Hear yee, Hear yee, the FRL will now stop being out of order for the following official busyness. (cyber gavel)

FRLians, lend me your monitors! On this suspicious occasion, our second anniworsery, it is my duty as ChiefTin of this here FRL to deliver this, my sixth annual "State of the FRL" Address. (I may not be able to count without SOBob's help, but I do know our official birthdate :)

It was two years ago today, December 11 1998, a day that will live in infirmary, that the FRL As We Know It was born - with the first FRLian thread called "Know Your Fruitcake". We are all two years old today (except maybe for one of us who might have a birthday before I finish writing this post, but I won't mention any names :)

It is with the greatest of amazement and happiness that I pronounce that the State of the FRL is Sound. This is in large part due to the efforts of kritter, who has provided us with this wonderful cyber home. We all owe our thanks to this outstanding FRLian! It gives me great pleasure to formally recognize kritter's contribution to our incontinence, uh, I mean continuance, by presenting her with the coveted Metal of Fruitfullness.

Kritter, please kneel and bow your head. . . (cyber hush)

Thank you. You are officially and hereby Decorated with one of the FRL's highest honors, the Metal of Fruitfullness. (I duck tape it to your sleeve). All FRLdumb salutes you! Rise now, Kritter, Bearer of the Metal of Fruitfullness. Go forth and continue to be Fruitful!

(cyber applause)

Two years ago, who would have thought that the FRL would still be a magnet that draws us together in FRLian Spirit. We have a proud and hysterical heritage. All of us probably remember different FRLian moments or events that still make us smile, and always will. We are a part of something really special here, something that has survived the test of time when other things have not, a place we still look forward to coming to get a break from everything else, and to share in our FRLian cyber friendships.

I am proud to call myself an FRLian, and I am proud of the FRL. What started out as a fight against the Evil En, Ene, Enem, (Sheesh - you know who I mean!!!!!) has turned into a kinder, gentler FRL. We have had many, many accomplishments over these last two years, and there is more to follow, or to come, or more somewhere in our immediate vicinity. What is important is that We Have Been Fruitful!

Long live the FRL! Long live our Fruitcake Freedoms!!

The FRL may now go back to being out of order as usual.

(cyber gavel)

-- Rob Michaels, M.B.A. (thesonofdust@yahoo.com), December 11, 2000

Answers

WHOOP!!!! WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!!!!

YAHOO AND YIPPEE!!!!!

-

A SIMPLE TOAST FOR THE OCCASION :

Four score, and , uh, almost nearly two years ago, a date that will live in infamy, the earth was void, and without form, when our fruitcake forefathers set forth upon a new continent, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, taking a small step for man, a giant step for mankind, they wandered in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, when gold was discovered at a little place called Sutter’s Mill, and the westward expansion was begun, they followed the yellow brick road to Emerald City, where a great nation was formed, indivisible, with limericks and justice for all, from our ivory towers to the eternal halls of Graceland, where we will overcome, and abide in the house of the FRL forever, till stealth geese do us part.

You may now kiss the bride of Frankenstein, and may the bluebird of happiness show us the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, where we will step through the looking glass into the Shire of Hobbiton, meet the Eleven Immortals, and go walkabout with our mates, one and all, down by the riverside, where we will gather when the sweet chariot swings low in spacious skies, over mountain majesties and area 51, and we will roll the dice in the spirit of Ole Saint Nick, and hope that the seven cities of Cibola will soon be found, close to the fountain of youth, in the Elysian Fields of our squandered youth, where we cavorted upon amber waves of grain with the cat in the hat, eating green eggs and spam, and where we will find the glass slipper of the wicked witch of the west, and whistle as we work in the Magic Kingdom, stretching from sea to shining sea, where every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall write our epitaphs upon the eternal sands of the Kalahari, where the hound of the Baskervilles has been loosed upon the Lilliputians inhabiting the lost continent of Atlantis and it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird, and the rain falls on both the good and evil in the four corners of the earth, where the winds of change blow over the seven seas ‘till Hell freezes over and pigs fly the friendly skies in the wild blue yonder, partly cloudy and over easy, with a side of grits to sustain us on our desperate journey to the inner sanctum of Outer Mongolia, where something evil, this way comes, riding with the Four Horsemen like a scalded cat, running with the three blind mice, where the clock struck one, and the cow jumped over the moon, and there,may we come face to face with our inner child and know the true meaning of fruitcake.

