Okay, so now I *am* going to United Fan Con. Apparently their money situation has sorted itself out (the fact that Aaron Douglas dropped out probably freed up some funds, I’d think) and I was reinvited.
Honestly, I toyed with the idea of saying forget it, but that didn’t seem fair to all the fans who’d written me expressing dismay over my not being there, especially since they’d purchased nonrefundable tickets.
So I’ll be there.
PAD
• 
Might I suggest these references:
318.2 – I don’t think this is quite it.
315.2 – This is coming closer, but isn’t quite it.
315.32 – This is nearly it.
301.81 – I think this is it: “Narcissistic Personality Disorder, defined as a mental illness primarily characterized by extreme focus on oneself, and is a maladaptive, rigid and persistent condition that may cause significant distress and functional impairment.” (DSM-IV)
And the man wins a kewpie doll!
No, not literally. No one literally drives their car through the opening of a bottle. Jesus.
Mike, re-posting yourself a third or fourth time does nothing to make your case.
But pointing you are Wrong™ because no one literally drives their car through the opening of a bottle demonstrates it sucks to be you.
The virtue of my reposting what hasn’t been dismissed puts what I’m saying in a single field of vision, so to speak. Because I play by rules, nothing I present here depends on keeping any of my agenda hidden.
Such a post contains all of the factors that the truth of what I have to say depends on, and if you invalidate a part of it, the integrity of what I have to say is ruined. I then have to do something you refuse to do when you are Wrong™: 1) make what I say independent of the Wrongness,™ by dismissing it myself 2) rephrase to remove the Wrongness™ from what I have to say, or 3) admit defeat.
If you don’t like getting caught being Wrong,™ the challenge of removing the Wrongness™ from your life doesn’t belong to the person who catches you, but to you.
Janga
Must I once again point out that by not addressing things posted by the more obsessive members of our little town here is, in fact, a tacit dismissal? Consider it the blog version of turning one’s back on an ignorant boor whose main talent and source of amusement seems to be blowing booger bubbles out his left nostril.
If anyone is eating while reading this, my humble ap og lo geees.
Mike, if you don’t know that a bottleneck is a traffic constriction which slows or stops traffic (which many here do know) I can’t help you in your education.
I will flatly deny that you play by any kind of rules, unless they are these:
1. Say something stupid.
2. Repeat.
3. Insult anyone who disagrees with you.
4. Repeat.
5. Declare that you play by rules.
6-7. Repeat.
8. Mischaracterize what several people have said.
9. Explain that words mean what you want them to, rather than what educated people know them to mean. Find it outrageous that people insist on outmoded things like coherence.
10-22. Repeat.
23. Attach (TM) to several words, but supply no intelligible reason for doing so.
24-27. Repeat.
This is about 25 steps too many. Might I suggest:
A. Say something intelligent.
B. Respond to disagreements in English.
You are back-asswardly petitioning me to give you credit for ignoring me. Feel free to actually start ignoring me when you’re ready.
I haven’t denied the metaphor, Úšhølë.™
Mike insists he holds the trademark on “Úšhølë.”
That sounds about right. I’ll give in to his expertise.
Acknowledging a trademark does not establish a privilege of trading under it any more than acknowledging your posts are ©Jeffrey Frawlennie is a claim that I am you.
Do you have any challenge to what I say that isn’t based on inaccuracy or a disconnect from reality?
Mike, all of my challenges to you are for your inaccuracy and disconnect from reality. Just as one example, you said “It’s the behavior through which all we consider evil is bottlenecked – and nurturing evil is just about all it’s good for.” I’ve gotten out my textbooks on semiotics and think I understand this one now:
The behavior of which Mike accuses us (hypocrisy) he claims is that through which all we consider evil (child-rape? not returning borrowed books? bad oral hygiene?) is bottlenecked (we all can understand this as constriction of traffic, leading to backups and delays): Further, he says that this bottlenecking is about all our supposed hypocrisy is good for. Fine – By our hypocrisy, we slow, delay and inconvenience all sorts of nasty things, and that’s just about all our hypocrisy is good for. I would suggest that hypocrisy is, indeed, a rather bad thing – so bad that it does not have any utility in bottlenecking “all we consider evil.”
Here it is, in small words: Mike, you say our hypocrisy bottlenecks all we consider evil. I say you are inaccurate and disconnected from reality. If reality proceeded as you say, our supposed hypocrisy would be a virtuous battle against evil – certainly not what you or anyone else have claimed!
