OLD HAMBONE IS STILL AROUND

CivilBarrister's Avatar
EroticGuideCentral: Thanks for that update. I had a reason to do that research about a year ago.

It is clear that the law changes all the time and a correct answer today may not be a correct answer tomorrow or in a couple of months.
Absolutely! That website is a great resource.
DEAR_JOHN's Avatar
First of all, back on the subject of this thread, welcome back Hambone. Some of you may differ with me, but I consider Hambone to be one of the good guys, either in the hobby or out of the hobby. I also thank Hambone for sharing his information.

Now to THE ELLIE SOCIAL............just my opinion.

At first I thought the irony was funny as hell. Here I was known by both CK and CB, but they would not send me an invite, however somehow or another Ellie got an invite. It gave me a chuckle, except for the folks who got arrested or harassed.

That was then, this is now.

What I don't find funny or ironic is all the piling on by Monday morning quarterbacks. It's funny how smart people can be after the fact. Had I bet on New Orleans to win the Super Bowl I would be living in Vegas in a nice condo. set for life.

Let's look at some more irony. All the people lining up for their invites, almost to a point of begging, to attend another ASPD social. Yes, it was an ASPD social, not a hobby social. If anybody truly believes that this was not considered an ASPD social, see me about purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge. All this kissing ass for an invite, all this checking emails for the invite and location. All of these people coming in from out of town. All of this clearing the calender for another epic social. Now, all of a sudden, we have some real MENSAS who knew attending a social put themselves at risk. All of this after the fact.

Yes, mistakes were made, yes, things could have been done differently, but don't come in here after the fact insinuating how dumb people were for attending and how careless CK and CB were. If anybody thought attending a social was putting themselves at risk, they didn't have to attend.

I hate second guessing, after the fact bullcrap.

How about all the other socials attended before this one. Very few complaints and bitches. I remember all the "appreciate the invite to another great social" postings that were made after each and every social.

One bad social where Ellie was present should not take away from how great all the prior socials were. If the prior socials were so bad, why was everybody lining up and trying to get their invites?

Of course Ellie was out to bring down ASPD. Did any of you ever realize that every review you wrote was like giving the finger to Ellie? Think about it. It's like saying, "yea, I saw a prostitute and here's what happened."

CB and CK are big boys and I am sure they learned their lessons, which at this point in time is the most pressing issue concerning socials. Would a formal apology from both ease the pain? Whether they have admitted it or not, I am sure they suffered deeply and were embarrassed because of what happened.

Did some third party invite Ellie to the social as some sort of revenge motive? I don't know, but if they did, they hurt everybody who attended, not just CK and CB and I hope everybody would at least understand this.

Did CK and CB make money off the socials? Maybe, but they got everything together and made sure the lady/men ratio was at least acceptable. They also did the legwork and all the inviting. I don't remember anybody being forced to attend a social.

I think it's time for everybody to realize that mistakes were made, and move on.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of all the second guessing after the fact, when most were practically kissing ass to be assured of an invite.

A lot of people in the hobby have very short memories. I remember how Wildflowers had socials, all sorts of people were there. After BT when Wildflowers was no more, Beth had a birthday party and all were invited. A whole 10-15 people showed up for her non hobby birthday party. From asking Beth and Billy for an invite..............to Beth who? Yea, people have very short memories.

Back to the Ellie social.........why don't we just learn and move on?
O'Mike's Avatar
Would a formal apology from both ease the pain? Whether they have admitted it or not, I am sure they suffered deeply because of what happened.
I for one feel that they don't need to apologize to anyone. We are adults and should have understood the risks.

Maybe if we were not so darn worried about LE, and assumed that they were there and would always be within ear shot we might not have had any issues.

Do I care if CK and CB made money, no. I knew the costs up front, and made a cost benefit judgment based on that.
What I don't find funny or ironic is all the piling on by Monday morning quarterbacks. It's funny how smart people can be after the fact. Originally Posted by DEAR_JOHN
Who is piling on? People have opinions. Just like you do.
carkido45's Avatar
Who is piling on? People have opinions. Just like you do. Originally Posted by Merlin
Absolutely no piling on here just taking the same look at socials I had back when I was on ASPD.
There bad news
DEAR_JOHN's Avatar
Who is piling on? People have opinions. Just like you do. Originally Posted by Merlin
Yea they do, and my vision is 20/20 corrected. People have piled on, both here and other sites. What I stated was my opinion (as one who has attended many socials) and is something that IMHO needed stating. My feelings are of a general nature, not of a detailed nature. When it comes to opinions, I tend to dance to my own drummer.

Absolutely no piling on here just taking the same look at socials I had back when I was on ASPD.
There bad news Originally Posted by carkido45
First of all it's ''they're bad news'', secondly I can't imagine anybody offering you an invite.
carkido45's Avatar
Yea they do, and my vision is 20/20 corrected. People have piled on, both here and other sites. What I stated was my opinion (as one who has attended many socials) and is something that IMHO needed stating. My feelings are of a general nature, not of a detailed nature. When it comes to opinions, I tend to dance to my own drummer.



