Sunday February 1 2004

Life in the clix lane

K,
Sorry I haven't responded to your recent emails sooner. I've been oddly busy the last few days, first with work (training has been intense over the last week), then dealing with fallout from the Scott shit at home, and yesterday, I wound up hooking up with my cousin and his wife for a flea market trip, dinner, and a long introductory clicks game (Mel wanted to play, and by the time we were done, Chad had admitted he'd be going out and buying some clicks himself, so that's two more people sucked in... which is nice, since we won't be playing with Scott again).
As you've seen on my blog, the box from Tammy helped to cheer us up. Mike Norton's follow up box on Friday was another kick back up the morale ladder for us, as Mike pulled out all the stops and sent us a selection carefully chosen to all be stuff Paul and I very much wanted... Paul got a coveted Spider-Man piece he's had no luck finding down here, as well as a Gambit; I got a Batman and a few other pieces I'd wanted, and a few I didn't even know existed (a Diablo, for example; he's a Silver Age FF villain that I wasn't aware even had a figurine in this game). So that cheered us up enormously; it was the first time I'd seen Paul smile since Wednesday. Then spending the day with Chad and Mel, while tiring, was also fun.
I've had a persistent ache in my back since Friday morning (it's slowly migrated from my right shoulderblade to my left ribs over the course of 48 hours or so). It's a pulled muscle type of ache, the kind you get when you're our age and you do nothing more egregious than sleep in a slightly misaligned posture. Why it moves around I couldn't tell you. However, I woke up with it gone just a little while ago, and I'm very relieved. Also gone is the nagging, grinding headache I picked up late yesterday as we were all playing clix. I actually feel like I may have gotten something approximating 'enough' sleep last night, too, and with nothing more than a slight sore throat, this is starting off as one of the good days.
Tomorrow I take my first calls at Accent, in what they call the ICU (Intensive Coaching Unit). I'm trying not to dread it, but of course I am. I keep telling myself that yes, I'm going to screw up everything for the first several days and in any complex job, that's a necessity; I just have to get through the necessary learning curve and I will get better (competent) at this job. Chad pretty much told me last night that if I can get through 90 days and make quota without pissing anyone off too much (that last will be the real difficulty for me), he will do everything in his power (considerable, since he seems to be moving into an unofficial management position at my call center specifically tasked to straighten out the center's bad numbers and given carte blanche to do it) to get me the On Line Correspondent job I crave (you sit at a computer all day and answer customer email). Soooo... here I go.
The trick, oddly, will simply be to remind myself that none of this is really very important and the worst that can happen is that I'll lose this job. I've lost jobs before (probably dozens if not hundreds of times by now) and I'll get through it... or, if things get very very grim, well, I'll die, and I believe in some sort of afterlife, so I'll deal with that then. (That last sounds morbid, but it often helps me in times of crisis to remind myself that the worst thing that can happen to us on Earth is death, and I don't believe death is final.)
Getting through tomorrow will probably be a chore, but 4:30 will eventually roll around. As will Friday, when I'll have my second paycheck. A week after that, I'll finish ICU and go on my night schedule, which will mean a less hectic pace, so... for a while, at least, things should gradually spiral upward, if only incrementally.
My next big ordeal after tomorrow... moving. I HAVE to move, since Paul's passive-aggressive horseshit is just becoming unbearable. Any time we disagree, it's by definition my fault, because "I take things too seriously". The translation of this is, "If you just lightened up and let me have my way every single time, we'd live in Utopia". Of course, you can't tell Paul that... to him, it's all simply that he's the absolute soul of reasonable compromise who never wants to have any dissent or conflict in the house, and yet, somehow, I keep insisting on finding things to argue about... silly things, foolish things, things that no sane, enlightened fellow would think were worth the trouble.
As an example, in the HeroClix game we all played with Chad and Mel last night, there was an early disagreement about (here I go, speaking a foreign language again) whether or not one particular piece (Johnny Alpha) could use his Telekinesis to move another piece on his own team on an adjacent square (Chi, I believe), who happened to be on hindering terrain at the time, and using Stealth. By our house rules, a Stealthed character on hindering terrain cannot be seen or perceived or interacted with in any way, so when it came up, I said, "Well, Johnny Alpha can't see Chi to focus his TK on her".
Now, I did this to teach Chad and Mel that if you want to do something to a Stealthed character on your own team, you can turn the Stealth off for your turn... a common option most players use, if they would like to, say, Perplex a Stealthed character's stat up, or get healing from a Medic, or something. Paul, however, immediately jumped in with "The rules don't say anything about line of sight, they just say adjacent."
I responded that we'd changed how Stealth worked to make it more logical and realistic, and realistically, by our rules, Chi was hiding and Johnny Alpha couldn't see her, so he couldn't TK her. Paul insisted that the letter of the rules must prevail and equally insisted I look it up. I did, and he was right (and he WAS right, if you haven't specifically codified a house rule to set aside the original rules, then you should play by the rules, regardless of how illogical the result may be... this is a game filled with illogicalities, like Daredevil being able to jump up and punch a flying figure soaring hundreds of yards above the battlefield). The TK rules indeed specify that TK can only effect 'adjacent objects or characters', and doesn't say anything about needing line of sight, at least, not on friendly characters. Opposing characters must be attacked in close combat, which one cannot do by our Stealth rules, so one wouldn't be able to get rid of an opponent that easily if they were hiding on an adjacent square. But, yes, Paul was right. Logically things should have worked my way, but the rules trumped logic.
