MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Eleven - One Class in Torts
/So a couple weeks ago I got a bug up my ass that it would be fun to move out of my apartment. I've been in this place for almost 10 years and it's always good to mix things up. So recently my days have been spent packing boxes and sorting through old shit and now I want to murder myself. Never move. Just be born and stay at your parent's place until you die. It's what the American Indians did (or so I figure).
It's good though. I try to remember to appreciate my life when it's tranquil and under control, but there's always an enjoyable aspect to things being completely up in the air as well. A year and a half ago I left my regular day-job to work primarily on freelance opportunities, and now I'm leaving my stable home to journey around from place to place and see where things take me. Like the Hulk (the TV show, you youngsters).
I will probably end up back in NYC eventually, but hopefully with a renewed appreciation for the place.
If I let the response to this site dictate where I would go next it would be Mountain View, California. There is no area on earth where a lot of people have pre-ordered the book, but if I were to look at a map of the world with thumbtacks for every pre-order, Mountain View would be a "hot zone." If this were the scene in the movie where scientists plot outbreak points in an attempt to halt an impending zombie apocalypse someone would say, "Professor Scientist, Mountain View is the place where that truck dumped a load of feces into the water supply." Or however the fuck zombie apocalypses happen.
Speaking of the book. I took a rare break from moving related duties today to work on it. Today I wrote up a trick called Shutterlock which is the best way I've ever found to reveal any peeked word or phrase. It's not a peek, mind you, it's a way to reveal that information. And it's one that can get an entire small crowd involved (up to 15 people or so), is funny, leaves them with a memento of the effect, and gets people 100% engaged and active in the presentation. You will like it.
Today's advent calendar post is a little different. It's not an entry from the MCJ blog. Instead it's the email that was sent by the Cafe staff to Blogspot trying to get my site shut down (with my footnotes). Enjoy!
From Lee Darrow to Blogspot.
http://magiccirciejerkblogspot.com/ is directly instigating defamatory and damaging materials against another web-based business, notably www.themagiccafe.com, a magicians web board that also serves as a portal to a magic ordering system. 1
The poster of the above blog has stated that his goal is to "cause trouble" to Steve Brooks (owner of the Café) and members of that board. 2
He is even offering a REWARD for doing so in the form of a $45 magic book!
I believe that this is a serious violation of your terms of service and would strongly recommend remedial action, post haste. 3
Interference with someone else's business is, if I recall my one class in torts, not something to be ignored and your member seems to have openly stated that this is his agenda. 4
I mean, it's one thing to state a personal opinion, but it's a whole other thing to incite disruption of someone's business as the blog owner seems to be doing! 5
A word to the wise only, not a flame. 6
You might want to take a serious look at the blog and make your own determination, though. 7
Sincerely,
Lee Darrow, C.Ht
Footnotes:
1. "A portal to a magic ordering system"? What is he talking about? I guess he was trying to pretend that The Magic Cafe was something other than a slum message board. I'm curious about people who do something like this. What I mean is, I'm curious about people who are willing to lie or make shit up in order to make a point or get something they want. You know you're lying, right? Your brain is recording the information, yes? So if you're in an argument or dispute and you feel you have to lie, don't you say to yourself, "Hmm... I guess I'm not in the right here because I have to lie in order try and come out on top. I should probably just drop it." That's what I would do. (Caveat, I'm a decent human being. So maybe that's where the difference is.)
2. Here we go again. Let's see the awful way I was inciting people to "cause trouble" at the Magic Cafe. This is from a post two days before the above email was sent. I wrote:
I also appreciate anybody else's efforts insofar as causing trouble at the Cafe is concerned. If you want to link to this site just for the sake of good times and good karma, I appreciate it. But only do so in a thread where it's actually relevant (for instance if they're talking about something I've reviewed). I don't have any desire to riddle the board with links to this site where they're not of any help. But at the same time "relevant" is somewhat subjective so you can be creative in how you link to my site as well.
Oh, the humanity! I admit it, everyone. I am the founding member of Anonymous. My particular brand of web-terrorism involved suggesting to people they could link to my site where it was relevant and helpful. Watch out, ISIS, you're next.
3. "A serious violation." Me making fat jokes and suggesting people post links to my site where appropriate. This is the "serious violation," he was talking about. Absolutely no sense of perspective about anything.
4. Looks like you need another class in torts, ya shitwad.
5. Cool it with the exclamation points in an email if you're trying to be taken seriously. It makes you look stupid!
6. That's not how you use that word.
7. Oh, how magnanimous of you. They can make their own determination? Not just take action based on your lies and exaggerations? You're too kind.
Of course Blogspot told him to take a hike. I'm not sure what he thought that email would accomplish but it did nothing.
There's a bigger lesson to be learned here. If anyone from the Cafe had written me when I started my site and said, "You're right. We really should have uniform standards for what posts we delete and what we keep. It's kind of ridiculous to get haughty about our standards and then apply them arbitrarily" it would have completely taken the wind out of my sails as far as going off on the Cafe staff went. And, while I may not have stopped writing the site, I would have stopped writing about the Cafe staff pretty much immediately. Keep that in mind when you deal with confrontation in the future. As Lee says, "A word to the wise, not a flame."
