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Vrock
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Damage, where do gerbils come from?

Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:44 pm

So I emailed the link about the pigeon to my very non-technically inclined girlfriend....she just couldn't understand what was so fun about the T/R forums. She thought the pigeon thing was pretty cool. But she asked me "why is everybody some kind of gerbil in there?" I explained how your post count relates to your rank, but I couldn't answer the question.

Just where the heck did the whole gerbil theme come from anyway?
 
DragonFli
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 7:10 pm

When I first saw this site, I wondered that too...
Laterz...
"New"
i7 4790K | 16GB | RX570

Mid:
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Old:
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Steel
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:23 pm

Well, when a mommy gerbil and a daddy gerbil love each other...
 
Usacomp2k3
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:34 pm

Steel wrote:
Well, when a mommy gerbil and a daddy gerbil love each other...


haha
Wally world, aisle 5, actually, about waste high...
 
Jebus
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:43 pm

haha
Wally world, aisle 5, actually, about waste high...[/quote]

Wow. Your Wal Mart sells gerbils? I think most of the employees at teh store here are "special", so we just have some crappy fish.
I was married in an online fantasy game once. We thought about having children, but it would severely drain my power crystals.

- Comic Book Guy
 
 
house
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:06 pm

I think he want to know the origin of using gerbil in the first place, not the rankings.
 
JustAnEngineer
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:09 pm

Petco wrote:
There are approximately 90 different species of gerbils, all originating from the desert environment of the southern and western portion of the African continent and throughout Far Eastern Asia. They are sometimes called by other names, including jirds, clawed jirds, pocket kangaroos and sand rats.
 
Usacomp2k3
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:15 pm

dictionary.com

ger·bil ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jûrbl)
n.
Any of various small, mouselike rodents of the genus Gerbillus and related genera of arid regions of Africa and Asia Minor, having long hind legs and a long tail.
The Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), having large dark eyes and a long furry tail and often kept as a pet.
 
Damage
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:20 pm

The first gerbil was the "Anonymous Gerbil" tag used for the authors of any anonymous posts in the original TR comments system. Sander Pilon wrote the system, and he put in the AG tag as a placeholder. I thought it was funny, so we kept it. For a long time, the only gerbils we had were anonymous, which led to things like the "Don't feed the gerbils" T-shirt. Gerbil became a term of loving derision, if you will, because it referred mainly to people posting anonynmously who might have something good to contribute or..... heh. Maybe not.

Eventually, anonymous gerbils gave way to non-anonymous gerbils when we installed phpBB and needed a ranking system. Then there was the Great Gerbilicide of '04, in which Anonymous Gerbils were killed off and comments system posting required registration, leaving the forum gerbils as the only remaining species. And there you have it.
Last edited by Damage on Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Scott Wasson - "Damage"
 
house
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:25 pm

edited, nvm damaged answered
 
Dirge
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Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:51 pm

Its a unique system and I like it !

How about this goes sticky so we will never forget our gerbil heritage.
 
Armigel
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Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:04 am

The gerbil way, is the only way.
Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.
 
zgirl
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Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:42 am

Damage wrote:
Gerbilicide


Now there is a word for you.
"I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the entire body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
 
Hoser
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Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:21 pm

Damage wrote:
Then there was the Great Gerbilicide of '04, in which Anonymous Gerbils were killed off


So they disappeared the same way as the dinosaurs. :D :wink:
For those that fought for it, freedom has a taste that the protected will never know.
-Unknown Veteran
 
Gershwin
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Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:31 pm

Damage wrote:
The first gerbil was...

So are you denying that the term has any homosexual related nail-clipped rodent insertion undertones?
 
flip-mode
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Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:42 pm

[quote="Damage"][/quote]

Whoa, I never see Damage post in the forums! (Though, I'm not here as often as many of you)
 
Vrock
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Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:26 pm

flip-mode wrote:
Damage wrote:


Whoa, I never see Damage post in the forums! (Though, I'm not here as often as many of you)


Actually, he's really good about responding to legitimate questions and concerns from the gerbils. In fact, he's responded to alot that weren't legit, just to set the record straight.

People like him were once known as "webmasters" back in the mid to late '90s. Sadly, they're a dying breed amongst tech sites.
 
Starfalcon
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Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:46 am

Well at least we have damage and we are not going to give him up. I am sure he would post more, but he is always busy writing up new articles for TR.
 
Damage
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Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:13 am

I'm here, just lurking. I read lots of the forums and all the news comments. It's just that I have to take in a lot of feedback between e-mail, comments, forums, PMs, IMs, phone calls, and everything else, so responding to everything is hard. I also find that I get sucked into forum conversations too easily, and then I'll spend hours writing up a post--time spent writing that doesn't get us a new article. At this stage, we have to make our time count for as much as possible in order for this biz thing to work.

Also, I hate getting trolled. :) Happens way too often when you're in my position as is. No need to provoke the bastages.
Scott Wasson - "Damage"
 
boobyne
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Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:16 am

The stork brings them.
 
Ithkul_prime
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Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:27 pm

man.. this needs some help
have you seen it

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