1242: GET OUT OF MY LIFE!

[Lanfear]

Crazies are a worldwide problem - after the show I had the following in my twitter timeline as "toptweets_de"

Isdjan: Menschen, die sich beschweren anstatt auf "unfollow" zu klicken, brüllen auch Deckenlampen an, statt sie auszuschalten.

Translation:
"people that complain instead of clicking "unfollow" also scream at ceiling-lamps instead of switching them off"

[King of Assholes]

I was a bit upset listening to the show, so I figured I'd ask someone I respect for advice on the matter of Keith hating me. So I played the show for my girlfriend and got some interesting feedback, apparently I am an asshole. She says "if he doesn't like you, why don't you just leave him alone?". So I guess from now on I'll have to try and make sure that my comments on the forums aren't directed to Keith or about Keith.

She also said "How come you have to be the king of assholes? why can't you be the king of awesome?", that one kinda stung...

[Blitzgal]

Originally Posted by King of Assholes

So I played the show for my girlfriend and got some interesting feedback, apparently I am an asshole. She says "if he doesn't like you, why don't you just leave him alone?". So I guess from now on I'll have to try and make sure that my comments on the forums aren't directed to Keith or about Keith.

Oh, man. Why do you do this to yourself?

[King of Assholes]

Originally Posted by Blitzgal

Oh, man. Why do you do this to yourself?

I'm just minding my own business, like always...

[fluxquanta]

If I enraged the host of a show as much as you idiots do, I would take his advice and fuck right off. Just sayin'.

[Blitzgal]

Originally Posted by fluxquanta

If I enraged the host of a show as much as you idiots do, I would take his advice and fuck right off. Just sayin'.

Negative attention is still attention. That's gotta be what it boils down to.

[cmar618]

Slight subject change: I can identify with Chemda regarding the re-use and neurosis surrounding ziplock bags. I get the generic freezer ones and I can't bring myself to throw them out as long as they're reasonably clean.

[beerchick]

The best way to handle an emergency shower shit when you are out and about or on a road trip is to duck into the nearest hotel. They are always empty, always clean and no one questions why you're there - to them you are just another possible guest.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by cmar618

Slight subject change: I can identify with Chemda regarding the re-use and neurosis surrounding ziplock bags. I get the generic freezer ones and I can't bring myself to throw them out as long as they're reasonably clean.

Someone estimated the savings of washing a ziploc bag over just using a new one, it comes out to be $1.42 per hour.

I couldn't find historical zipper bag prices, but I suspect when they were first invented in 1954, they were higher priced, and the price eventually came down through competition, improved manufacturing, and economies of scale. Thus, I suspect the previous generations developed their bag-saving habits because they were raised while zipper bags were comparably expensive. Their habits persisted, even though today the cost per bag is significantly lower. Again, this is a conjecture because I don't have historical price data, but it is the case for other mass-produced goods.

[Todd]

Originally Posted by Todd

So, nine years later. How long does New York City get to wear this like a badge?
How far from the site of the World Trade Center is a mosque allowed to be built today? Next year? 5 years from now?

New York City needs to draw up a graph showing "Time Passed Since Sept. 11 2001" compared against "Allowable Mosque Distance From the WTC site".

How is "you have a right to build a mosque there, but please show some sensitivity and don't do it" all that different from "you have a right to hold hands with your homosexual partner in public, but please show some sensitivity and don't do it"?

("It just is" and "if you don't see it, I can't explain it to you" are not reasons.)

Keith--

If you're going to read people's comments on the air to poke fun at them, it's only fair that you read the entire comment. You read the first line I wrote and then proceeded to riff on it. It's something you and Chemda do a lot--reading a partial conversation and then continuing the conversation in whatever direction you guys make up, either making it a joke or working yourselves up into anger about things that weren't even said.

I never said NYC was "bragging" about 9/11; I never said you were "happy" about it. Those are words YOU brought into the conversation. True, some--possibly even most--listeners might see my entire comment and still think I'm a douchebag, but I bet at least some listeners would have formed a different opinion of what I said, had you read the entire thing.

By "wearing it like a badge", I never implied it was something that gets bragged about. But NYC certainly does point to it as giving them the right to behave in ways that in any other situation would be completely out of line. For example, pretending you get to have a say in whether a community center/mosque gets built in a certain location.

I also meant that NYC tends to use it to say "if you weren't here, you really don't get to have an opinion." This is something you yourself helped demonstrate by sneering at me as someone in Iowa who couldn't possibly understand or even have a valid viewpoint.

You shouldn't assume I was in Iowa during 9/11. At that time, I was working in downtown Chicago, a block away from the Sears Tower. We didn't know what the plan was at the time, only that the WTC and the Pentagon had been hit. Maybe somebody was attacking prominent US buildings. My building sat directly on top of Union Station, one of Chicago's main train stations. We didn't know they were only using planes. It wasn't that outlandish to think maybe someone smuggled explosives onto one of the commuter trains and was going to ram it full speed into the station, bringing the building down. Because *EVERYBODY* was thinking that, everybody was leaving Chicago. It took several hours just to get out of the downtown area, and away from the potential targets.

Now, I wouldn't dare to pretend that I know what people in NYC went through, nor that I can claim any kind of lasting psychological scars from what turned out to be no threat at all in the city of Chicago, but don't you dare to assume that I wasn't afraid for my life that day, and that I might not see my family ever again. I don't feel quite as removed from 9/11 as you might guess.

Both you and Chemda tried to make my point ridiculous by proposing a situation where someone wouldn't be able to "get over it", and you both went to a sex/rape scenario. You HAVE to be able see how different that is. If there's an NYC citizen who, nine years later, still cannot get on a plane because of 9/11, that's completely understandable and I would never make light of that. But as a city, you don't get to say that a group of people can't build their building two blocks away! If someone feels something along the lines of "Every time I see that building if they build it, I'll only be reminded about the horror of 9/11," THEN YOU MOVE AWAY FROM THE CITY. If someone is so affected by the location of their personal nightmare, they need to take personal steps to resolve/escape that, without asserting the right to dictate the actions of others--especially in such a way as to infringe on their rights.

I imagine most people will never read this far, and I think I have at best a 50/50 shot of you, Keith, even skimming over this. but I just wanted to say that I'm not quite the insensitive bastard that you made me out to be.