Possibly as a result of JohhnyStalker as well as new Vox members such as the inimitable ken I have been giving some thought to how different people police the comments and visitors they receive on their blogs.
With a few notable exceptions like Patricia most of us Voxians have (intentionally or not) got a pretty small readership so it's probable you are not exactly drowning in comments, nevertheless, on the off-chance that your latest post about your adorable little puppy puking on your best friend's carpet after eating her pet tortoise makes the 9 o'clock news and you become an overnight sensation, it's good to have an idea of how to handle all the weirdos that will populate your blog.
Or in my case, possibly due to my acquiescing nature and non-confrontational style, if it's say... Tuesday.
A popular theory on policing comments is the Living Room Theory. Probably invented by some new age Generation Xer this revolves around the idea that one's blog is akin to one's living room and you would eject/blackball/delete anyone who behaved in a way you would not find acceptable in your own living room. This has all the hallmarks of a generation X scheme to my mind. It sounds good. It looks politically democratic and non-offensive and it supposedly gives one that cozy warm feeling of familiarity, inspiring visions of a happy family gathering.
This is your first clue of course that the user of this philosophy indulges in heavy use of class A drugs. Life is just not like that. That warm feeling is the very fleeting sensation you have when stepping in dogshit barefoot in your living room white shag carpet, just a microsecond before the screaming and hairpulling from your siblings starts and uncle Bob tries to molest the younger cousins while Aunt Mary shits herself in a drunken stupor.
Clearly, the wild outdoors is infinitely preferable.
So let me make perfectly clear a few things as to how I police my blog and why the Living Room Theory is only good ...in Theory.
Firstly
I most certainly would not let certain people into my living room at all. Mostly because their abuse of alcohol, lack of basic hygene/social skills as extrapolated from their level of reading comprehension/writing would probably mean they would show up with piss stains on their shirts, trip over themselves at the threshold of my home, falling into the hall puking which would then bring on an epileptic fit accompanied by explosive diarrhea. And that's before they joined the party. I wouldn't want that in my home. But online, it's funny to watch and can be educational to others.
And that's the point. under their veneer of respecatbility and social sensitivity, the Living Room Theorists say they do not tollerate rude/obnoxious behaviour because it's "disruptive" and "negative" and there is enough negativity already on the planet...blah, blah, hug trees etc. The reality is they are cowardly and afraid of doing some real good.
The only thing that is going to get that inbred moron to possibly re-consider his life-long stance on say for argument's sake his take on the colour of people's skins and how it relates to IQ is NOT moddy-coddling to his racist life-views. What it will be is when what he considers to be "just a nigger" verbally and logically and clearly kicks his stupid ass all over their blog with well-thought out replies that are out of the redneck's intellectual grasp. Yes I KNOW that no good of it usually comes there and then on THAT blog. But the redneck will think twice before posting again his stupidity for all to see (on some other site or blog in the near future) and in time, his views will slowly warp and then change a bit. Because exposure to LOTS of interactions naturally results in more flexibility. Some of course do not learn (too stupid) and so they become trolls, which can be safely ignored and blocked, thus becoming truly excluded from active participation and one hopes also reproduction in the wider world.
Points learnt:
1. Making clever fun of morons is educational for others as well as the moron, as well as sometimes being entertaining, which as we know from the results of our poll earlier this month is what most people read blogs for. So in the spirit of the Ancient Romans, feed some stupid people to lions and let your populace be entertained. Hopefully unlike the Romans (at the end of their Empire) you will also understand that the entertainment has to be educational.
2. There is no carpet to wash up on a blog
3. "Negativity" exists in the world. Stop being such a little bitch and whining about it, or conversely, become so obsessed with anger/sadness/bitching that you are consumed with it and unable to be positive and productive and happy FOR YOURSELF FIRST. This means learning to punch back, not in anger nor in fear, but just as self-defence or as instruction. Read up on the Spartans, it can only do you some good.
4. Do not try to pass off your lazyness and disinterest in your fellow humans' evolution for courageous right-bearing, white-knight behaviour. In fact, take it almost as a given that if you pretend to do that shit, the only other people that will "accept" your "white knight" behaviour will be other fakey posers like yourself or the gullible. Another real white knight (whose armour will tend to be grey with dirt, blood-spattered, dented and less cumbersome to carry than yours metaphorically speaking) is far more likley to throw a javelin or ten in your general direction to see if you can actually shut your mouth and use your shield and spear properly instead of just spout off verbiage loaded with big words you have not earned the right to really use, or if instead, as is more likely, you'll get speared like a trout.
