How to Leave a Comment on a Website

One of my favorite things to do is read the comments following a news story on the local paper's website.  What you get in just a few comments relates directly to the intellectual pulse of your neighbors, or at least those who have enough free time to browse and then comment on a news story.  Hell, some of them even have enough time to build up little profiles and avatars, am I right?

Ah, the joys of rampant unemployment.

But I've noticed in my wanderings that there's no real protocol for commenting.  So I thought I'd do everyone a service and give some tips on how to properly leave a comment on a website.

1.  Throw out everything you know about spelling, grammar, and sentence structure:

Yup, this is the 21st century Hoss, those "rules" you learned in school way back when don't count for shit in this future age of technology.  In fact, try to use as many obscure abbreviations as possible as well.  Leave periods hanging in some "no-man's land"; a space between the last letter in a word and the first letter in the next word.  Be a maverick, go rogue... that's how people will know you mean business.

You don't have time to play by the rules, you run it loose.  And people will respect you for it.


2.  Make sure You capitalize random Words so they Stand out.

You may have thought you heard of proper nouns, but that's just some bullshit teachers want you to carry around in your brain-case, instead of important stuff like which screws go into what type of material or what the sound of a Big Block 454 sounds like a quarter mile away. 

To you, every word is important, but by capitalizing those "extra" important words will really make your point extra valid.

3.  Get all your thoughts out in one giant block of text.

Fuck indents, or even spacing shit out into easy to read, and comprehensive topic-driven paragraphs, that shit's for pussies and cross dressers.  You want a monolith of your words to convey your supreme opinion, a lasting monument of your hard work and thoughtfulness. 

Nothing gets my intellectual panties wet like seeing an 8" x 8" hunk of words haphazardly mashed together to form some sort of rambling, barely coherent train of thought.  NOTHING.




4.  Get angry and make threats when someone challenges your opinion and enter a days-long "flame war" to defend your POV:

Some people might get jealous of your obvious command of a given topic, regardless of how little you actually know of the situation.  These people might even be so bold to call you out.  They might use words like "troll" or "idiot" or "ignoramus" or "jackass" or "racist fuckface" or "closet homosexual" or "George W. Bush" and tell you to "stay retired," and you don't have to take that, not from them, not from anyone.

Where do they get off?  They must feel high and mighty sitting behind their computers at home, sniping at your wisdom from a far.... be sure to dare them to "meet anytime, anywhere" to settle things in person.  Do this often to maintain your dominance.

5.  Never research a topic before commenting:

This should be number one, actually.  You need to let your passions guide you, not "compassions."  Don't hesitate for a second before laying it all out there.  If you think President Obama was really born in Africa, don't fall for what some consider to be "conventional wisdom," just look at his skin!  If you think Sarah Palin is the Second Coming, then by all means, TELL US, AND TELL US AT LENGTH.

Hell, don't even read the story you're commenting on.  Just GET IT OUT THERE.

Follow these tools and I guarantee you'll be the talk of the forum boards. 

Five Reasons Why Joe Buck is The Worst Human Being, Alive

My deep, deep hatred for FOX Sportscaster Joe Buck is like an abyss in my soul.  It's just this bottomless, cold pit.  Ever since I became exposed to his lackluster, often incorrect play-by-play analysis in the early 2000's my sense of hatred for the man has been in lockstep with his growing career. 

Here now, are some reasons why I hate him.

1. He's the poster boy for nepotism:  Joe Buck's dad, Jack Buck, was/is(?) a sportscaster for the St. Louis Cardinals since the 1960s.  In 1991, son Joe started doing minor league play-by-play, which I guess, is fine.  But in just four short years, the younger Buck was thrust on to the national stage, becoming ESPN's and probably the world's youngest sportscaster to call a nationally televised, pro-sport game.  There are guys with twice the experience, and twice the talent who've been fighting in the network trenches for YEARS who would slit their father's throats for a chance to call a nationally televised game, and Joe Buck just calls it in.

