Saturday - February 25, 2006

The Annual Sermon

I see it’s time for me to give The Annual Sermon to the congregation on board this shippe. Over the last year we have managed to acquire several hundred new members so in the interests of keeping everyone informed I present the following:

Personalities: Be who you are or begone. There are over 750 members who regularly visit this site from all over the world. There are all kinds of personalities here. Most are conservative or moderate with an occasional liberal dropping in. One thing we all share in common is recognition of the fact that there are all kinds of jerks and idiots around us, i.e. Barking Moonbats. I encourage everyone to be yourself. Not everyone is right all the time and not everyone is wrong all the time. No one is allowed to be a pompous ass here. Except me. I am allowed because I shell out over two thousand dollars a year for domain licenses, hosting services, software and legal fees to keep this blog going. Advertising only covers about half of that. If you wish to procure a “Pompous Ass License”, all you have to do is donate at least $500 to this blog through PayPal or Amazon (see links in the right sidebar).

The Crewe: I am The Skipper of this shippe. I am a 57-year-old professional database administrator in my day job. Here, I am the “finder of interesting thinges”, host and moderator. For the most part, I just dig up crazy shit from around the world and toss is out to the members here for observation and comment. I don’t censor comments or intervene in disputes between members unless it gets radically out of hand. I get grouchy and grumpy at times but I don’t ban people from this site unless there’s a damned good reason. I have a very thick skin ... and a foul Irish temper. Do not be concerned. My bark is worse than my bite. Mister Christian is ship’s’ executive officer. He is also a computer professional in his day job and in the same age group as yours truly. He also posts weird stuff when he has time. He helps moderate comments and he also manages the forums. There are quite a few regular commenters here like Oink and OldCatMan, who provide comic relief and opposing viewpoints on just about everything.

Comments: Say whatever you want. Within reason. Screw political correctness. PC is the bane of modern civilization. With that in mind, be aware that two things will not be tolerated: (a) hate speech or (b) personal attacks. Members of the KKK or the Aryan Nation are not welcome. Neither are members of any other hate group. Period. In addition, one of my pet peeves is the way certain people (usually Liberals) who have no valid argument resort to personal attacks. That dawg won’t hunt. Calling another commenter a “whore” or a “bastard” or a “nose-picking, ugly, snarklephobe” will get you kicked off this shippe in a heartbeat (unless being a “snarkelphobe” is a good thing). Finally, if you don’t know anything about HTML format tags, leave them alone. It is too easy to leave an open tag and this results in the format “bleeding over” into all the following comments. Remember, THE PREVIEW BUTTON IS YOUR FRIEND. Also, try to keep your comments down to a reasonable length. Don’t quote entire chapters from the Encyclopedia Britannica - just give us a link. And don’t post large JPG or GIF image links in the comments. Why? Because I said so.

Style: If you have read any of my posts here at all, you surely have realized by now that I tend to be full of shit occasionally. I assure you this is intentional. The evils we report on here are too depressing if not taken with a huge grain of salt. That is why you will find a lot of satire and parody (including self-parody) in my writings. I operate this blog for two reasons only (in this order): (a) to have fun and (b) to hopefully convince some of the totally screwed-up people in this world to stop being colossal jerks. The first goal is easy but the second goal is somewhat difficult. The reason, as I’ve explained before, is that human beings have only one organ to detect defects and problems in our bodies - the brain. When the brain develops a defect, it becomes almost impossible to detect or repair the problem. In other words, who monitors the monitor? The answer is ... other people. Think about it.

Confidentiality: As you know by now, one of the requirements for becoming a member here is having a valid e-mail address. This is not done to create a mailing list to be sold. Your e-mail address is never revealed to anyone. If you use the e-mail member links from this site to send e-mail to another member, you are not even allowed to see that member’s e-mail address in the messaging window. We try to maintain the confidentiality of all members. In that same vein, do not reveal anything in your comments or in the forums that you would normally wish to keep private. Identity theft is a major problem nowadays so keep that in mind. Also, I discourage posting information about your personal life in the comments for two reasons: (a) it can be somewhat embaressing to other members, not to mention to yourself and (b) your personal life and problems are yours - don’t make them mine. I got enough of my own. I have added a “Personals” forum for people to exchange personal information, pictures, etc. and to socialize on a personal level without doing it out here on the main pages in front of 3,000 visitors every day.

Summary: That’s all for this year’s sermon. I will leave you all alone now to have as much fun as is humanly possible, considering you’re probably sitting there in front of your monitor in your underwear with a bag of Cheetos and a beer trying to decide whether to scratch your butt or go get another beer. Take my advice: go get the beer and if you do scratch your butt, remember to wash your hands before dipping your fingers back into that bag of chips. Live long and prosper.

More On This Topic In Our Forums

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/25/2006 at 11:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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