Happy Halloween!

And at long last, the week-late blog posting is here! Special thanks to last week's exams for the horrid amount of material I now have to go through since everything from last week had to be combined with the Halloween issue. Goodness, I wonder how whiny I'd be if this blog was actually popular.

I do have some good news to start us off. Puff counted seventy-three views for "Ian's Backlog" by the twenty-sixth, and a vast majority of those views occured in the first three days while I was advertising it. Also a record number of FOUR people checked reaction boxes. All responses were different, but I'm glad no one felt the need to check the "stupid" or "ysoserious?" boxes.

The last thing I need to update you on if you're not in the Facebook group is that I have, in a sense, taken my whiteboard down due to the worsening sexual harrassment. Well, the board wouldn't come off the door, but I took the marker away. The blog can still continue, though, because I have now created an online whiteboard for Facebook. It's a bit complicated to work with, but two people tried it successfully: basically they had to download the image of the board and draw on it on Paint. Then I compiled the images. I'm actually kind of excited about this, because I was always sad that my friends were too far away to draw on it (but now they can!).

Before the real whiteboard was closed, I asked for people's favorite quotes. I got one response, and after a while, I asked people to draw a dragon. Here are the boards:

Wait a minute...how on Earth does that look like a dragon? I swear some of the people on my hall are illiterate. Now, I get what this guy was trying to say, but this particular linear equation is not a proper model for that. This equation suggests that y=x, or in this case, S=H. This implies that any value in the universe could be plugged in, so I suppose this guy sometimes has a low S & H factor and sometimes a high S & H factor. Based on the featured region of the graph, neither value can be negative, which makes sense, but really this guy would have been more clear if he would have used a bar graph that compared his values to the values of other males, especially if the males' S & H factors ranged from drag-queen to jock. Also, he spelled "hottness" wrong, which detracts from the reliability of his sources which he did not cite. I'm just saying this guy failed. He was trying to troll, and it backfired. End of story.

Now here's where you get to see the new whiteboard. Since it was for the Halloween issue, I asked the question: "They say 'Trick or treat?' You say:"

The second response on the first board and the entire second board are from my second-cousin, Sara (lots of seconds in there). She's a dedicated follower of this blog and is therefore awesome. The first response is from a guy named Keith. I haven't met him in person, but when I advertised the blog in the A&M freshman class group, he said he wanted to join the WB&TR Facebook group and has been a great contributor since. In fact, a lot of the following items either are from him or include him. The third response is indeed off of Facebook, but Rich is serving our country and can't exactly download things or use his phone where he's at now.

The next whiteboard comes from Devon. This is not a recent one (she told me it was from her freshman year), but it's amazing. Enjoy it, and hopefully, she'll post more of them!

The last of the boards comes from Front Porch Grill (finally!) although the advertising nature of the comic suggests it was from one of the employees and not from just any random troll. Unfortunately, I'm hearing the place might be closing down. I have not been there, but I have heard they have good food. Plus, it's a BYOB place with a recently expanded porch. If you're in College Station, maybe you should stop by and see if the place is worth keeping in business. After all, they serve "cornbeard" and chili.

Now that I'm on the picture segment, I'm just going to feature Facebook trolling first and pictures last since I can't remember the exact order of all of them. These first two are from Rich, who has been very determined with his trolling in the group.

This next one is also from Rich. It's a long, drawn-out war of words that ended up separating four of us into two teams. Whether or not these teams will persist in other WB&TR wars is uncertain but would be interesting to pursue. Seriously, if we keep this up, we'll have to come up with names, T-shirts, souvenirs...this could get crazy.

I posted this one last, because first of all, I hate to end with me losing, and second, I'm very proud of myself for defeating Sean (whom I call "Troll") in a trolling battle.

That ends the Facebook trolling. Now for pictures! I went out with the CSCC guys (not College Station City Council) one night for Twiggy's b-day (Twiggy=smaller Ryan), and I saw this sign at Mad Hatters. One of my friends (can't remember who) told me one of the guys who works there just put the sign up randomly and that the bar doesn't actually give out free beer. As for whether or not that's true, I can't say, but that'd be some pretty bad trolling...and a great blonde joke (Blonde walks into a bar, sees the sign, comes back the next day, sees the sign, leaves confused, comes back... yeah, whatever, shut up.).

Here's a picture/story sent to me by Keith that made me smile. It just goes to show you that even convicts can be good trolls.

One day as I was walking home from campus, I saw a couple of people sitting near the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross with a ton of pumpkins. A couple days later, I saw this.

