I appreciate your effort UT, but I don't think you've quite captured the complete lameness at work here.

First of all, she is not my "lame-ass bartender" - she's been my friend longer than she's bartended. So, thanks for insulting my friend. People here are wonderful.

And, there you go again... people think I am "mad" or insulted, or worried, or offended. I'm not. I am WONDERING why Margaret has to attack me in 95% of my threads. This time it is a thread where I was trying to help a friend. As I've said, I don't care if some of you interpret that as spam. And I don't mean that in a mean or angry way. I really don't care. I don't care that Margaret has to get her digs in at me everytime I post; not beyond the fact that it intrigues me why she has to be that way. So I call her on it almost everytime. I like to get a response to that everytime she does it. It's always been something that I wonder about, as to why people act that way online toward strangers.

So, now we all know A) I am not mad, offended, upset, worried, nor concerned when I get insulted on a message board. It's just words on a screen. B) If you (the reader) insult me in every thread I make, or even 90% of them, I will start to ask you why, looking for a common thread. C) What you call spam here I call help for a good friend. D) I agree if I were someone that posted a similar lame internet contest request everyday/week/or even month, it would be spamming and annoying. And I'd expect you to agree. Instead of jumping in and trying to shout me down, and enjoying the band-wagon, why don't you just chill a bit? Since it's out of character for me to do so post internet polls like this, it should be obvious I am doing it to be nice. E) I posted it in Nothingland... because obviously it's just a little internet poll.

Anyone here that is "against" me or part of "us with UT" because you think I am upset or offended, is fighting the wrong battle.

Steve, you didn't answer my question.

My first thought was Spam, but after checking out who posted it and what it was, I decided it was a "regular", shilling for a buddy. No harm, no foul.

Maggie saw it differently, and said so in her own charming :lol: way, which is her privilege.

There is really no reason to have a pissing match over suspected ulterior motives. That's like soooo 2005.

MAKE IT STOP GAHHHHHHHH

this is the last place in the world I would have expected to turn into a TotalBlog drama fest. :dedhors2: :thumbsdn:

Sorry, Bruce, I saw your question, then got distracted by other posts.

I'll get to the heart of the answer here. If you meant the "universal you" then, yes, I'd say be slightly more delicate in your criticism. If someone posts a poem, and you say "That fucking sucks, God damn, why are you always posting those crappy ass poems??" some might get offended by that. Why be that blunt when there are other ways to say it? I'd say if you know that you yourself put effort to be thoughtful while criticizing, then you can always say you tried, and didn't mean to offend. You might say, "Hey writing poems seems tough, and there are definitely parts of yours I didn't get. Did you mean to be funny, or was it me that didn't get it?" You know? Something like that? More constructive?

Or, you could actually mean to offend. Then, if it were me that wrote the poem, I would ask why you wanted to offend me when all I did was post a poem?

BUT... if you did not mean the "univeral you" in your question; if you're asking should you be afraid of offending me (SteveBsjb) I would say don't worry about me, nothing posted on a message board has ever offended me, or upset me.

Thank you for this too. I agree with all of it. Some others here seem not to. But the key word is always "seem". :)

Indeed...it's still spam, even it you think Stevebsjb is a "regular".

So...according to Steve:
We're being insulting (but he's not insulted), and
he's not upset (which is why he's posted about it so much), and
it can't be spam because
1) he doesn't do it much, and
2) because he's only doing it to be nice to one contestant (and screw over the others).

Good thing this all rolls off his back, or he'd be posting here all day until the bar opened.

This is mostly true, although:

1) Not everyone is being insulting. I am definitely not insulted.
2) I'm not upset. I post about it so much for other reasons.
3) It's not spam (to me) because it was me helping out a friend. I can't make you vote for my friend, and I am exposing you to the hotness of all the contestents. But since it's just a cheesy internet poll, who cares if they are getting their friends to vote through similar means? Well, I don't, anyway.

Though for me, the question of why Margaret enjoys attacking me so often has never been truly answered.

You seem to be expending an awful lot of text in an attempt to prove this to yourself.

The rest of us don't care that much. Really.

Really? At least I speak only for myself. You can speak for the bandwagon.

I retract the "lame-ass" wording that refers to your bartender. Perhaps she is a very nice person. The only fact we have is that she is attempting to achieve the title of Hottest Bartender in Manhattan. The chance that she is not lame-ass is slim, but granted, non-zero, and so I take that part back.

The rest of it remains lame-ass and is getting lamer-ass every second.

Even the words "lame-ass" are getting to be lame-ass. And truly she is very nice. This thread was started with that simple premise as a motivator.

I agree, I feel lame-ass for even continuing. Peace out.

I don't think "lame-ass" is strong enough language!

Starting a thread like this...well....it sickens me. JEERS to Steve.

Threads like this only prove that Steve is a fat-ass fatty.