Monday, July 18, 2005
I'm A Big Enough Man . . .
The other week, during the start of my alien season, I wrote a post about favourite alien films. The post was, as a considerable number of my posts are, written when drunk. During the course of the post, I described one particular reviewer ('bob the moo') on IMDb as its 'idiot-in-residence.'
Hold that though for a moment, while I divert for a second. Even longer ago, I wrote another post, about the screening of 'Deep Throat.' After posting it, it was pointed out to me that I had called Brighton 'Brigton', and so I went back and corrected it. Afterwards, I was at the pub with these fellows, and they pointed out to me that if I was to go on about freedom of speech and suchforth, it behove me not to go about changing posts after they were published. I considered this, and agreed with them. Now, after posts such as this, I can hardly go back.
So, anyway, after calling someone an idiot, I felt little guilt. I couldn't change it now, it was on record, and anyway the poor fellow would never read it.
Today, I found an email in my Inbox from him. It would appear that his mate had read the post and alerted him to its presence. I'm not going to go through all the contents the email, because I haven't asked his permission, but suffice to say he was actually pretty friendly about the situation. I was mighty impressed. Two points struck me:
1) It would appear that I have more readers than I previously thought. The post in question doesn't seem to appear high on any search engine listings, so it would seem his mate is an actual reader here. I had always fondly imagined that I had about half a dozen readers, since I only get comments from about that number. I must be popular. Yay!
2) If the tables had been turned, and it had been him calling me an idiot, the email in his Inbox would not only not have been civil, it would have been full of threats about burning down his house. Consequently, I have to say I'm somewhat humbled by his niceness.
All in all, he seems a reasonable bloke.
With bad taste in films.
Hold that though for a moment, while I divert for a second. Even longer ago, I wrote another post, about the screening of 'Deep Throat.' After posting it, it was pointed out to me that I had called Brighton 'Brigton', and so I went back and corrected it. Afterwards, I was at the pub with these fellows, and they pointed out to me that if I was to go on about freedom of speech and suchforth, it behove me not to go about changing posts after they were published. I considered this, and agreed with them. Now, after posts such as this, I can hardly go back.
So, anyway, after calling someone an idiot, I felt little guilt. I couldn't change it now, it was on record, and anyway the poor fellow would never read it.
Today, I found an email in my Inbox from him. It would appear that his mate had read the post and alerted him to its presence. I'm not going to go through all the contents the email, because I haven't asked his permission, but suffice to say he was actually pretty friendly about the situation. I was mighty impressed. Two points struck me:
1) It would appear that I have more readers than I previously thought. The post in question doesn't seem to appear high on any search engine listings, so it would seem his mate is an actual reader here. I had always fondly imagined that I had about half a dozen readers, since I only get comments from about that number. I must be popular. Yay!
2) If the tables had been turned, and it had been him calling me an idiot, the email in his Inbox would not only not have been civil, it would have been full of threats about burning down his house. Consequently, I have to say I'm somewhat humbled by his niceness.
All in all, he seems a reasonable bloke.
With bad taste in films.
