response 75 of 123:

Apr 1 23:57 UTC 2002

No, but I do wish to add, that if keesan is ignoring me, she's locked out the
only person on this system who knows their ass from a hole in the ground :)

response 77 of 123:

Apr 2 00:04 UTC 2002

Re 73.  "He is, by definition, a turd."

It sounds like you have a very definite and precise definition for that
word.

Admittedly, I rarely use it myself.

But the last time someone defined in detail for me the kind of person who he
would call a "turd," the list of "turd" qualities included a kind of whiny
passive-aggressiveness that does not seem to apply to Jamie.

response 79 of 123:

Apr 2 00:16 UTC 2002

Brown, sticky, and smelly?

response 81 of 123:

Apr 2 00:37 UTC 2002

There are few people that I consider to be legitimately indefensible.  I can't
think of any right now, and the includes people with whom I've had well-known
disagreements with.  If I just can't get along with someone, I generally
choose to ignore them and avoid contact.  It doesn't do any good, but such
hostility *can* grow on people, and often does.  I know enough not to presume
that my judgements of people are the limit of what they are, though, and I
think it's rather small of people to assume that they can write any person
off as "something."  

There's always room for surprise.  Take, for example, bru, a person whose
not-so-well-developed political opinions are held in low esteem by a majority
of the board.  It's easy for us to project our impressions of him and other
people we know through limited contact onto what we believe the entire person
to be like.  Doing so, however, would leave us rather perplexed if we are to
believe anderyn's reports of his behavior and attitude concerning his
daughter's pregnancy.  Apparently, there *is* more than meets the eye.  

People who find Jamie upsetting or irritating:  It's really, really not worth
your negative energy to think about it.  Come on, he rarely even posts
anything that is either not pagable or more than one line in length.  There
are much more worthwhile things to worry about.

Retraction #1: This post is not meant as a criticism, direct or otherwise,
of Julie, for whom I'm fairly certain there is a splendid excuse.  ;)

response 83 of 123:

Apr 2 03:57 UTC 2002

        Nobody - even the aformentioned shitfaced drunkards when they're at
their worst - ever truly acts out of character.  They are who they are, and
the way they express themselves may be a limited set from all of their
possible self, but it's still a set of their self.  I don't think anyone is
capable, for instance, of being a completely different person in two
different media, unless they're suffering from MPD.

response 85 of 123:

Apr 2 16:05 UTC 2002

re#83 Nevertheless, it is very possible for a person to engage in very 
different types of behavior depending on the context of their 
situation. For instance, I know that I tend to act very differently 
when I am at church compared to when I am at a bar. I know I am a very 
different person at work where I have a lot of motivation to be polite 
than at home where I dont. While it is true that no one ever acts "out 
of character" it can seem that way to a person who only knows someone 
else in the context of one situation. People have different sides to 
their personality. That is normal and isnt even anything close to MPD. 

response 89 of 123:

Apr 2 17:20 UTC 2002

It'll end with Jamie claiming superiority?

response 91 of 123:

Apr 2 23:12 UTC 2002

I hope everyone will pardon me for subverting the subject of this item.
Maybe I will start a new item for griping.

response 93 of 123:

Apr 3 07:12 UTC 2002

I'm also one who strongly believes in the legitimacy of a person's online
persona as a true reflection of at least part of someone's personality.

The first time I had the experience of meeting a great many people I knew
only from online interaction, back in 1983-84, I found that many of them
looked very different than I had imagined.  Perhaps not surprisingly, many
of them were shorter, fatter, shyer, younger, and worse dressed and groomed,
in person than I had imagined them to be.  (Probably they were thinking the
same of me.)  However, the physical impression did not cancel out the kind
of knowing that arose from their online writings and interactions.

I guess I can't argue with the notion that people are "never" out of
character, whether they are in religious services or at a drinking
establishment, but I think that the range of circumstances and the
individual's response can be wide indeed.

Under the right circumstances, almost anyone might behave in a heroically
admirable way.  Under another set of circumstances, almost anyone might
behave in an awful and detestable way.  Admittedly these situations don't
come up very often, but behavior under extreme conditions is often taken as
the most reliable guide to character.

Of course, even under everyday circumstances, ordinary folks like us do or
say things which turn out to be disastrous for ourselves or others.  As a
Bob Franke song puts it: "We've all been known, each in his own way, to be
jerks."

Bearing all this in mind, I tend to take the generous view.  And even when
someone is being provocative, it usually pays to be gracious.

response 95 of 123:

Apr 3 15:02 UTC 2002

        You're right on the second count, I just don't like being photographed
without my permission;  I've noticed that it's not uncommon, and several of
my friends have also expressed the same preference.  I'm more vocal about it
than they, however.

response 97 of 123:

Apr 3 20:29 UTC 2002

Re 96.  I tried to work in an exception for that, but it sounded like
immodest quibbling, so I left it simple.

response 99 of 123:

Apr 4 01:41 UTC 2002

Larry is 9 feet tall.