A bit later, someone had landed a TK piece on one of the object tokens in the game (a dumpster, I believe) and on the following turn, wanted to TK that dumpster and hit someone with it. As we were trying to teach proper game play, and I'd just previously looked up the TK rules and was well aware how prominently the word 'adjacent' figured, I clarified that no, you couldn't do it, the rules said 'adjacent'.
And I immediately got blasted with outraged responses about how 'well, it's logical' and 'geez, Darren, lighten up, don't be ridiculous, of course if the piece is ON TOP OF THE OBJECT that's the same as being adjacent'.
Now, this annoys me. In fact, there are few things that annoy me more than a double standard. Barely an hour before Paul had scornfully chopped my legs out from underneath me when I'd argued 'logic' by quoting the rules to me. Now I'm quoting the rules right back, in a a game where we are trying to teach new players how to play properly, and he's telling me to lighten up and not take things so seriously, it's perfectly reasonable that a TK power should work on an object in the same square as one, and, most offensive to me, that clearly the same square means the same thing as adjacent.
You can fuck with a lot of things and I may go along, but you do NOT start fucking with the specific definition of words simply to win a specious argument in my presence. To me, the English language, and precise communications, are both sacred concepts, and at that point I was truly offended... first because Paul had shifted his ethical position 180 degrees out of emotional convenience, and second, because now he was trying to re-define what the word 'adjacent' meant to suit his own particular agenda.
THAT pisses me off.
Finally, he and the player in question gave in, but when they did, it was with a great deal of "well, fine, we don't want to argue, if it's that important to you, let's just move on"... exactly the sort of poor loser, ungracious, 'well, let the baby have his bottle' crap I nearly always get when I dig in and win an argument... not by cheating, mind you, but simply by demonstrating irrefutably that I am right. People apparently do not like me when I demonstrate irrefutably I am right, and they almost invariably have to denigrate that fact by treating me as if, yes, I won, but only because I'm a brat and they're just too above it to bother with me. I hate THAT, too... especially since that position on their part frees them up from any need to justify their actions. If I continue to try to explain why the argument had been so important to me, I'm treated as if I'm immature and obsessive.
Look, I'll give up on an argument if it's not important, but in this case, it was. The point of the game was teaching two rookies to play properly. Paul sneered at me that I simply took games too seriously; he had never thought any game was ever worth an argument... but, well, Paul doesn't think anything is worth an argument, he just thinks he should be allowed to say and do whatever he wants at any given time, regardless of how contradictory his positions are from one hour to the next (and Paul's opinions and positions shift like tides and dunes depending on his mood).
Anyway, all of that is a pretty good reason why I have to get out of here. I'm not looking forward to moving, I hate the whole process, but I'm going to have to start putting stuff in boxes fairly soon, because I can’t stick around here too much longer.
One thing I did swallow... and it was hard to swallow... was Paul giving me a dark look after I 'won' the debate and muttering "There's been way too much dissension in my house lately". That very nearly started me into what would have escalated into a screaming fit, and only the fact that I was a guest in Chad and Mel's house let me keep my temper. But Paul blaming me because of the problems that have come about due to Scott's theft is very typical of what I'm getting from Paul and all his friends over the past few days... a fairly typical 'shoot the messenger' response in which, since they don't want to deal with the ramifications of Scott's act, they resent me for bringing it up. On some level, Paul seems to feel that Scott betraying both our trusts in an utterly reprehensible way is comparable to a board game... not something that is really worth an argument, ever. Paul would obviously prefer it if I simply hadn't made such a big deal about this... if I'd been mellow and laid back, and just kind of waved it off and said "Well, all right, I'm not going to cause a big fuss over a small piece of plastic, he made a mistake but... whatever... let's just pretend it never happened".
So, I have to get out of here, because I find that attitude intolerable. If my 'friends' refuse to take an egregious and unforgivable crime against me seriously, well, they're not my friends, and that's fine. But when my own younger brother, who is also a victim of this crime, joins with them in wishing I'd just shut up about it and let it go, I need to leave. That's a level of personal betrayal and irresponsibility I simply have great difficulty dealing with.
Now, mind you, Paul has stood up to Scott on this and Scott isn't coming around any more... for now. But Paul is doing it for my sake and he makes it clear, if not in actual words, that this is something he finds a little tedious and a little ridiculous, and the minute I am living elsewhere Scott will be welcome in his house again. On one level I find that maddeningly unwise, because Scott cannot be trusted, and on another, I find it to be, as I've noted, a personal betrayal... nobody who had ever victimized a friend of mine, or a family member of mine, so heinously would ever be welcome in my house again... but, well.
As Paul says, I take things (friendship, love, loyalty, Doing The Right Thing) much too seriously.
I should just lighten up and mellow out. Go with the flow. Stop worrying and be happy. Just get over it and move on.
And, honest to God, people still wonder why I act as if I think I'm better than they are, so much of the time.
All right. Much of this letter will probably turn into a blog post, but I thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify my thoughts so well.
Grrrr. Packing. I HATE packing...
Hugs,
D.