Only if all other definitions of bottleneck are implausible:
Jeffrey, the definition of bottleneck you are depending on to be the sole application of the word came after the coining of the word in the manner I am using it. There weren’t enough cars in 1896 for the definition of the word as you need it to be to even make sense, let alone be the sole definition.
Therefore, your example does not demonstrate my inaccuracy or my disconnect from reality. Thank you for helping me dismiss the notion what I say here is Wrong.™
Where the child-rapists live in hiding, my reasoning applies. Where the child-rapist confesses, he goes to jail and all informed people know to not leave him alone with children. Children are not as safe as they would be if all who lust for them were on public record acknowledging their lust.
There isn’t that much the outrage against holding library books too long, which can be said to be based on the fact that there is no hypocrisy inherent in it. Therefore, the enforcement of library fines, or dentistry, is not severe enough to send people to jail.
Mike, you didn’t offer an alternate definition of “bottleneck” – just an example of its usage, completely consistent with my own. A bottleneck is one of two things: the neck of a bottle (and we all agree this isn’t what is meant here) or “a narrowing similar in shape to the neck of a bottle.” Apparently you believe that traffic is a new thing created by the automobile, but that is wrong. A bottleneck harbor, for example, narrows sufficiently that ships are prevented from sailing out all abreast. Pedestrians, horsemen, wagoneers and bicyclists have all experienced this sort of thing.
I cited the literal definition provided by Merriam-Webster Online, and it doesn’t have to be incompatible with your usage — it simply has to be compatible with mine, Úšhølë.™
Continuous insistence that something is trademarked when it is not is just obstinant foolishness. In any case, you did not cite any definition at all, but rather one particular usage. Here’s an example:
“Cretinous: Mike is a cretinous genetic mistake resulting from unfounded optimism on his parents’ part.” In this case, I have not given a definition, but one particular usage.
“Cretinous: adjective, 1. Affected with cretinism. 2. Idiotic.” In this case I have given a definition.
I must admit, of course, that a cretin would have trouble with this distinction.
Listen to you making your denial dependent on your insistence what Merriam-Webster presents as the definition of a word doesn’t qualify as a definition.
Who you folks gonna believe: Jeffrey or your lying eyes?
In this horse race, I gotta back Jeffrey. As does any other sane person.
Your arbitrary denial hasn’t demonstrated the implausibility of anything I say. If you’re going to arbitrarily challenge what I say, it’s no hardship for me to simply cite the reason you can’t invalidate to demonstrate you’re wrong.
Did somebody hear something? I thought I heard a noise, but when I looked, all I saw was hot air.
Thank you for demonstrating you have nothing to object to, which is what I’ve been saying all along.
This is really stupid. The dictionary provides three definitions:
adjective
noun
transitive verb
the link provided gives the adjective first. In that sense bottleneck is a description of a kind of harbor.
——————-
Main Entry:
1bot·tle·neck Listen to the pronunciation of 1bottleneck
Pronunciation:
\ˈbä-təl-ˌnek\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1896
: narrow
—————————-
The second definition is a noun:
——————-
Main Entry:
2bottleneck
Function:
noun
Date:
1907
1 a: a narrow route
b: a point of traffic congestion
2 a: someone or something that retards or halts free movement and progress
b: impasse
c: a dramatic reduction in the size of a population (as of a species) that results in a decrease in genetic variation
3: a style of guitar playing in which glissando effects are produced by sliding an object (as a knife blade or the neck of a bottle) along the strings —called also bottleneck guitar
——————–
The three first definitions fit with what Jeffrey said. The thirds is irrelevant unless you were discussing the blues.
The last definition is:
——————
Main Entry:
3bottleneck
Function:
transitive verb
Date:
1933
: to slow or halt by causing a bottleneck
———————
The definition isn’t presented to only apply to an harbor. Jeffrey, and I suppose Alan, are denying the application of the word bottleneck to describe anything narrow. The stupidity isn’t mine.
Thank you for confirming what Merriam-Webster presents as a definition is a definition, which Jeffrey, and I suppose Alan, denied.
Jesus.
I said “this is stupid” as in the discussion is stupid.
This passage:
“It’s the behavior through which all we consider evil is bottlenecked”
is stupid.
(and it’s as stupid even with the first defintion, although the 3rd seems the most applicable).
The post of which it was part is stupid.
The delusions of grandeur of the person who wrote this passage are stupid.
The way of thinking and behavior connected with that post is stupid
Trying to parse and discuss that post, is also stupid.
As I said to Alan: Your arbitrary denial hasn’t demonstrated the implausibility of anything I say.
Thanks for not denying anything I said.
Thank you for adopting for yourself and therefore validating the very approach with which I now say: thank you for not denying anything I’ve said.
