Quote Originally Posted by tacfoley View Post
Turnup, I'm sorry that all this dwath got so far that we are at each other's throats. My computer and lap-tops neither see nor post smileys, all being Japanese and working off an an entirely different OS. Only when I use somebody else's set-up do you see a smiley from me. I'll have to think about how to make it more obvious that I'm leg-pulling, not entering into an antagonistic confrontation.

As anybody here who knows me would tell you, I'm for ALL kinds of shooting - my life membership of the NRA and DCRA alone should tell you that. What I can't stand are what I call the 'grey-cardigan, pipe-smokin' chin strokin' brigade, whose stick-in-the-mud attitude to anything that isn't old and cold style shooting in tin huts on a converted bomb-site.

The stupidity of rule-makers who know little or nothing about what shooting actually entails it too well-known to belabour here, So let's dwell on the positive facets.

tac
You and I go back a little ways, and I know that you have huge experience in the craft, but like you, I just can't resist a chance for a wind up now and again

WRT emoticons, at he risk of "grandmothers and eggs" etc. you could try the original hand crafted smiley

:-)

[which is the characters "colon" "minus" "right bracket" (tip your head to the left to see the image)]. It's a little bit more effort than a mouse click, but so much more satisfying.

or frownie :-(

or Oh! :-O

or Hmmm :-|

or cool 8-) [also sunglasses]

or eek! 8-0

or big grin :-D

or poke tongue out :-P

or wink ;-)

et ever so very cetera.

You can probably tell that I am an old fashioned original Usenet type (the early internet, before the WWW, where practically everything was text only). Many modern phones (and some PCs), in a misplaced attempt to be helpful, will automatically replace those characters with an appropriate image which I find less than helpful - we are told that this is progress but somehow, preferring the hand crafted look, I do not see this as such. So much of what we are told is progress not actually better, merely different.