Roll call

[BA]

Ok. "Sentimentally nostalgic" then ?

And as far as nostalgia goes, "North Narrabeen from a Locals Perspective" was probably the best ever thread on these forums.

Like Hakman standing at Pipe ... realsurf was the original, bruh. gotta know your rootz.

I think it was 1999 when i started writing the goldie surf reports for RS front page. Don gave me one of the very first digi cameras ever made and demanded pics of miami beachbreak. I'm not sure i ever took one in focus, and when they were in focus, the action was so far away everyone looked like ants from 20 000 feet.

i tried sticking the lens up to my binoculars and shooting, but then all i'd get is a closeup of someone's thigh. the collection of shots i took were so outrageously bad, that they were good. in an abstract art kinda way.


this was of course when the internet was all Lord Of The Flies. prolonged flat spells would mean i'd cut loose with things like; So flat my only wave in the last week was slapping my girlfriends thigh and catching a weak roller into the sand. And, flatter than miranda kerr today folks.

Poor old Don was threatened with law suits galore from my daily report alone ... let alone all the others. Gordon Merchant got stuck into me one saturday morning ... the brothers neilson was running and kirra was 6-8 on a much hyped swell and i didn't lodge my report until about 11:30am. I addressed him as Gordo, and later told him he was a cunt and advised him to use a little common sense ... if the forecast is off the hook, and it's 9am on the said day of a cranking forecast and i haven't lodge a report, Gordo ... just get the fuck out there.

We wwent back'n'forth in emails for about a week after that and Gordo and i still aren't talking. haha

I only stopped my RS reports when fulltime Surfing Life work came through.

The Goat's long range forecasts – in my nostalgic mind – are still better & more accurate than anything swellnet pumps out to this day. You could set your watch to them, and they were only a paragraph long. You didn't have have scroll through 2 million words to find how big it would be for the weekend.

Fact is ... i'd never have got the gig at surfing life if it wasn't for RS. So i'm all kinds of grateful to this big old piece of shit site. and that's the thing about Realsurf™ ... it's our piece of shit.

Like larry says ... a book exists within the walls of this place. not just any book either, but a fucking great one.

Love your work The Brian.

[channels]

Why?

Because it ran for about 26 pages, with half of it in caps lock, one man versus the rest, skin and fur flying all over, then the thread got locked.

That's why.

Was that the one with the video of KK dropping in then looking it? And death threats with boasts of African military training?

[Beanpole]

We are still in the era of hatchies dominance.
It's really like his own caliphate where any transgressions are dealt with harshly.

That's just some self serving passive agressive hippy shit you cooked up all by yourself.

Plenty of people thought he sucked. But go ahead single me out if that aligns your chakkras

Come on hatchie, come on......just having some fun......at your expense of course.
Speaking of passive aggressive hippy shit.......do you think Ghandi was passive aggressive?

[Hatchnam]

No the NN thread was before that one. At least KK was funny.

[Beanpole]

I miss KKK. Has anyone been to Blueys lately?

[BA]

One man v the rest.

Exactly.

Stuey in a nutshell.

He made a comeback of sorts a few years back under a different name. Didn't last long. FWIW I thought he added a bit to the place. He was a ginger though.

[Drailed]

My god.

[steve shearer]

for real Braithy?

I had no idea you had a second, earlier life on the RS front page.


tbh, I've never, not once looked at the front page.

[Skipper]

clearly more evolved than most on here. Wasn't long ago that it was a right of passage to figure out how to get from the front page to active topics.

please, can we just move on from the NN locals thread.

[crabmeat thompson]

for real Braithy?

I had no idea you had a second, earlier life on the RS front page.


tbh, I've never, not once looked at the front page.

Totes! Back in the last millennia on RS was where it all started.

RS was the first surf report page in oz (to my knowledge).

[The Mighty Sunbird]

I looked at the front page for about a year before I discovered the forums. I didn't know what forums were then

[BA]

Same

[steve shearer]

“I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

[crabmeat thompson]

We were all fcuked once they invented money.

[Larry]

We did it for noodles.

‘ Here, you can have this camera, ‘

Don hands over a scarred DC50 Kodak digital and half a dozen Nickcad batteries .

OK says Larry*, arms folded, and whose last camera was a Box Brownie.

‘ Plus all this Photoshop software, Adobe stuff, A1, dead easy to use. ‘

Don hands over a box of CD’s and manuals, plenty of manuals. Extras just in case. Plus there’s a Grateful Dead CD in there.

Great says Larry, farewelling Ned Ludd with great reluctance.

‘ Plus this recharger, the batteries fade after about five days and will need about three hours on this.’

Terrific says Larry, I’ll make a note.

‘ Just take a couple of shots every day, put ‘em through the software on your computer then stick ‘em up on the site, easy. Link in, download, edit and punch go.‘

‘ Every day? asks Larry, ‘ that mean Sundays as well? ‘

Don nods agreeably, breaks out a BIG smile, starts talking about linked URL’s, site statistics, daily page visits, weekly page visits, monthly …. yearly. Pyramid stats, world domination.

Go Don. He’s a Californian.

‘ Of course the best time to take a surf photo is in the morning, get it at its best, try to get a little elevation and side on aspect. That gets a little more bulk into the shot, looks better, try for the lineup everytime. ‘

Larry is seeing himself halfway up the cliff at South Avalon at 5am on a Sunday morning, with a blood count of about 10.00 – because Saturday night is always a big one – trying to take a photo of the set of the day at LA, and hoping that the smell of burning plastic is not his car burning in the carpark. There were a few moments there with the LA lads, all pals now.

‘ – and of course there is a spot on the web-site where you can give a bit of a description of what the surf’s like on the day. Stick a few words in, anything reasonable. Be yourself.‘

I nearly kissed the old geezer.

‘ – imagine, you get your words up on the web every day. We’ll be gettin’ five thousand site visits a day in no time, – you’ll be bloody famous! I’ll stick you email address on so’s they can talk to you direct. ‘

This was about 1996 and web log wasn’t blog yet.

‘ Whaddya say Lazzer? – this is groundbreaking stuff, we’ll be in the top ten sport sites by December 1999, there’s nothing out there like it.’

‘ Hey, ‘ says Don, with the big smile back on the bearded dial, ‘ I’ll buy you dinner every once in a while, at Manly, I got a discount at the noodle shop. You don’t mind driving? ’

[steve shearer]

did you get a little pay day Pete?

[Skipper]

wow, noodles huh? not quite nicorette tea, but still....

“I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

“Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”
― Anaïs Nin

[The Mighty Sunbird]

lofty ideals but it's pretty rare for people to go totally off the grid
therefore the grid has something going for it
or we have all been buttwinked