Thanks for not denying anything I said.
Old saying, Micha: Never wrestle with pigs. The pig enjoys it and you just wind up covered in mud.
PAD
I sorta enjoy wrestling with pigs……..
Sheep, too. They’re so fuzzy!
If what I say doesn’t depend you being wrong, what urgency is there for me to disagree with you?
When the pig demonstrates how you trade away a dollar of problem-solving for 5¢ of privilege, and you refuse to recover the dollar of problem-solving, it sucks to be you.
Check, please!
Check, please!
Hrm… ::looks at bill… flips it upside down then back again::
It’s $1 or maybe 5 cents…
Aw shucks, forget it. It’s on the house.
Heya, Tom’ it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you, buddy; how’ve you been?
Thing have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable; I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here; maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
I don’t want to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?
To spend your whole life locked inside a mall?
Maybe that’s OK for now but someday you’ll be out of food and guns
And then you’ll have to make the call
I’m not surprised to see you haven’t thought it through enough
You never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff
But, Tom, that’s what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable; I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here; maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
I’d like to help you, Tom, in any way I can
I sure appreciate the way you’re working with me
I’m not a monster, Tom…well, technically, I am
I guess I am
I’ve got another meeting, Tom; maybe we could wrap it up
I know we’ll get to common ground somehow
Meanwhile I’ll report back to my colleagues who were chewing on the doors
I guess we’ll table this for now
I’m glad to see you take constructive criticism well
Thank you for your time; I know we’re all busy as hëll
And we’ll put this thing to bed
When I bash your head open
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable; I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here; maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
Re:Your Brains
Jonathan Coulton
So these persistent zombie references: are they meant to portray the lone critic of a pack-mentality as a zombie horde, are you exulting in your privileged-access to a pack-consensus, or what?
Brother Bill, as much as I like the odd lyric or two, (as I’ve proven once or twice around here) Tom there seems to be a rather intelligent bloke. Perhaps too intelligent to be caught by zombie hordes. I mean, if they all want his brains he must have a lot of them.
Or does Tom just suffer from macrocephalous?
And why is that reading that song has induced “The Check’s In The Mail” to dance trippingly through my unmacrocephalous?
I was so tired last night I needed to do something really brainless. Interacting with Mike, the posterboy for brainlessness, seemed to be a good choice. Maybe that’s why he’s immune to zombies. Nothing to eat. The same is true for people who are interested in an inteligent conversation. Mike has nothing to offer.
Anyway, I remember somebody saying something about a cheesecake.
Or what.
Guys…really. You’re just wasting bandwidth. This has long ago ceased serving any purpose. There’s no point in expecting Mike to stop this idiocy because, well…he’s got some serious problems. He will say anything rather than say nothing, even when there’s nothing to be said. That should be obvious by now. And at some point, this constant interaction with him degenerates into little more than kicking a cripple, and reflects poorly on all who engage in it.
As your humble host who has been observing this trainwreck of a thread, I would see it as a laudable exercise in self control if everyone else would just cease kicking the cripple and leave him here to shout in the wind.
PAD
Peter, I don’t think you’re going to find a debate coach in any democracy who will deny you lost our disagreement by leaving it here:
You — not me, you — selected a portion of my criticism, and gave the condition under which it would have been true. I demonstrated how that condition was met, and you walked away, which is fine. You lost.
You can keep calling me a pig and an idiot, but I don’t see how emphasizing your Wrongness&trade being taken hostage by a pig and an idiot benefits you.
I read in my early teens that issue of the Uncanny X-Men (196) where Magneto tells Rachel he can’t stop her from killing Kitty’s assassins, but in her doing so, she is showing them that they were right to take their conflict to the level off assassination. By employing assassination herself, she would have demonstrated to them that their way works. That’s the inherent double-bind in employing the same tactics you are trying to obstruct others from using.
I cite the Claremont story as an example of how indulging in 5¢ of the privilege of hypocrisy trades away a dollar’s worth of problem-solving. You should be pleased with your facility in summoning quotes by Shakespeare and Dickens, but your inability to comprehend how your not-at-all-subtle hypocrisy shelters the very behaviors you are criticizing demonstrates you’ve missed a very basic lesson an idiot middle-schooler didn’t need a spoon-full of sugar to drink in. If one of us is suffering from a deficit of introspection — it ain’t me.
I am tired of Mike, Jeoffrey, Dan Taylor , the various Liberterians whose names I don’t recall, and PAD too. Tired.
I will say no more.
Okay, the popcorn’s finally ready for watching the cripple fight.
…hey? Where did everybody go?