Okay. I originally was going to edit that email into a blog post, but then I thought it might be interesting to just throw it up there, as a sort of experiment in an epistolary style more common to the 19th Century than this one. I think it worked well, but let me take a little time here to expand on some of the comments above:

There is, without a doubt, a great deal of merit in the various popular stances I refer to in passing above… ‘Don’t worry, be happy’; ‘get over it and move on’; ‘lighten up, it’s just a game’; etc. And I’m not really blaming my cousins, at the very least, for simply wanting to resolve an issue as quickly as possible and get past it so one can enjoy a game again.

And in fact, I referred to that same attitude further up, as being my way of keeping tomorrow’s first day on the phone in perspective. And if I can keep a bad first day at work in perspective by reflecting on how ultimately unimportant such things are, why is it I have trouble, on occasion, putting personal disagreements with people aside and just letting it go? And why do I find it offensive when others do it to me?

Well, here’s the thing… I can do this regarding personal disagreements with people I don’t care about. I’ve done it constantly over the past three weeks in training. There are a couple of older fellows who sit behind me and who frequently discuss, in loud, booming voices, the church they both go to, and one of them was waxing rhapsodic the other day about how wonderful it would be if Jesus returned for the faithful at exactly that moment… “Wouldn’t it be fantastic,” this lackwitted dotard burbled, “to just get on your knees before Him” (you could hear the capital H on ‘Him’ in his tone)”and thank him for not waiting any longer?”