2.  I'm convinced Joe Buck is an alien or a robot:  For being someone who's been in the "biz" for the last twenty years, Joe Buck is woefully ignorant of some pretty basic sports facts.  To me, Buck seems like the type of guy who, while everyone else was playing touch football after school, was busy hanging out with girls.  And not in the cool way, like "I'll show you mine, you show me yours," but in the "let's sit around and gossip like chicks do."  Fact:  During this year's Superbowl, at the half, he said something along the lines of "and now the players will return to their dressing rooms...."  Really?  Dressing rooms?  Dude, my dad HATES team sports and knows players go to "locker rooms."  How long have you been doing this job?

His voice sounds like an idle copy machine; this endless buzzing drone of electronics.  Yes, good call FOX, pair him with a semi-comatose Troy Aikman and let's all watch America reach for either the mute button on their remotes, their iPods, of a bottle of mash liquor.


3.  Joe Buck looks funny:  He has big teeth, a huge forehead and wisps of thin blond hair that make him look like the end result of a used car salesman mating with a pencil.  He literally looks like an eraser, or the product of generations of inbreeding, which, given his father did play-by-play for the Cardinals, doesn't surprise anyone.

4.  He's not a good journalist:  Granted, he does play-by-play which doesn't really constitute as "journalism" in the common sense, but since he's doing a national telecast of pro sports, it's important to remember one of the cardinal rules of journalism, objectivity, which is hilarious when you find out he actually graduated from a Journalism School (Univ. of Indiana-Bloomington, School of Journalism).  Joe Buck is hardly an objective sportscaster.  He's extremely pro-NY-anything, Yankees, Giants, Jets.... you name it, if he's calling a NY game, he basically slobbers all over A-Rod's knob anytime he's shown on screen.  What makes matters worse, aside from being ultra-pro-NY, he's pretty much anti-everyone else.  Whoever a NY team will be playing, he'll find ways to tear down the opposing team in a thinly-veiled fashion.

After being introduced to Barry Bonds, and Bonds not being terribly impressed with Buck (saying "So?" when told that Buck does the play-by-play), Buck, like the prima donna he is, stated that he would go out of his way to slight Bonds when he made his first plate appearance in that game.

Back in the mid-2000s, while calling a Green Bay-Minnesota game, he called Randy Moss "disgusting" for simulating mooning the home team Wisconsin crowd.  Buck failed to mention that often times, the Green Bay fans will moon the visiting team on their way to the locker rooms.  The owner of the Vikings was right to ask FOX to suspend Buck for his blatant prejudice.


5.  Joe Buck thinks he's better than everyone else, just ask him:  In an interview he gave back in 2008, Joe Buck likened himself to other play-by-play greats, including Howard Cosell.  When the reporter asked him, why then was his schedule cut down from the year before, Buck responded with: "I'm deathly afraid to be away from my family" or some other non-sense.  More likely, he was cut down, because FOX has a hard time selling advertising space during it's games, if viewers are blowing their brains out before the half.

By far, the best thing to ever happen to Joe Buck was getting his own HBO late-night style tv show called "Joe Buck Live!" which was mercifully killed two episodes in.

But it survived just long enough to prove how out of touch Buck is with the rest of America, when he had Artie Lange as his first guest.  Lange spent the eight or so minutes of his slot simply eviscerating Buck in what I can only imagine was a vodka-scented breath-mist.

(From 2009) Dispatch: Southern Maine's Great Ammo Crunch

Not my bike at the time, but similar

I think it would be easier to find a red headed virgin in Rosalita, Mexico who wasn’t suffering from Swine Flu before I’ll ever find 9mm bullets in Southern Maine.

At least, this is what I was lead to believe last Sunday morning while traveling over fifty miles on a motorcycle when temperatures hit 83 degrees before I even left the house.

