To add insult to injury and near death, if I hadn't been gallivanting through the Goddamn stone age all over Washington state, I was going to bottle the mellow Fire Sale Ale. What is Fire Sale Ale, you ask? Or didn't ask? Please don't tell me about Fire Sale Ale? Well, if you insist.
I'm starting to wonder if I like beer at all or if I just like naming it. Hugh Hefeweizen. Short And Stout. Portergeist. Sin. Who knows. Fire Sale is between an ale and a porter in terms of its motif. But I'm here to talk etymology.
There was a bug in the Army Game beta that made crawling sound really loud. If you were crawling through the underbrush, ostensibly a stealthy maneuver, it sounded as though you were playing a drum set in the middle of the forest on a clear night. You could hear them miles away. "There's Crawly Bob," we'd say. "He's crawling up a storm."
That part isn't particularly auspicious. Follow me, here.
Moonbase Commander created many words. The opponent's primary hub, the object of all your violence, quickly became known as a Hoho. Not only have Hohos historically been delicious, it also stands for Heart Of His Operation, which is demonstrably true. There is also a type of remote bomb that can move through shields, called a Crawler. This was truncated to Crawly, and then became Crawly Bob for some reason. It even moved forward to Crawli Baba And The Forty Thieves, but this proved unwieldy in common usage. Also, it didn't seem quite accurate.
Something one can do in desperation (or even just for fun!) is send waves of crawlers after an opponent. This quickly became correlated with Going Out Of Business mythology, like on those crazy mattress commercials. The Boss is out of town! Crazy deals! We've gone insane, and we're passing the savings on to you.
A crawler rush eventually became known as a Fire Sale.
(CW)TB