I longed to say “Oh, yes, that’s what I want, a god who enjoys it when his worshippers grovel, there’s a Supreme Being I can get behind, a feeble, twitting little deity who is so insecure he needs someone like ME to kiss his ass”.

But I didn’t, because I don’t regard the person babbling this nonsense to be worth taking any trouble over.

But when someone I care about gets into an argument with me, and I know I’m right, well, it’s just hard to blow it off. If I care about someone, I care about their opinion of me, and I care about things being correct between us. I generally won’t argue unless it’s important to me, but, well, things that are important to me sometimes aren’t all that important to other people.

And yet, I find (perhaps it’s a coincidence) that the things that aren’t worth arguing about to other people are often things they’re wrong about.

The flip side of this is, when someone I care about obviously disagrees with me, but blows me off with “Okay, fine, I don’t want to argue about it, you win”, it annoys me. It makes it seem like they simply don’t think I’m worth the effort of straightening me out, or of eventually getting to a point where they must admit that I’m right.

I realize in a lot of instances I probably should just mellow out… but in all honesty, in a lot of instances I do. I will simply excuse myself and go elsewhere before I will render a judgement on someone else’s lifestyle choice that isn’t mine. (This is difficult when you’re sharing space with someone whose lifestyle choices are radically different from yours, which is yet another reason I have to move.)

This is also why, if I’m losing a board game, and I know I’m losing, I’ll just concede while I still have some self control. This annoys Paul, and I think it annoys some other people, who feel I’m denying them the pleasure of their victory, or something. What they don’t understand is that I’m 42 years old and I know myself rather well. If I start getting frustrated with a game and it’s obviously already lost, I quit immediately while I still have some self control, because otherwise, I will quickly become a very poor loser, and I don’t want to behave that way in front of other people. I dislike that behavior intensely in myself, but I know myself very well. The only way for me to resist temptation is to avoid it. Similarly, while there are some games I can lose with a pleasant smile, if everyone is having fun, that’s a delicate energy to create and maintain. Most games, at some point, get competitive and at least a little ugly, and when a game is that way, well, if everyone else there clearly wants to win, then I want to win, too. And if I’m going to lose, well, I know I won’t do it graciously, so I’d rather do it quickly.

And that’s another thing people don’t seem to realize about me conceding a game. I’m not doing it to get out of losing. I’m admitting that I’ve lost. I’m not saying “fuck this game, you’re cheating, you bastard, I win” or “No, I refuse to let you defeat me, I quit”. There is a huge difference between “I quit” and “I concede”. “I quit” is indeed unsportsmanlike; it’s a way for a childish person to say, at some future point, “well, you didn’t beat me, I could have won, but I quit because it wasn’t worth it to me and I had other things to do”.

“I concede”, on the other hand, is saying “Okay, you win, I lose, there’s no point in beating this up any further”.

I know this offends Paul when I do it, and I think it annoys other people as well, but for me, this is simply a necessary pre-emption. If things are going badly in a game I wanted to win, I will turn bratty if I let it get that far. I prefer not to, so I don’t.

Would I rather be an enlightened tower of willpower who never gives in to a base impulse and who is always in absolute control of even my most minor facial expressions and emotional manifestations? Sure. Who wouldn’t? But I’m not that guy. So when I see things going south and I know it’s pissing me off, I concede. It’s not quitting, it’s admitting defeat, and heading off an ugly display of juvenile bad temper.

Anyway, I didn’t want anyone reading this to think I’m upset with them or think less of them over foolish disagreements. I did want to try to explain myself a little more fully, though, which I do not have the chance to do when people insist that they are ‘over it’ and let’s just let it go and move on.

I was going to talk about how the girl in the next cubicle threatened to get me fired for sexual harassment on Friday, but this has probably gone on too long already…

Well, what the hell.