Secondly
It goes by implication of this Living Room Theory, that you behave differently in your lounge than you do in the street. Again to me this smacks of far less than acceptable honourable behaviour. I am not talking about sitting on your couch watching TV naked while you occassionally scratching your balls, or even taking the girlfriend roughly against the drinks cabinet. No, I mean that you have a different standard for what you accept as an insult or a challenge from someone outside your home or someone inside your home.
Quite frankly, if anything, I am more likely to accept more abuse from someone already in my home than a total stranger outside of it. Why on Earth would I hold myself to a lower standard outside of my home? It makes no sense. Unless of course you are somewhat challenged in the spinal column department again.
Points Learned: Dont be a wussy. In the home, out of the home, my lounge, my kitchen, the park, or a gathering for high tea with the Queen. It should be all more the same than different. Homework: Read the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling.
Thirdly
Does this mean you should take on every challenge, reply to every dimwit or troll? Of course not. It's your blog. It is NOT a democracy. Read that again. It is NOT a democracy. Nor should it it be, but even more importantly, nor CAN it be. Or ever WILL be. "Democracy" is nothing more than mob rule. Any of you that are having some idealistic view that it is the most just system are clearly brainwashed by your owners. And have never been face to face with a real mob.
The majority is (to paraphrase Hobbes I think) brutish, stupid and often not short but hairy and violent to boot.
So stop pretending that you want to be "fair" and "democratic" to everyone. You do not. You do not like people telling you your views are shit and argue them on their merits. You instead kick them out because they "offend" you. Or shine a light in your face and reveal you too at times. So ban them, delete them, castigate them, but please. Spare us from trying to make us believe you are doing it for "democratic" priciples. You are a tyrant and you kill your peasants on a whim. Admit it.
Point Learnt: Embrace your dark side. Vader was not so bad after all.
I hope that clears it up ladies and gentlemen.
Comments are wide open! Let loose in there now...
So after a bout of porn star sex, Redhead Girl comments along the lines of being addicted to this kind of body connection between us...which naturally leads her I suppose to ask me about the effect which happens in dogs when they have sex which makes them remain attached.
I am of course assuming here the thought process went along the lines of "I love you so much I wish you were in me all the time" or possibly "wow, we do this so much we are practically glued together" instead of "you remind me of a horny dog", but I digress.
I explain my basic understanding of this (see link above if you must) and as she asks a couple more questions about it to do with dog-dick-size expansion mostly, I am reminded of a story my friend Paolo told me.
Now it may be urban legend or not, I don't know, Paolo sure wouldn't be above making it up, but he swore it was a true story that was reported in the news and happened in a town in Italy he told me of.
Anyway the story goes that this woman, possibly lonely, certainly more than a little twisted, had her Alsatian mount her. But apparently being done by a dog wasn't kinky enough, so she apparently opted for anal-dog-sex. Supposedly when the doggie had done his doggie style, his dog-dick did the usual dog-dick thing and balooned to grapefruit size, or possibly large melon size, whatever.
Now because he was still in the woman's butt, and past the spinchter he most certainly got stuck. So much so that the woman eventually called the fire department who supposedly came to get her complete with ambulance to free her of her ordeal by dog-cock.
Unlike most couples who perhaps just have perfuntiory sex followed by sleep, Redhead Girl and I understand the subtle art of post love-making romantic conversation and it was at this point that I faithfully report our sensitive and poetic discussion.
me: What I don't get is...why did she call the firemen.
Redhead Girl: Yes I mean what are they going to do anyway? Throw water on her? And why does that work? Does it work?
me: I really don't know, I think it just maybe scares the dogs into forcing themselves apart cause they don't like cold water. Maybe wouldn't be the most painless way to go.... but besidesthat; say you decided ass-sex with a dog was your thing for this Friday night or whatever and the dog gets stuck in your ass...what the hell..wouldn't you just wait until it eventually deflates again instead of calling News of the World and the fire department? What kind of important appointment have you really got that can't wait say 10 minutes or 20 or you know a week say if it comes to that!
Redhead Girl: Ahhahahah yeah, it's kind of sick...but a dog...can you imagine...a dog's dick stuck up your ass...ewww...
me: Hahhahah yeah, it's pretty fucked up really...
