On Friday, November 20, 2020 at 8:32:56 AM UTC-6, Mike Duffy wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 01:17:44 -0800, Bryan Simmons wrote:
>
> > This guy is an exception. He's garbage.
> OK I suppose, it looks so just based on objective facts, and I have never
> met the guy.
>
>
> In any case, you do seem to have changed tone a bit regarding your many
> 'provocative' observations. I cannot imagine that happening by accident.

It wasn't to appease critics. Maybe I've just been feeling mellower lately.
>
> Also, as you promised, you have studiously avoided dredging up stuff from
> the distant past regarding John.

I "promised" that over and over and over, that I would not be the one who broke
the ceasefire. Of course, since John used the magic phrase again, all Hell
could break loose, but I'm now convinced that nothing I could say or do would
affect John's future. He's already done that himself. If you Google "John Kuthe
nurse," the first result is a thread from rfc where he admits to stopping using an
illegal drug to pass a pre-employment screening. He'll never get another nursing
job.

He'll survive. He owns a house outright, and is close to the age that he could
get early Social Security. His only problem with not getting to practice nursing
is emotional. Remember how he especially wanted *pediatric* nursing jobs?
As long as he had hopes of getting those gigs, there was always the chance
that he might get to see, and even touch the forbidden fruit in the doings of
his job. Now, that's clearly out of reach. He'll die without the one thing that
he wanted most. I can only imagine the grief, the sort of despair that's often
described as "that sinking feeling."
>
> Plus you are no longer posting tracts from your failed e-book on a
> regular basis.
>
There hasn't been anything that I've read here recently that I felt was
relevant to anything in the book. I can assure you that when there is, I will
post passages with the same frequency as I have in the past.

About that "failed" thing. In order to fail, there would have had to have
been parameters for success that were unmet. I'm not lying when I say
that I never intended to write a novel. I also never expected commercial
"success." I don't really need the money, and that's in spite of the fact
that the book has cost me several tens of thousands of dollars in lost
income. I'm sure that my musical projects also cost (lost) a great deal
of money, but I wouldn't change a thing. I love my book. There are
parts of it that I can't read without crying. You can't buy *that shit*.
>
> So, now you have earned a star: '*'. Just post to me when you want to
> redeem it. It is worth roughly an hour or so of wordsmithing (including
> poetry), JavaScript / C++ programming / bash scripting, or consulting in
> math & physics, etc.

You don't have anything I want. You're just one more wacky misfit in the
collection of wacky misfits (I include myself) that make this NG what it is.
In fact, one of the best things about this NG is that pretty much nobody
sucks up to anyone else to get approval, and folks don't seem to jockey
to get acceptance or popularity. There are some long-running hostilities,
and even hints at pseudo-alliances, but no cliques. Plus, the quality of
the writing here is a lot better that elsewhere on social media, and that's
not just attributable to the fact that most folks here are older. I don't
have to suppress my inner grammar cop to anywhere near the extent
that I did on FB.

--Bryan