Merry Annerversarary to all, and to all, a “Good Grief”!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

(I was just trying to clarify what Rob said)

-- Lon Frankenstein (evil@twinsR.us), December 11, 2000.

Happy Birthday (((FRL))) (You guys are funny!) Look what followed me home! Can we have another circus? J

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), December 12, 2000.

Thank you Rob! I will cherish my medal of fruitfullness! (so long as it doesn't make me "fruitfull and multiplying")

Happy Birthday FRL!

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), December 12, 2000.

Happy Birthday, FRLdom!

Long may we live in happy fruitcakeness!

((((FRLians))))

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), December 13, 2000.

Hi All.

Don't pay the ransom Ethel, I've escaped the clutches of the really, really bad evil doers over there in Yonderland.

Once again you all should run away in sheer stark terror as your very own worst nightmare has appeared before you yet again.

(P.S.... I'm still just barely civilized and not yet housebroken.)

Yes Virginia, it is I, SOB, in the flesh (well, in the type really), once more I have found my way into your secret land of Sunshine, Milk & Honey, Jiggle juice and stealth rubber duckies too.

If I promise to be good, as only I can be, can I stay and play? I have a few leftover pieces of Fruitcake from our earlier days that I can add to the pot.

PLEASE???? I beg on bended knee and with my shiny silver sword slid softly into it's silken sheath.

Glad to see that there is still a place here where we can all just be our true selves, and just have fun.

I missed you guys/gals a bunch, but sometimes the real world just won't take NO for an answer.

So, can I stay???

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (buffgun@hotmail.com), December 21, 2000.

YES!!!

Just wanted to be sure you got the message. :-) (((((SOB))))) We missed you!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), December 22, 2000.

The Prodigious Son has returned! Let's eat the fattened fruitcake!

-- helen (b@r.n), December 22, 2000.

S.O.B!!!!!

Yipee!!!!!!!!

Greetings, Oh Great and Official FRLian Counter, Knower of so Many Things, truly you have been missed! I am overjoyed at your return!

As Leader (sheesh) of this here FRL, I must awficially insist that you stop by and be with your fellow FRLians whenever you can. Remember - once an FRLian, always an FRLian.

Long Live the FRL!!!!

Ha hahahahahahahahahahaha.

-- (thesonofdust@yahoo.com), December 22, 2000.

Hear Ye ..... Here Yeah .... There ya ... Everywhere you ..... Old MacDonald had a ewe ..... Ee Yi Ei Yi Yo .... and youse guys in New Jersey can have a ewe tutu two on the farm ...

Yay and forthwith we have a tailgunner back to backup the fruits and cause much miltiplication and addition.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 22, 2000.

I will personally assure you that I have NEVER in my 37 years of living in New Jersey,..EVER..seen a Ewe TuTu. Or even a TuTu and a Ewe in the same vacinity! The only place I've even seen a Ewe is in the zoo. And the Zoo Ewe didn't have a TuTu.

However, there is a bear in the zoo that was in the circus once, and SHE may have worn a tutu, because sometimes circus bears do. However, I don't think she would have lent her tutu to the ewe.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), December 22, 2000.

Et tu, tutu ewe?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 27, 2000.

SOBob!!! It's great to see you(r type) again!!!

After you left, no one knew to count properly, so your assistance is desperately required.

PS... Got geese? They didn't leave here until *awfully* late!

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), December 29, 2000.