See you, Space Cowboy -
November 2, 2001 - Brooke Bolander
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. The grown-ups don't like it. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Things are going a little weird. Fans are rioting in the streets, official e-mails are sailing around like so much confetti - what do I have to say about it all?
I'm sticking by my original statement to the last. Don't get mad at the site and its runners; obviously I just wasn't good enough, so they fired me. Hopefully the next guy/gal will be more up to standards, and you guys will have him/her around for a good long while.
A lot of people are asking where I'll be going after this. The answer is nowhere, really - with all the free time I'm about to have, updating Tonberry Hill would probably be a good place to start. Poorly designed and even more sparsely updated - hey, I'm no web designer. You want a nice-looking page, read the one you're at right now. And not a bloody word about it being on Geocities. I'm poor, irritable, and won't be held back by staff regulations after tonight.
Yes, I know, I'm talking about myself again. But I'll be gone in about as long as it takes you to read through this column, so bear with me here. I'm doing this with one hour of sleep to my name and a whole lotta heartache.
I'm really going to miss you guys.
| I'll escape in a box marked Hamdingers. |
| Ms. Bolander,
Well... there's not a whole lot I can say about your departure. So instead
of trying to be eloquent on my own, I stole this bit from the MST3K Info Club
website, in their Ward E section. You may remember it from when Joel escaped
from the Satellite of Love...
"The whole world is a circus if you look at it the right way. Every time you
pick up a handful of dust, you see not the dust, but a mystery, a marvel,
there in your hand. Every time you stop and think, "I'm alive, and being
alive is fantastic." Every time such a thing happens, you are part of the
circus of Dr. Lao."
Sorry, I couldn't think of an appropriate quote.
-Some Random Jerk
|
If it's good enough for Joel's plaque on the wall at Best Brains, then dammit, it's good enough for me. Thank you. Although I do think Kefka's old quote about the music of ten thousand voices screaming in unison might have fit just as equally well...
| Awww. |
| Brooke,
Before you go, would you insult me? Y'know, like the good old days?
Love,
Vince XII
|
Your handle is so 1998.
*...Drat! All this 'readers being kind' has sapped my sarcasm! Must...be..scathing....*
| "Trumpy, we hardly knew ye." |
| Brooke,
The mood was somber. The flags of the city hung limp at half mast, the lights were dimmed everywhere. A large crowd was marching through the streets of the city. In the fore there marched a group of small creatures garbed in homespun robes. In one hand they carried a small lantern, in the other a chef’s knife, gleaming brightly. At their head marched a larger figure, identical save for his size and the small crown floating above his head.
Behind the Tonberries marched a tall fellow, garbed entirely in black, Brooke's sword strapped to his back. He walked with head bowed, and the people at his back followed suit. In the midst of the crowd stood a small group of female gamers, their hands holding tightly to the coffin they carried. Overhead was a banner baring a face, features shrouded by blue hair.
After a short march they reached the graveyard, slinging the gates wide and marching to the plot reserved for their DA. The female gamers gently lowered her into the earth and the tall man stepped forward to stand over the grave. “ We’ll never forget Brooke. She was a great lady. She was smart, funny, witty...and oh, god, the hair...ahem.. well.. and most importantly she loved the games. She was a rare gem, as most of us male gamers can attest, and she will be sorely missed.”
The speaker went on for a great while, bringing tears to the eyes of the people as he recalled the momentous fugghead award. He brought a happy chittering from the Tonberries mentioning the day the topic was devoted totally to them. He waxed eloquent, his eulogy helping to burn Brooke into peoples minds for all time. As he began to wind down he was interrupted as the Tonberry King stepped up to him and whispered lightly in his ear, his knife gesturing to a small group of men standing slightly back from the gathering.
These men were dark figures, menacing and terrible. They wore hooded robes, their faces hidden from the light. This was required in most who made dark choices and served nefarious powers, but even more so in these people. The tall man on stage reached over his shoulder and Brooke's sword hissed from it’s sheath. The light from the Tonberry king’s lantern reflected off of the shining steel, and it pointed in the direction of the group. “ Those are the men who got rid of Brooke. Kill the bastards...”
Hmm, and then I snapped out of my reverie. Well, not entirely, but the details of what happened after were fairly grotesque, and I didn’t feel some of the more squeamish people would be equipped to deal with it. As it stands now, I hope this will one of the fitting tributes that you receive before you go. I’ll miss you and your column very much.
Savra- a.k.a the Tall man
P.S. Sorry your fiancée wasn’t in there, but I’m jealous. ~grin~
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Awww....see, this is why I love you guys. But could you kinda not kill the guys who fired me? if you do, there won't be anyone to run the site, and we'll have nothing to read, and then what will happen to us, eh eh? We'll have to go back to books! Dear god!!
