for 5 October 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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IPO'd Subject: Re: No Subject Thanks for those revelations! <Mopopop@ aol.com> My pleasure. I figure if I can amortize my painful experience over as many people as possible, then, heck, I didn't lose out on a bunch of money: We all lost out on just a little bit. Right? Right, damn it? An Entirely Other Greg  Hello. Great article on the dark side of IPOs! Can you tell me who the company was, please? Thanks! Tom Bagnell <tabagnell@email.msn.com> Oh, come on! That would take the fun out of it. Consider it a game: Who can find the source of that rotting smell first? An Entirely Other Greg Nice column, although painful to read. It sounds like you were moving in parallel to our company, which postponed its offering during the bottom of the market in August. The night we were scheduled to price, there were 17 other issues. We'd cut our offering size and price, and it was still looking bad. In a conversation with a banker that night, I likened it to the lights going on in a bar at 3 a.m.; even if you could hook up in that desperate moment, you'd definitely regret it in the morning. <gallen@ echonyc.com> Heck, I wish my company had been in the bar instead of standing outside on the street corner in fish-nets and stiletto heels. "You wanna date?" it said as I walked by. "Twenty bucks. No, wait, ten. OK, eight. All right, five-and-a-quarter." An Entirely Other Greg Welcome to the real world. Despite exuberant news stories, hard work and long hours don't always pay off. It's not just the world of IPOs. Check out the failure rate of restaurants or really any small business that doesn't have a .com. For every winner there are many losers. Or did I miss your point? KBD JXNO <kbdjxno@hotmail.com> No, no, that was pretty much my point. But I had to pad it out to 1,200 words in order to get paid. An Entirely Other Greg Domain Name Prejudice Subject: Any trouble accessing Suck through a firewall? I'm wondering if you've ever had people tell you they could not access www.suck.com with their corporate Internet access because a firewall or monitoring software interpreted the word suck as derogatory? If so, is there some type of rating code you can put into your HTML or something that tells the firewall the page is OK? I'm asking because I make the Web site at www.stoner.com, which sports a "derogatory" URL because Stoner is the last name of our founder. Recently some of our clients have complained they can't access the site because their firewalls are picking up on the word stoner. If you have any suggestions or similar experiences regarding this matter, please let me know. Thanks for your time! Kim Hampson Marketing Communications Specialist Stoner Associates http://www.stoner.com <kim.hampson@stoner.com> Dude, you don't even know. Similar? You bet. I mean, holy shit. Really green, green ... The Kind. Say no more. One skunky whiff and, like, one hit, dude, and you're, like, history. Takes, like, two seconds, your chest says, like, "Say goodbye to reality, little man!" That's a firewall rating of 10, baby! Like, fire it up already, dude! Kid Schlock Hi Mr. Mxyzptlk, Though I don't really have the ambition to launch into an epic description of exactly why I enjoy and appreciated your article in today's Suck and the general quality of observation and writing that goes into what appears on Suck's pages, I would like to thank you and the other writers there for applying your wits, powers of cool observation, and tendency for keen clarity to current issues and publishing the results. I personally have a low tolerance for crappy journalism, and although I'm sure that a lot of things are taken to be big jokes over there, I recognize that you folks are doing your best to stay sharp and present well-thought-out opinions in a responsible way, and I appreciate that very much. Thanks. Hope you're having a nice day. Ryan <ryan@n ombas.com> Dear Ryan, Well, I was having a nice day until you lumped me in with the jaw-dropping, knuckle-scraping, mono-eye-browed jack-offs who collectively form the Web site known as Suck.com. And then things only got worse when you attacked crappy journalism, as if I don't know an insult when I see one. Fuck the cool observation and keen clarity, you, you, you, you — jerk. How many digs do you expect me to take before kicking your ass? As Sarge said memorably in a Beetle Bailey cartoon: @!#%&!!&. To which I add: @#***(%$!). Mr. M Dear Mr. Mxyzptlk, How true ... The baby boomers have a lot of nerve being shocked by their children's antics. They shocked their parents in the '60s, and with the numbing of America through TV violence, etc., it takes a lot to shock nowadays.... It used to be girls were pushing the limits of decent society by wearing pants. In the '90s, you're not even turning heads until your bra and panties are all you've got on. Boys in T-shirts were considered real hell raisers in the late '50s and early '60s. Now they've got some Salvation Army pants that are at least two times their actual waist size and three shirts. No wonder they have to shoot each other; can you imagine being in a fist fight in those pants? It's the broad generaliz- ations that make me laugh. Born in '67, I am an "old" Gen-Xer. That sounds funny, but I guess it's true. Either way, these kids aren't that crazy — hell, I did way more drugs in high school than most of these kids today can even name. I'm not bragging, it's the truth. And I'm not very proud of it, either. Still, I vote, I'm married, I own a house, I have a kid (by the woman I'm married to, and the kid isn't the reason we're married — so there), and I still find time to read Suck on a more-or-less daily basis. Nathan Kensinger sounds like a real cocksucker, and some self-respecting twenty- something should kick his ass — or at least find a way to publicly humiliate him. Your conclusion is correct: The current crop of kids is no worse — and may even be better — than their predecessors. As for the next set of kids — the echo-boomers, I think they're called — who knows? Old folks will call them worse, while forcing us all into servitude to pay for their damned Social Security. You want Social Security? Start having kids. While I'm ranting, Suck could always use another Filler about how everybody wants to pimp out the kids for personal gain. Politicians started it; now everybody's doing it. I even saw some kids in California who were pimping out the kids for gun control. Here's a pair of brothers that haven't even hit puberty yet, and they're out there calling for gun control to protect the lives of kids. Puh-lease. Their liberal zealot parents are pimping them out, while they pile it on and pimp themselves out some more. Chances are, the parents are whores too.... Not that I'm against protecting kids (you see, that's where they get you). The new cigarette taxes pay for health care for poor kids, so if you quit smoking, you are denying a poor kid health care. You're screwed either way. Keep up the good work. <TomG@ csrinc.com> I must admit that, having just read your letter, I've already forgotten everything in it except the last line (and trust me, I will keep up the good work). You see, I did even more drugs than you did as a kid (hmmm, memory's starting to return). As for pimping the kids, when is the government finally going to do something about getting poor kids free smokes? I've calculated that supplying every underage smoker from households with incomes of less than $20,000 (in Joe Camel dollars) would cost less than the price of the free peanuts program for the B-1 bomber fleet. But nobody cares. Let me end with two of Mark Twain's (not his real name) lines about his father: "He was a cold son of a bitch, especially in summer in San Francisco" and "I was amazed at what an old man he became as he grew older." Mr. M |
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