{original post unavailable}

"I'm here to express opinion like it or not."

Peter, I was trying to ignore this whole last thread, but you're
really becoming a pain in the ass.

Lemme explain a few facts of life to you.

EVERYONE is here to express an opinion. What happens here is that
every once in a while, some bozo (insert your picture here) comes
riding in here and has the notion that nobody else here is objective,
that he and ONLY he dares say anything negative, and puffs up like a
pouter pigeon as proclaimer of Truth, Justice and Objectivity, and all
you poor saps out there just dang well better get used to it and get
over it.

Seen it.

There's LOTS of positive AND negative opinion expressed here. It
didn't spring suddenly into being when you materialized in our midst,
Peter. Check out the Grey 17 thread. A number of people were iffy on
it, or downright negative. I said they had a point, and agreed with
much of it. So right off the bat, you are proceeding from a false
assumption, that nobody else here critiques the show. So you're wrong
on the face of it. Don't believe me? Check the threads. It's there.
And elsewhere. Always has been. Always will be.

But for you, it's necessary to think, for your own ego, that you
and ONLY you DARE to stand up and speak ***THE TRUTH***. It's how you
make yourself feel important. And the next phase of that is that you
must now put yourself in the position of feeling persecuted for your
statements...it's not enough that you must criticize, you must feel
*special* for doing so, reinforce your own sad notion that only you are
the Visionary One here. So you come in and you insult people, deride
them...indicate that anyone who takes issue with your hamhanded and
abusive messages is a nut, or an idiot, or a blind, ass kissing fool.

Then you go to phase three. It's all right in line with what we've
seen here a thousand times before. You may think you've invented this
little dance of yours, but we've seen it before you, and we'll see it
after you. You've practically become a cliche.

Phase three, when people take offense at what you say, is to shrug
and say, "hey, it's just wit," and "chill out." Yessir, that'll work.

There's a particularly offensive sort of netjerk who thinks that as
long as he says what he says in a calm, flip fashion, he can say any
stupid, offensive, chowderheaded thing he so chooses...and if someone
gets upset about it, heyyyyyy, chill out, look how angry you're
getting, you're shrieking, when I was just calmly talking about how
your mother works the corner of Sunset and Vine for twenty bucks a pop,
there's nothing wrong with that, hey, it's the world's oldest
profession, why're you being so defensive....

That's the game you play. And it is a game, make no mistake.
Difference is, some of us have been around long enough, and seen other
yahoos like you come storming in here doing the same thing, to
*recognize* that it's a game. And the rules of the game are as follows:
"I can say anything I want, and that's great, but if you get upset in
response, then that's wrong, and bad."

You want to believe that you're the Last Bastion of Persecuted
Truth, the only person who can look at things calmly, so you get other
people upset to prove your point...it's a very nice, self-contained
little mobius loop designed specifically to reinforce your own
self-image.

If you say something, that's your opinion, and you're damn well
entitled to spraypaint that opinion all over the walls, and if anybody
doesn't like it, screw 'em...but if the other users here exercise THEIR
right to hold an opinion about your boorish behavior, somehow THAT'S
wrong, that's shrieking and screaming and being an "idiot."

I would suggest that it's you who can't take criticsm, you who
can't abide people having an opposing opinion, on one level, because
you need to deflate it or deflect it or deride it...but at the same
time, you *need* it, you batten off it like a blood-swollen tick, you
respond to it with glee, because you think it makes you important in
their lives, or at least your own. It's like the ten year old kid
sitting on a fence firing a slingshot at a horse, you think that
because you got a reaction, it *means* something.

And as for saying "it's just wit," there are two primary
requirements for wit: 1) it must be funny, and 2) it must not proceed
from maliciousness. Neither of those conditions is operational in your
messages. They are mean, venal, petty, self-indulgent,
self-congratulatory, derisive, ill-mannered and offensive.

But they're not witty.

That's just what you hide behind, you think it excuses any stupid,
hare brained thing you choose to spout...it's just wit, just bein'
funny.

Like I said...seen it.

Finally, for this:

"Joe, you comments are cute at times, but remember I tell it like it
is. If you want to talk to just yes men, and women then they're all
yours. Fail them, and they'll east you alive."

No, you don't "tell it like it is." That's more of your ego, your
sense of god-given mission, that somehow you know the Truth and nobody
else here has sufficiently evolved to your level yet. Nor do I talk to
just yes men and women. That's again your way of dismissing other
people here, writing off their opinions as "yes men" while insisting
your own is more valid because you're "objective," when you're really
just being boorish. Nobody here is a yes-ANYthing. There's
disagreements, criticism, even some outright knock-downs. But you
don't see them.

Because the universe of Peter Stathis is *just* big enough to
contain Peter Stathis, and nothing much more than that. Your messages
are intended for the greater glorification of Peter Stathis, to elicit
persecution for the poor, embattled Peter Stathis, so that you may be
crucified on a cross of your own making because you need the pain and
the glory and most of all you need to be *right*.

Because you are none of those. You are, simply, ill-mannered and
in the final analysis utterly irrelevant. The only thing more
irrelevant than you, is your opinion. But only because it rides into
this forum stapled to a horse's ass.

jms

G S Fletcher-Brown <76534.513@compuserve.com> asks:
> Joe, do I have your permission to use the aforementioned message
> altered and amended to show they're your words, removing the
> thread title and offender's name?

Sure, if it'll help elsewhere, feel free.

jms

{original post unavailable}

"The truth is you don't like it when I take the show to task, but
instead of getting a calm arguement, I get nasty comments."

Nope, Not the truth. Because the truth is that your opinion(s)
about the show generally take up, oh, maybe 10% of your message(s).
The rest of your messages are all about you...about the validity of
your opinion, the need for other people to listen to your opinion, your
reactions to other people's reactions, your position relative to other
people...you have no interest in discussing the show, good or bad. The
interest of Peter Stathis is in talking about Peter Stathis, and his
centrality to the known universe. If what you say were the truth, you
would not have titled the message that you were here to "kick butt,"
given that the only butts around here are of the users of this system.
Check your own first message again...the "opinion" part runs about 2
sentences out of 25. The rest is all about you. Then you complain
when the discussion becomes about you when *you* set the parameters of
the discussion.

Egotism? Peter, your ego could be wrapped around the sun three
times and still leave room for a knot.

You came in confrontational, with no interest in the discussion
itself, only in creating a discussion *about* the discussion...a
discussion in which Peter Stathis would stand crucified on a cross of
his own making, for his own edification.

You're worse than sad and pathetic...you're a cliche, and a
boring one at that. We've seen your act before, Peter, and we don't
fall for it anymore. Go bug somebody who cares.

jms

Michael W. Mahoney <103007.1253@compuserve.com> asks:
> He's just dull enough to convince himself that he's witty: "See
> all the replies I got!?!"

Thanks. Me, I don't much care for flames or insults...it's
something I try and avoid where I can. It's just not worth the hassle
or the bile or the angst. You've gotta *really* provoke me to push
that particular button. I've gotten decent at it out of survival, and
simply because I'm a writer; you've gotta be out of your *mind* to go
up against any fairly decent writer in a written medium. You won't
win.

But for folks like the one you describe, they're not out to
win, only to validate their existence by generating a response, proving
they exist by the echo produced by their voices. So in that, I agree
wholeheartedly with your analysis.

jms