Redhead Girl: It's sick, sick, a dog's cock...in your butt...swollen....ewww...
me: Yeah it is sick, some pretty twisted people out there...
Redhead Girl: Yeah, it's really gross, sick, ewww....twisted a dog...sick, sick sick...ewww.....why a dog?? Ewwww.... I mean...if at least it was a horse.
me: (double-take) ...
Redhead Girl: (with evil little smile)... I mean...at least a horse has a good size from the beginning right?
So much for me worrying about her worrying about the psychological impact of having ass-sex with a human on the poor dog I guess.
Ok guys and gals, I know I still owe you the second part of the Byzantine power games, and I will indeed post that and finally reveal to you the life-changing stuff that has been keeping me from posting more entertaining brain-spam,
however right now I would really appreciate your input on a couple of points:
What makes you guys come back for more when you follow a blog? For me it's a mixture of entertainment, usefulness and interaction.
What would be your split as percentages if we considered:
Entertainment - Makes me laugh, or is otherwise entertaining but not useful.
Usefulness - Stuff I can use in my actual life to increase its fun-quotient or decrease the boredom level. This includes making more money with less effort, learning new skills or anything else that I would consider useful. (This is deceptive because sometimes interesting stuff ends up actually being just a highbrow sort of entertainment because if it's not used it's not...used!)
Interaction - The ability to actually interact with the blogger, be it via comments, e-mail or in person. Obviously this is limited to people I think I would actually enjoy spending time on/with.
So, my split would be:
Entertainment (E): 20%
Usefulness (U): 40%
Interaction (I): 40%
Give me your numbers in the comments people!
PS: The fact that (I) kind of looks like an icon for a pussy is purely coincidental I assure you.
Kzinti published a weird post that led me to this.
Because the link Kzinti provided led me to another page of his site I thought the website was just another mixture of redneck-hillbilly bullshit.
But like some people enjoy studying fossils or prehistoric life-forms I amuse myself by studying stupid humans so I persevered and then came accross the page I linked to above and again here.
I don't really know if it's true yet, but it makes for fascinating reading. Why would the FBI take the guy's personal "declaration of indipendence" as I think of it. From a bank no less, unless there was some truth to it.
I do know in the USA there is indeed NO reason to pay income tax. Other than the fact that once you fill in their tax form you sign it "under penalty of perjury" that you owe the government said money. So you basically screw yourself.
Which makes this little scenario kind of plausible by extrapolation. Besides... if you were born in the USA you might get a cool $1,000,000.00 for it if I read it right.
But I'd never heard of the bond thing before. It sounds so fucked up it probably is real. Anyway any conspiracy theorists among you will definitely be up all night over this. Just think of me as a guy handing out red pills by the handful...
PS: Feel free to send me 10% of your $1,000,000.00 when you get it. Actually we should be fair and say 5% to me and 5% to Kzinti. But I promise I'll give him half of whatever you send me if any of you actually ever go through with this.
Ah well, you know you're getting popular when you have supposedly* straight, same-sex psychotic stalkers.
johnnysan is just becoing repetitive and not even original with his insults so he's blocked now. He also has some new pictures which show he definitely has been a heavy drinker all his life and since most of his writings are done while under the influence (a brief view of his blog clearly shows the worrying tendency to stalk, in particular he seems to have a fetish for young Japanese women, notice how "extensive" his neighbourhood is). He also writes depressingly bad and (depressed too) "poetry". Mostly about how lonely and broken he is from what sense I can make of it.
He has also referenced me to "A poison tree" (in comments elsewhere which have since been taken down by the owner of the blog they were posted on) a poem by Blake, which again shows clear signs of stalker tendencies (obsessive internal fantasy life focussing on vengeful death of the perceived hated individual).
It seems Johh is either going through a pretty severe mid-life crisis where his obsession for wanting to have sex with young, pretty and Japanese girls is spiralling a bit out of control due to his excessive drinking and probable other drug use, or else he is a really worrying psychopath on the verge of going over the edge.
Either way, not good. You read it here first people. Don't go getting all surprised when you read about him in the newspapers. Hopefully it will not be alongside a grainy shot of some unfortunate Japanese schoolgirl.
