What does everyone think? Shall we stop horrifying ourselves by reading off-topic threads long enough to try another installment of Mystery Ink? Do we have time to talk about ink? Because, it’s hard to believe, but it's sort of time for the tenth round of MI. If there's a will. Which I don't know. But I'll give it a go. I am excited that together we have reached double digits, allowing me to use my second-favorite punctuation mark, the hyphen, to introduce MI-10.
MI-10 has to be dedicated to Carli Lloyd, Number 10 for the US Women’s National Team, and team captain for most of its games. Just last night Lloyd scored three goals to power the USA to the 2015 world championship of soccer/football, on the women's side. (If she were playing the MI-favorite sport of hockey, that would be a hat trick.) Lloyd received the Golden Ball, as best player of the tournament, after carrying her team offensively throughout the knock-out round, and the Silver Boot, losing the Golden Boot scoring title on mere a tie-breaker. Note that the US team is rocking the Lamy Neon Lime socks for this one. MI-10 spiritual leader and namesake Carli Lloyd is kneeling down in the first row, holding the World Cup trophy.
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In international soccer/football, the Number 10 jersey is traditionally a prestigious number, often claimed by the player who strives to be the team’s top goal scorer and difference maker. First Maradona and Pele, now Messi, Rooney and Neymar. Lloyd is another star Number 10. Also wearing the Number 10 on the woman’s side is the great Homare Sawa, who played in her sixth World Cup for Japan this year. Sawa and Japan won the World Cup in 2011 over the US, but came up short last night to the US side, and took silver. They were down 4-0 early, and fought back like champions, losing 5-2 but never giving up. It’s only fitting for MI-10 to also pay homage to Sawa, who has been a transcendent player for a wonderful national team.
Sadly, it was as recently as the 2012 Olympics when the magnificent World Champion Japanese woman’s team was sent by their federation to London flying coach, while the lower-ranked Japanese men’s team flew business class. I believe it was the same for the Matildas of Australia. MI lives in the 21st Century, and MI is irked by that.
So with hopes of equality for all, I hereby declare the Carli Lloyd edition of Mystery Ink shall now begin. In honor of reaching Number 10, there will be a special wrinkle in MI-10 which volunteers will be the first to discover. Otherwise, all rules and requirements remain the same. All that is required of our volunteers will be a willingness to try the unknown MI-10 and post your impressions here. The idea is to have fun by trying an ink without any preconceptions, or even a clue as to what it might be. To preserve the mystery, the identity of the ink will not be revealed until every recipient has received his or her ink and had a chance to try it. So we also ask people not to write guesses about the ink’s name directly in the thread. Thank you to all.
People who've done it before are welcome again, as are people who are new to the exercise. Everyone is welcome in Mystery Ink. If you’d like to volunteer, please post here and let everyone know why you’d like to get MI-10. You can also guess the identity of my actual, overall, most favorite punctuation mark in the whole wide world. Or just nominate your own favorite Number 10. Or your own favorite punctuation mark. You can do anything but troll others. Because that kind of stuff belongs in the thread on removing stickers with alcohol, duh.
If you are volunteering, and it’s not in your profile, please tell us where you live (just the state or country). That helps to select a diverse slate of participants and figure out mailing times. If we have more than six volunteers, participants will be chosen randomly. We hardly had any volunteers last time for Hitch. I hope we find more for MI-10. Thank you for reading this far when there's ugh sports gross ick hate it why can’t we talk about culture it’s supposed to be a fountain pen forum people can’t we see a little class and some standards here.
Alright just cut that out because I can talk ballet until the cows come home, and if you aren’t careful I will. This quite easily could have been the Misty Copeland edition of MI. Don’t tempt me. But let's see if we can get some volunteers to try the ink, so MI can continue. I'll be watching public broadcasting *not* in hopes of upping my game for MI-11.