Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!amdahl!dlb!megatest!djones
From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Sun Pascal bug?
Message-ID: <318@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Date: 9 Mar 88 23:29:33 GMT
References: <316@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 38


I wish to apologise to anyone who may have found my postings about this
subject to be offensive.

I just received a singularly vitriolic email letter about my postings,
and it caught me completely off guard.  It made me think about the style
of the postings, and why I thought they were funny, when obviously at
least one other person found them to be anything but funny.

I used to be a pretty uptight individual.  Then some things happened that
shook me out of it.  I will not go into the details, which are personal.
But, you know how reformed drunks will preach at you
if you get loaded?  And how reformed smokers act around smoke?  Well I
guess I am a little bit that way when I perceive that I observe someone
getting upset over triffles.  Here's what I have just now come to realize:
I want to say, "Hey lighten up!"  But saying that can have the exact
opposite effect from what you want it to.  So I have developed a reaction 
which is a parody on my old behavior.  When I get in that preachy mode,
I'm not ridiculing the person I am speaking to.  I am making fun of the
very act of being serious and preachy.

As is obvious now, the style of humor does not translate well into network 
traffic. I guess the problem is that regardless of how absurd the speach may 
be -- and I thought I laid it on pretty thick -- it isn't clear to every 
listener that the speaker is not serious, unless the listener knows the 
speaker well  enough to know that the speaker himself knows that the diatribe 
is absurd.



		Dave Jones
		880 Fox Lane
		San Jose, CA.
		95131

		(408) 437-9700 Ext 3227
		UUCP: ucbvax!sun!megatest!djones
		ARPA: megatest!djones@riacs.ARPA