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Created | Updated Jun 20, 2003
Well, here we are once again ! Another new week and another new edition for the post. Is it just me, or has this been great getting to know all the fantastic researchers who have been interviewed so far? Anyway, enough of my ramblings, let's get on with the edition. This week it was my great pleasure to interview TV's Frink whom we all know and love. I am sure that you all are quite curious as to how his softball team came about! This is what he had to say.
When he first joined h2g2, most of the pages he visited had 'friends' lists. TV's Frink wanted to start a list of friends on his page, but thought it would be fun to make it a little more than just a list of people to visit. Since his user page at that time was set up as his 'office' at h2g2, and he had been playing on a softball team for his office in real life, TV's Frink decided to make his list of friends into a roster for a virtual softball team.
The team just took off from there, and has become his identity on h2g2. At last count there were 65 members, although some of them have been missing for quite a while.
Being curious, I then asked him about future plans for this team of his and also when we were all going to actually be able to play a game
Sometime after the new year (hopefully in January) he hopes to be holding the first virtual softball game. I was told that Lance Boyles came up with the idea and has been helping him with the rules for this virtual game. It will be a trivia game with softball-type rules, and will probably be held in a chat room (like Yahoo!). The current format only allows for a total of 12 players... he hopes that it will be successful enough that we can play additional games in the future, and eventually give everyone a chance to play.
This sounds great to me as I am sure we will all have quite a bit of fun with the virtual style game.
Most all of us have visited 'Frinks Drinks' and I don't know about the rest of you, but I myself was wondering just how he came up with the name and what his favourite drink is.
He invited team members to suggest names for both the team and the clubhouse, and then everyone voted on it. It was similar to the Mayor of London contest that Shazz ran, except much less involved (and controversial!). Kat supplied the winning team-name (The Rambling Misfits) and Natski won the clubhouse competition with Frinks Drinks. Some of the other suggestions were:
Team Name:
The Unathletics
The h2g2 Mismatched Sox
Edit This!
Clubhouse Name:
The Center Centre
It's Wet But It's Home
Uncle Albert's World Famous Tree Hut.
As for his favourite drink he had this to say:
Well, I guess beer. Especially microbrews. He also told me that in 'real life' he is only a light to moderate drinker, and has never been one to have a drink just because it has alcohol in it. He states that it has to taste good or he doesn't enjoy it. Aside from microbrews he also enjoys wine and the occasional mixed drink but, generally, if there is a drink in his hand, it's a beer.
On a side note some of his favorite 'Frink's Drinks' rooms include:
The Psychic (MadMunk is always good for an interesting answer, whether it is accurate or not)
Jimi X's Observatory (it lists upcoming astronomical events and includes a link to a virtual planetarium)
The Tibetan Greenhouse (a very peaceful and relaxing place built by John-the-gardener).
When it comes to his hobbies and such he had this to say:
Believe it or not, I love to play softball. He plays shortstop on a team at work, and in his climate he says that you can pretty much play year round. He also enjoys playing basketball and tennis, and watches most sports on television (except for golf and bowling... sorry Shazz!) h2g2 has obviously become a major hobby of his, but he also does a lot of reading (sci-fi mostly), watching movies and television (Simpsons, Kids in the Hall, Mystery Science Theater 3000, NewsRadio, and for some reason Law and Order) and listening to music (way too many to list, but favorites include They Might Be Giants, Beastie Boys, New Order, Rush, and any band from Champaign, Illinois, USA).
In his spare time he tries to teach TV's Dog to play softball and tells me that it isn't going very well, considering she has four legs and no arms. If you are interested in what breed she is he apologizes! He is not really sure because they picked her up as a stray. His best guess is that she's a Black and Furry, or perhaps an Omnivore (Rumor has it that her real name is the same as Peta's dog, but this is unconfirmed).
Lastly I wanted to find out if he had anything new up his sleeve for us and if so could he possibly give us a hint or two about what it may be.
He had to think on this for a moment but then told me that one thing he would like to do is improve the Misfit Newsletter, which is currently just a series of postings in a forum. He uses the newsletter to update everyone about new members, things that are happening at Frink's Drinks, and anything else involving the team. The reason he uses the forum instead of a user page is because everyone who posts to it is notified when he has news to report, but it's a pretty clumsy system.
This concludes my interview with TV's Frink, so why don't you all pop over and relax a bit in one of his fantastic rooms over at Frink's Drinks