Though I suppose every minute he spends planning my ritualised death whilst abusing himself in varied ways is another minute I prevent him from stalking some adolescent Japanese schoolgirl, so in the balance, it's all for the greater good. Besides...I may eventually feature in some Haiku-esque death poem at some point. Written by a drunk, possibly semi-suicidal stalker. Yay. Big time, here I come.
UPDATE: Looks like Johnny either jumped off that ledge or was pushed by the people at Vox for general spammage, since his Paiku** filled "blog" page no longer exists.
Score
Stalkers: 0 Me: 2
* I say supposedly because I find his constant reference to homosexuality in his insults a little telling, in the vein of thou protesteth too much mylady...
** Paiku - That's sort of like a Haiku but it induces a strong urge to puke.
Timeline: 2003 November
I was working for an Irish construction company who had the quirky tendency to pay its workforce late or not at all, use quasi legal foreign workers who spoke little or no English which could prove problematic from time to time on site when you had to explain to them what you required of them, but was still a lot easier than actually getting any work out of the perennially drunk/high on drugs English workers or partially drunk Irishmen they also employed.
They also had the lovely quirk of completing buildings without connecting the pipework that carried waste-water, sewage, or any other number of functions. This was particularly fun to fix as one of the site managers was the brother of one of the directors and he basically wandered from site to site, fucking things up as only an Irishman can and then I would have to be moved to his site to clean up the cluster-fuck-ups he'd left behind.
I was working 6 days a week and was busy basically going through a separation/divorce that quite honestly made the working conditions on site (including the attempted murder on me by one of the workers and his friend on day three of my being hired) seem like a genuinely fun time.
By November I had been working for them for about 6 months and I could do the job, which for the most part entailed managing a bunch of men to do whatever construction project you were on, ordering all the materials and co-ordinating all the various work elements. They shifted me about as soon as I nearly got any site into ship-shape because essentially all their sites were always in a godawful mess that made me realise the building sites I had worked on in Africa, where men who cannot read or write will often be in charge of building sites, made Africa look like the poster-child for organisation and healthy working practices.
It was far from what I hoped and dreamed to do with my life and I had put out some CVs after I eventually figured out the central point of CVs. Which is that you have to lie egregiously on them because employers are stupid and actually believe there are people out there whose only purpose in life is to study, work in and train in a specific role, solely for the purpose of working in their office.
The reality for us Martians is simply that we are forced, on this sick planet, to do work in order to be able to buy stuff like food and shelter and nice shiny things that go ZAP ZAP ZAP DIE EARTHLINGS!
Essentially it's slavery.
So I wrote up a CV and waited and eventually got a call. Someone needed a bilingual Quantity Surveyor for a project in Italy. At the time it sounded like a rescue ship from my home planet.
I hired a Mercedes for the interview, wore a tie and suit and allowed the interviewer to believe it was a company car I was driving, without correcting him when he assumed it. I did have a company car actually, but it had been written off when an empty bus that was travelling way over the speed limit along a road that it was forbidden to be on (for the bus, not for me) wiped me out as I came round a blind corner. There was nowhere to go because the bus took up most of the road and I couldn't see it coming because there was a wall that went right up to the corner of the T-junction I was joining in from. So technically I wasn't lying when I said I had a company car on my CV. I just didn't mention it was a cube shaped object about a metre across in some scrap-yard at that particular moment in time.
The interview went well and I was offered a position as Head Project Quantity Surveyor on a job that involved the construction of several buildings, a post office, a mini-mall, a Youth Activity Center and a hospital in the Aviano US Airforce base in Italy. The fact I was bilingual finally came in handy. So I did the honourable thing with the Irish company and jacked.*
They were assholes and deserved it, except for one Irish guy named Jon-John, who is without a doubt the most extreme case of a pathological liar I have ever come across. Nevertheless I did learn quite a lot from him and he did on at least a couple of occasions protect me from the horrible truth. In one instance the truth was that we had damaged some equipment on one of our sites but he managed to avoid any penalties being inflicted on us as no one could prove it. Though I knew the truth. I didn't feel bad about the main contractor having to pay for it because the main contractor's site manager was a poisonous little shit, ugly as can be, a bald, sweaty dwarf, ignorant, incompetent but worse of all a fucking sneaky lying fuck by the name of Andy.
