"In-duh-vidual's name removed: in order for me to be able to use this (thing that she sent me)in the site, and have it be a part of the site, not a static window opening in a separate program, I need the original art/format.

I cannot use a PDF. I cannot pull the art out of it, I cannot embed it in the HTML. When you have a graphic image that you want to use as an element on a page, I need it in jpg, or gif, or as an original Photoshop file, or Illustrator or Freehand, or even as a bmp or tiff.

Just to reiterate: I cannot use a PDF."
What I Wanted to Say:

You stupid fucking git, how many times must I tell you that a PDF is not an acceptable format for me to use on this site? Obviously, at least once a fucking week, since no matter how many times I tell you that a PDF is not a graphic format (OK, well, it is, but not one that can be used as part of HTML), you insist on sending me PDFs and telling me to add them to the hospital's site.

Just in case you were in a coma for the last couple of years, and haven't actually used the fucking internet for anything other than passing lame ass jokes around, the whole fucking point of this endeavor is to be interactive, not fucking brochure ware. Which means, to sum up: I cannot use a PDF, I cannot use a PDF, I cannot use a fucking PDF.

I need the graphics sent to me in a graphic format: Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, gif, jpg, bmp, or any other kind of image openable by the first three programs listed. I can use animations, Flash or Fireworks. The one thing that is absolutely pointless to send me is a three fucking megabyte PDF file and expect me to do anything with it.

Thanks for letting me vent.

It's been one month, to the day, that my father died. For some reason, I'm just not feeling really productive today. So it's a good thing that tonight I get to go to my soul sister's adult Bat Mitzvah. Nobody will notice if I sob uncontrollably.

At the meeting the other day where the Senior VP told us our jobs were on the roof? He also came up to me to do some serious managerial touchy feely with this particular wage slave. He said, "I understand you had some kind of death in your family?"
Some kind. Yeah, specifically, MY FATHER. Fucking idiot. So I mouthed a few appropriate mumbles. He signed off with "Good luck with that grief thing."

That grief thing. He must have gone to the George Herbert Walker School of eloquence. You remember, it was his fumbling of the vision thing that got Clinton such a leg up in the American psyche.

If I could make this shit up, it would be so much funnier than it is, being reality and all.

Every now and then, the level of technology at this institution confounds the average user. It is of a level totally incomprehensible to the average moron on the street. Today, that would be the elevator at the train station.
Yes. The fucking elevator was beyond the ability of one of my co-passengers to deal with. This isn't a big elevator, or one that goes in unexpected directions, or even between more than two floors. It goes from the platform (2) to the street (1) and back. Period.

And yet, there we were, on two, when the doors closed. And there we remained, because the one person within reach of the control panel just stared at it in amazement and slack-jawed, mouth-breathing stupidity.

"Press the button, please" I requested from the back of the elevator, wedged against the wall by the vet in the wheelchair.

"Que? Aqui?" the bottle blonde with too much jewelry, too much makeup (for a 20-year-old, much less the 60+ this old crone had to be), knee-highs and black FMPs under a beige Pucci-print maxi skirt responded. And then pressed, wait for it, 2. Yes. The same floor we were on. With the doors closed. And not moving.

And it's not like these are even clean elevators. Due to their proximity to the Metro, the VA, and the county hospital, these elevators do double duty as moving urinals, and gawd knows what else.

So with a quick, but never the less pungent epithet of my own, I stretched across the chair-bound vet (who was looking daggers at me anyway, and for what I haven't a clue) and punched the ground floor button.

Once inside my office building, I was treated to a ride with a random loony, who cursed at the guy who got on at the ground floor to ride up only one stop to the second, and opined that the semi-tall female lawyer should take up basketball and make a lot of money, like, and I quote :"Kobe Bryant."

Great choice of role models, dude.

I am now ensconced in my office, door closed, headphones on and a 4-pack of CDs for today's enjoyment consisting of: The Rough Guide to Bhangra, The Rough Guide to Bollywood, The Rough Guide to the Music of India and The Rough Guide to the Asian Underground.

And tonight? Tonight is the Battle of the Garage Bands. Now, if I can only make it through the day.

And thankfully, it was only a test. But when a crusty old fart like my father calls before 9 in the morning to tell you that he wants his family at his hospital bedside, and that said family means you, your husband and your dog, well you just better believe that tracks were made, rubber was burned, etc.