Oh, and you die slowly for not including my fiance. Bad Savra, bad.
| *SOB* I was so...me!! |
| Brooke,
Friends. Family. Dearer friends. Drug dealers. Generous benefactors. We
come together today not to mourn the loss of a dear friend, but to
celebrate. Celebrate the purple hair, the legion of fanboys. The infamous
ninja sword fanart. The cultural references that flew right over my head.
Stop laughing. This is a ceremony. We celebrate Brooke Bolander, who in
her time was both the most outspoken and most amusing Double Agent that The
Gaming Intelligence Agency has ever known.
Bitter cynicism mixed with biting sarcasm in the best mix man has ever
known. It could have been a drink, if not for the fact that it was all just
1's and 0's on a server somewhere in Iowa. Or whatever. But anyway.
Brooke was a woman ahead of her time, spurned by her colleagues for being
inventive and witty. Popular with the people, she was hated and feared by
the ruling class, who sought to 'stay with the norm' and felt that 'might
makes right'.
Brooke Bolander.. was the Messiah. The Messiah of The GIA. In honor of
this, Brooke will forever be called Jesus Bolander. What do you mean, it's
already taken? Taken by who?! I dont' see a ©!
Okay, then screw all that. Let's just put "Bolander 3:16" on some signs and
rush The GIA's headquarters. They're skinny little punks, we can take 'em.
Who's with me? Then charge!
Brooke, I only wrote in once. It never got posted, but then again it
sucked, so I never held it against you. I read your column faithfully every
night. I, for one, am going to miss you a great deal. Chris.. Chris who?
The next Double Agent will be held to your high standard, and thus will
fail. I can't speak for anyone but myself. That said, I speak for myself
when I say that I'm greatly disappointed; and that after Friday, it'll be a
cold day in hell before I read this column again.
- The Fickle Finger, who thinks Brooke f00king r0x0rs LOL!
|
Aww gee, you even invited the drug dealers. How sweet. But c'mon guys, don't abandon the column just because I won't be doing it anymore. It's still gonna be good, otherwise the next person will get booted too. And so on, and so on, in a long unbroken chain of pure suck. Scary.
And being called Jesus scares me. Stop it.
| Eeek! |
| And now, just for your last day, I present Brooke Bolander: We Hardly Knew Ye.
It was but a few shoddy months ago that Chris Jones the Cheesemaster decided to leave the column, followed shortly by the death and rebirth of the GIA. We were introduced later to Brooke Bolander the Brogue, Who made the DA column.... the same. Only several weeks after taking up the job, the pink slip of doom appeared to the Brogue, handed to her by the Gods of Mount GIA. And thus, on the second day of November, 2001 in the year of our lord, Brooke passed on the torch, after having rocked for a non-long, long, time.
Ironically, she passed on the Day of the Dead.
-Scott
|
It's the Day of The Dead? My, that's certainly odd. Granted, I'm glad it's just my career and not me that's taking the plunge, but still...weird.
| Be nice or I'll come back! |
...au revoir, auf weidersehn,
The next, DA, will be unjustly flamed
**dances off stage**
"You're breaking up with us?
Who the hell do you think you are, lady?
You can't just go around, breaking peoples hearts like that!
I fell in love with you! WE fell in love with you!"
For some reason, I thought Jay's heartfelt plea was oddly appropriate.
Anyway, you know you're taking something badly when you can only talk in
movie quotes.
Brooke, two months was just not enough. The gaping hole in my soul that
Chris left in his wake was barely healed, and now this? It's too much to
handle. I just hope the new guy doesn't receive a barrage of flames so
large that he's left cowering in fear. Not that I'm encouraging that.
So long, and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Conor Edmiston
'Weidersehn' and 'flamed'? You try coming up with a rhyme in 10 minutes!
To show I'm not (entirely) poetically bankrupt, a haiku:
Double Agent Brooke
Host obsessed with tonberries
Leaving far too soon
|
Okay, that's exactly what I do not want you guys to do. I had a rough enough time taking over after Chris departed; God only knows what it would have been like if he had told his fanbase to rip me a new asshole before he left. So go easy, okay? It takes a good three or four hours to update this column, so they're going to be busy enough as it is without people being cruel.
I'll bet the new DA comes in and sweeps you off your feet, truth be told. You'll all be giggly prom dates to their charms, powerless to resist. Just you wait and see.
| I love you too, honey. |
| Do you want to know why you got so many supportive letters yesterday?
Because most of us can't stand your column and rarely read it anymore. I
know I jumped for joy when I heard you would not be doing DA anymore.