Now, Jon-John would not be able to tell you his own name without making something up, but essentially he was a good guy, trying to get by in a company of Irishmen and he did try to look after his men, do the best by them and if he could help you he would. In his case the pathological lying was generally aimed at doing good. It really was the first big mental shift I had to make. My samurai honour code had to twist and jump and turn over a few times before I realised not all liars are bad people. But Andy. Well Andy was a vile little shit who was spiteful, envious and just all round toxic. The second time Jon-John saved me was really from myself. Andy had agreed we would do a section of the road in concrete after I asked him and he waited until the last concrete load of the day was compacted to then come up to me and ask why I wasn't doing it in tarmac. At which I couldn't believe he had the balls to do this and told him it was him who had ok-ed it. He flatly denied it and raised his voice. Somehow I managed to control myself and just turned around and left and went to pack my bag. He followed me right into the container and carried on talking but I had entered Zen mode and he really just didn't register I wasn't even hearing him. Eventually he realised this and asked me what I was doing and that got through. I replied I am packing my bag and I am going home and now he registered on my scanner.
It's always amazing to me how even the thickest son of a bitch has an inborn survival mechanism. When I looked at him I guess it kicked in. He actually did a little jump backward and then stepped out of the container and lowered his voice and said there was no need to take it all so seriously...his hands were up. It's weird to me how he realised before even I did what was about to happen. I told him to fuck off and leave me alone and not talk to me. I'd go for a walk and think about speaking to him later and he'd better be polite when I next saw him. He left quietly.
I think his being a short little shit probably saved his life that day. I called Jon-John and explained the situation to him as well as told him that I really didn't know if I could speak to Andy again without losing it and tearing his ugly mishapen head off his body and burying it under the next section of road. Jon-John told me in loud tones not to fucking worry about it, I was not to talk to Andy, he was a little shit and I should just go home. "Just go home Joe and don't you worry, I will talk to Andy and sort it all out, not a fuck is he getting away with this." For all that Jon-John gave me some shit jobs to do he could tell what kind of person I was and he knew full well where my line was. Or maybe it was that guy who tried to kill me who was left with a broken head that sort of explained I actually had no problems asserting my authority in unorthodox ways. Anyway I was actually done stressing. I went home and from that day I didn't let anything at work ever get to me again.
When I returned to site the next day, my samurai ideals pretty much committed hara-kiri on that day. I think when I trace back the most pivotal events in my life that actually broke me out of the rigid samurai structure of living I grew up in this was definitely one of the key moments.
Andy had accepted the road will be build out of concrete and was quite demure about it. Jon-John was on site too. They were waiting for me with the good news. Andy looked downtrodden, which I had never seen before. A poisonous dwarf he was, but I had never seen him with a hang-dog face. I kind of looked from one to the other and I couldn't understand how Jon-John had done it.
"It's all sorted now Joe" said Jon-John triumphantly "Andy has remembered I was also there, and heard the whole thing now."
I was confused. What? Jon-John was were? I must have looked confused because Andy spoke up.
"I wasn't..." Jon-John cut him off:
"Now, now, Andy, we've gone over this, I was standing right there when you told Joe he could go ahead and make the road out of concrete, so let's not go over this anymore, it's settled." He waved a hand with his huge round belly proudly extended and smiled honestly at me, beaming, really.
To this day I wonder what my face looked like, but I wish I had a picture of it. I was beyond flabbergasted. Jon-John was nowhere near the site when Andy told me to do it out of concrete, and here he was, looking at Andy square in the eye, telling him essentially he had to take back his lie because he, Jon-John, was also a witness to what had transpired. And he was so boisterously forceful about it that Andy was actually going with it. I swear to God I almost felt my brain do a summersault that day. I just could not believe the genial audacity of this man. What for me was a matter that should really just be settled at dawn with pistols or rapiers, or actually preferably the day before with a katana, was to Jon-John just another day to take in stride and the way he dealt with a lying, dishonest fuck-face was to just boldly look him square in the eye and lie to him to his face about his actual physical presence in relation to the same lying fuck-face. It was beyond anything I had seen. And it worked like magic dust.
Basically Jon-John had just said the equivalent of "Fuck you and your little lie, you dwarf, my lie is bigger, and so is my belly, so I win! Ha-Ha-Ha!" And the dwarf accepted defeat. Naturally of course....
It felt like something straight out of Alice in wonderland.
Andy just shook his head, said he didn't rememeber it (meaning Jon-John being there) but anyway it was agreed now.