This is like the banana tree example in "Ian's Backlog" of good and bad trolling. Yay for Halloween and stuff, but those pumpkins are gonna go bad. They have been removed, though. Anyway, I wanted to say this statue here of "Sully" has a little bit of history which you can read here. Basically, people like to leave pennies on his shoes for good luck during exams. I, fortunately, was able to get a good picture of this good-trolling tradition.

We interrupt you to bring you this following announcement from iamtroll.in:

Problem, braniac?

That was a horrible transition. Buuuuuut here's a video to distract you from my failure! Thanks again to Keith. Just a warning, there is a little foul language.

VIDEO MADE OF AWESOME

If you skipped over the link just because you're too lazy to right-click and open up a new tab, just click on it, dangit. It's Bill O'Reilly getting rick rolled...and getting really ticked off about it. If there's anyone who doesn't know what rick rolling is (I didn't, and I feel like an idiot), Urban Dictionary sums it up pretty well. And if you don't know what video they're talking about, go here.

That's all for this Halloween! This issue's counter is Inky the black cat since it's a holiday. Ain't he adorable? Just don't get so caught up staring at him that you forget to CHECK A REACTION BOX BELOW.

When they ask you, "Trick or treat?" tonight, BE A TROLL.


(For examples, watch this less-than-four-minutes-mini-episode of The Guild.)

Ian's Backlog

To start off, I need to make a couple of corrections to the last blog. First of all, the link to Bill Byrne's Twitter was incorrect. The blogging website will not let me edit posted blogs for some reason, so I will give you the link here. Second, my brother, the LONGHORN (Sssss) had to correct me on the statement I made. I mistakenly thought he hated the Raiders more than the Aggies, but he hates the Raider fans more than the Aggie fans. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Second thing to address before I get this blog going: if y'all noticed Pumpkin the dragon at the end of the last blog, you might have noticed that he had numbers above his back. Those numbers were the pageviews recorded. I am happy to say that since last week, Pumpkin has recorded fifty-seven views of the Raid- and Pillage blog. Since the blog will not let me edit old posts, you'll get to see a new dragon for every blog I'm interested in tracking. Occasionally you might see a cat or something else...if I can find a good free gif website.

You might have noticed that the title of this blog seems a bit...personal, I suppose. There is a story behind it, and it is quite simply that my best contributor, Ian, saved up a bunch of images and spammed me with them all at once. The pictures are intriguing to me, which is why I'm going to advertise this blog. So enjoy his pictures when you get to them. In the meantime, worst first (remember that this phrase specifically applies to my whiteboard only).

Last week I asked, "What phrase is way overused?" The first response made sense, but as for the second one...I just have to say I don't know if I've met this George guy before, but it sounds like we might have something in common. After all, I love me, too. Sometimes. On a good day.

Known fact: people erase my board quite frequently. My guess is that they think my questions are stupid, which I wouldn't argue with, so I tried to get them to ask me a question. However, that only brought out the perverted nature of my hallmates, meaning, sadly, that I only got one response that I would post. That was from my friend, Bethany, who also wrote the nice little note telling people not to erase the board. As bad of trolls as my hallmates generally are, you can guess how they responded. My board has been blank since then with the exception of the usual and a note next to an obscene drawing telling me to take my board down since those drawings were the only things that were ever on there. I have proof that that is not true. Sometimes good things happen on the board, like what you see below.

Well, Bethany, I'll tell you what's up. One morning I stepped outside my room and saw that someone had placed an apple in front of someone else's door. Sweet, right? I mean, I would have preferred someone to leave a Snickers outside of my door, personally, but apples are good, too. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," after all. I would quote a person, but it was more of a common Welsh expression. For more information, go here (it's a UK site, which automatically makes it professional). I must say that Snickers aren't all that bad, either. They keep the diva away, which can be more annoying than a doctor, unless he's Dr. Mario and wants you to stack all the dang pills by color...

Alright, the worst is over! Now to sift through Ian's backlog, starting with his whiteboard in the chronological order in which he posted the photos. First up is a person who was obviously very bored and very creative. Made me start to think a bit about whether or not people actually have blackboards anymore. The only one I've seen since...golly, seventh grade?...is the one that's right outside the Front Porch Grill, which is in the same block as Happy Yogurt. If it rains, that thing is doomed. While it's still functional, though, I'm waiting for someone to troll on it. Buy some sidewalk chalk, please.

This next drawing is great. Of course I think that, because I'm a nerd. Seriously, though, how awesome is it that someone saw an asymptotic curve and thought, "I should draw an elephant sliding down this,"? I also feel bad for that person, because they must get very little math homework done...

