Birthday + Number-based Blethering + Writing · 5:30pm Dec 11th, 2017
Twenty-four as of today!
This is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it means I probably now have to identify as being in my mid-twenties instead of my early twenties, which runs the risk of making me seem far more venerable and sage-like than I am. I'll have to appear even more cack-handed and immature to compensate, which is a fairly stiff order. I mean, do you think my current high levels of apparent ineptness were by pure innate talent alone, rather than by hard practice and earned skill? (Don't actually answer this.)
On the other hand, twenty-four's a good number to reach. Not in terms of anything significant or legal or personally-significant, just in terms of the pure number. 24. It's a'body's pal. Factors for days, and a sense of solidity when said aloud or considered in and of itself. 24's got your back, knows everything and everyone, acts with good cheer and stands its round.
Compare it to its neighbours. 23. That's just one of the many miscellaneous primes kicking around in the early numbers, without even 17's cachet as a go-to miscellaneous prime. 23 wanders around with a perennial look of confusion, helplessly suspecting it was cut out for greater things. And 25 is just a bit too stiff and formal like many of its fellow squares, as if its bum's been stuffed with tweed. No good craic to be found from it at all. Nah, 24's where it's at in terms of numbers for now.
(Why yes, I tend to anthropomorphise things that have no business being anthropomorphised, I am, after all, a very cool person.)
(And yes, reading the above, if you bothered, was probably not the optimal use of your mortality.)
(But if you bother reading my things, you likely already budget for that. And I remain very grateful for your forbearance.)
Aside from that, and by way of keeping you in the loop with regards to whatever horsewords I'm trying to inflict on the world, progress on Wedding March continues, albiet at something of a chipping-away-slowly pace, punctuated by the odd day of key-clacking inspiration. Georg has kindly lent his own proofreading eye to what exists of the ongoing chapter, and can confirm it exists if anyone was having doubts. One-and-a-half more scenes to go, and then fewer'll be happier than me to see it out there at last. And after that, just one more epilogue-chapter to go, and the whole thing can be put to rest at last. Remind your grandchildren to stay tuned.
I've also thrown my hat in to this year's Jinglemas!, and duly submitted and received a character in need of an appropriately-festive story. After a couple of day's brainstorming for my own, I'm pleased to say that things are almost certainly going to end badly, and that time travel has already appeared as a story element.
It's going to be the best Jinglemas ever. 
Many happy returns to you!
>24
goddammit
herpy berpy!
4746174
Thank you, ferret! My returns have indeed been affa happy and manifold!
4746177
I ken. It's terrible, reaching such an advanced age, but I think I manage to carry my zimmer frame with grace.
Happy orbital anniversary! Though I will say that 23 has a more sinister legacy than you're giving it credit fnord.
Wow, you're a whole 6 days older than me. What an old fart.
4746188
Danke! This sinister legacy intrigues me and I wish to learn more.
4746189
Hah. Look at the callow 23-year-old. Hah. Now get off my lawn, sonny, lest I tell you more war stories.
4746192
Check out the Illuminatus! Trilogy. It's a fun read, and the origin of what may be some familiar memes.
Oh look. Carabas survived another year. How unexpected.
Congratulations are in order, I suppose. Now we begin the second wave.
Well, happy birthday!
You made it another year. Take that, entropy
Happy birthday!
...Also, how am I older than you?
Happy birthday!
Conveniently, at least over here, a crate of beer has 24 bottles in it. 🍻
And yes, I am a square. That does not affect my argument.
I want a story collab between Carabas and Georg
4746196
Consider it added to a list of things to check out. Consider it jumping the queue in said list, even.
4746209
There's a second?
There's a second?
4746218
Spitting in the face of hard-wired universal constraints, one year at a time! This time next, licking my own elbow.
4746234
Sinful past lives, maybe? I shan't judge.
4746250
The best number.
4746258
36 is basically 24's equally charismatic but much more louche older relative, content to recline back on any surface going and tell stories that may or may not be totally made up. It's hard to tell with 36. They just smile and wink whenever challenged on this.
Let a man retain some aura of tantalising mystery. Though I shall share a snippet of out-of-context dialogue that probably shan't illuminate things at all.
4746267
Tsk. What's poor Georg ever done to deserve being diluted with someone rubbish like that?
4746309
I now want to see you write a story where all of the characters are numbers. That or a mathematical nation somehow emerges in the Palaververse. (I blame the Antlerteans. Seems like a safe bet.)
4746312
Don't tempt me. You know it could only end badly.
4746312
4746320
Seconding this crazy genius concept. There's a measured tale here that begs to be written, and the world doesn't have enough number-based characters and mathematical stories stop looking at my username please.
4746309
So long as it's not some misleading wordplay, like the theropod turns out to be a chicken or something. I got nothing against chickens, but you promised theropod. I have particular theropod in mind.
4746337
I can't promise a particularly in-depth examination of the theropod in the text, but I can promise it being a proper theropod.
Aw, he's such a widdle baby. I was 2^4, 2+4 years ago.
I will just ignore all the fun you are having with numbers there. I will be a English major soon and we are allowed to do such things. After all, who says that your stories have to make sense mathematically? If I need numbers for whatever reason, I will just invent some. Like triangle. Triangles are numbers now you see and nothing you can say will make me believe otherwise.
Congratulations on becoming 24! You’re now 3 and a half years older than me (roughly)! I hope entropy hasn’t started to set in your weary bones because the writing gods know that you write like a snail as it is. Which is better than me actually, because I haven’t written anything in months thanks to school. Curse that abyss that sucks creativety out of everyone.
