We've Been Found!

And threatened with bannage! But that's getting ahead of myself.

A few weeks ago, one night I was hanging out up at Katana point when suddenly somebody tried to loan me something which carried the name "Yahoo! Hoverboard". I hesitantly accepted it and when I took it out it was, in fact, a hoverboard branded with the Yahoo logo. Later, my buddy qgon comes to me with an avatar toting a shiny new Yahoo branded T-Shirt! He claimed to have happened upon the long lost There promotion for Yahooligans! He gave me the link and I created my first YahoOo avatar. It was then that we realized the potential these avies carried with them! This was something new, something nobody else in There had. We knew there were those who would want to sell the merchandise and make a huge profit if they knew what the signup was, so we vowed not to tell another soul unless it was to prevent such exploitation of others. A small part of us may have also wanted to keep the yahoo avatars all for ourselves, but just a very small part. Very small. Almost microscopic.
qgon offhandedly remarked something about the possibility of creating a yahoo army and marching them around Theria. The idea struck me as genius and within minutes I had YahoOo2, 3, 4, and 5 logged in and standing around us. We realized that the There client refused to open a sixth window most times and even when it did, it wouldn't keep it open or stable very long. So we decided to split the load. I, having a laptop as well as a desktop, would log in as many as I could on both my computers and qgon would run his share. We created a total of thirteen YahoOoligans and promptly forgot about them for the next week. Come March 6th, we decided it was time to put these avies to the use they were created for. We loaded them all up and began a test run out in the middle of the ocean miles and miles from civilization. We set them all to cruise control and, for the most part, got them to march in single file.
When we had enough of the testing, we teleported out into Duda Bay, aimed for Karuna Plaza and let them go! It was laggy. It was VERY laggy. You think Karuna Plaza is laggy on a normal day? Try loading it six times over... simultaneously! Elaur saw the avies marching in Duda Bay while we were still getting them in a line (more or less) and snapped a screeny or two.

So we had our fun, yeah, we should do this again sometime... yup... never did. The lag was simply too much for us and so we put that aside. Until a new idea sprang up...That's me pretending I have no clue what's going on. Sorry, net. Nothing personal, you understand.

So, I had this crazy idea of logging in a bunch of yahoo_test_ avatars named after the there_test_ avies. qgon and I went about making exact replicas of the there_test_ avies. They matched in name, gender, and even skin tone. The only difference was, our avies wore the shiny Yahoo branded T-Shirt instead of the Big Eights shirt. For all you who don't know why we kept them in their undies, it's because the there_test_ avies wore nothing but the Big Eights shirt and their skivvies for the longest time. We were all excited, but realized there was a major problem with our plan: How would we get them all logged in? If our army march at Karuna was any indication, this idea was doomed. I realized that the there_test_ avies had to be logged in somehow also, and it can't possibly use a graphical client to do that. There must be some program they used to log in and out on a schedule without actually loading the virtual world. I had qgon ask his good friend, who will remain nameless, how such a thing could be accomplished. He responded telling us the general idea behind it all. Woah! I did a ton of research to figure it all out, since qgon's buddy couldn't tell us all the details, but eventually I did find a way to do it. qgon and I placed the avies in various locations around There and I hosted them on my linux server. Like magic, they began logging in and out just like the there_test_ avies!

For those of you who may be interested, here's a list of where we wound up placing all our yahoo_test_avies:

yahoo_test_1: outside El Templo Del Pollo
yahoo_test_2: top of Dune Valley invisible boarder
yahoo_test_3: outside Rainforest Plateau
yahoo_test_4: beside King Tut in Tomb
yahoo_test_6: Avie Sacrifices
yahoo_test_7: center of Karuna Plaza
yahoo_test_8: on Paiz spa
yahoo_test_9: on Maidenflight plane
yahoo_test_11: on windmill overlooking mogul mounds
yahoo_test_12: on globe at astrology island
yahoo_test_13: inside tyr tower crystal
yahoo_test_14: on Sphinx head
Yahoo_test_15: beside staff pazs
yahoo_test_16: beside Mr.Blinky
yahoo_test_17: G0D's Cloud
yahoo_test_18: front of boat in Zephyr
yahoo_test_19: on Mackie's roof peak (Katana Borakai 014)

News about the yahoo_test_ avies spread like wild fire. Within days people were speculating in There's forums about why these avies are here, and how one goes about getting their own yahooligan. At first, people thought maybe they were official avies from Yahoo. Someone eventually speculated that There was being bought out by Yahoo and they were calling dibs on all the Yahoo names. We kept quiet, of course, but all the while we knew if There wanted to find out who was behind it, they could easily do so. The rumors, meanwhile, were anything but quiet. I had a funny feeling about that thread, that something was going to happen as a result of it. I even blatantly said so to qgon just last night, in fact. We kept logging those avies in, despite my gut feeling, because people were enjoying them and, quite frankly, so were we. I got home this afternoon and checked on our minions, who were happily logging away. qgon and I conversed through e-mail about the possibility of putting our yahoo army to use once again, in addition to the yahoo_test_ avies. We thought it'd be a funny practical joke to pop them all on top of Mackie's house, and that's just what I began doing.I created more YahoOoligans, for a total of twenty plus seventeen yahoo_test_ avies. When I began to move the army of YahoOoligans over to my linux box, however, I noticed that our yahoo_test_ avies were suddenly getting "account closed" errors! Gasp! I had little time to think about it because Mackie had an event starting momentarily, so I continued setting up the army avatars on top of her house. Although it puzzled me, and I fully intended to ask why the accounts were closed since no notification or explanation was given to me, I assumed There closed them because of the relation to the there_test_ avies. In any case, I was looking forward to reading some forum posts in the morning about the pile of yahoo avatars that suddenly appeared on Mackie's house, and I took that thought and a smile with me to Paiz to help some newbies until qgon showed up.
I was introducing one particular newbie to the spas and profusely apologizing for the lack of try-it machines when Helper_Julian, who was also on Paiz, sent me an IM asking about the yahoo avatars. He explained that the speculation in the forums about the yahooligans being the prelude to a takeover of the company by Yahoo was absolutely undesirable and therefore I had to stop logging in our yahoo avies and their accounts had to be closed. Okay, so I did what anyone in my situation would do and asked if I could keep logging them in if I made public who was behind them, thereby ending said speculation. My eyes were graced with a harsh "no", it wouldn't, and was informed I was staring down the gullet of a ban. So, I shut the avies down.

To Julian: I apologize for causing you to have to visit each avie individually and delete the accounts. I'm sure that must have been an awful chore for you. No, really, I mean that.

To the company at Makena: I apologize for providing a reason for people to speculate as to the future of There. But, you have to admit; with recent events being as they are, the speculation would have made it out into the open one way or another and, in fact, already has in several other forum posts complaining about the quality of recent service. I am, however, offering a sincere apology to you here. qgon and I never intended to cause trouble, we only wished to provide a little entertainment for everybody in There in the midst of all these issues related to the latest updates.

To all the Therians who saw a yahoo_test_ avie: I apologize for not being able to provide further entertainment or a source of speculation for you! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted right?

Oh, and no, I will not be revealing the coveted yahoo sign up page :) But I have another funny feeling that won't be an issue much longer.

Jon Quixote was There.