Hello! Friends! Comrades! Other people whose faces I recognise but their names elude me! Gather round, for, finally, it is time to call out the names of those who won the quest of hate!

I'm sorry this thing took a while to get around to posting, but it's actually not been as easy a decision as I had hoped it would. There were just far too many good entries for me to draw a line easily.

So, I made my flatmate do it. Well, actually, she took it on herself to do it because she's noticed that I tend not to do anything unless calamity threatens from my lack of initiative. Also, she was being paid to sit in an office doing absolutely nothing at all. It was this or check her email for the 300th time.

She put a lot of thought and time into this, I must admit. I was expecting a sentence or two saying who had won and why; what I got was a sheet and a half of A4 paper with scribblings all over it and, get this, no actual definitive answer.

Cow.

So, I found myself where I was to begin with. Eventually I worked out that the way forward was to have, not one, but several winners. Well, I'd prefer just the one, prize-wise, but I've had far too many messages off well-meaning friends instructing me who's won, and I'm such an accommodating person that I don't want to deny any of them their input. And so......

Everyone else is also a winner, just not the kind of winner that wins anything.

If winners (the ones that did win something) would like to message me their address, I shall make sure something nice lands on their doorstep....

.... and I promise not to set it on fire.




STOP!

YOU!


YES, YOU!

I know you've just opened this node to quickly downvote and then move on. You weren't even going to read it, were you? Uh-huh. I knew it. KNEW it. Quick to judge, I guess. I'm supposing you have preconceived notions about how this quest is going to be going down after the debacle that was HQ2K6. Well, that's mightily unfair, I must say. I mean, if you got carjacked tomorrow after you stopped when you spotted someone lying in the road, only it turns out they were only lying there because it's easier to steal a car from a standstill than at 40mph, would you the next day run over a body lying in the road on the off-chance that the same thing might happen?

Course you wouldn't. Mostly because you no longer have a car to be able to run them over with because you'd already had it stolen the day before. Duh. Logic.

Uhm, I have no idea where I was going with that, but that's not the point. The point is that this HateQuest is different. Mistakes were made last time, this is true, but we've learned from them. For a start, there is no mentioning of any particular noder's names as potential subjects for hate-writeups. Nor is there any... err... just a sec. That was the only mistake made last time.

Moving on.

Many of the people who talked of how they hated the concept of HateQuest last time seemed to be unable to spot the ironic nature of their statements. There were lots of muttering about how we should be spreading the love, not the hate, but you know what? This insistence on the denial of recognition of the dark side of human emotion scares me. Something that is denied from scrutiny is something that has the upper hand when it does eventually raise its ugly head. Hate is not the opposite of love. Antipathy is the opposite of love. Hate is the companion of love, and both fulfil a purpose in the course of life. If we didn't hate something, then there'd be little motivation for progress or finding a solution to life's inconveniences. A hatred of having to handwash clothes led to the invention of the washing machine, which in turn freed womankind from the massive time-drain that was the family washing, and instead contributed her being able to go out into the world and earn a wage.

Hate can be constructive.

And it's not like love can't be destructive. For instance, I once heard about this one guy whose jealous love got the better of him, and it eventually culminated in him driving his car off a bridge whilst drunk, with his pregnant girlfriend locked in the trunk. In the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to, though come to think about it, this was actually an Eminem track.

Damn.

But this doesn't detract from my point that love can cause as much pain as hate - in many ways, sometimes more. Just ask anyone whose heart was broken by a love unfulfilled or a relationship that ended sooner than they'd have wished it to.

Anyway, enough philosophising. What am I looking for with this here little Quest for Hate? Well, writeups about things that you hate. For instance, I hated, and I mean hated the remake of The Wicker Man. In fact, I hated it so much that I had to write a node telling people just how dire this film was to stop anyone else suffering the fate that I did. I'm not alone in this need to warn other moviegoers of badness lurking in a cinema near you; Sontra, who may or may not have sustained brain damage from his gallant sacrifice, has told us in explicit detail why you should not watch Miami Vice; dannye did the same for Ladder 49.

Do you see what I mean?

So, reviews. What else could be contributed? Well, rants, as long as they're well-written, subject-appropriate rants. As much as I hate to nodevertise, my red cabbage writeup should give you an idea of the kind of rant I mean. Daylogs are acceptable, but I do not want to read a rant about how next-door's dog keeps getting into your vegetable patch. I do not want to read teenage angst-like rants about how your parents are jerks. I do not want to read whinewhinewhine rants about how life has given you a bum deal. Suck it up, soldier; we've all got our own problems and the world does not owe you a living. I, of course, can't stop you from writing these things and placing them in a daylog, but I can not consider them an entry for HQ2k7. I have standards to maintain here.

Fiction and poetry, as always, are a welcome addition to the Quest, as are any contributions from Halspal. It's about time he started putting his money where his mouth is. Bol's Pete Doherty writeup will always have a special place in the heart of E2, and I challenge anyone to try to top it.

Since I've got magic buttons now, any writeups that I feel are inappropriate for both the Quest and the database will be nuked without mercy. These include writeups that are personal attacks against other noders, or ones that overstep the bounds of decency with regards to politics, race, religion, sexuality, and various other subjects that I'm sure I don't need to specify. If you are ever in doubt as to the validity of a writeup, stick it on your scratchpad and message me to have a lookover.

Writeups should either be placed in their own nodes or in a daylog. Please message me once your contribution is up, and I can add it to the list.

HateQuest 2007 opens up for business on the 4th February, 00:00 GMT, and ends on the 13th February, 23:59 GMT 15th February, 23:59 GMT (extended due to downtime and people thinking they were going to get out of it using that excuse). This gives you two days of thinking time for your entries.

Bugger knows what the rewards for this shindig will be. I'm sure I'll think of something cool. Probably. Maybe not.

Oh, and for those that are wondering, this writeup has been posted under the moniker paramnesiaclete in honour of that fallen soldier who once lead from the front when it came to all things hate-filled. We created the account ages ago and were planning mayhem with it, but then we got distracted by something shiny and forgot all about it.

Rest in peace, brother. Rest in peace.




AND THEY'RE OFF!

  1. What do you say to Michael Crichton? by Elrac
  2. Sammie, you misguided slut, I love you. by allseeingeye
  3. There is only one emotion with a built in safety feature by oxide of polonium
  4. I hate everything by fondue
  5. Telewest by The Debutante
  6. Pushing Tin by archiewood
  7. February 12, 2007 by bol
  8. In vino veritas by Halspal
  9. rheumatology by paraclete
  10. horoscope by dwardu - an old posting but purposefully rejiggered for HQ. Go on. Go give it some HateQuest lovin'.
  11. February 13, 2007 by mcd
  12. hatred by shaogo
  13. Millfield by screams@night
  14. Cynophobia by Andrew Aguecheek
  15. Cynophobia by kanoodle
  16. chicken fingers by XWiz
  17. American Pariah by timothymoriarty
  18. American Hatred Gazetteer by spiderjerusalem
  19. damnatio memoriae by Sol Invictus
  20. I don't care what religion you are by hapax
  21. Celebrities by Hazelnut
  22. Don't You Hate by Wiccanpiper
  23. Russell Brand by ascorbic
  24. Private thoughts in the public sphere by SharQ
  25. 37 Pit Bulls by DejaMorgana
  26. Company of Heroes by Kizor
  27. February 16, 2007 by Dimview
  28. February 17, 2007 by Junkill