I made the tactical error of putting on a shit-ton of personal protective equipment – more than necessary, which included UnderArmor, thick gloves, Kevlar jacket liner, etc – before ever walking out the door of my mother’s house.  By the time I got to my bike, one street over at my father’s house, I was pretty much covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

My objective was simple, though pulling it off would be a beast of a completely different temperament:  I had to find bullets for the new Glock pistol I bought the day before at the local Biddeford Gun Show, a gun show that was once the flagship gun collector’s exhibition in Southern Maine, but since the winding down of the Bush Administration, has somewhat become a shell of it’s former glory.  Gone now are the giant booths with tactical webbing-based vests and shoulder harnesses.  Displays of military-grade firepower that only Level Three Licensees can legal own, gone as well.  Even the old guy with the snow-white beard to his belt buckle, pushing a hand truck with an old Browning air-cooled .30 cal mounted machine gun was absent from the proceedings.  No, all that seemed to remain were a few logie-looking booths and venders with various instruments of death and destruction, marked up by at least 15% to as high as 50% depending on whom you were dealing with, and how exotic the piece was.

But what had returned were the crowds.  In recent years the Biddeford Gun Show’s attendance has somewhat fallen off, which in turn, diminished the level of prestige of the participating venders.  The surge in populace this year seems to stem from the current Democratic Presidential Administration, and the fears that a black Democratic President will “any day now” pass legislation abolishing the Second Amendment and send federal law enforcement officers into the homes of every Red Blooded American who owns firearms to forcibly strip the weapons from their owners, and possibly march them to a cattle car to be shipped into the wilderness in the dead of night.

This and other mythoi were being exchanged amongst the crowd of surly late-middle-aged panic-mongers in attendance at the gun show.  As I weaved through the crowd examining table after table of weaponry I overheard a number of what some could consider outlandish accusations, rumors and innuendo from those who paid seven dollars to get their hand stamped at the door.

“Any day now, Obama’s going to raid our homes and take our guns away,” grumbled one gun owner in farm-chic clothing.  Another:  “We’re only as safe as we make ourselves, no one’s going to take that away from me!”

The crowd of about one thousand constantly seemed to be teetering on the edge of full blown riot, with tensions flowing with every disgruntled half-truth that was being uttered as (mostly) men fingered cheap Spanish-imports of cloned 1911-A1 .45 ACPs and grease-packed AK47s.  Overall the mood was dark, and if you tried to inject another point of view, shed of optimism if you will, you were seen at best as a simpleton, and at worst, a spy.

I found this out when I stupidly tried to bring to the attention of one show goer who I was 90% convinced was a member of either the Klu Klux Klan or the Hell’s Angels that Mr. Obama has a little too much on his plate to deal with the issue of Second Amendment Rights at the moment, especially concerning the economy, filling out the rest of his cabinet, partisan politics, and that whole “Middle East Thing.”  I tried to assure the barbarian that if the issue was ever going to be approached, that number one, it wouldn’t be at least until the far side of two years from now, and number two, there’s far too much support against anti-firearms legislation in the country to make a significant impact on the individual gun owner.  Similar to anti-abortion, -gay rights, and -marijuana legislation, the laws enacted would be far too controversial, and no elected official would dare disenfranchise at least half of his electoral base.

“What are you?  One of those statistic-spewing faggots?”  Said the Klansman-Biker, who then worked up enough phlegm in his throat to convince me he was going to hock it into my face if I didn’t get enough room between me and him very quickly.

For the rest of the gun show I kept a very low profile. 

Purchasing a firearm is still incredibly easy, despite what gun-owners in attendance would like the layperson to think.  Aside from the fact I was standing in the middle of a 100,000 square-foot converted ice arena, surrounded by tables and tables of guns with only one police officer standing duty by the front door, procuring a pistol, rifle, shotgun, authentic Nazi memorabilia from World War 2, or whatever you fancy is a matter of spending a few moments filling out a simple page of generic government paperwork (“no, I’m not a convicted felon,” and “no, I’m not addicted to any controlled substance, including marijuana” are actual questions with YES/NO boxes next to them.), submitting to a Federal Background Check through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and handing over a credit card to the federally licensed gun dealer to whom you’re giving your business to.