By the time we were crossing the bridge over the South Fork of the St. Lucie (what, three hours after the call?) the old man was grousing that he couldn't understand why we came up right then. Tomorrow would have been fine. Jeez, the way he and my brother were carrying on, we didn't think that there'd be a tomorrow.

By the time we left, yesterday, the old man was giving all of us shit. He's feeling better. The more that he griped, the happier we were.

And now I'm back at the office, grabbing my ankles and saying "Thank you, ma'am, may I have another?"

I thought it was going to be "Crazy Random Drunk Old Man On the Train" day. There were two different ones between home and the hospital. One sat near me, but left at the next stop, and the other got on a few stops later and plunked down next to another woman and proceeded to chat her up. I don't know how that happened. Most of the time, that's my lot in life. Crazy random guy? They'll sit next to me and fall in love.

The most amazing thing happened when I got off the train, though. I had someone thank me for holding the elevator door for them. Then, in the office elevator, another guy held the door for me. And was polite about it. And talked to me. I was two and two on the day at that point, and held my breath, waiting for the other shoe.

Another random crazy guy? No. The next elevator ride included yet another polite man who held the door and said hello.

I must be dreaming.

But I'm not. The new office? No windows? No air conditioning, either. At least, not yet. I'm dying in here. But I have my diploma up, some of my awards, and a piece done especially for me by the RLA.

The only person to comment on my reorganization was a secretary who seems to be suffering under the delusion that she outranks me, and/or that I actually care that she's giving me the nose in the air, sniffy puss-face.

"You were told not to get rid of the other desk."
"No, I was told not to cost the hospital any money getting rid of the other desk. And I didn't. I also didn't get rid of the desk, I merely reconfigured all of the pieces."

Neener neener neener.

Time to pretend to do some real work.

Okiedokie. I'm done weeping and rending my clothing. Well, I'm not, but it doesn't make for such a good read. Having come out of the shock and awe sadness of the past weekend, I am beginning to notice things like appallingly bad manners, bad style sense and stupidity disguised as management. Those are three separate things, although I do tend to notice a little bit of overlap now and then.
Bad Manners

For the last time, people: If you are standing in an elevator, and a total stranger is heading towards you, making eye contact all the way, the polite thing, the nice thing, the courteous and right thing to do is to hold the fucking door, not press the close door button. Not stand there next to the door or the door open button and let the door shut. What, it'll break your arm to hold a door? You might get to the next floor a nanosecond later than otherwise? Who cares? Hold the fucking door. It won't kill you to be polite. I, on the other hand, may cause your head to spontaneously combust through the sheer force of my will if you let that door close on me one more time.

And this is for the woman in the white lab coat at the Metrorail this morning: Hey! The people on the inside get off or out, then the people on the outside (that would have been you) get in. You don't strong arm your way into an elevator first, preventing the occupants from exiting. In any culture, that's just bad manners.

Bad Style Sense

Hey, Fab Five, do me a favor and take a minute to talk about the importance of clean, shiny shoes. You've taught men how to shave and open a bottle of wine, how about shining their shoes? Guy in cheap aftershave and the Armani suit sitting next to me on the train? It was all working (well, except for the cheap scent) but the shoes were scuffed and shineless. The heels were probably worn down, too. I didn't look. Men, (and women) shine your shoes. 'Nuff said.

Stupidity Disguised

The office move is back on. I am assigned a single office, but with two full desks in it. Not that there's another person going to sit at it, but the director who caved in to the Toxic Manager doesn't want to pay to have the furniture moved. The reason I have two desks and one person is because when the director split the rooms and told us all to play nice, the Boy Wonder and I were going to work in the same office. But Boy Wonder decided to be Boy Diva and copped an attitude, and moved down the hall to another set of offices (away from the rest of the team) where he could have his own space. My manager let him do it. The director let him do it. O.K. He has a private office now, and so do I, so could we get the extra desk out of my space and let me arrange the furniture so that I am not sitting in either the doorway or with my back to the door?

And the answer is: "No." I said, "well, that doesn't seem too equitable (grown-up, corporate speak for "That's not fair!") for everyone else to get what they want, when they want it, despite the repercussions to other team members, but I can't have a desk moved out." Too bad. The director refused the request.

