So he dodged right instead of left, and I copped a barrage of fruit right in the torso. My hand flew off and hit Jar-Jar in the face. (Told you it was deadly fruit). I lay there bleeding and dying. The rest of the Star Wars cast came over to me, but instead of helping they just stood there jeering. Thinking quickly, I decided to try and use The Force to get out of my predicament, but all I succeeded in doing was hitting Princess Leia in the back of the head with a small green crayon. She was all like "Oh, yeah, that really hurt. Wimp."

Then (there was a segue, but it was long and uninteresting), the embodiment of all evil turned up in the form of a small ugly baby being carried around by a large Native American man. We exchanged witty banter for a few minutes, then he announced his intention to eat me. Whilst I was alive. From the feet up. At that point, I suddenly thought "But as Luke Skywalker, I'm technically male! I wonder if having your genitals cannibalised hurts."

The ugly baby kept me alive for a week, eating me slowly. He also fed bits of me to my friends, unbenownst to them. I spent my nights hiding behind an orange tree planted in a hideous terracotta pot, hoping no one could see me in my mutilated state.
-----------------------

Combine this with the one about the pygmies and the witch doctor, and that probably sums up all anyone would ever want to know about me. Ie, too much.

In Response to tynic (#11653):

That should have been lucidly, not ludidly. Apparently my spell-checking skills deteriorate after a bottle of champagne.
(and I'll use that excuse till the day I die, dammit).

In Response to tynic (#11653):

Wow, that dream is messed up. What is Jar-jar doing in the same scene as Luke and Leia?

In Response to deerboy (#11656):

Well, exactly. I mean, that bit's just plain wrong.

And apparently pathetic. Fair enough, I suppose ... it's certainly not very informative.

In Response to tynic (#11653):

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.

Amazingly, you can recall several dozen details from one period of dreaming. It is so rare that i am able to retrieve more than just a few tiny thoughts or sensations from my dreams. I think i have several unconscious personalities; the ones which i'm pretty sure appear regularly are: a dream maker, a dream actor,and a sort of audience like a Greek chorus; there are probably others.

I was wondering, if you are in eastern Australia, what is the time-zone difference? How many hours ahead of Goats.com (New York - EST) do you happen to be?

In Response to delight (#11647):

So that's pretty close to you

Well, certainly closer than Manhattan, or Australia, or Albion. But Oregon and Washington are relatively large states, so it's still quite a few hundred kilometers of separation. And due to the fact that i'm an extremely indolent, lethargic sort who enjoys little more than hanging out in the comfort of home and the peace of my neighborhood, i consider all distances to be "vast" if they are further than a walk to the end of the street :-)

In Response to delight (#11647):

So that's pretty close to you

Well, certainly closer than Manhattan, or Australia, or Albion. But Oregon and Washington are relatively large states, so it's still quite a few hundred kilometers of separation. And due to the fact that i'm an extremely indolent, lethargic sort who enjoys little more than hanging out in the comfort of home and the peace of my neighborhood, i consider all distances to be "vast" if they are further than a walk to the end of the street :-)

In Response to tynic (#11657):

Some would say that any dream about Star Wars characters was pathetic.

Except for that one dream, with Princess Leia, in the gold bikini...

That dream rocks.

In Response to Teledildonix (#11660):

and I'm even closer, though I agree with tele, I don't consider Seattle to be increadibly close to Bellingham. I would like it to be closer, because then I would be able to spend more time at Mt. Baker snowboarding.

I'm an ex grad student living in Pittsburgh who has been wearing a "Don't ask me lady, I live in Beer" t-shirt since before they existed. The friend of mine who directed me this way made one for me way back in the day. It got a whole lot of comments, but then, that was back when I went to Penn State, and most of us lived in beer anyway.

Only, at least if I were a fish, I'd live in good beer, as opposed to the crap floating around college frat parties.

I frequent the forums when life otherwise proves boring, or I need to procrastinate. I was active a bunch while I was writing my MA thesis, now that I have a boring ass job, I have to keep my mind occupied somehow...