After haggling over the price of my Sig Sauer P230 .380 that I wanted to trade up to a Glock 19 9mm, as well as buying a new Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun (my father is moving to a trailer park in Florida later this summer, and asked if he could have my old Mossberg 500 for home defense), I tried to get the dealer to give me a “sweetheart deal” on an DPMS/Panther AR15 that he had listed for 1100 dollars.  I explained to him that being that the DPMS was a “flat top” receiver with no sights, I would have to go out and buy a sighting system at a cost of about 200-300 dollars.  I also brought up the point that I was already buying two guns off of him and if he wanted to move the products, he should cut me a deal.

He gave it some thought and came back with an offer of 950, a considerable mark down, but I figured he could do better.  On average, an AR15, which three years ago would have retailed for about 600 bucks, were going for between 975-1300 dollars at this gun show.  Getting him even below those numbers was a good deal, but I figured I had this guy on the ropes and he could go lower.

And I was right because he came down as low as 850 after a few more minutes of my complaining.  I then told him I didn’t want it and that I’d take just the pistol and shotgun, which seemed to piss him off a little (there were probably a dozen other customers standing right next to me who heard his generous offer of 850, who no doubt would sweep in on that deal after I walked away).  I realized that I had no real practical use for a high powered rifle in a dilapidated apartment complex, and that the likelihood of me shooting through our walls and into the apartment of one of the neighbors, although enticing, could cause greater legal ramifications for me down the line.

So I sat down in a metal folding chair and filled out the proper paper work.  And even though I accidentally omitted my social security number on the federal gun buyers form (I honestly usually put it down, as I’m inclined to believe that by not, if gives the BATF an excuse to deny my background request, even though it’s marked in bold letters that providing that information is completely OPTIONAL), less than five minutes after I put ass to chair, I was handing my credit card over to the dealer, and walking away with two highly lethal weapons that I could virtually do anything I wanted.

I just had to load them first.

I walked around the floor of the gun show a little longer and came to a booth that was selling re-loaded-at-home rounds and hefted a box of 9mms.  When the booth’s vendor told me that the box of 50-count bullets was going to cost me 25 dollars (usually a box – or “square” as it’s called in certain gun-circles – of 9mms goes for about 15-20 bucks, reloads less, obviously) I dropped the box along with my jaw and walked away.  The vender called after me, telling me that he had already sold two cases (roughly twenty boxes per case, and the case I plucked that one box out of was about down to three squares left) and would probably be sold out by tomorrow.

What he didn’t tell me was that there’s virtually no ammunition in Southern Maine at all.

Due to the fear and panic in Southern Maine, which is more “red state” than the rest of the traditionally “blue Maine” people have been buying and stockpiling ammunition in bulk at alarming and albeit, unsettling rates.  I had no clue that the case was so severe until later that afternoon, after leaving the gun show with two firearms and no ammo (making them two of the most expensive paper weights I’ve ever purchased) I headed over to the local Wal Mart, where previously I’ve bought ammo on the cheap, which is exactly what I told the ammo vender at the gun show.

Blinded by ignorance, I walked into the Wal Mart and headed back towards the Sporting Goods section.  The inside of the Wal Mart looked third-world: gutted, stripped of any semblance of that cheery yellow-smiley face conglomerate that once dominated Biddeford Crossing for the last fifteen or so years.  No, the monolith with her ever expanding parking lot seemed frail and decayed, shelving bare, what I imagine a Wal Mart in some remote part of Serbia would look like on a good day.

When I got to the Sporting Goods section I ran into another red-stater, dressed in a typical aggressively patriotic t shirt featuring wording about “colors” and “running” and a picture of a soaring eagle or something to that effect, buying a hunting license of some sort.

I don’t hunt, so I have no idea what game season is in vogue right now, but being that summer’s coming up, and Maine tends to get overpopulated with tourists during this time, something about a bald, big-eared, mouth breathing caveman buying a hunting license didn’t sit well with me. 

As the clerk behind the counter diddled the register to print out the hunting license I wandered around the section looking for the display of bullets.  When I found the display, a large locked glass case, I stopped suddenly with confusion.  I turned to see if anyone was watching me, any employee that could help me, but I was alone.  So I went back to the clerk at the register and inquired with him as he finished up the total on the red-stater’s order.