So I did the only thing I could. I went to the new office and proceeded to draw a blueprint of how I want the furniture laid out and then told all the other workers in the three groups that all extra pieces of furniture are available to the first taker, but they have to move it themselves.

As all of us corporate drones know, it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.

And so ends another episode of WWRanting.

Bite me.

Several years ago, my then-boss said to me words that have remained seared on my brain. She said them in front of witnesses. She said:

"I don't want you to come to this meeting. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. You're only going to tell us what we are doing wrong. This doesn't have to be done right, it only has to be done."
Today I had to go to that same person's office and talk to one of her flunkys about the same topic that she didn't want to hear about then. The bulk of my conversation went like this: "I really couldn't say." "I don't know the answer to that." "Really? You'll have to talk to my boss about that."

Believe it or not, that was good on my part because what I really wanted to say was: "I'm not about to stick a hand into that tar baby. There's no fucking way I'm touching that topic with a ten foot pole." "Why would it be any of your business?" and "Fuck you and die a slow, lingering death. You are an incompetent bitch working for an incompetent idiot bitch and you have absolutely no clue about anything."

Then I came back and sat in my boss's office for twenty minutes and cursed like a sailor for having had to suffer through the meeting. I am a foot soldier in a turf war and just because they're losing, that doesn't mean that the other party isn't going to inflict casualties and damage wherever possible.

No wonder I had a feeling of dread all week.

I came home and sat in the big comfy chair and listened to the rain on my roof. I finished a book. I drank hot tea. I played with my dog. I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

Everyone knows that when the phone rings at midnight it's either a drunk, a wrong number, a drunken wrong number or really bad news.

When the phone rings at 7AM, it usually isn't a drunk, but it's probably still bad news.*

This morning it was my friend Jeffrey in New York calling to say thanks for the really cool flannel jammy bottoms, he liked them very much and the RLA and I are two of his closest friends, and oh yeah, he'll be killing himself today.

It just doesn't get any better, does it?

* or it's just my neighbor calling to tell me someone's walking their dog

UPDATE: Jeffrey called to say he's going to commit himself to an in-patient program for a while. The RLA is still a little pissy about me calling Jeffrey's girlfriend to give her a little heads up on his plans for the day.

I'm supposed to be making soup right now, Yellow Pepper Soup from the Silver Palate New Basics cookbook, to be precise, but I'm in my studio, typing. The RLA loves Yellow Pepper Soup, and I thought my dad might like it, so it was on the to-do list. Earlier in the evening I went out to get my car radio repaired (check) and stopped by the auto parts store for a gallon of anti-freeze/coolant, 'cause the lovely Zelda Bleu is leaking fluids.

Well, you know, once a gear head, always a gear head, right? So I loitered up and down the customization aisle and found a cool stick shift sock that had tiny little neon strips in the seams, and a set of techno/racing style pedals (gas, clutch and brake -- I only drive a stick), and took those and my anti-freeze up to the register.

The kid looks at the pedals and the stick sock and looks at me and says, "Are these for your son's car? Or yours?"

Well, bite me.

When did I start looking like someone who's old enough to have a son who drives a custom car? Or any car, for that matter. And that's when it hit me, like the wet kiss at the end of a hot fist.* I am not only old enough to have a kid who has a custom car, I'm old enough to have a kid who has a kid.

I turn fifty this year, and while that's never bothered me** it's never bothered me because I don't look or feel my age. Until now, I suppose, if some pasty-faced kid in a polyester shirt with his name on the pocket is asking if I'm buying custom accessories for my son.

I can't even write that off as some kind of male chauvinism, because if I DIDN'T look old enough to have a kid who drives, he'd have been asking me if it was for my boyfriend, right?

Well, crap. Let me count the blessings here. I'll get to join AARP and get some nifty discounts that I'm currently not even aware of. I'll get free checking at the bank, except I already do. Discount movie tickets? Um, hmmm. Stumped. What other benefits are there?

I'm not dead yet.***

So, what should I do this year to keep the wolf at bay? I'm thinking Paris for my birthday itself. Learn something new? I started teaching myself how to knit better, and how to write better code. I could learn enough French to get by in Paris. I could force myself to learn to roller blade. I could force myself to listen to top 40 radio to see what's popular these days.

Or I could revel in the fact that I'm finally old enough to have earned my bad attitude and curmudgeonly ways. Yeah. That. And Paris.