In Response to Teledildonix (#11658):

Well, with daylight saving time in action, Goats now comes out at about 4pm where I am. Just when I'm getting totally sick of work, conveniently enough. So that would make me 16 hours ahead of goats, or something 19 hours ahead of you, I think.

Meanwhile, I detect a number of Jungian archetypes in your brief dream description. If you can ever recall them in detail, you'd probably be a psycho-analysts delight. (or delight's psycho-analyst?)

I got turned on to goats (and I use the term in all its connotations) by a friend, who emailed a Dungeons and Hamsters strip to me one day. He in turn was sent it by someone else, and it occurs to me that it may have been someone on the forums. (desperate clutching at straws to follow): Anyone know David Thring?

In Response to zamphir (#11662):

Princess Leia in the gold bikini? Pah! Not when you can get Han Solo frozen hard for all eternity.

In Response to tynic (#11701):

That reminds me of a paired set of necrophilia jokes...

The punchlines are "Rigor Mortis" and "You get to make your own holes".

In Response to tynic (#11653):

I wonder if having your genitals cannibalised hurts.

Yes, yes it does.

In Response to Teledildonix (#11659):

But Oregon and Washington are relatively large states, so it's still quite a few hundred kilometers of separation. [snip] ...i consider all distances to be "vast" if they are further than a walk to the end of the street

Hmmm...the distances might seem shorter if you measure them in miles instead. It'll cut your driving time in half. :-P

In Response to delight (#11648):

I had a pretty scary one last night.

I was hanging out with these guys who were all real jerks -- they were in a band and they thought they were all real cool, and I think they locked me in the bathroom a couple of times.

Anyway, I was like, "Screw these guys! I'm going to Turkey". Specifically Istanbul, I think. I don't know why Turkey was the answer to my problems in this case, but then again, Turkey is always the answer to my problems.

So anyway, I'm planning to go to Turkey, and who should show up but Bill Murray (or a dead ringer for him) and starts talking up Turkey -- it's a great place, there's all this culture, etc. etc. And as he's leaving, he just sort of leaves this opened can of soda there, Turkish Coca Cola or something like that.

Anyway, I take a peek at it, and it's filled with what looks like pink goop. None of the assholes really notice; they're too busy going on about their stupid band. But I think they must do something with it, because...

Cut to exterior, some time later. I've already bought tickets to Turkey, and I'm about to go when this guy tells me. "Wait, haven't you heard about the plague in Turkey?" "What?" "Yeah, there's this terrible plague in Turkey. It makes your insides pink and then you start throwing up and then you die." A couple of the band members are there, not looking so great. "I don't feel so good," one of them says, as he throws up a huge quantity of bizarre pink fluid.

I think, "Gee, I touched that can too, and I'm headed towards Istanbul, where the plague is."

End of dream.

Freaky, huh?

In Response to zamphir (#11662):

Except for that one dream, with Princess Leia, in the gold bikini...

The one where she's taking my arm off with a rusted saw while saying, "All you want is Jabba"?!?

That one sucks...

In Response to Deathalicious (#11773):

I was hanging out with these guys who were all real jerks -- they were in a band and they thought they were all real cool, and I think they locked me in the bathroom a couple of times.

Ahh, High School.

Good times, good times.

*twitch* *twitch*

Oh well, perhaps hoping that people would SHARE something about themselves was going a bit too far. That sort of thing could lead to people treating one another with dignity and respect, and soforth. That would ruin my whole game, now, wouldn't it?

I might have one unique thing, though. And she REALLY likes boobies.

  .

In Response to tynic (#11701):

Throw Luke's disembodied hand into this ring and it'll be a short drop.

In Response to deerboy (#11787):

Cute kid.

Who's the father, then? ;-)

That sort of thing could lead to people treating one another with dignity and respect, and soforth.
Just remember, you can't spell "disrespect" without including a little bit of "respect" in there. Just a little bit, just just a little bit...

That would ruin my whole game, now, wouldn't it?
"Game? This ain't no game! What're you talking about? I came here to do backups! "
"Backups for who, man?"
"For this Infecto-phibian thing"

In Response to zamphir (#11797):

Given that modding you up means using an inapropriate reason (obscure reference is the best) and that you don't need mod points and doing something else I will simply say

Groovalistic!