WHAT IS A R.A.T.?    by << mushroom >> R.A.T. #2


     Many have asked about what a member of the elite strikeforce known as
R.A.T. is.  I'll fill in the details that we left out of the textphiles --
this may or may not be dull, but is unneccesary.  :)

     Sometime in mid-1992, Chrome and I got together at the Yakima Mall to get
applications for jobs at the new Software Etc.  We were walking around town
talking about a thousand things when a game-master he knew, Voltron, met us at
a corner and painted the word "MARVEL SUPER HEROES" on our afternoons.  The
three of us found ourselves in the basement of the Mall at a pizzeria, still
not talking about anything but RPGs for the rest of the afternoon, or until
Chrome and I had to go to our respective jobs.  He and I were mighty
unsatisfied with the afternoon, since it had been dominated by an off-topic.

     Not long after that day, he and I got together and discussed the Voltron
thing and the man himself.  I'll spare you the details and say that there were
good reasons why Chrome stopped gaming with him months earlier, and that this
man was a bold example of "reality avoidance therapy."  We got to synthesizing
about him and people of his ilk -- those who put up a facade for others that
no one believes EXCEPT the person who is putting it up.  We also verged into
the usual form of "reality avoidance therapy," the things one has to do in
order to stay sane.  Out of this we developed our name and our mission.

     R.A.T. means either Reality Avoidance Therapy or, when applied to us,
Reality Avoidance Therapists.  You can see that being called a R.A.T. can be a
good thing (we who see through mirages) or a bad one (the mall is full of
R.A.T.s, walking around thinking they're cool).  The intent of this loose
collaboration is to show others how silly the world is, poke a little fun at
the world of computers, and write boffo textphiles to be spread freely.

     When Chrome (arbitrarily taking the name R.A.T. #1) and I (and I do revel
in the name R.A.T. #2!) came up with this corporate idea, we decided to have a
friend of ours, Alphax The Dimensional Rapist, be a member, since he was the
funniest guy we had recently met.  We however forgot to ask whether he WANTED
to be a member.  Before long (about a week) we found out he already was a
R.A.T., bad def, so when nothing came from his end we retracted the title,
and he never noticed.

     We've had a couple others express interest in joining the group, but none
submitted materials or further interest shortly thereafter.  We're actually
fairly happy being a twosome, but I will admit that for the sake of continuity
(since we took a vacation in December '92 and didn't come back until June '93!)
we could use some "sparks" to keep us going.  Last year sometime we were
brain-storming ideas for future R.A.T. droppings but we seem to have misplaced
it. The only one I can remember, because I went to the library to make
photocopies of the "inspirational" material, is "Everything I Ever Needed To
Know I Learned On BBS's" -- which was supposed to follow Fulgum's model.  This
is about where we went on holiday for half a year...

     The main problem we've had is distance; I moved in Jan '93.  On those
weekly calls I made to Backwaters, we would exchange ideas sparingly and files
as they came up.  Then we'd sleep at the switch. (NETGUIDE took an hour or two
to write because we were together; BEGIN took a month or two because we were
not.  I'd bet BEGIN cost about $20 in L/D.)

      What started us in the textphile writing, or for me anyway, was the phile
101WAYS.TXT, which lists 101 rediculous ways to commit suicide.  The authors
(G-Men) stated that this was an organized effort and the beginning of a
textmill.  I haven't seen anything else from them, however; they must have
followed their own advice!  R.A.T. had no intention of being a one-phile
wonder, and has so far succeeded.  (Yes, there was life after DEFINE!)  We try
not to use ANSI or extended ASCII characters because we want everyone to be
able to read our stuff -- that, and my computer is an Apple //e, incapable of
ASCII > 128.  And the "home board" is the ficticious one listed below, which
was invented in SYSDESC and just kinda stuck (it popped up in NETGUIDE, heh),
followed by Backwaters of the Mind, official distribution source.

     Questions?  Samples of work?  Send to "R.A.T.s, Ink #69 @5900" on
EliteNet.  Catch ya later...

 +----------------------------------------------------------+
 | Written by:                                              |
 |    Mushroom - R.A.T. #2 - Ironing Board PongBBS - dial M |
 | Tweaked for distribution by:                             |
 |    Chrome   - R.A.T. #1 - Backwaters of the Mind - 14.4k |
 |                           (509)453-9650  24hrs/7days     |
 +----------------------------------------------------------+