Nothing personal, but you're just not funny. I find it hard to believe
that you didn't get ONE negative letter yesterday. Maybe most of us
can't stand to read DA anymore after a whole column dedicated to
TONBERRIES! WTF? I have never read a worthwhile column topic while you
have done DA. Nothing interesting at all. Usually just, "What do you
think of X", over, and over, and over, and over again. I hope you print
my letter, or one that expresses the happiness I feel that we might get
a worthwhile DA column to read again. I'd give you specific examples of
why I dislike your column, but I just can't stand to go back and read
those columns over again. Once was painful enough.
I finish with an epitaph for your time as DA: "At least it was brief"
H-Box
|
You know, I was saving the last Fugghead Award for Nij as some sort of lifetime achivement thing, but...well, what can I say. You earned it, my good man.
Behold, the final Fugghead Award - long may it wave. Godspeed, little award...godspeed.
| And the next victim is... |
| Yo Brooke,
It seems like just yesterday I wrote a letter welcoming you to the column...seems odd that I'm already writing a farewell letter. Sadly, my wacky college schedule didn't allow me to write in nearly as much as I would've liked to. I wish I knew what exactly happened that you had to leave. I read all your columns and thought you had gotten into a good groove, though it sometimes seemed I was on the outside of way too many inside jokes.
I hope you continue to write letters to the column, as there's really no reason not to. Do you know what the staff plans on doing? They still have plenty of applications from the last time, I'm sure, but I still salute you for willing to accept a job I don't think I'd be able to handle.
--The Steve
|
I'm about as clueless as to how the next DA is going to be picked as you are, Steve-O. I'm assuming they've already got him/her chosen for monday, so tune in sunday night to find out just what you're in for this time around.
I think I was always better at writing the letters than answering them anyways. Time to don the Negative Creep mantle once again and go back to being a reader.
| We don't blame you - much. |
| Brooke -
I think it stinks that you're going so soon, but then again, that's been the theme for the past couple days, and it doesn't seem saying that here will change anything. So, instead, I'd like to do something completely different.
O blessed Mistress Brooke, forgive me, for I have sinned. Although my passion for Square has been known to reach unnatural levels, I thought I had reined it within acceptable levels... alas, this was not the case. In my foolish innocence, I downloaded Download Accelerator and Morpheus, and the sheer file-finding power was too much! I may have resisted their alluring interfaces for a time, but I my will has broken. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. In my infinite frailty, I could not withstand the lust for FMV! Behold me, brethren and sistren, and weep, for I have indulged in the delights of Final Fantasy X's ending before it was even released! I said that I never would, that even posting it was a heinous act, worthy only of condemnation, and yet, in the end, I fell before its charms. It was so beautiful, and so easy to get! What could I do? I am surely damned.
At the very least, now, more than ever, I know I will be the first person in a ten-mile radius to buy that game. I will ANNIHILATE any who oppose me in this matter.
Abundantly Obsequious,
Jason Love
"..."
|
There there. Let he who is without gaming lust cast the first stone and all that. How were you supposed to resist? How are any of us supposed to resist when the freaking Cowboy Bebop movie is floating around out there? It's getting harder and harder to be an honest gaming nerd/anime fan these days, I tell ya...
Closing Comments:
After the last few days of...well, dealing with me, it's time for a REAL LIVE TOPIC! Yes, a real topic about - get this! - video games! Can you imagine?
With the ability to download almost any movie/trailer/tap dance commercial from programs like Morpheus becoming common, do you think that the...I don't know, thrill of actually beating games is going to be replaced by this "Who needs to play the game, I can see the movies for free!" mentality? Or do you think it might do just the opposite, actually encouraging people to go out and buy the games if they can't get all the movies or something?
And how do you think easy-to-find FAQs are affecting gaming? All you have to do is search around online if you're stuck; there's no challenge anymore if you don't want it. Will gaming developers be taking this into consideration when they make games in the future? In layman's terms, tomorrow's topic is the effect of the 'Net on gaming. Run with it.
Okay, time for Brooke to get personal again. Last time, I promise.
I've enjoyed myself the past couple of months, but I wouldn't have gotten along as far as I did without the support of my fiance. Daniel, you're the most incredible person I've ever met. I'll never understand what I did to deserve you, and...well, I love you.
...Yeah yeah, I know, talking about me and mine yet again. But you know what? It was worth it to say that.
Feel free to e-mail me at my private address from now on; since any time now the agent@ addy is going to be switched over to the new guy. Be nice to him, alright? For me. And, of course, for the Tonberries.
Peace, love, empathy - Brooke Bolander. |
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