This is not really off topic, honest! We've talked about different animals in some discussions over the last day or so. We've talked about members of the lupine and equine families, and now porcine.

Two things about pigs:

There is no point in trying to teach a pig to sing. It is a waste of time and it annoys the pig.

One should not wrestle with pigs. You'll get dirty no matter what you do and the pig will enjoy it.

Ah, well. We needed a little comic relief around here, anyhow. Guess it has to end at some point.

I saw a really cool .sig once, kind of a takeoff on "to err is human, to forgive divine". It was like this:

To moo is bovine
To howl is lupine
To neigh is equine
etc.

Wish I could dig that up to add to your animal collection, Duster.

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Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

Originally posted by Annette:
Ah, well. We needed a little comic relief around here, anyhow. Guess it has to end at some point.

Not quite yet. Remember what a cartooney is. Smile, chuckle, giggle, or laugh, as you see fit.

But what if the Good Guys have a non-cartooney lawyer? That should be worth more than a chuckle, just for the reaction. What do you think? Perhaps a minicam to film it when papers are served? Didn't somebody post a message about streaming media before it got buried in the slag? hehe

Ah, sorry - just feeling particularly good this evening what with all the comedy going on around here. :)

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Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

[This message has been edited by Annette (edited 08-08-2000).]

Thanks for this post. It is a great comic relief!

Since we are on the subject of pigs, I will quote my favorite Pig quote:

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

That is the last paragraph of George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

This is off subject but i signed up with Valuepay.com. They say they pay you $1 for each hour your are online and have there bar up. But they say it takes 3 weeks to you to be processed. I am thinking cool, make enough money to pay for hosting and domain. But now it is week 5 and they sent me the exact date i was suppose to get it but they nevered delivered, so i responded with a letter expressing my thoughts in a nice way but now they wont answer me. What can i do nothing. I will quiet with them but $1 an hour for being online doing nothing but have a bar on screen is easy money to me!!

Hey, I think that's two George Orwell references in a week. Surely that's some sort of record!

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Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

Originally posted by TheComputerGuy:

This is off subject

Heh, the subject wasn't much of anything (pigs???), but yep you managed to break topic, heh heh.

but i signed up with Valuepay.com. They say they pay you $1 for each hour your are online and have there bar up. But they say it takes 3 weeks to you to be processed. I am thinking cool, make enough money to pay for hosting and domain. But now it is week 5 and they sent me the exact date i was suppose to get it but they nevered delivered, so i responded with a letter expressing my thoughts in a nice way but now they wont answer me. What can i do nothing. I will quiet with them but $1 an hour for being online doing nothing but have a bar on screen is easy money to me!!

Sounds scamtastic to me!

Metaphors and humor aside, it might behoove some of you to remember that you have accomplished nothing by besting a fool. Furthermore, some people enjoy notoriety and causing a ruckus. By allowing them to "push your buttons" and responding to them, you allow them to control you. You have played right into their hands and given them exactly what they wanted.

We have seen the very definition of "troll" in its truest sense, a post made to incite. It led to "flaming", hurling personal insults.

It may seem hard to say little or nothing when someone is attacking you, yet that is the best course of action. State the facts refuting any factual accusations and walk away. That's the only way to win.

You should realize that once you have made your point, there is no sense in repeating it ad nauseum. Any intelligent person will see who is at fault, who the liar is. The opinions of the less than intelligent shouldn't matter at all if they can't discern the truth.

If you persist in one rebuttal after another, and there is a barrage of attacks and counterattacks, after a while, it is hard to distinguish who threw the first missile. When both sides are covered with mud, who's to say where the musdlinging began?

The innocent bystanders no longer care, they just want it to stop and don't want any mud slung their way.

I say this from practical experience as well as philosophical and psychological belief. I was the target of a particularly tenacious person with psychological problems for simply suggesting one ignore flames. This went on for 6 months and only ended when I used a bit of applied psychology with humor. He declared an immediate cease fire.

Nobody wins in a war, even a verbal one, and the innocent are hurt. The only way to win is to be the first to walk away before a conflagration ensues. Once you do that, it's like what salesmen are taught after asking a leading question: the first one to talk loses.

Don't be a loser. Use your brains, not your lips (or fingertips).



[This message has been edited by Duster (edited 08-09-2000).]

Duster,

I now see that you started this post to make a point; good job. Personally, I try to avoid the controversial threads. I also try to avoid saying anything about someone if I do not have something good to say -- obviously I would not make it in politics.

Annette,

I like the writings of George Orwell (aka Erich Frohmm). I just rented the movie version of "1984" last week; it is not nearly as good as the book, but movies seldom are.

I hope everyone has a good evening!

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

Yeah, well - maybe we should just ask Matt to nuke the whole sordid mess. Sorry I got myself carried away - it's more annoying (and amusing) than anything else.

I think 1984 was a better commercial than movie. The book, though, was exceptional, as was Animal Farm. Brave New World by Huxley is another one that people ought to read.

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Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

Frank,

Thanks. I make it a point not to get into the middle of a dog fight. The last time I did, inadvertently, was the week before Christmas about 4 years ago, on a forum I frequented, where someone was asking what to do about being flamed. I suggested he may want to just ignore the flamer, as it worked for me and I felt that was the best course of action. The person that had been flaming him did not like that suggestion. He began attacking me.

When several people rose to my defense and criticized him for his attack on me, that really annoyed him. He left in a huff and a puff for a newsgroup, started spreading lies about me there, and then returned to the forum about 2 weeks later.

He began a relentless attack on me. I mostly remained quiet except to disprove an occasional lie, even quoting him to prove it.
After a while, many (newer) people didn't even care who started it or that I wasnt instigating anything and just occasionaly defending myself by disproving lies. They probably viewed us both in the same light.

This guy refused to stop. In an e-mail message, he said that even my humor made him see red. He was relentless. I know a bit about him, partly from his admissions, and he was admittedly bitter. However, it did not justify his behavior.

This was a rare instance where ignoring him didn't work. I knew he was proud, so, in a stroke of genius, I used humor in a straight blow to his pride. It worked. I got an e-mail messsage from him shortly afterwards saying he would stop saying things about me if I didn't talk about him. That was easy, I had already met my end.

He broke his word twice a few months later and I ignored both instances.

Not surprisingly, several people turned on him and drove him off the board. What you send around comes back around.

I may attempt to defuse some situations with humor, but I refuse to get into the middle of a fight, especially someone else's.

Star Trek fans can appreciate a line from Friday's Child (the one with Julie Newmar), when McCoy says "What the Klingon says is unimportant and we do not hear him". It was also a euphemism for calling the Klingon a liar.

Who really cares what people of that ilk say? With every word from their keyboards, they reveal their character, definitely from the dark side.

[This message has been edited by Duster (edited 08-09-2000).]

I just thought I'd bring this up again as some people are still wrestling. If you want to end the problem with hecklers, hush up! So long as you persist in replying or remarking about any heckler, you become part of the problem.

Do nothing, please.

Now I remember mentioning this, but alas it went on. Ohhh welll.