First of all it's ''they're bad news'', secondly I can't imagine anybody offering you an invite. Originally Posted by DEAR_JOHN
Yup and sooo grateful for that.
Yea they do, and my vision is 20/20 corrected. People have piled on, both here and other sites. What I stated was my opinion (as one who has attended many socials) and is something that IMHO needed stating. My feelings are of a general nature, not of a detailed nature. When it comes to opinions, I tend to dance to my own drummer. Originally Posted by DEAR_JOHN
And I am sure that you are not the only person with 20/20 corrected vision either. What you have illustrated in your initial post is actually more evidence of what was wrong with the system. Now Dear John, a legendary hobbyist, couldn't get an evite to the social yet other lesser known or unknown hobbyists/providers were. Hmmm. Something is not right with that picture.
DEAR_JOHN's Avatar
Now Dear John, a legendary hobbyist, couldn't get an evite to the social yet other lesser known or unknown hobbyists/providers were. Hmmm. Something is not right with that picture. Originally Posted by Merlin
Facts, or call these absolutes.

I am on a long term hiatus from the hobby, and it has been my choice not to hobby. Another fact, unlike some I know, I would not ask a provider friend to lie for me to get an invite. I know a couple of providers who would have sent a pm or email to CB or CK and I would have gotten my invite, but I would not ask a provider to lie for me. My not getting an invite was completely and totally my choice.

Just know what you can do with your picture.
Facts, or call these absolutes.

I am on a long term hiatus from the hobby, and it has been my choice not to hobby. Another fact, unlike some I know, I would not ask a provider friend to lie for me to get an invite. I know a couple of providers who would have sent a pm or email to CB or CK and I would have gotten my invite, but I would not ask a provider to lie for me. My not getting an invite was completely and totally my choice.

Just know what you can do with your picture. Originally Posted by DEAR_JOHN
What difference does it make? You made an issue out of it. My picture of you has been complete for years.
DEAR_JOHN's Avatar
Now Dear John, a legendary hobbyist, couldn't get an evite to the social yet other lesser known or unknown hobbyists/providers were. Hmmm. Something is not right with that picture. Originally Posted by Merlin
What difference does it make? You made an issue out of it. Originally Posted by Merlin
No, the issue was made by your first quoted post.

It was my choice not to attend.

I knew many of my friends would be there and I would have loved to hang out and talk with them. This is both ladies and gentlemen. Some were long term friends that I haven't seen for awhile.

I could have lied and had providers pm CB or CK in my behalf, but it was something I chose not to do.

No matter how badly I wanted to attend, I would not lie nor ask others to lie on my behalf.

CB and CK had their rules. Whether or not I agreed with them was a non item. It was their social, not mine. Because most invites and most of the publicity was handled through ASPD, I still felt it was an ASPD social, not a hobby social, but they were handling the rules and invites. Like it or not, agree with it or not, I had to respect it.

I read the posting about the raid on ASPD and watched tv for it. I was in shock and I felt deeply for those in attendance. I knew a lot of people I know and consider friends would be hurt and scared. I would hope that you understand the concept of sensitivity and caring for friends.

My hiatus from the hobby has nothing to do with any raid or bust that we have been through since the inception of ASPD, or since ASPD is no longer up and running. Even if I weren't on hiatus, I still would not have attended without reviews and vouches like anybody else.

Yes, I knew one day Ellie could infiltrate a social, but it could have happened in the past or in the future. It was a well known chance we all took.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of all the second guessing after the fact, when most were practically kissing ass to be assured of an invite. Originally Posted by DEAR_JOHN
If anybody wants to condense my earlier post, then this would be the bottom line.

Yes, we have all learned our 'social' lessons, it is now time to move on. This is my opinion and the reason for my posting earlier tonight. Let's forgive, learn, and move on. We can't forget or else this could happen again.

I hope this helped.

Time to take a sleeping pill. The very idea that merlin could have a bad picture of me could cause me to care and lose sleep.
Deuce Bigalow's Avatar
Something stated early on in this thread needs to be cleared up.
It is not true that IPs were determined to be HPD. What was determined was that there were a few individuals that had some posts from a City of Houston IP.
Suspicious yes, but not proof that the posts did or didn't come from HPD. The posts could have come from HPD, or any computer in the City of Houston network, including the Public Library.

Dear John,

In reference to your statement:

"Yes, we have all learned our 'social' lessons, it is now time to move on. This is my opinion and the reason for my posting earlier tonight. Let's forgive, learn, and move on. We can't forget or else this could happen again."

