Flamewars are contextual. It almost seems at times that everything is, which drives an absolutist like me absolutely crazy sometimes, not that anyone’s noticed.
I throw the pills away when the orderlies aren’t looking.
But I thought this wasn’t a bad notation on flamewars themselves. It’s a pity that nobody I’ve really flamed reads this blog, because they could show you all the scars. I’ll have to dredge up some files when I’m not sleep-deprived.
I think under this scale, the BoJo war started Elevated and immediately dropped back to Guarded. But then Vicus suggested I call him a silly bugger, so god knows where it lies now.
“Enter” at risk, baby!
The thing about the BoJo War is that it could burn my bridges with someone I consider an equal or better. I don’t mind stomping gnats, which I consider most people to be, but flamewars are contextual.
When Trudeau said “Fuddle duddle”, or when he said “Watch me” he was engaging in a flamewar, because it wasParliament, not alt.startrek. I’ve been in the rough and tumble, and it doesn’t bother me for a moment; I consider it recreational.
Why? Because those people, frankly, are inferior and it is high time someone acquainted them with the fact.
For the BoJo war, imagine you were meeting an MP who’d been an award-winning practitioner in your field, someone you’d admired and respected both as a professional and as a human being.
Then imagine going over to his house and telling him to his face that you’d assumed he didn’t have the balls to engage and now you think he doesn’t have the brains.
The Math: about 3 slices of gourmet pizza, 1 woo-woo, 3 glasses of cabernet, 2 chicken drumettes in bbq sauce, a bit of some kinda ginger-sesame chicken nugget thingy, cantaloupe, honeydew, papaya (slightly overripe and perhaps better for use as an ingredient in impromptu organic facials, but since there were maybe 350 other people in the club I was willing to let that opportunity pass), pineapple, orange slices, and kiwis. I think, all in all, it was a fine breakfast, lunch and dinner; low carb, low fat, high fiber, low cal, packed with a raging snotload of phytoflavinoids, vitamins and minerals.
And free.
Followed by a short stroll and a Red Bull.
Free.
Followed by a short car ride and a mystery drink. When Nina asks her favorite bartender to “just make me something special” it’s generally a good idea to say “I’ll have what she’s having,” particularly when it’s going on her tab. And whatever it was, it was nice. Peach Absolut, cranberry, and something else unidentifiable but probably found about halfway down the creme de quelque chose aisle.
Nina actually had to pay for those, which after the roll we’d been on came as a nasty shock. But somehow she found a way to soldier on…
The Venues: The Kingston Hotel, for the second anniversary of its renovations. I was there years ago when it wasn’t so much shabby-genteel as merely, and comfortably, shabby, like your old babysitter who used to be such a cool teenager and is now a blowsy, poorly-coiffed and SUV-bottomed although still nurturing person. In the old days there were two rooms along the South side, huge rooms with televisions in each corner. The night I was there, a hockey game played in one room; in the other, all sets were tuned to the Shopping Channel.
The Shopping Channel was outpulling thePlayoffs four to one. The men will go where the chicks are: let this be a lesson to those of you tempted to set up sports bars. Set up Shopping Channel bars instead. Packed every night, especially when Joan Rivers has a sale on that jewelery.
Anyway, they stripped all that out and I’m sure it’s quite nice now although I couldn’t actually make out much of the rooms because of the several hundred people in my way. The patio is nice, though.
Caprice for Illusions, featuring fire dancers, aerial acrobats, terrestrial acrobats, a Japanese club kid/Yo-Yo master, a very sci-fi dancer in white bugeye specs with a denim mini, white wifebeater, Logan’s Run style tinfoil puffy vest, and great billowing fetlocks of silver lame pouring out of the tops of her boots, and a very strange and interesting fellow who played with his balls onstage.
Let me rephrase that.
He juggled irridescent blown glass globes. It was a little bit hippie, but that might just have been the effect of the dreadlocks on the performer and Red Bull on the audience. It looked like this:
Only better, and with a tall, dreadlocked hippie in brown robes. Just add disco ball, smoke machine, lasers, spotlights, gels, and half-wasted glitterati. If you slam down a half-dozen French 75s and make a quick booty call, you should just about put yourself in the right mindset.
The best part, I must admit, no matter how good the performers were, was getting carded at the door.
I am DEFINITELY going back now.
I’ve been of legal drinking age so long that I don’t go to retro nights, because it’s all the same damn music from the first time around, and Duran Duran were just never that good in the first place.
After Caprice, we hit the Gecko Club because Nina figured that, being as how she was deathly ill, what she really needed was above special drink mixed by her favorite bartender. And who was I to argue? Although the Gecko tends to be filled with slightly superannuated Bruce Springsteen characters; not to say they’re accomplished singer/songwriters, not at all. I mean only to imply that their lives peaked at seventeen and they’ve been going downhill ever since without, somehow, ever realizing it.
You’re not getting older, you’re getting blonder and more tanned. Unfortunately, you could not be said to be getting better, Lee-Anne.
Sorry to be the one to tell you.
My, I really am cranky lately, ain’t I? Nobody better pick on me chez moi because the BoJo blog thing isn’t so much a flamewar as an audience standing in the dark, waving sparklers and trying to light up Big Ben.
A flamewar here would be a slightly different story.
Yes, I got the flamewar I’ve been praying for, in the very last place I expected. Yes, it’s a little one-sided (I started it and currently have a bigger word count on that blog than he does) but just think of it as the War on Lebanon of the Northern Blogosphere.
G’wan over and see what it looks like when I fight with impassioned reasoning, facts, and the angels instead of my usual bag of tricks.
Brought to you by Blame Society Productions. Watch many more of our films on our main website at: http://www.splu.net and also check out http://channel101.com for more shows like this – the unavoidable future of entertainment!
Written and Directed by Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan
Produced by Courtney Collins (http://courtneycollins.com)
Music – Andrew Yonda (http://buffali.com)
Cinematography – Tona Williams (http://tona.bigbite.org) and John Urban (http://urbanphotoco.com)
Lighting Director – John Urban (http:urbanphotoco.com)
Casting Director – Courtney Collins (http://courtneycollins.com)
Assitant Director – Doug Chapin
Sound Design – John Lee
Sound Technicians – Kathy Fischer and Liberty Karp
Location Supervisor – Amanda Biederman
Editing – Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan
Special Effects – Aaron Yonda
Audio Mixing – Aaron Yonda
Starring:
Chad – Aaron Yonda
Clint/Voice of Chad – Matt Sloan
Randy – Brad Knight
Lloyd – Rob Matsushita
Clarissa – Christina LaVicka
Tammy – KeaLynn Kees
Tony – Asa Derks
Jeremy Wickstrom – Paul Guse
Angry Customer – Damon Butler
Weird Jimmy – Craig Johnson
Waiter – Doug Reed
With: Cindy Brekken, Casey Brown, Vijay Prabhu Dandamudi, Drew Foerster, Nick Foerster, Kate George, Sindee Kleckner, Collin Klug, Keefe Klug, Jordan Marko, Caiden Melendy, Chris Melendy, Deanna Reed, Ilsa Reed, Laszlo Reed, Justin Sprecher, Marcus Trapp
Filmed on Location at Willy Street Co-op, Madison, WI
Special Thanks to Brendan Smith …
This was actually posted as a link on BoingBoing today, so normally I’d credit them, but I was on this Chad Vader shit within 20 minutes of the first upload, so I’m keeping the credit. But I’ll give them the link cuz I’m sweet like that, yo.