for 22 May 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Interactive poll: bad. Suck is my coffee reading. If I want to dick around with the internet, I just click "Home" (which Microsoft keeps resetting to MSN).

The words and pictures were funny, and the concept of a pointless poll is funny too (though you've covered that ground before) but the whole thing was weak. I assume you already noticed this, but the number of responses to each subsequent question drops. It's not because we were so distracted with laughter that our connections timed out.

Benjamin
<bduranske@mail.com>

You had us going until you tried to prove your point. In fact, the number of responses goes up and down throughout the quiz, and there's only a seven percent drop from the number of responses to the first question to responses to the last — a smashing success by the standards of web click-through.

Besides, if the words and pictures are funny, what the fuck more do you want?

Sucksters

Hi,  

Will there be more of these?  My only complaint is that it was too short.  Keep up the great work.  

Cheers,  

P
<seguin.patrick@wvb.com>

Thanks, P. Readers were all over the map in their responses to the Suck Reader Poll — many hated it, and many loved it. We agree with Radio Raheem, that Love must beat Hate.

Sucksters

I want to thank you for giving me the option to dump that Bloom County guy into Mt. St. Helens. Although I am a tax-and-spend liberal who lived through the Reagan years, those smug, warmed-over Doonesbury animals pissed me off more than James Watt, Phyllis Schafley and Ronald Reagan combined.

Nat Pierson
<npierson@energyguide.com>

We're with you, Nat. However, whether it was memories of loving Bloom County back in the day, or (we hope) the possibility that people have forgotten the strip entirely, Berke proved a surprisingly unpopular candidate for incineration in the hot lava of Washington State's most famous corker. Go figure.

Sucksters

Hey Sucksters!

About that poll--a fine peice of work! I found myself challenged to decide between throwing Reagan or the well-girl out of the balloon, but ultimately I made my choice (Reagan) and moved on to even harder questions--like rap styles. My only problem was, why wasn't good ol' DEMOCRACY listed as an option amount the other high-larious government styles? I think 'D' would have taken the cake, so to speak!

Thanks for listening!

Your loyal reader and poll responder,

Dave Zink
<d-zink@northwestern.edu>

Another surprise, Dave. We figured Monarchy was indisputably the funniest of all political systems. Poll respondents felt otherwise, and you are one of many readers who wrote to object to our leaving Democracy off the list. Maybe it's funny, people voting and waving signs and such... But still, in a Monarchy people get to wear crowns. And there's always the possibility that you'll get stuck with a short king, who wears a big crown! Come on, what's funnier than that?

Sucksters

Don't know how, pretty sure when ... but Suck went from mostly entertaining to mostly insipid.

Shep.
<Shep@cvdds.com>

Oh, when was that, Mr. Expert?

Next time we do a poll, we'll include "When did Suck really go downhill?" as one of the options. Don't forget to speak up!

Sucksters

Way below SUCK level.

As digestable as plastic.

Only the pictures were up to your standard.

Paul te Stroete
<testroete@hotmail.com>

Duly noted.

Sucksters

Aw, jeez, I'd hoped the Reader Poll was going to integrate the responses into some kind of dynamically-generated punchline at the end. While I'm not sure what a Fascist Hutu Prog-Rite is, I'm sure it stands for something.

-Michael
<mikeedmo@voicenet.com>

It's more of a touchy-feely conclusion, Michael. You look at how your fellow readers responded, then decide what that says about us as a people. We tried various stochastic models for forming a precisely average reader model, but ultimately the average reader had to come to us...

Sucksters

your poll missed in two regards: First, you didn't include GB Trudeau as an option of people to punt off the balloon into mount St. Helens; Second, on grocery store options, you did not include "wiggly".

Other than that, right on.

Paul E. Clark
<paul@ccnlegal.com>

G.B. Trudeau was already an established figure in the 1970s, and we were trying to limit the options to people who reached some sort of apotheosis in the Greed Decade. Maybe Garfield creater Jim Davis would have been a better choice. Jokes about cats eating lasagna, boy: Works every time!

As for "wiggly," we have no excuse.

Sucksters

Hey, I got them all right!

What's my prize?

Robert St. James
<rjames@infrastructureworld.com>

Your prize is the quiet pride of having your complete averageness mathematically quantified.

Sucksters

Subject: thanks, and a tiny request

My attention was just called to today's column. It is, to my mind, the equivalent of a papal benediction.

Is it possible to receive a file that I can print out and hang above my computer for bad days?

I've been writing essays for public radio for years, and have recently been invited to be the humor columnist for informationweek.com, writing about such important topics such as fighting robots, and the effect of playing Englebert Humperdinck MP3s on microorganisms. But each piece is always a small victory whenever it succeeds.

Thank you for your gracious words.

Wendy
<wendy@wolfsonpr.com>

I'm always pleased to hear that my words have brought peace of mind to one of my lost lambs. I'm not sure I feel comfortable characterizing my words as "gracious" but your praise certainly is.

Best of luck putting together those pieces.

Puzzled,

Tiny Little Penis

Thanks, TLP, for the advice. You're one of them smart kids, huh?

Later,

The soon to be modern popular writer formerly known as the flack

I'm not sure I feel comfortable characterizing myself as "one of them smart kids", but I'm glad that I could be of service, nonetheless.

Old-fashioned and but not unpopular,

Tiny Little Penis

Is there some way or place that recycles old skills. Like correct spelling or, setting the point gap on a '39 Ford or field-stripping a BAR.

And what happened to all the old (tons) of beer openers? Church keys. They were everywhere, now there aren't any except in collections.

And don't put yourself down just because of the size of your penis, it's how you use it.

Hopeful in Asheville,

Big Al

You've come to the right place, Al. I've been finding a way and a place to recycle old skills for many years now. Where there's a will to recycle old skills, there's a way. I'm not sure how you'll recycle your correct spelling, but since I don't know what setting the point gap or field-stripping a BAR means, those must be skills few people have, therefore, they've got to be marketable. Do you want to be paid, Al, or just appreciated for these skills?

As far as beer openers — do you mean bottle openers, or discarded pop-top tabs? You're not the best communicator, Al, but I'm here to tell you that hope can take you a lot farther than you'll ever get just from being the best. Take a few recycled skills, add a healthy dose of hope, and you've got a clear path to the top.

And with that, Toronto opens up an 8-point lead against the season-long leader, Philadelphia. Toronto's the underdog, but they've got hope!

And, uh, they've got Vince Carter.

Recycled but skilled,

Tiny Little Penis