Elburro: The Assholosphere

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The Assholosphere · Sep 16, 08:19 PM

(470 words.)

“The Assholosphere” is located somewhere in between a private joke and a private reality, so if some dear reader by chance has blundered into this post, the keyword is “private”, and you most likely will have no understanding or appreciation of what lies ahead, so you can stop reading now (I hate to waste peoples’ time).
Reid said in an email: “I think we need to dump to blogosphere and initiate the assholosphere.”
Assholes will understand his reference. To any “dear readers” from the outside world who are still reading and wasting their time, despite my warning, Assholes are former denizens of mindspring.general. They know who they are, and other Assholes know who they are. I always felt there was a Conrad quote that kind of got to it:
“These were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men – men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly” Sounds like Assholes to me.

For those of us out here in the giant corporate ISP world, there is no more mindspring.general. And that’s a pity. Or maybe a blessing, depending on your pov. I said it back when I started noticing the way things were going. “Someday we’ll pay giant faceless utilities for our internet connections”, as I sit typing unbelievably connected to a cable tv ISP. It’s unbelievable because there was a time when they couldn’t even get tv right, yet here I sit.

At any rate, enough of this crap. I have links to three Asshole blogs over on the left. It used to be called “Friends’ Weblogs” but it’s probably more accurate to call it the Assholosphere.

Which brings me to the present. Some of you Assholes are missing. Tommy, Wally, Walt, Chief Broom. Chief Broom!! Damn you! You started this whole thing and yet I sit here patiently, still waiting to here where the hell your blog is. And Wally? What the f…!! I don’t care if you turn it into a Bush shrine. You damn well should be up here! Walt, Tommy, c’mon you turkeys, get listed. Usenet is history. The Blogosphere is boring and way too self-important. These days, we desperately need an Assholosphere. Here we are dispersed around corporate ISPs twiddling our thumbs. Remember the old days when we used to bludgeon and insult one another? Such fond memories. I call you out. Get a damned blog. Go to Google and get a free one. Domains are cheap. I found a nice stupid one, you can too! The last time I looked, wallysboat.com was available. But wallyworld.com is taken. But seriously, I wouldn’t go there. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

* * *

Gawd, I’ve never been so proud to be a charter member of something! Chief Broom once said he didn’t have a web site because “I’m waiting for technology adequate to enable the fulfillment of my vision.”

I’m callin’ you out Chief. That was 4.5 years ago, and that’s a couple of decades in Internet years. The tech is here. It’s free.

What’s yer excuse, Asshole?
— Reid    Sep 19, 02:09 PM    #

Hey—don’t leave me out. Can’t be seen out of the company of the cool cats. =,
— Greg Greene    Sep 19, 02:59 PM    #

Greg, I’m afraid you’ll have to prove your bonafides. During the days in mindspring.general, many tried to self-nominate themselves as Assholes. But it doesn’t work that way.

Assholes aren’t made or named by anyone. They just are.

I sent an e-mail to Chief Broom pointing him to this article. Of course, being an Asshole, he probably won’t show up.
— Reid    Sep 19, 04:10 PM    #

And chicks can’t be Assholes. They can be Pollyannas …
— ntn    Sep 19, 05:46 PM    #

I’m pretty sure this is beneath my dignity. But I’ve been on the lookout for new depths to plumb, so you may be right about timeliness. In any case, it’s good to see that you’re maintaining the standards. Btw, where’s Fig? And Todd?
— Chief Broom    Sep 19, 08:55 PM    #

“I’m pretty sure this is beneath my dignity”

See, you discovered something you’ve never encountered before! Aren’t you glad you stopped by?

Soon, you will be One Of Us. There are support groups, with fellow Assholes to help you get the software set up and configured properly so you can just let your Assholish nature flow.

Because it’s important to remove the technological impediments. The technology is here, Chief.

I don’t know what’s up with Fig, but Todd shows up to leave a comment at my site once a month or so.

What’s your excuse?
— Reid    Sep 19, 10:05 PM    #

Damn, this is a sight for sore eyes. I put this up a few days ago thinking I’d lure Wally out of m.n.i.d. and then got busy, forgot to post there & then forgot about the whole thing. Come back home late at night and a bunch of drunks I haven’t seen in twenty years are waiting to party.

CB – Having invented the Asshole concept, I’m not sure you’ve even gotten close to the bottom of “beneath my dignity” but I have strong faith in you, my friend, and I know you can make it there if you try and (of course), “god willing”. We’re serious here. The Assholosphere is getting started as I type.

Greg – I may have to grandfather you in. You were one of my first 3 links (hmmm, there’s still only 3 links) back before one of my many disasterous upgrades when I lost all data and had to try and recreate something. Having met you, I’d say Definite Asshole, but as Reid says, that has to be proven to the rest. We no longer rely on one person’s judgement after that disasterous error by Wally. What was he thinking? Did she pay him off? Did she vote for Bush? Arrrgghhh. That was it. Shameful to say the least.