This one is my favorite of this series of Ian's whiteboard. I wouldn't recommend doing this, as it is an act of animal cruelty, but on the bright side, the sheep will be fluffy.

To conclude the whiteboard collection, we have an example of bitterness that I'm sure we all carry during certain weeks. "Death weeks" we call them, when the stacks of homework are as high as the double rainbow guy, the exams are all at once, the dining hall food is about as appetizing as foot fungus, and everything that could ever go wrong does. On those weeks, this flip chart is for you.

You might think I'm done writing, but the fun is only just beginning! Now I'm going to share with you Ian's examples of trolling, also in chronological order. The first one is just a little cutesy trolling, so say, "D'aww, it's a kitty!" and make one of your own when you're bored someday.

Ian told me this next picture was taken in front of a sorority house. I would call it good trolling until about three to five days later when the bananas in this little banana tree start to rot. Then it's bad trolling. Literally, it went bad. *lame pun is lame*

Men should get this sign, but women in public restrooms should also consider this sign and change the word "floor" to "toilet seat". Girls...you know what I'm talking about.

And finally, I can get to the last of Ian's backlog. Originally, I wasn't going to post this photo, because even though it was interesting, I didn't get how it was trolling, nor did Ian. All he could tell me was that it was his school's rent-a-bike program. But Frofro, a proud member of the College Station Car Club (the group responsible for "The Stripper" order at Happy Yogurt), actually took the time to look at the photo and discovered that a single bike was parked backwards. That, in my book, counts as trolling, and good trolling, at that. It offends no one, and it brings a smile.

Did it happen? Did you smile? If you didn't, I guess I don't really care. After all, you're just an anonymous viewer unless you're in the Facebook group. Buuuuuut Ian's mom, Karen, wants to make you smile. Or at least, she made me smile when she sent me this picture from here.

You can rest assured that I will never use troll spray on you unless you're just plain offensive. I encourage good trolling, and I want to see you do things like parking a bike backwards or leaving apples in front of people's doors. So please, be trolls, and send me your pictures, videos, and stories about what you did. I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it once more: my blog is nothing without you guys.

This week's dragon is Puff, named after the cartoon and after one of my favorite songs, which you can listen to here. I will be polling the Facebook group for the next interesting blog's dragon, so be on the lookout if you're a part of that.

Keep trolling, guys, and don't forget to check a reaction box below!

Want a free counter of your own? Sign up with BoingDragon!

Raid- & Pillage!

I have been so excited to write today's blog ever since I heard a breaking news story on Saturday which involved the worst case of real-world trolling that I have ever heard of. But of course, as any of my followers may know, I always write about my lame whiteboard first. Worst first. It rhymes, so how can you forget?

Anyway, last week's demand was, "Draw a penguin." Believe it or not, people actually drew penguins, and by people, I mean two people. My favorite of all of the drawings, however, was the person who wrote "a penguin" on the board. Kudos to him/her for good trolling!

You should know that these will be the last of the "pretty" drawings for a while, as after I'd taken pictures of the penguin drawings, someone stole the best two markers. That means there'll be no more lime green, hot pink, purple, or light blue drawings/writings ever again...quite potentially. Now I'm just left with the black/blue marker as a result of bad trolling. May the thief be frowned upon.

Now to get to the stuff I really care about! This past Saturday, Texas A&M played against Texas Tech (Ssssss) in Lubbock. Before the game started, however, a few Raiders decided to live up to their name and fouled up our football players' buses. Bill Byrne, our athletic director, tweeted, "Someone vandalized our buses in Lubbock. Excrement inside and outside of buses plus spray painted vulgarities on outside. Classy." An article on ESPN gives a little more detail, saying manure was spread up and down the buses and on the inside of one that couldn't be locked and that the spraypaint job was done in Texas Tech colors (red and black) and featured the Texas Tech logo. So in case you were thinking about it, don't try saying it might've been someone who had no relation to Texas Tech.

Bill Byrne said it, though: "Classy." Get this; my brother Derek, who is a LONGHORN (Ssssssss), even says he supports the Aggies when it comes down to competing against Texas Tech, and better yet, that is the only team he hates more than the Aggies.

This majorly-awful trolling incident opened up a lot of Raider-bashing on the TexAgs forums, some of which was pretty funny. And it's all good trolling from my perspective since I'm an Aggie. These burns are appropriately boxed in red to mark my favorites with a star next to an example of good random trolling (random trolling is good if it makes you laugh).