So yeah. I felt a little bad for Jon-John, but I jacked anyway.** And I set off to sunny Italy (except it was in December near mountains and was fucking colder than most places I ever visited) to work in a US Airfoce base for a German company. My wife had moved back in too for some of the time anyway and we were trying to make it work again despite the fact that it was a hellish mindfuck for both of us. I wasn't exactly doing well, but at least it felt like I was getting from 7 foot deep shit puddle to say 5 foot deep shit puddle which I am sure you'll agree, given I am 6 foot 2 would feel like the opening of heaven almost.
My salary essentially doubled overnight and I was flown to Aviano and a five star hotel where I met the German Project Manager and I was given a copy of the contract on CD to read. It was a tome of about 2000 pages and it took me only two days to go over it, and I didn't know how to speed read back then.
My eyes burnt but I was determined to do this job well and by day three I had written a five page summary report about all the potential problem areas we might encounter contractually. When I presented it to the project manager he seemed angry and raised his voice and asked why I had produced a report for him.
I was kind of taken aback but as I had never really worked with Germans before I kind of took it in stride and didn't make any judgement about this weird reaction yet, so I explained he had asked me to give him a summary, which is what I was doing.
"Ja. But vy ovicially!?"
What The Fuck? It was just a report of five pages for his own benefit! But I have Venetian genes, I didn't need to process this in my head. It was instinctive. If he didn't want an honest, official report about the contract, my DNA told me the only right thing to do for my own self-preservation was to make sure the document was as official as possible. Him being German the idea that he could just throw it in the trash probably didn't occur to him. Yet anyway. So my instinctive response was:
"Well, of course it's official, I had to put copies in the files because it's my job. After all I have to do my job."
He was immediately silent after that. Old reflexes and all that I suppose. I had basically just told him "I vas just vollofing orders, Ja?"
He was definetly unhappy about it but he took the report with him to the big meeting with the other managers.
So I had arrived at this luxurious and prestigious firm, Billfinger Berger, a huge German multinational, where money flowed freely like water, mostly down toilets it seemed, and I was now the Head Project QS on a project of some 30 million Euro. Not bad given that a Head QS essentially handles all the financial and legal affairs of a project. Though they did have a separate financial controller which seemed to live in isolation next to the project manager's office and he also seemed to speak or interact with no one else.
I know it's easy to make comparisons with Nazi Germany whenever it comes to schizophrenic Germans in positions of authority, but then again, every sterotype and every cliche exists for a reason. It was pretty obvious that a serious level of disjointed, compartmentalised, miscommunication was going on and that in some cases the level of incompetence did not just border on the criminal, it went far beyond it.
Suddenly it became more than just a suspicion that while the pond of shit was indeed only 5 feet deep, somewhere on the bottom of it were also an unknown number of land-mines. And I was right out in the center of it with a little red flag on my head that said "Lee Harvey Oswald" or possibly "cannon fodder".
Stay tuned for Part II coming soon, where I will reveal more. This is all part of the back-story that explains my recent life-changes which I said I could not divulge earlier. I still can't tell you everything, and some of it I probably will never say, except of course, in the unlikely event of my untimely demise, even by accident, in which case I have taken steps to ensure a veritable shit-storm of information will actually hit front pages of many papers around the globe.
It's called insurance. Venetian style.
* Jacked - A term used in the UK in the construction industry. Leaving your job without so much as a fuck you.
** I saw him a year later and we talked and there was no bad blood between us. In fact he still tried to protect me (from myself again). But that's another story.
It's sunny, nice weather, lots of pretty girls in short, colourful skirts and thin, gossamer-like little dresses. All should be well with the world. Of course, given this summery feeling, all my natural Martian instincts come out and so it is murder on my mind I write of today.
The natural order of things between pedestrians and cars is well understood. When you are a pedestrian you hate cars and everything motorised that prevents you from walking wherever you want, however, it is a Pax Romana, because you know full well your squishy body will not fare well against even the flimsy frame of a Kia. Besides, there are clearly demarcated territories. They don't drive on the pavement and we don't walk in the middle of the road.
When you are driving of course the roles are reversed and all pedestrians who stray from their allotted sidewalks are fair game and extra points are given for fit joggers. They really shouldn't be on roads built for cars should they. Silly fuckers.