NTN: Yes, the womenfolk can at best be pollyannas. Now you just need a blog. Especially if you’re moving down to Hurricane Alley. You may need rescue from fellow Assholes. Not “from”, but by. (although maybe “from”, that’s a tough one.)

CB – Fig may be long gone, but Paul is still here (Phattboi). We could use an insult or two from The Chickens, though, and yeah, Todd needs a blog. He’s turning too normal, or at least trying to pretend so.

Reid: somehow I think you organized this whole thing. At any rate, they can either wimp out with Blogger, or we’ll set them up with the technology. My version, of course, would be fairly stock (as is this site), but we’re more than willing to help.

Just remember. A year from now one of us will be on Rita Crosby talking about the New Assholosphere and the rest of us will forget to watch. You heard it here first.
— elburro    Sep 20, 12:44 AM    #

“A year from now one of us will be on Rita Crosby talking about the New Assholosphere and the rest of us will forget to watch”

I think that one sentence was enough to make this whole thing worthwhile (especially since I don’t have a clue who Rita Crosby is, and therefore would be sure to miss it anyway). From here on out, it’s all gravy…
— Reid    Sep 20, 04:06 AM    #

I’m not sure if she’s still in Aruba or, perhaps, helping Geraldo rescue (clean? white?) puppies in New Orleans; I watched 10 minutes of her once, to my enduring shame.
— elburro    Sep 20, 09:26 AM    #

Ah-ha. She must be on FoxNews. I knew Kennesaw made you buy a gun, but I had no idea they forced citizens to watch FoxNews as well (there’s a line to draw out Wally).
— Reid    Sep 20, 11:38 AM    #

Nice try with the trick question, Reid. But you know that I know being an Asshole means you never have to have an excuse.

I saw “Paul” and about had a heart attack. Thought it was the other one.

He el, it’s good to cut trail with you here. I’m on the road and gotta go for now. Hasta
— Chief Broom    Sep 21, 11:09 AM    #

Hmmm….”the other” Paul. The Asshole Paul was an original Mindspring subscriber from ‘94 or so who stopped visiting the newsgroups shortly after you arrived, just a coincidence, I’m sure.

I have vague memories of a Paul that you and others (probably me) picked on incessantly. Was he one with all the top-posted flirty one-liners to any female post? As I recall, he had a drunken blowout one night and put a bunch of savage accusatory posts in all the MS newsgroups until they finally terminated him.

“Yah, ve hod to terminate de sneeky little veasel. Got de bastid good, yah, ve did.”
— elburro    Sep 21, 12:15 PM    #

“As I recall, he had a drunken blowout one night and put a bunch of savage accusatory posts in all the MS newsgroups until they finally terminated him.”

Ah, fond if vague memories. I sorta remember it that way, too. Seems like he was with one of the ISP’s that got Borg-ed, which always brought a truckload of fine fresh fish into the Mindspring Usenet pool.

But he was no Booty.
— Reid    Sep 21, 01:12 PM    #

I just ran a google groups search on booty, didn’t spend much time there, but I found posts from subscribers of various ISPs where he had just been “booted”. IBM, ATT Worldnet, this guy made a practice of getting thrown off ISPs. I think if he had a blog, I’d stick him in the Assholosphere. You don’t have to necessarily like someone to admit that they’ve done things with their life qualifying them as an Asshole.

You wonder what this guy does in Real Life. If this guy had such a hard time staying connected to the internet, would that mean he probably can’t function in the world either? I’m not sure that’s a given. IMO, he could be anything from a bum in a public library to the head of a fortune 500 corporation to POTUS.

One Thanksgiving we had a bunch of friends over and one of them was an insurance company executive. He worked in an office in a large building and had employees in cubicles all around him. After dinner, we all went out to the movies. After the previews and ads, when the film started, he started making loud rooster calls and flapping his arms. He kept it up until an usher came by asking him firmly to stop. But he didn’t stop, and eventually had to be forcibly removed from the theatre. I’ve often wondered how someone that wacked out ever played the game well enough to get that corner office in the insurance building. Maybe he was Booty?
— elburro    Sep 21, 02:01 PM    #

I have vague memories of a Paul that you and others (probably me) picked on incessantly. Was he one with all the top-posted flirty one-liners to any female post? As I recall, he had a drunken blowout one night and put a bunch of savage accusatory posts in all the MS newsgroups until they finally terminated him.

I think PK/Anna Maria/Trish/Patty Kake/ et al is still in touch with him. I’d be ever so happy to get his address for you.
— ntn    Sep 21, 10:19 PM    #

Thanks, I think. I could probably pass on that but my cat would like to bat him around a little.
— elburro    Sep 21, 11:36 PM    #

Cat Bat Booty.

Wasn’t that a Ted Nugent song?

See, all we’re missing here now is top posters and a Pollyanna or two to pick on. alt.elburro
— Reid    Sep 22, 01:54 AM    #

Ok, I guess I don’t rate- I did see my name slide by, but only in passing. I was one of the mindspring.general inmates, but I’ve always been good at being below the radar… kinda the ‘Forrest Gump’ of the computer world.

What we REALLY need is another get-together at a wierd cyber-cafe, complete with mustachioed eggs and a no-show stalker.