*Firesign Theater: The Further Adventures of Nick Danger
** Much
*** Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I have a new troll. Or a new stalker, depending on your point of view.

He came to me the way they always do: he Googled the web, searching for someone who disagreed with his opinions. Then he sent an e-mail, calling me a pathetic loser with too much time on my hands. (This from someone who searches the web for dissenting opinions) Then he sent another, and another and another. The vitriol escalated slightly. He sent me a long e-mail that backed up his opinion and was contrary to mine.

I finally responded. I said: I don't care what you think. I don't care who agrees with you. I will be deleting all further mail from you.

That caused him to send me a storm of e-mails, suggesting that I kill myself, offering to help me do so.

I blocked his address. He took a new e-mail address and sent this chilling little item:

From: robert blake (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Date: 13 Oct 17:47 (EDT)
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Subject: no hard feelings. ok?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in the east - the far east - when a person is sentenced to death, they send them to a place where they can't escape - never knowing when an executioner may step up from behind and fire a bullet into the back of their head. it could be minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years from the time they are sentenced.

it's been a pleasure talking to you. have a nice day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What was the catalyst for this? What had he Googled? Was it religion? War? Politics? What deep-held belief of his had I trampled and so condemned myself to death?

I think David Lynch is a second-rate film maker. I don't like Paul McCartney.

What kind of world do we live in, anyway?

So, for the record, I still don't think David Lynch is a genius.

But for all the rest of you trolls out there, try to think this through. I'm speaking to myself when I blog. I'm assuming that some people will read, and many more will not. I'm voicing an opinion, I am not attempting mind control or saying that my word is law. I'm just saying.

I do not send my opinion to you. You come to me. I do not spam the web. You search the web.

You are searching, you are spending time looking for something to argue about and take offense to. And you have the nerve to call me, and my brethren (or sister) bloggers people with too much time?

How small is your life? How insignificant do you feel, that you need to threaten and violate? Take a night class. Get another degree, or your first one. Move out of your parent's basement. Get a real job. Get a friend. Get a life. Try volunteer work. Try therapy. Watch fewer movies, play less x-box. Read the newspaper.

Because, and I'm sure you'll remember this: killing the president didn't work out so well for Travis Bickel, did it? Or even for John Hinkley.

Have a day.

I'm standing around the temple yesterday morning, waiting for services to begin, feeling virtuous and all, and chewing the fat with a friend from my political life. I'm telling her about the Peaceblog Project, and asking her to write for it. She's enthused. I'm enthused. Her husband walks up.

Background interlude: I like her husband. I've known him for 20-some years, during which time he has declined to hire me on no less than three occasions, and we have both won awards for our work. He is now a nationally sought-after designer and conference speaker. His company has merged, grown, merged and grown again. Did I mention that I like and respect him? I do. A lot. I have a nagging feeling, though, that he doesn't much care for me at all, regardless of our mutual professional respect. And frankly, I'm only guessing and hoping that it is mutual.

So she tells him that I'm telling her about my blog project. He gets a look like he's just stepped in something that was left in the grass by a dyspeptic dog. He says: "Oh, no. Not a blog. People who write blogs have way too much time on their hands. The only thing more pathetic are the people who read them. Who wants to waste time reading someone else's virtual rants?"

OK. He told the unvarnished truth of his own opinion. I can respect that. I'd do the same. Usually do, and usually with the same results: seething resentment and hurt feelings on the part of the person so addressed.

The wife says that she likes reading them. I wander away, feeling like the thing that was stepped in.

I have this suspicion that the reason this man doesn't like me so much is that I'm too much like him. Our birthdays are a day apart. But he came from a prominent local family and is male. I suspect that he looks at me and thinks, there but for the grace of money and gender, go I. And that thought is unsettling. To him, at any rate. Not to me, because, as I said, I actually like this guy. A lot.

Which brings up the next question: Why? Why, if he is usually the same kind of prick that he was in temple yesterday morning, and why, if he continually interviews me, but then doesn't hire me, and why, if I can tell that he barely tolerates social discourse with me, DO I like him?

And that I can't answer. I think because he is so talented, and so funny, and so smart. All the things that make us similar. I think I like him for exactly the same reasons that he doesn't like me: we are very, very much alike. Except that he's real tall, and real good looking and a guy. And rich. And famous. And has his own very successful business. But, you know, except for that....