With all due respect, I agree with the need to learn from the event, but I don't know how much we've really learned.
I don't think we can forgive and move on until we have a better picture of what happened. "Somebody fucked up" may be a sufficient explanation allowing for the possibility of forgiving and moving on, but is that the final answer regarding what happened?

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from the event is that, when it comes to security, it is truly foolish to simply accept the word of someone that tells you there's no need to worry because they have procedures in place for your protection.
You might want to ask for a little more than "Trust me, we got it covered."
Have we all really learned that lesson or are some of us still willing to accept that kind of answer?
Wayward's Avatar
Dear John is spoiling for a fight and almost completely wrong. So let’s break it down all friendly and Dallas like. But first apologies to carkido for using too many words and not enough pictures, sorry. This is also not a backhanded barb at the eccie staff, this is serious and with your kind indulgence we can explore an issue that concerns many in the community.

It’s piling on if we point out that the emperor is still wearing no clothes? CDB and ck1942 continue running socials; it’s not water under the bridge and time to sing kumbaya. No one wanted to go to the last one, so Darwin was onto something after all. Don’t care that ck was making bank or getting some free ‘party favors’ (trying to be eccie friendly), until that got in the way of doing it right. Seems that CDB really wanted to be liked, nothing wrong with that either or being extra newbie friendly, until you start making bad choices. I don’t know how many socials you have put on Dear John, but you do know how many I’ve hosted. Some were a lot bigger than 125 folks, sometimes the girls made money on them. Sometimes we received sexual favors from the party guests, that didn’t bring LE to the door. I couldn’t get an invite without jumping though a lot of hoops just wasn’t willing to do that and am grateful to ck and CDB for it. Because Father Wayward might not have followed the rules, it’s my nature and that might have meant bedtime at the Reisner Hilton. However it does cast doubt on the screening methods that a poster with an HPD IP was admitted and I was a security risk. Someone was asleep at the switch or focused on something else other than security. Not water under the bridge, but new information about the folks we trusted.


If there are folks posting on a SHMB where the owners, hatched some plan to have the P social disrupted, then while it may be Monday morning whatever in the heck (see nice eccie expletive), seems like folks posting on those boards would want to know about it. There is some pretty strong evidence that is what happened. Pile on that.


We still don’t know what happened with the great P hack and crash, is that related to LE, HD, ck, DJ, LMNOP or what? I know just enough to really wonder why they went after ck’s posts more than anything else. But that is just more 20/20 hindsight? Except that it really isn’t. I’m not always right and have made plenty of mistakes in who I trusted and why. But I rarely lie, even then most of the time it’s to be funny. This isn’t funny, it’s a train wreck and while it’s not unwise council to keep the socials smaller, with folks you actually know. It would be nice to move beyond that at some point. Who we trust to do that is again really not something we are ready to move past. It isn’t going to be me and that someone desperately wants to host large socials, all things considered is at the very minimum interesting. Perhaps a topic worthy of more discussion.

There are folks that think they are going to make a lot of money doing this SHMB thing, which can sometimes cause someone to lose perspective. Let’s take a hypothetical SHMB Admin, running a large national board, which is a full time job and doing it as a volunteer, over time that begins to wear on someone. More so if an absentee owner is earning a living doing just about nothing. Again 20/60 hindsight but germane to this story. Or another that was raising H E double hockey sticks with his buddies and started a splinter board, sure that it was the path to fame, fortune and free…. well cats? Is that PC enough?

Turns out someone did try and use an old P handle here, but only once? We have had more issues than that over on the Y side in the last quarter and we have no open public registration and 5% of the membership here in the most wildly optimistic tally. It’s certainly possible but given the number of multi-handles it seems inaccurate in spirit if not in fact. I’m trying to be nice to the eccie staff and help out here, so try not to be offended. The only folks that don’t seem to know that F**** G**** is from the dog of horn are some of the corndoggers themselves. Would you want to send him a social invite? Or is that more 20/20 foresight? That is one more example, there are certainly other cases. Not that you need the P database to notice, regular folks see it and they are not staff, just posters. But it is very nice to know you are aware of the possibility and have the tools to address it. Another really good thing to come out of this thread, props to St. Chris.

There is a lot more info floating around than what has been or can be posted in this thread, what you may well see as flogging a dead horse is about as far from that as it can be. While you have every right to your opinion, it can also be completely wrong. The winds may shift at city hall and that would be wonderful, but to post that all this is behind us at this point is factually inaccurate and not in the best interests of the community. Let’s at least wait until all the criminal trials are over, just as a personal favor to me or as a sign of respect for some community members going through a very rough patch.
CyberProf's Avatar
And now, back to OnTopic:
Welcome back Hambone - we have missed you (and your avatar . . . )

Thanks for the information. Like everything on this (and other boards) information and then judicous use of it is essential to hobby in the safest manner. That and thinking with the big head . . .

I hope we see more of Hambone . . . let me rephrase that . . . read his words more often in the future. All views are welcome.