BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

wrote:
Is this a boating newsgroup or an "off topic" newsgroup? Seems there
are more off topic posts than on topic post.

This group used to be primarily about boats. Now it's rarely about
boats, and most of the boaters have skidaddled in search of a more sane
and civil environment.

Imagine the grounds of an asylum. The inmates are let out everyday to
exercise, and in one corner, gathered all around a bench, is a group
that fantasizes they're out on a boat instead of trapped in an asylum.
Once in a while they will even tell tales about their imaginary
bench-boat, or some boat they used to own, or some boat they hope to
buy, and a few of them might actually go boating on a day they're
furloughed from the asylum.

The customary topics of conversation around the bench-boat include how
to save the world through the proper choice of a political candidate,
how the world is going to hell due to the ill-advised choice of a
political candidate, how liberals are all trying to destroy the moral,
social and economic fabric of the United States, how conservatives are
all trying to impose their personally hypocritical moral code and lack
of business ethics on everyone else, and so forth.

The *real* reasons the inmates gather around the bench are because
there is nothing else in life to do, and they are so entangled in
mutually obsessed love-hate relationships that they cannot get through
a day without interacting with the object of their love-hate. Some hang
around the bench all day, waiting for one of the other inmates to say
*anything*, on any subject, so they can immediately lash out with the
crappy personal remark they have been crafting since the day prior.

The happiest guys in the asylum are those who believe this is somehow
the "real world", or at least more real or more important than the
dreadfully dark and dreary isolation of a drafty, solitary cell.

Fact is, darn nearly everybody left here is nuts. Knuts, gnuts, nuts.
Self included.
Anybody searching for a "boating forum" would be nuts to think a bunch
of idiots gathered around a bench and pretending it's a boat is the
best forum they will find. Anybody here who can't figure out there
isn't any boating content left and that the most prolific posters have
even stopped trying to play the "it's about boats" game in our corner
of the asylum's rec. yard is nuts. Anybody here who enjoys and thrives
on the wicked, sick, and twisted
vitriol passing between the inmates and patients on a personal level is
nuts.

I know where there's a pair of bolt cutters hidden under a bush, and a
spot along the fenceline where the guards don't often patrol. If I
wasn't one of the nuts, I'd grab those bolt cutters and get the heck
out of here. It's tough when the meds wear off just enough that you can
realize where you're at- you sort of have to envy the guys who remain
blind to the reality of the situation or even thrive on the collective
illness.

So if you're looking for a good boating forum- forget this one. Twenty
different people will advance 15-20 different names and reasons why
rec.boats is in the toilet, but in the final analysis (and for whatever
reason) it is. Unless you enjoy life in the asylum toilet, get the heck
out before you get caught up in the vortex circling the bowl. :-)