Today’s installment comes entirely from memory, as the posts in question were permanently erased as a result of a glitch at the former Cylon.org. Langy hoped that the disappearance of said posts would allow him to welch on a very important bet, but, in the end, it turned him into the permanent pariah that he is today.
I’m trying to remember the particulars of the bet, but I’ll probably get it wrong. Languatron had posted something along the lines of “Ron Moore’s Galactica In Name Only will never go to series. In fact, it will be cancelled within a month.” (That’s a much more coherent rendering of what Lang actually said, which, no doubt, involved lots of inappropriate capital letters, quotation marks, and no apostrophe S’s used for possessive purposes.) This was some time in 2004, I think, although I’m not sure of that, either.
Anyway, RGrant – he who coined the immortal “Bob Is Shoe” meme – jumped into the thread and challenged Langy to put his money where his mouth is. He proposed a $50 bet – Rgrant would pay if GINO was cancelled within a month, and Langy would have to cough up if it went to series as scheduled. Usually, Languatron responded to such things with some dismissive Black Tower snark – but to everyone’s surprise, Lang posted a one-sentence reply:
“I’ll take that bet!”
Guess who won. Or, should I say, guess who lost.
The problem was that some time between the time the bet was placed and Lang’s loss of said bet, Cylon.org went down and all of its previous data disappeared forever. Languatron, therefore, insisted the bet had never happened, that it was all just another plot from the Black Tower to silence the Mighty Langy, and everyone should move on with their lives.
The problem was that there were too many witnesses, and TwoBrainedCylon, the owner of Cylon.org, didn’t take kindly to welchers.
TwoBrainedCylon cited the rules of his site, which included a prohibition against deliberate dishonesty. He warned Lang that he would have to make good on his bet or leave Cylon.org forever. There was considerable pushback from Languaton, who kept insisting the bet had never happened and was all just part of Glen Larson’s fevered imagination, but when it became clear that continued denial was going to cost him his membership in the Cylon.org community, he grudgingly agreed to send a “money order” to RGrant’s “REAL NAME AND ADDRESS.” [Caps in original.]
The REAL NAME AND ADDRESS issue became the focus of major controversy over the following few weeks. RGrant had told several of us offline that he had no intention of telling Languatron where he really lived, but he had given him a bogus address from his home state of Massachusetts, which Lang found unacceptable. Can you guess why?
According to Lang, RGrant was obviously a Universal Studios executive – very likely Glen Larson himself – so, of course, his REAL NAME AND ADDRESS would have to be Glen Larson from somewhere in the Los Angeles area. This nonsense went on for a while – it’s even referenced in yesterday’s “Bob Is Shoe” thread – until TwoBrainedCylon finally lost patience. His wise conclusion was that RGrant had won the bet, and even if he was Glen Larson from SoCal, he had the right to have the money sent to “his left butt cheek” if that’s what he wanted.
Lang refused to send the money to RGrant’s left butt cheek, and he was banished from Cylon.org. He tried to sneak back in there, too, but TwoBrainedCylon was much savvier than the SciFi.com board moderators, and Lang’s attempts to reingratiate himself proved unsuccessful.
It would be years before Lang would find another home.
Tomorrow: Reign of the Moist Boys!