Then my people went, "Oh, you've got to come to LA for the PBP! It's great!" So I took a plane ride, and went to LA for the first time. There was getting kicked out the bar with the UK Bronzers, letting people know that Juggernaut wasn't Meteor, so please don't beat him up, being part of a harem (complete with grapes!), and getting maybe six hours of sleep in the span of about four days. And rigging Becker's room! Let us not forget my cutting a swath of evil through the hotel when Dao Jones let me into the room so I could wake up Bastion, & then going with bec to rig Becker's room because we were "the most sober ones here, so it's best if you go get the rest of the beer." (*snicker* Becker never made that mistake again.) The posse grew. I had even more people.

The trip to LA was also the first time Robyn and I got to say more than two words to each other, an event which was to spawn many a nefarious plot. I met Anya that year, an introduction that OzLady could never have foreseen was going to cause the trouble it did.

The Bronze rose and fell. There were times when it was the greatest thing on earth, and there were periods where I would just walk away from it for a while. People that you thought were cool would turn out to be assholes, and others end up being way cooler than you thought they were upon first glance. In the last seven years of its existence, the Bronze has invaded Canada for hotties, stolen RTBS' soul back from Britney Spears, humored a sleep-deprived Joss many a time (all nekkid, all gay!), and played countless Calvin ball games. We talked Closet Buffyholic off the ledge on so many occasions that I still think we should have engraved a brick for her to put on her desk as a paperweight, accused Lady of the Lake of trying to control the weather with her weird Canadian ways, debated the fate of the Boogedy Boogedy Shopkeeper (DEAD!), and tried to ascertain if Narrator really did exist, or if she was just a figment of Closet B's imagination. People came and went never to be heard from again. There have been flame wars, there was Pruittgate, there were times when the server just crashed inexplicably and we were all on AIM going, "What the hell!?"

There were also Bronzer marriages. Bronzer babies from Bronzers that had gotten married. People who actually moved 3,000 miles because of Bronzers. (*raises hand!*) Laughter. Frustration. Swearing. Name-calling. kenickie's pants-less-ness. Thesis papers. 'stina passing the bar exam. Doctoral papers. Closet B passing the bar, and finally leaving the ledge behind forever! (Until she had to take it again for a different state last summer. Oy.) An article published in Psychology Today on the cultural significance of the Bronze and how internet communities like ours were changing the way people related to each other. Eiddelig's cheese sammiches. WITTs that lasted for days as DarkLady hid from the FBI when they were looking for Russell Crowe's kidnapper. *g* Another article just so that SarahNicole would be able to see Godeater's quote of "Do you know how fucking drunk I was when I wrote that?" published in Psychology Today. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how we all kept everything straight in our heads, but we did. And all of a sudden, I looked up one day, and it was three years after I'd started posting, and another poster was telling me that I was "an authority figure" to the newbies. When the hell did that happen?

Then the word came down. The WB wasn't going to pick up Buffy for the next season. And for one, brief, scary second, the Bronze was quiet.

Yeah. Quiet doesn't last in the Bronze. The uproar started. Who was picking it up? UPN? Oh my god, the show's going to be on after WWF Smackdown, I just know it! If The Rock does a guest appearance, I'm gonna laugh my ass off. Forget that, what about the site? How long do you think the WB is going to leave the board up once they don't own the show anymore? Ahh! The Board! We need the Bronze! Who do we know at UPN? Who's the new site designer? Do we know anyone there?

Joss showed to calm us down, assure us he was working on it, and typed the infamous pledge, "There will always be a Bronze."
< derision>*snort* Way to go there, Splatty Boy. < /derision>