“Excuse me, but are you guys like,” and I trailed off for a second.  The Budweiser-swilling tradesman was barking at his collection of children, aged 6-11, about five or six of them, and his gutturally sharp chunks of words took me off balance for a second.

“That’s strike one!” he snapped at one of his brood, who were horsing around by the register.  “One more strike and you’re not getting ice cream!” 

I wanted to clear my throat and correct him, in front of his children, that you technically get three strikes, (based off of baseball or Family Feud rules) but I kept my mouth shut and went back to the clerk.

“Are you guys, like, renovating or something?  Because your ammo case back there is empty and I…” and the clerk cut me off.

“We can’t keep that shit in stock for more than a day.  We put out orders for handgun ammo, rifle ammo, you name it, at least once a week, and by the time it comes in, we have so much of the stuff on back order, that it’s all sold by the time the truck pulls up.”  Jesus, I thought, they’re hording all the goddamn bullets!

The red-stater decided to inject his opinion on the matter as well:

“It’s a real pain in the balls,” he started, his voice phlegmy and choked, as if he was speaking from underneath a boot across his windpipe.  “I’ve been buying online, you can’t get bullets anywhere, not the Wal Mart in Scarborough, the Cabelas, LL Beans, Dicks,” he went on. 

I was shell shocked, in utter disbelief.  There had to be someplace I could readily buy bullets today, right now.  What if there was an emergency, and I needed to shoot someone TONIGHT!  Nothing is worse than an unloaded gun sitting by itself at home when you go out to a family restaurant with your wife and mother and spend the entire night alternating your field of view between the Red Sox/Yankees game on the tv over your head and the front door of the establishment, waiting for some barbarian to come barreling in to kill everyone on Margarita Two-fer Night.

The next morning I got up early-ish and took off on my motorcycle, with messenger bag slung around my shoulders, to try every conceivable store that would be selling ammunition. 

The thought had occurred to me that I could just go back to the gun show and try my luck there.  I just didn’t want to pay out the nose for cheaply “remanufactured” bullets, given the price of admission is seven dollars, and the mark up on the ammo is about 100%. 

So all morning I rode up and down US Rt 1, looking for a place that sold bullets.  I first pulled into the local Cabela’s monstrosity and found that they wouldn’t open until 10 am, which by then would be too late for me, as my mother committed me to helping my tacky aunt and uncle move “unwanted” furniture from my father’s place to their place.  So up the road I traveled still, finding myself at the Scarborough Wal Mart.

Mind you, I’m on a motorcycle, dressed in a black Kevlar jacket, black “murder” bandana around my neck, black messenger bag, black boots, black Oakley Flak Jacket HJXs, and my throat is all weird from the ride.  I stride into the Wal Mart and try to find the Sporting Goods section, but if you’ve ever been into a different Wal Mart than what you’re used to, you know that their store is SLIGHTLY laid out differently.

So after walking around a bit, I find the section and come across similar results.  I’m pretty dejected, but on my way out I find a stock girl- young, petite, blonde – with a clipboard, doing some sort of inventory.  I walk up to her and get her attention.  Immediately she’s intimidated by me; it’s all but written on her face in magic marker, so I lift my shades to my forehead so she can see I’m no threat.

“Hey, you got any ammunition out back?”  I ask.  Unbeknownst to me ahead of time, my voice comes out as if I’m Dirty Harry and I just found out my dog has rabies.  Her eyes develop a sheen of wetness and her lip trembles.  Her voice small, tinny:

“No, we’re all out,” I figured for this based on the evidence and snarl a little to myself.

“Mm, what about the Dick’s up the road?  Know anything about them?”  I unintentionally growl.

“No…” it’s like a stalking lion talking to a church mouse. 

“Don’t worry,” I try to ease her obvious fear of this big biker looming over her, asking about affordable munitions.  “I’m not mad, I’m not going to kill anyone,” she lets a nervous smile slip out.  “…because I don’t have any bullets.”  Her smile fades quickly and I leave the store, watching my back on the road for the next few miles for police cars looking for a homicide-crazed lunatic on a motorbike.

