for 15 June 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Hit & Run Subject: You have given me a mission Hey Sucksters, First, I just wanna say "long time reader, first-time writer." Yeah, I've always wanted to say that. Write it. Whatever. You know, when you're listening to "Loveline" and the 14-year-old who thinks he might be bisexual starts off with that "long time listener" bit, and you're just there thinking "well, maybe if you didn't start getting sex advice from Adam Carolla when you were in 4th grade, you just might not need to be asking for it from him now" and where was this going again? Oh, yes. You have given me a new mission in life. It looks like I'm never going to get to be Amazon.com's (by the way, whatever happened to your little logrolling deal with Barnes and Noble...boy I sure miss the days when crass commercialism on the web was controversial) top-rated book reviewer. I read faster than the average bear, but 2 books a day?! That's way out of my league. But I figure I could read 2 book reviews a day. So here it is, my new goal: I want to be Amazon's top rated book review rater. That's right, I want people to look to me to decide where to look to decide which book to buy. I want to be the absolute best judge of judges of books. You get the picture, I would expect. You might think that I am making an easy D. F. Wallace style meta-joke, but I am totally serious here. By the way, if I weren't already married to a bitter woman, I would conclude this letter by asking Polly to marry me. I just don't think I could hack being married to two bitter women, even in Utah, where I don't live, but where this sort of thing is popular, I have heard. I mean the two wives, not the bitter wives, I'm saying. Although they may be bitter, who knows. In which case, no thanks. Because I don't think I could handle that much bitterness, see? An Entirely Other Steve You might think that only at the Michigan State Physics Department, or perhaps the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, would it be possible to think up the kind of fractalized meta-commentary you have in mind, but in fact the letters page of the New York Review of Books has been doing this kind of thing for decades: "In his response to David Zamboni's letter responding to Bartholemew Gussy's review of Ian Spinks-Pannetone's memoir Belching Hamlet: A Bloomsbury Nosegay, Chams Chutney mischaracterizes my review of Mr. Spinks-Pannetone's earlier book Who Lost Liechtenstein?...." And so on. The only thing with a lower writer-to-reader effect is when the NYROB publishes "An Open Letter to Li Peng," signed by 50 New York intellectuals. Boy, I'll bet those things have the Chinese Prime Minister running scared! Sucksters  Killer interview today, although it made me almost ashamed to admit that it takes me 2 hours just to read Suck. Harriet Klausner can read faster than Tim Cavanaugh can change the topic of conversation! It is interesting to note her stance on leadership. It is certainly true that the one person most suited for good leadership is the person least likely to accept the role. The question now is how to get her into the presidential race. yr pal cameron <cameron@slip.net> I think Colin Powell proved that if you keep repeating how you don't want the title, people will eventually give up and stop offering it. Anyway, Suck isn't allowed to endorse any candidate who hasn't read Dumb Money by Joey Anuff and Gary Wolf. Sucksters Hey! Thanks for partially unfucking your layout sometime in the last seven months! That's one less Perl filter I have to run your page through before it's readable. Next year's homework: MARGINS. Just so we know: Is Thursday the day for meandering, unfocused, never-went- to-J-school interviews with west-of-the-Rockies nobodies that Suck's piss boy got high with some time in the preceding month? It is? Great! Filler and Bottom-of- the-Barrel Thursdays - this way both the reader and the author gets a three-day week! That's super. Loving you! Mike Duncan <kungfuvillain@hotmail.com> "Never-went-to-J-school"? Did you really just write "never-went-to-J-school"? Don't you know that when I hear you taunting "never-went -to-J-school," I get this mental image of you in your study, weighing 300 pounds and wearing a white Colonel Sanders suit, with a moist Dagwood haircut, pallid, unsunned skin, and a body so pear-shaped that an extra roll of fat bulges under your belt buckle and makes it appear that you have an enormous mons veneris, with a just-lit pipe in your hand and a creamy trickle of Brandy Alexander shake dribbling out of your mouth, rocking back and forth in your seat in a disturbingly rhythmic way as you shout "Never-went-to-J-school!" And now I don't think I'll ever get that image of you out of my mind. But you're right; I never went to J school. If I had, I guess the interview might have contained good J-school questions like "Tell us about your new movie" or "Are you a terrorist, Sir?" or "How do you spell your name?" You'll just have to get used to the non-J-school variety of interview. And get out and get some exercise for Christ's sake. Sucksters When your interviewer was commenting on Ms. Klausner as a leader, and she was insisting that she was not, it made me think of something I read once. In _Utopia_, Sir Thomas More wrote that one of the prerequisites for becoming a leader in that society was the lack of interest in the position. In other words, anyone who wants to be a leader is automatically disqualified for the position. Although it sets up a bit of a Catch-22, it does sum up my views of politics rather succintly. John Bender <johnnyb01@hotmail.com> Thomas More? I got idea that from Gladiator. And anyway, as demonstrated by the eight years of peace, prosperity and good cheer America has enjoyed under Bill Clinton, it's possible