For those of you who were completely thrown off by the German-moon-bombing comment, there's a forum that'll explain everything here. As for how that applies to the bus raid, just don't waste your time thinking too hard about that one. You might even have to let it go.

Back from tangent-land. Dave Miller, a writer for the National Football Post, was quoted on Yahoo News, "...it's unfortunate this incident occured." For anyone who knows how this fairytale ends, though, we all know just how very not unfortunate things turned out. See, the buses that were so brutally victimized were actually...well, I'll just let Koda sum things up for you.

So the trolls did get punished for bad trolling after all! And in reference to one of the good forum trolls, did we brand their horse with our winning score? Why yes, yes we did. 45-40. At first, I was a little bummed, because I thought, "Well, we only beat them by five points..." But when I expressed this to my mom, she said, "Winning is winning, no matter if you just beat 'em by one point." And with that, chin up, Ags! SEC, here we come! Hopefully. I mean, if our football players stop falling asleep after half time, that is...

Even after all that, I still have one more thing to feature. My mom sent me an email last night, and it was so awesome I'm just going to quote the whole thing.

"A bowling alley in Clearwater , Florida , Bowl-o-Bama, is doing record business despite a bad economy. The alley also reports a record number of 300 games. Since opening in November 2010, 963 patrons have bowled a perfect game, including strikes in the warm-up frames. This alley also has the highest bowling league average in the country, with a 237. And that's the senior league."

Amen to that...I guess (what's a senior league?). Sorry to get lazy at the end, but here's a funny Obama video to distract you from your whining: here. Oh by the way, the little dragon below is a counter so I can see how many people view this particular entry. His name is Pumpkin.

Have a wonderful week, and keep trolling!

POW-boys & Aliens

Since my last post, I've gone through four different "topics", if you will. After the fourth topic, someone erased parts of it so that the writing and drawing were indistinguishable. So I erased the rest (I had gotten a picture beforehand), and my board has been blank ever since. Hopefully I'll be "back in business" after I write my next question on there.

When I got back from my trip home the weekend before last, a few people had written on the board. Two of them gave me phone numbers...and based on what they wrote, I assume they're male. I'm just glad what they wrote was, in fact, decent content so that I could share it with you guys. As for the guy on the upper lefthand corner, I don't really know how to respond to that...

I cleaned that board off since it was quite crowded and decided to post a new question. But first, before you view the board, you need to become familiar with POWERTHIRST. It's THE energy drink of all energy drinks, and you can buy it here, although they still only have the original flavor (after how many years of being in business?) and haven't even made rawberry or shockolate (yet?). Sounds boring? Then you need to see the commercials on YouTube (commercials include crude language). I asked, "What's your favorite POWERTHIRST flavor?" and sadly, I only got two responses. At least one of them was good (and in case anyone was wondering, my favorite is slaughtermelon).

After that, someone decided their advertisement was more important than my question and erased it before I could get more responses. I'm not exactly sure what BP stands for, but if I had to guess, I'd say beer pong.

I wasn't interested in keeping the ad up for very long, so I erased it and asked if anyone watches =3. I took a picture after I got two responses, and I realized too late (referring to earlier comment about random erasure) that the first response was *sigh* inappropriate. So I colored over the bad part of that response on Paint. As for the alien beneath it, I met the guy while eating dinner downstairs. I was sitting by myself, and he was nice enough to ask if I wanted to sit with him and his friend. At some point, I mentioned my blog and told him he needed to draw on my whiteboard. He said he usually drew an alien smoking a doobie, so that's how I know it's him. Cool, right? Whatever, I'm proud to have it!

You can probably guess what that person "wrote" if you've seen that emoticon before. But now I will recognize it anytime I see it, so you may as well not try to write that on the board again. But the story of inappropriateness does not end there. Sunday morning, sometime after 1:30AM, someone made a very large, obscene drawing on the wooden part of my door, and it didn't get cleaned off until later that night. The moral of the story is: don't drink so much that you start getting "brilliant" ideas, because that particular idea was just bad trolling.

So that's four whiteboard topics and one example of trolling for you; if you want to see more than that, contribute! Whether you've got an epic whiteboard or a picture/video/story of/about trolling, you can post it in the Facebook group or email me, and if it's approved content, you'll see it in the next post. So pretty pretty please send me some things and stuff! (My whiteboard is dead half the time, and we all know it.)

The question until next time is actually a command: "Draw a penguin." In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying the beginnings of October weather, and remember to keep trolling (in a good way).