DrunkenBlog

Flame on

I pulled a Rumpelstiltskin last night, as I was flying way too close to the sun when it came to lack of sleep, and today has been go dog go. PostgreSQL is a fantastic database server until something goes wrong, and then its a complete nightmare, so I'm glad I had a solid 16 hours under my belt.

There was a time I could go four days easy, now I'm rounding the horn into Willy Wonka mode at two. It certainly shows in the last posts, where the filter had some serious gaps in it, and towards the end of the last one you can pretty much watch the situation degrading at 15 minute intervals.

Which means I got some flames.

I actually had to go back and read over what some were complaining about, as I only really remembered up to about midway in the last big post. After a Rumpelstiltskin, my brain has turned itself upside and been shaken, so I'm usually pretty hazy about the last few hours.

Now, I get a lot of flames. Everyone from the CEO of Bare Bones to people who for the life of me are pumping their insults through babelfish into English before they send them hurtling towards my inbox.

There was a time they really bothered me, but once the quantity reached a certain level, I'd pretty much seen it and heard it all so many times over one more time was just boring. It's all about the quality now. Yes, I know, flames are bad, but there is such a thing as a quality flame, in the same way that you can admire a clever burn. You're generally trying to get a certain reaction from someone: hurt their feelings, make them feel stupid, piss them off, rile them up, intimidate them, make them regret something, goad them into something, etc.

I.E., I got one from the guy at iDevGames that really kinda pissed me off. It takes a lot for a person to piss me off with a flame now, to the point where I can round the horn a few minutes later and a weak admiration sets in. When you try to manipulate someone, in a subtle way you're telling them you think you're smarter than them, which is a form of an insult. After so many unsubtle ones, you take what you can get. They're still going to get a "Bite me", but there's really no hard feelings if the matters weren't personal, and they usually get over it too.

Then there are people like Gene Steinberg of the Mac Night Owl who try so hard when they flame me -- you can just picture them spending all this time calculating teh perfect thing to say -- who couldn't make me mad if they tried. They just engender that sick mixture of amusement and sadness you get when you see the retarded kid banging his head against the wall over and over. You want to root for them, but at the same time, well, they're banging their head against the wall over and over.

If people fuck like they flame, this guy is one hell of a lousy lay. It's almost amazing to me someone in 2005 would brashly tout that their site has "almost half a million hits per month", and since I've slept I guess I'll do him a favor by telling him he could get to 1 million easy if he just adds a few more 1-pixel invisible .gif files to his site.

Luckily, he was smart enough to remove his picture from the front of his site recently, so he does read the site. I almost wish I was in wonka mode, and the filter had more gaps tonight, because I'd have a fucking field day with his Attack of the Rockoids...

When it comes to material to work from, that topic alone would be manna from heaven -- and even in full-on wonka mode I don't think I'd know if I'd know where to start with his podcast.

Part of me is salivating just reading the intro text, and this is hopefully as close to what it feels like when an alcoholic passes a liquor store as I'll ever get. I'm really just one of the last people on the planet (excluding Rosyna) you'd want to get into a serious flame war with on the wrong day. It's not something I'm proud of, it's just how it is -- I have a direct line to my inner asshat when and if the need arises.

Luckily, its really rare that I have to pick up the red phone, as just about everyone I gravitate towards is so cool the probability of it ever occurring in our dealings approaches a rounding error, so few of my real friends know just how much of an asshole I could be given the proper motivation.

But again, since I've slept, I'll settle for marveling at how what he says seems to be completely dependent upon what everyone else is saying, which is the hallmark of a tool. He used to be a part of what the "Mac Web" was, and it's a good thing its changing.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    August 25, 2005, at 03:45 AM