to get top-flight leadership from a guy who would kill his own mother to stay in office. Sucksters Thanks for the look at Wizards of the Coast's foray into the world of Open Source. It appealed to both my role-playing geek inner-child, and to my free software hacking geek outer-adult. It's particularly interesting that WotC is now considering making the underlying rules for the D&D franchise available to other authors/publishers in this way. Way back when, long before anyone could have foreseen their purchase of TSR, and the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, WotC's first offering was "The Primal Order." Rather than being a full role-playing game in its own right, it was designed as a "capsystem" for other RPGs. Included in the book was an appendix filled with rules on how to integrate TPO with other games, like Torg, Ars Magica, and D&D. The result? Palladium Books, publisher of the "Rifts," sued for unauthorized use of trademark. The lawsuit was hugely unpopular among gaming diehards (for whom third-party additions were pretty much a staple). Now that WotC has made a fortune off the trading-card bandwagon, it's nice to see that they're willing to put their new-found money where their mouth is. I can't help but wonder, though: if they didn't hold the rights to what's probably the most successful RPG property in history, would they be so selfless with their stuff? Sam Leibowitz <sleibowitz@btcwcu.org> Heavy-duty analysis, Sam. Thanks for the information. Sucksters Wow. Today's Suck was absolutely the worst ever. Try Harder next time. Dan Century <danc@zenweb.com> Congratulations, Dan! You have written the 998,000th worst-ever email to Suck. We will try harder next time, with some specifically Dan Century-related material. According to your site, this should include more Fine food and wine, Music and dancing, Film, and Hawaiian shirts. Rock on! Always good to hear from a Scarlet Knight. Sucksters Subject: another consumer rant i'm a good consumer of post-modern-branded irony and sarcasm, not a shill for suck. why the fuck can't i buy a fucking t-shirt off your fucking hilarious site? isn't that enough - my fabulousness traipsing around in garments bearing the suck emblem? you do need to make money, don't you? what with dot.coms failing and merging right and left, i should think you'd work up a whole e-commerce broo-ha-ha for your site to rake it in. let me know if you change your mind. i'm scheduled for the jerry springer show in august. the topic is "guys who can't get merchandise on-line and the women who have to listen to their incessant whining, wishing for meatier dialogue." it's a new direction for jerry. Keith <mkeith6@uswest.net> Keith, There's a big difference between a shill and a satisfied customer who broadens his horizons with acts of devotion. You have to pass the test to wear the colors. If you're afraid to shout our name from the rooftops, we're ashamed to let you wear our tshirt. And if we ever get to the point where we're selling tshirts to stay in business, you can be sure that it will all be over for us anyway. A whole batch of cool new shirts are on order, too. You should see them! Sucksters Filler Subject: comment on the FILLER cartoons/columns I would find it very useful for you to mention how MANY pages the story is on, on the first page. That way, one knew how much reading there were to be done, and could digest to that, or probably choose not to read it. You could eg. say the number of pages in the browser title line (or what's it called) like page 1 of 7, page 2 of 7 etc. BTW, do you have a steady schedule for each week on SUCK.com? Also, how many staff workers are there at SUCK.com? Jonas Skov Madsen <Jonass@vip.cybercity.dk> Yes, that's a great idea. Let's add information at the start of an article that will increase the likelihood that someone will choose not to read it. You're pretty savvy. You must have a business degree or something. Polly Dear Polly, I quit therapy. My job is pointless and tedious. Like most people my age, I lack commitment and patience in dealing with relationships. I'm sort of a dull person, really. I drink way too much coffee. Hey, that key was huge, man! Tiny E. P.S. I grew up in the bible belt, and I don't believe it extends to the Southwest, either. I lack commitment and patience in dealing with email, let alone fucking obnoxious pain-in-the-ass relationships. OK, I skipped the coffee today - big mistake. Better make it to therapy. Polly Like most California types, you don't understand New Mexico at all. Sante Fe has a little bit of a lesbian flavor, but most of the gays there are male. The Taos gay demographic favors girls. Kinda like San Francisco compared to Santa Cruz. Snake skin boots are way more popular than lizard skin boots, but only the California transplants and metal band wannabes wear them. The high dessert tan comes from a booth. The technical term for natural high dessert tans is melanoma. O'Keefe did most of her work in either New York City or Abique. She just followed the herd to Sante Fe when it was time to die. If you choose to follow O'Keefe's lead, don't worry about the drive through AZ because the area around Barstow is much worse. Finally, the AOL call center critters in Albuquerque tend to be sullenly waiting until their gig at the Victorias Secret call center comes through. Little do they know, Victorias Secret only hires old ladies and trains them via AOL support. tainting the gene pool <prozac@ectopia.com> On any other day, I'd take offense at your statement. But today, I'm going to stand up and admit that it's true. I don't understand New Mexico at all. Thanks for setting me straight, in more ways than one. No coffee, not funny. Polly |
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![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