Glad to hear that the new chapter of Wedding March is almost done. I await it’s release eagerly. Also, do write a story about numbers. It would be very entertaining I’m sure.
4746404
More of that sort of cheek, and both you and CSquared are getting the most tedious of grandpa's war stories grumbled in your directions.
4746408
Y'know, I started all this with the blithe assumption I was still a relative youngster. But too many here seem to be tripping over their own umbilical cords to let me persist in that. At least you're being one of the less cheeky ones—
...I'll have it on record that you were all given ample warning.
Well, when yer gramps was still a lad, and yon bloody Sumerians were coming over the hills with all their fancy-schmancy composite bows and eyes on burning down our ziggurats...
4746410
I just realised I got my maths wrong. It should have said 2^5. That rather buggers up the joke, doesn't it?
4746423
Ah. Hmm. Yes. That does alter the final numbers involved.
If you ever want to tell us your own war stories of grappling with single-celled organisms during the Pre-Cambrian, now's your excuse.
4746320
Do it.
Oh, and happy birthday from (actually)2^4+2+4-1.
4746448
...If this happens, and when it goes exactly as badly as it ought to in a well-run universe, and all that's left is beating out the last of the flames and telling the emergency services it's safe to come out now, my only excuse'll be, "The whippersnappers told me to do it."
4746428
I mean, it'll work really well next year. Just make sure to post something equivalent to this in 365.25 days' time, and I'll utterly fail to remember to comment that I'm 2^5+2+5.
I'd tell stories of the 5¼" floppies, continental plate-sized hard disks and dot-matrix printers I used to meet, but we've still got a lot of it sitting in the office cupboard. I do occasionally have to explain to the primordial apprentices what sort of alien world gave birth to DNS and why it's still so freaking weird.
4746410
Actually, that 3 and a half was a mental collapse on my part. For some reason when I read 24, I thought 21. Our difference in age is actually 6 and a half. Yes, I am that young and you are really that old. Each year makes you feel old doesn’t? At least, it does when you look back to your childhood. Still don’t know what caused me to write 3 and a half. Must be school. That abyss just keeps giving you more and more work even when finals are nearing. It’s like they want to kill you with homework by causing your brain to short circuit.
I know how you are feeling. Whenever I see freeman at my school, I swear that they should still be in middle school and that there is no way I could be this old.
And always except me to be cheeky. I have too much fun joking at your expense to stop.
4746466
My dad has stories about the fun (inverted-quotations 'fun') days of early computing as well. Computers filling up whole university rooms features, as does syntax that had to be entirely written up beforehand and set up to run overnight on them. God help you if any semi-colons went wandering.
Floppies and a' that were just a wee bit before my time, though I'm sure we've got an old Discworld adventure game sitting around the house somewhere in its original box, said box holding something like twenty floppies. I don't think I appreciate living in what nowadays amounts to science-fiction as much as I should.
4746489
Good christ, you're me back when I first got into the fandom. I was seventeen-ish, coming off of high school and waiting to jump into all the joys of university work. Now I'm a twenty-four year-old with a nine-till-five desk job, cursing whippersnappers online.
I assign blame to the ponies. They'll make you into a responsible-ish citizen as well, you mark my words.
Congratulations, and a hundred more!
Well, since you ask...
... never mind, then.
My first thoughts were of something along the lines of A Christmas Carol's use of that particular plot device, but somehow I doubt it's going to be anything that simple. Or anything that enjoyable for whatever poor sap has been selected to be put through it, I think.
4746309
I haven't the faintest clue what's going on, but I'm looking forward to it already.
4746192
Old
Fart
Happy birthday, good Sir. Have a good one.
4746320
Oh good grief.
I think I've figured out how this could actually happen.
Might there be an equivalent to Starlight Glimmer in the Palaver-verse where not only do the ponies have their marks taken but are also given numbers instead of their original names?
Since pony names are so often related to their cutie marks, it makes sense.
I also recall a story where a group of ponies intentionally lived without using their cutie marks and their role and task was assigned by random draw. In that, a pony might be a potter for a month, and then become a musician the next month. This also applied to family relationships as well, in that a pony might be assigned the role of a mother and wife for the month.
If memory serves, ponies came to this village willingly after their talent had resulted in exceptional personal pain, and there's a locked shed in the village filled with the detritus of their former lives.
4746596
Thank you, both for birthday wishes and for not answering the question.
Time things are happening.
4746712
ur a fart
ur the fartiest
4746766
Thank you! A good one was indeed had!
4746772
It ... might just ... work?
That story sounds neat/horrific. I'll have a wee gander round for it.
4746791
4747011
Belated felicitations from two decades in the future!
Well, not really, just someone that far ahead of you. :P
4747035
Excellent! I have some wee queries pertaining to lottery numbers, status of hovercraft, any radioactive wastelands afoot, and—
Oh, god damn it. You had me excited about the ageing process for a second.
4746791
A-HAH!
I've found the bugger!
The Destruction of the Self by Cold in Gardez.
4767412
Much obliged! Shall gie it a gander.
An interesting thing I realized about the age of 24: because there are also 24 hours in a day, it's a time when you can you can get an easy estimate of how long you've spent doing certain daily things over the course of your life. If you usually sleep eight hours a day, for example, then at this point you've used a full eight years of your life just sleeping.
The creeping horror of this thought is my birthday gift to you.
EDIT: AUGH FOR GOD'S SAKE WHY DIDN'T I LOOK AT THE DATESTAMP
4979645
The important thing is that you tried to induce creeping horror, and it's deeply appreciated.
Shame that a year's passage has introduced all sorts of fiddly wee fractions to the method.