See, Robin, the girl in the next cubie, is 18 years old, and while she has definite good qualities and there are things I admire about her, she also is, well, somewhat immature and rather spoiled. She’s gone through some stuff (she has a two year old kid) and it’s given her a little maturity in some areas, but in others, she’s pretty much still daddy’s little princess. She can be very sweet, but she really has no patience and if she gets irritated, she lashes out. She isn’t the kind of person who apologizes, either… she simply feels that people will deal with her or not (and she’s very attractive, so I suspect she’s used to getting deferential treatment most places due to that).

I discovered, about ten days ago, that she’s also oddly prudish. Although she and the woman sitting next to her (her name is Mel) will have extremely explicit sexual conversations, Robin does not care for even slightly salacious comments from men… or, at least, from me. Ten days or so before Friday, she and Mel had been having a conversation about how aggravating men could be in what they wanted, and I said something about how it wasn’t just men, and that went from one thing to another, (for the record, their conversation had been about oral sex, and how men shouldn’t want it so much because it’s gross, and if they do want it so much, they should do it back a little more) and finally Robin indicated that she didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss these things with me, and she would prefer it if I didn’t direct such comments to her in the future.

Now, the way I’ve dealt with Robin quite successfully over the past three weeks is to be as nice to her as I can be, give her compliments, provide her with attention when she wants it, and when I still inevitably annoy her (Robin is pretty much composed entirely of mercury fulminate; you cannot interact with her without lighting her fuse in some way at some point), apologize immediately and back off. This generally defuses the situation.

I admit, some of the time when I’ve found her annoying, my compliments to her have been rather tinged with irony, but Robin doesn’t have much of a sense of humor and that stuff goes right over her head.

On Friday, well, it had been a really shitty week, as all of you know, and I was very tired, and I was worried at that point that Mike’s box of clix might turn up missing (because I just knew that Paul would sleep right through the mail delivery and leave the box out on the front porch all day, and if Scott drove by and saw it, well…) And I wasn’t even paying much attention to what Robin and Mel were talking about, except that it was sexual in nature (as it often is) and apparently they were bitching about men (as they often do). Finally, though, Robin expostulated, quite vehemently, “Well, SCREW HIM THEN!”

To which I, being a smart ass, pretty much reflexively responded, “Not here, please”.

Well, Robin went off on me. I can’t recall exactly what she said, but I can come pretty close, so I’ll try to quote it as precisely as I can:

“I have TOLD you and TOLD you I don’t want to hear those kind of comments from you it’s DISGUSTING you need to control yourself better when you make comments like that you so totally turn people off and make yourself SO unattractive and I just HATE it WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?”

I should have just apologized humbly and let it go. I should have.

But, as I said… bad week, tired, already worried about something else, did not want to be there… so I went off a little bit myself:

“Robin,” I said, keeping a careful rein on my tone but perhaps allowing a little testiness to show, “It is not my problem you are a prude. However, you make it my problem when you apply your judgmental little double standards to me. You and Mel both make sexually provocative statements all the time. Sometimes, you even make them to me. To insist that I not respond in an appropriate manner is simply ridiculous of you. I have been very nice to you for the last three weeks and this is the first remotely sexual thing I have said to you in ten days, but it was in direct response to a sexually provocative remark you made and you are out of line to go off on me about it.”

Robin was not at a loss; I’m not sure it’s possible to render Robin speechless other than by physically paralyzing her larynx. “Well, it’s just DISGUSTING, you’re a PERVERT, and you’re MY FATHER’S AGE, I don’t want to HEAR THAT STUFF FROM YOU! And you better just shut up because I can make a complaint and get you fired for sexual harrassment!”

Now, I take threats like that very seriously, but in that particular case, I felt she was being ridiculous, and I said so, telling her that given the context of the conversation she and Mel had been having, and the expostulation of hers that I’d responded to, I didn’t think she had much chance. Then Mel jumped in by reminding me of the previous discussion on ‘head’ and stating that well, if she happened to mention that remark, she thought Robin would have a good case, and I lost it a little (because I’d thought, you know, Mel was a friend of mine, too, but I’d forgotten that when you’re arguing about sexual harrassment, it is always, always, ALWAYS boys against the girls, no matter what, and there is no woman anywhere on the face of the planet who will back off one inch from her absolute feminist right to bitch slap any male anywhere into whimpering submission by threatening to have him fired from his job for any remark whatsoever regardless of what it was she said or did to provoke it).