Which brings me to cyclists. Cyclists are an unnatural and perverse de-evolution of an already monkey-DNA-burdened humanity. There is no specific, allotted, and separate and unequal (in the best apartheid traditions) spaces for them to exist. As a driver they irritate you with their cycling in the road as if they belonged there. The stupid bastards keep trying to say they do belong there but this is cleraly not the case, since invariably they cannot keep up with whatever car I happen to be driving behind them when I slam my foot down on the accelrator as soon as I see them ahead in the distance. Motorcycles on the other hand annoy no one except for when the rider is a moron that doesn't know how to change gears and so it makes a huge noise. Cyclists however expect car drivers to go against every natural selection process that millions of years of evolution has built into us purely as a result of good manners on our part.
Excuse me, but no Empire was built on allowing the slower, less technologically advanced groups to shuffle along while we gun-powder bearing persons had slaves to catch and colloseums to build. Naturally if you drive, the only good use a cyclist can be put to is as a hood ornament. Of course sometimes they sneak off to the side which would only result in your wiping out a wing mirror, but that's when you have to learn to strategically learn to open your passenger car door whilst driving. The cyclists close it again for you so it's a kind of "fire-and-forget" event.
As a pedestrian, cyclists are even more irritating for so many more reasons. Mostly though it's their insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement. You can clearly see them thinking that "I am a cool person because I cycle! This means I can ride anywhere and casually bump into, ring bells at and generally threaten pedestrians with my fast speed and painful metal contraption hurtling along faster than you can run".
Yes. Yes they do think exactly this. you can tell. Just look into their beady little eyes.
Besides I used to be married to a triathlete. I know. But I was told by a medium I walk the razor's edge between darkness and light. Jedi powers are not enough. I also delve into the dark side readers!
Now to this "entitlement" that the cyclists feel they are due I say nay. Nay in a strong way. Firstly, no matter how fast you hurtle along in your primitive contraption for mechanic locomotion, I assure you that if you bump into me with it the resulting damage to your face and body will far outweigh mine. You are not a car. Or a truck. And as a result, you command no undue respect out of the natural order of self-preservation that cars and trucks command. In fact, if I see you coming from the front, a well placed ushiro-mawashi geri will have you off your bike and it carrying on pretty much on its own in a straight line in a flash. And I practice this regularly for the day I will finally have the least excuse to use it on a cyclist. I'm tentatively saving it for a cyclist...wearing anything yellow, but I may just go with "being a cyclist".
Due to this first point, it really makes absolutely no difference to me how many times you ring your bell when you sneak up behind me. I will not move in any way different than I planned to. I will not move aside. I will not hurry to get "out of your way" or any such nonsense. You will wait, go around me, dismount, or (please God) try and bump into me whilst maybe swearing.*
Secondly, just because you are cycling, you are most certainly not a better person. In fact my extensive study of the phenomenon of being a cyclist on your planet clearly shows an overwhelming statistical imperative that will almost certainly mean you are a complete dick-head with serious gaps in your reality-discerning apparatus. You are not saving the planet. You are just irritating it more. The stridulent squaling of your thin, flimsy bicycle tires on the surface of our world are scientifically proven to be directly responsible for tsunamis and volcanic eruptions that actually kill people.
Thirdly, if you actually cycle on the sidewalk, which is built for pedestrians specifically, I think it gives me the right to perform a citizen's arrest under the presumption that you are resisting said attempt with extreme violence toward me (clearly evidenced by your breaking the law, and doing so in a way that is potentially harmful to me and also simultaneously enables you to make for a very quick getaway (if it weren't for that ushiro-mawashi geri of course)) and thus legally permits me to do pre-emptive violence to you first. In order to safeguard my own health.
Fourthly, much like stuffing gerbils up one's anus (linked to being a cyclist in 86.5% of gerbil-stuffing cases) cycling is not a socially acceptable practice. Whilst no animals may be killed or injured by your vile practice, it irritates many of us normal people, be they pedestrians or drivers. For your annoying activity to even be considered legal you should have special "roads" were only cycles are ever allowed and such an event is not practical or reasonable, so you should all either move to an island were only cyclists live, or commit suicide. The French have some nice atolls they want to test more atomic bombs we could put you all on.
Cyclists are not as vile a creature as smokers but they are right up there.
*In this last case, shortly after which you will undergo extensive re-educational processes and will eventually, when you learn to chew food and walk again, probably join a hermitic commune of vegans far from industrialised societies.