In the old days, back before G-d invented dirt, and I was a young designer who still had visions of a career standing at a drafting table, getting my hands full of ink and 2-coat rubber cement, only designers (or the paste-up guy at the local printer) could produce newsletters and such.

And then came the desktop computer, and it was OK. And then the desktop computer begat the desktop publishing software industry and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Suddenly, secretaries were using the words "font" and "typeface" interchangeably. Point sizes were replaced by pitch (on IBMs). People with no eye, queer or otherwise, were able to put together newsletters. They used every typeface installed on their machines . . . in each publication. Because they could. Grayscale tints were placed behind blocks of copy. Black boxes contained knocked-out lettering. Xerox machines replaced printers.

And, in the immortal words of Stan Freeberg, "Everybody Wants to be an Art Director."

But they are not. Many, if not most, people haven't got what it takes to be a good graphic designer, top of the line software notwithstanding. If you don't believe me, just look at how the average man or woman dresses to appear in public. If they can't tell what looks good on themselves, what makes them think they can figure out how to make something look good on a page? Huh? Answer me that!

Here at the hospital, I used to have to work with the nurses who would bring me "designed" newsletters to publish. I would say this to them:

Everybody here went to school for something. You went to school to become a nurse. I went to school and studied design. While I could, theoretically, start an IV, it would be painful and messy, and you would not want me to do it to you. Likewise, although, in theory, you could design a newsletter, it would be messy and painful ...

Now I'm out of the printing business, and in the web publishing business, and you know what? I didn't think it could happen, but it's even fucking worse. There are so many more ways to be incompetent. JPGS that are articulated and bitmapped are presented as quality graphics for me to post.

Can I retire yet and become a luddite?

The following wedding announcement is from the Miami Herald. The names have been abbreviated to prevent any lawsuits against your author. That everything I say is fact makes it hard to charge me with libel, but the new missus has a history of bogus and frivolous lawsuits, not to mention some heavy black arts. Nevertheless, it is with much joy that I present the annotated version.

B******n - E*****t

Ms. B***y B******n and Mr. M*****l S. E*****t were married, 5 September 2003, in an American Indian (this would be after Ms. B had burned through Judaism, Zen Buddhism, New Age Crystals, Witchcraft and Feng Shui. Mr. E is a former Jesuit.) ceremony at their mountain-top home in Ludow, Vermont. (This is at least the third marriage for Ms. B, and the second for Mr. E. Her first two ended in divorce, after she had drained the souls and pocketbooks of her victims husbands. Mr. E's first marriage ended with the death of his wife, of breast cancer. Her funeral was produced and hosted by his then-mistress, Ms. B.) They will honeymoon in Madrid and London in the fall. (Ms. B likes to honeymoon in Madrid. She's done it before, with number 2. Although the adjoining suites in the Plaza during the first Mrs. E's funeral was probably the "real" honeymoon for these two.) Mrs. E*****T is the former B***y (nee Bernyce) G*****n W*******n, daughter of Y****e and B******n G*****n (Aha! Now we know where the latest last name came from. It's important, when one is a grifter, to change names often. Don't know if she changes her social security number, too. It would help with that back taxes thing she was running from for the past dozen years, though.) of Forest Hills, New York, both deceased. (And, no doubt, spinning furiously at what their spawn has become) M*****l S. E*****t, son of M**y and the late M*****l J. E*****t of Bayonne, New Jersey, (and tell me that dad isn't doing some heavy spinning of his own) is the former Associate Vice President Medical Affairs, Executive Director, UM Hospital Division and Chief Information Officer, University of M**** School of Medicine. (Former being the operative word here. He was "asked" to leave rather suddenly, after an argument over the cooked books and the half million dollar make-over his office had, under the Feng Shui direction of his mistress. Marble floors, a five-foot fountain, crown moldings and custom office furniture as the hospital was bleeding red ink. There were reports of loud voices and the words "lying" and "horse shit" being bandied about. Ms. B was asked to leave shortly after her protector.) The couple reside in the Cayman Islands, BWI, where Mr. E*****t is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cayman Islands Health Services Authority. Mrs. E*****t is Director of Marketing for the Cayman Islands Hospital. (Gee, I wonder how she managed that? As the dearly departed Leapin' Larry Greene was wont to say: It ain't who ya know, it's who ya blow. Here in M***i, her skills at writing and promotion were, shall we say, uneven?) The E*****t's (yep, it was printed with the apostrophe. Herald misprint, or grammatical error from the author? Probably the latter. As I said, writing was never her strong point.) will retain their primary residence on Key B******e, Florida. (There is no mention of their combined five adult children. The bride's three are estranged from her, and have been for years. They are: the lesbian chef, the Hollywood sex worker, and the lawyer. The groom's children haven't spoken to him since their mother's funeral. Well, that's not quite true. His daughter was living with him, until Ms. B moved in within the week following his first wife's death. She was actually in the apartment before the body cooled. She couldn't abide having the daughter there, so she threw her out. The son quit speaking to the father shortly after, when Ms. B decided that the son could sell his car to pay for law school, since his veteran's benefits didn't quite make that nut, and Daddy needed all his money to pay for the remodeling of their home. The old Mrs. E's stuff had to be cleared out and her memory effaced as quickly as possible. There is no photo accompanying this announcement, one assumes because the bride -- and is it correct to call a thrice-married, 67-year-old hag a bride?-- does not show up in photographs, nor does she cast a reflection in mirrors. )