So I responded (but I deliberately made my voice a bit quieter) “Mel, Robin just admitted that she only found my remark inappropriate… and the words she used were inflammatory, insulting, and personally offensive, she called me disgusting and perverted… because of my age. She basically stated that if I were closer to her age, she would not have taken offense from what was, at best, a mildly salacious and entirely inoffensive remark that she herself provoked. That betrays an age bias on her part, and that is a form of prejudice considered just as objectionable and actionable as sexual harassment… especially here in Florida. So if you want to start up with me, I’ll start up with you. But I don’t think you want to open this can of worms.”

And then I was quiet, and on Monday I’ll move to another cubicle, because when any woman threatens to have me fired for sexual harassment, I take that very seriously. When someone I’ve been extremely pleasant to for weeks and tried my best to befriend does it, I regard it as a personal betrayal… but that’s a side issue. The most important thing is, sitting next to someone as touchy as Robin is difficult much of the time anyway. Once she threatens my job, it’s time to move.

I’ll note that I don’t think Robin will last long on the floor, since clearly she has both impulse and anger control issues.

Moving beyond that, let me catch up on a few details by noting that I got an 89 on my last test. The questions were worded in a very confusing manner and most people missed the ones I missed. One guy in the class did get a 100 on the test, though, so I guess he’s the star pupil now, and he’s welcome to it. I just want to make quota for 90 days and get an Online Correspondent job.

Oh, and my clixlist has been updated, with all the wonderful things Mike Norton and Tammy Ruplinger have sent me in the past couple of days. Praise to them! And since Tony Collett is sending me a replacement Vision (praise him, too) I haven't taken him off my clixlist, and hopefully won't have to. And thanks again to all of you for all your support; it's this blog, and those who read and give me feedback, that keep me sane through crap like this.

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, “Wow, I didn’t recognize you in men’s clothing”. According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I’m reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I’d take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here’s The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people’s blogs, you MUST NOT:

(a) seem smarter than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(b) be funnier than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(d) be correct when you point out some manner in which the person writing the blog you are posting comments to was wrong, and/or

(e) Upset The Wimmenfolk On The Blog.

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin’s Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron’s blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don’t really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren’t related to me by marriage, I’d most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I’ve learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don’t care if you:

(a) seem smarter than I am, I like people who are smarter than I am, as long as they’re not jerks about it;

(b) are funnier than I am, then I get to laugh at your witty remarks, and hey, that’s all good;

(c) are a better writer than I am. Although I’m in a peculiar place as regards writing skills; good enough to be better than nearly all the amateurs out there, not good or lucky enough to be a professional at it. So if you are a better writer than I am, you are probably a professional writer and therefore do not have time to post comments on other people’s blogs, so this probably doesn’t matter, as relates to this blog;

(d) correct my mistakes; unlike apparently 95% of the remainder of the human race, I am under no illusions as to my own infallibility and simply don’t care if someone points out that I am wrong about something. Being wrong about things does not strike me as either a character flaw or a shameful embarrassment; we are all wrong about a lot of things every day of our lives, and that’s just how that works;

(e) Upset My Wimmenfolk. Well, actually, I shouldn’t say I don’t care if you upset my wimmenfolk, I do, the very thought deeply offends me. However, it’s just that the wimmenfolk at this point on this blog are my mom, my cuz in law, and my sister in law, and if you do something to upset them, I strongly doubt the authorities finding what’s left of you will be able to identify you without a DNA comparison. My mom, and any woman who marries any of the males in this family and stays married to him for any length of time, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. So offend them all you want; it’s a self correcting problem.

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I’d get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don’t Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

A Brown Eyed Handsome Man