I have similar results at the next few places I try, either they’re sold out or not open this early on a Sunday, and after running out of time, I head back to my mother’s house to help move furniture, which is like eating a big plate of glass shards for breakfast.

Later in the day I called what was going to be my “last resort” before being forced to pay for rounds at the gun show.  I used to work for the Kittery Trading Post, an Outdoor Outfitter in Southern Maine that I’m somewhat persona-non-grata with due to an incident in their parking lot that involved myself, a stalker, and the Kittery Police Department over two years ago.  They have a huge firearms selection, dedicating their entire second floor to just guns.  If they didn’t have ammunition I could buy, no one in Southern Maine would.

I called and after being batted around from associate to associate for ten minutes, I finally got a hold of someone on the gun floor.

“Hey, I’m trying to find 9mms, you guys got any in stock?”

“No, all we got on hand right now are .41 magnums and .22s, we can’t keep anything in stock for more than a day,” the associate said into the phone.  “Once word gets out, we get nailed.  We had a shipment of ammo on Friday and we were just about sold out last night.  You’re best bet is online,”

In the end, I went back to the gun show and bought an overpriced box of 9mms, but only because I didn’t want to travel without a loaded gun.  And to add another element of horror to my story, I thought the ammo-epidemic was contained in Maine and other-like minded ignorant locales.  No.  It’s not. 

When I we finally got back to The Hook, I logged on to a few different sites that specialize in “hunting accessories” to see if I could purchase ammunition in bulk, only falling into my fellow statesmen’s hysteria half way, more concerned that the ammo crunch will continue to make getting rounds in the future difficult.  Three of the four sites I visited had handgun ammo on backorder, and another had some available, but it wasn’t anything special, just Full Metal Jacketed bullets at 115 grain.

So in the end, what does this mean?  It means I’m going to call Charles Schwab later today and buy stock in Winchester, American Federal, and UCM.

Racist Gamers (Offensive NFSW-text Ahead)

(You were warned....)

Anyone who tells you that racism in America (or anywhere else, but mostly America) doesn't exist hasn't played online video games.

Let me set the scene for you:  It's early AM... wife's fast asleep in the bedroom across the house, you get up to let the dog piss in the yard and settle in in front of the tv, fire up the Xbox and log into your game (or my purposes, Call of Duty: Black Ops).

You enter a game lobby, this area where gamers congregate while we wait for the next match to start.  No one's saying anything.

The screen goes black, and then the load card... a screen that shows what map you and everyone else will be playing on while the game gets itself ready... comes up and that's when some ignorant asshole starts sputtering hateful shit.

"NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER!"

Not exactly the most articulate thing, mind you, but it's affect is purposeful.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be here writing about it hours later.

This happens more often than you'd think.  See, these racist fuckfaces wait til this load screen to speak, because during this screen everyone's mic (a microphone one wears to communicate to other players in the game) is on, but no one can see anyone else's screen name, in order to give attribution to who's speaking.  It's like picking up a phone, dialing a random number and shouting into it.

As soon as the game starts, and people can see each other's screen names again, the racist goes quiet.  He's a coward who will not stand for his convictions and beliefs, because in his heart he knows they're wrong, he's wrong, and will be judge by others for it.

The reason why he does this is two fold: he wants to fuck with people (and he's largely successful, again, because here I am writing about this experience) and he wants to spread his racist agenda (again, successful) I only wish he would do it where I could see his screenname so I could put his mic on mute (an option) so I won't have to deal with his bullshit.

So if you're an ignorant, hate-filled son of a bitch with a high speed internet connection and a love of First Person Shooters, and you're not too busy finger-raping your little sister, please make your racist, inbred comments in the game lobby, so I know who to mute in advance.  Also, so I can track you down in game and make your playing experience a fucking misery.  I don't care if there's an objective to hold or defend or attack... I'm coming for you, every time I spawn until you Rage Quit.

I consider it my way of fighting racism where it exists in the digital world.