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From: elton@fnord.sybase.com (Elton Wildermuth)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: the crystal colour thingies
Summary: Is this debate old enough to vote yet?
Message-ID: <8063@sybase.sybase.com>
Date: 19 Jan 90 17:42:37 GMT
References: <5488@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <7959@sybase.sybase.com> <1474@mipos3.intel.com> <8006@sybase.sybase.com> <1488@mipos3.intel.com>
Sender: news@Sybase.COM
Reply-To: elton@fnord.sybase.UUCP (Elton Wildermuth)
Distribution: alt
Organization: Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric, Edwin Meese Cabal
Lines: 52

In article <1488@mipos3.intel.com> dmccart@cadev4.UUCP (D. J. McCarthy ~) writes:
>
>	Now I guess I better spell out for you exactly why I said what I
>did or else we'll be at this all year.  Cygnus' posting was obviously an
>attempt to get a response - any response, not just a flame - and everyone
>else that reads alt.flame, even the stupid ones, realized this.  You
>obviously did not.  There is an art to *not* posting as well as an art
>*to* posting; maybe some day you'll figure it out.  Meanwhile I'll be here
>to hold and/or slap your hand again when you need it.

Wu wei, my ass.  The problem here is, you're arguing the wrong premise.

Let's think about this REAL HARD for approximately ten seconds.  Where --
except in the 'Subject:' line -- did you see any portion of the original
idiotic posting except the signature?  With me so far?  Good.  Then, why
would you decide that I was attempting to flame the author of a sophomoric
posting, rather than simply making a different, equally sophomoric, joke?

	(My mother always used to tell me, "Small things amuse small
	minds."  I never was quite sure what she meant by that ...)

.Answer a)
What?  You wouldn't?  Then why in the bleeding hell are you going on about
the man succeeding in provoking a response from me?

.Answer b)
Because you didn't think about what you were reading, since you were so
wrapped up in congratulating yourself on not rising to marcus' bait?  By
golly, there's a response to a posting, so it must be *about* the posting?
This speaks for itself, DJ.  Go back to "Fun with USENet" -- you're a lot
more interesting when you're trying to be funny.

.Generic response
Okay, so marcus was trying to "get a response" out of the group.  So what?
What, may I ask, are YOU trying to do when you post to the net, if you are
not trying to "get a response"?  And if marcus dissolves into quivering
shivers of ecstacy when he reads a followup with his by golly very own
message ID in the reference line, then jolly bleeding good for him.  You,
on the other hand, are starting to sound like one of the "oh, pretty please,
don't provoke him" whiners in rec.arts.tv.mindless-drooling-blather.

So, next time (just for me?  thanks.), how about doing the whole net a favor
and think about whether what you're complaining about has any basis in
reality before you waste our time whining?  Otherwise, go bother the folks
in talk.religion.newage -- they could use a traffic cop.

			-- Elton
+++
(ps.  The parenthetical comment about my mother is your Free Ticket.  And
if through some freak circumstance you were absent during Jeff's "18 throbbing
inches" post and the subsequent flurry of "jesus christ, it was just a joke"
followups, I guess you never will understand it.)