Years ago, when I was young, single and living in NYC, I discovered that I had been born with an invisible tattoo in the middle of my forehead. It says:

FUCKED UP? TALK TO ME.

I realized that it was there because people were, and people did. I could be sitting on the subway, minding my own business, and the next thing you knew, the freakazoid with the tin-foil helmet was cozying up next to me, explaining about how cats are Martians and are here to control the dogs.

I'd meet someone and we'd date and then it would be like a bad teensploitation film. They wouldn't go away. Or worse.

I'd find myself pinned to the wall by the girl down the hall, telling me that she thought I shouldn't be dating men, and she was the answer to my social problems.

The funny writer would ask (displaying no humor, and a bad sense of timing) what I wanted to be whipped with, once he got me to bed. The tattoo seemed to be particularly visible when I was drinking at the Lone Star Cafe.

It hasn't gone away. Yesterday after work, I hopped on the train and there was an Adam Sandler look alike in the car. And then he lit up a blunt. Yes. A blunt. The reek of reefer filled the car. A few passengers looked at each other. I coughed politely and said. Um? Sir? There's no smoking on the train.

Right. That got his full attention focused on me. WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP DANGER WARNING WILL ROBINSON! Sounding like Adam Sandler in the Waterboy, the guy proceeded to announce to me that he was "a man, who can do what he wants" and that he was "just smoking some weed here, do you mind?" Cause he wouldn't mind if I took myself off to the other end of the car. And then he cranked up his radio to some station that I don't think any one else in Miami can tune in and told me how the world would be a better place if there were more people like the ones on that station. See? He waved the radio at me. It didn't have a view screen, but I said yes, I saw.

He left about three stops later, still dragging on his blunt. It was generally agreed that if he'd only passed the duchy on the left hand side none of the unpleasantness need have occured.

This FUTTM tat seems to be showing up at work now. I was just e-mailed the following:

I am in the process of collecting all the pre-printed Physician order sets that are being used within the (hospital) system. I have been encountering some problems, and after speaking with R*****, she recommended that I contact you. She told me that she had sent you copies of order sets, which you would have on your computer. I am asking if I could have a copy of these so that we can move forward with the building of orders, of which this is a very important part.

OK. So, if the person sent me order sets, which they did -- electronically -- why aren't they on their computer? I just post these things to the intranet. Which begs the question, why not send the person to the medical forms center on the intranet? And why think that I keep everything on my hard drive?

Why? Why me? Why do I have another 15 years before I can retire. I don't think my liver will hold out that long.

An open letter to the fine, intelligent members of the illustrious art forum known as EatPoo.com.

Fine. You win. Take what you want. I really don't care. I never did care. It was all about the attitude. Clearly you have me on attitude as well as talent, intelligence, wit, and what ever else it is at which you desire to win.

You want to come to my site and rag on me, fine. You want to continually miss the point of my writings and the humor I display? It is your right to do so. You wish to remain anonymous and post bogus sites and e-mail addresses? Knock yourselves out.

You win. You are all, collectively and individually, better human beings than I. I was a fool not to see it from the very first post. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea fucking culpa.

Now, can we all just get on with our lives and forget about each other? I didn't think so. But this is MY last post on the subject.