Todd++;
— Todd H.    Sep 26, 10:42 AM    #

“What we REALLY need is another get-together at a wierd cyber-cafe, complete with mustachioed eggs and a no-show stalker.”

I’m there dude. I believe the tofu joint is history, though.

And I saw you listed at least two or three times. Get a blog and I’ll put you up in the Assholosphere where you’re guaranteed to probably, hopefully get at least 3 click-throughs per year. It would be higher except that I do everything in my power to keep my rankings in the cellar.
— elburro    Sep 26, 02:41 PM    #

Well, Todd, in my book, it goes without saying that you’re an Asshole. And I think by the time mindspring.general was turning into an Airport for Assholes (“If Assholes could fly, this place would be an airport”), you were indeed “below the radar.”

As for a get-together, I’m game. It’d be great if we could drag Paul up from Florida. But we’ll never get the Chief to fly in, as I doubt he can get a pass out of the psych ward.
— Reid    Sep 26, 02:48 PM    #

Id for sure make a trip to Atlanta.

I’m looking out my window onto a beach in Puerto Rico right now.

Remember Mary the mensa PhD?
— Chief Broom    Sep 26, 11:20 PM    #

Ay, and after Nurse Ratchett’s shot I’m usually dreaming in a field of poppies that stretches on forever. The mind is a wonderful thing.

Didn’t Mary call herself the Magpie? She had some kind of Heckle&Jeckle thing going as I recall.
— elburro    Sep 27, 06:31 AM    #

That’s the one. When I first stumbled into MDG, 24FC was baiting her.
— Chief Broom    Sep 27, 08:37 AM    #

Magpie fits, but I think she went by Mockingbird. Taught math? Wonderful combination of intellectual smugness and logical incapacity. Fun to watch her head spin. Jason finally ran her off.

The sound of this damn crashing surf is making it hard to concentrate.
— Chief Broom    Sep 27, 11:57 AM    #

“I’m looking out my window onto a beach in Puerto Rico right now”

Man, they must have some good drugs there at the psych ward…

“The sound of this damn crashing surf is making it hard to concentrate”

...but you may need to have the dosage adjusted.

Jason. Yes, perhaps the Ultimate Asshole. I wonder who he vexes today?
— Reid    Sep 27, 12:35 PM    #

Hmmmm. Isn’t Hurricane Dubya supposed to be churning somewhere out there? Surf’s up!

Todd Reid and I actually met the Magpie at one of those House of Tofu meetings. In the crowded internet cafe we knew immediately which one was the matronly schoolmarm. I think Todd said, “uh oh”. We were disgusting; everyone was polite. In retrospect it’s hard to stop vomiting at our cowardice. Much easier to snipe out behind a keyboard. Oh, the shame.
— elburro    Sep 27, 12:38 PM    #

No hurricane. Just surf and frogs right now. Lots of frogs. Iguanas too, but they don’t make much noise, except maybe a big splash when they jump in the water right before you get your hands on one. I should be smoking a cigar, but I got too much sun today and am already a little green. The thought of you, Reid and Todd engaged in civil chat with the Magpie doesn’t help. I’m really sorry you shared that with me.
— Chief Broom    Sep 27, 09:39 PM    #

I wouldn’t exactly describe it as “civil chat.” It was more like pained attempts to occasionally include her in the conversation, followed by desperate efforts to get it back on track afterwards.

Sort of like in the newsgroup.

Puerto Rico. Cigars. Frogs. Iguanas.

I need a vacation at the nervous hospital you’re at. They sound like they got some good shit, man, if you’re seeing frogs and lizards.
— Reid    Sep 27, 11:48 PM    #

To mitigate our shameful conduct, I think it was so long ago that Mary hadn’t really become the Magpie yet with all the Mensa/schoolmarm stuff. She was just another early Mindspringer back in the gee-whiz days of 14,400 modems. Long before Jason and the Chickens got to her.

In a perfect world, the Tofu Cafe would reopen, and Chief and Mary could square off and the rest of us would be the cheering/booing section, and we’d see what men are really made of.

In reality, we’re probably left with a salad bar at a Ramada Inn or a Shoney’s playing muzak, the hospital is not likely to let the Chief out any time soon, and Mary thinks we’re all stalkers. As it was, I recall an urgent plea from her in mindspring.www because there was some kind of web software that allowed people using the software to put any comments they wanted on a website (read Mary’s Mensa site covered with a bunch of Jasonisms). And she needed to figure out how to ban it.

Which Jason had probably never heard of until she brought it up.
— elburro    Sep 28, 10:13 AM    #

The rest of you jerks need to make blogs, too, so that we can all link with each other and keep up. Usenet is dead.

This infernal contraption will not let me make a proper ASCII chicken. :-)

Hello, Frank!
— 24FightingChickens    Dec 15, 04:53 PM    #

Dang! When put that code in that ruins ASCII chickens, I thought I got the smileys too. Curses, you got me.
— elburro    Dec 15, 05:45 PM    #

Leave your wimpy ASCII creations behind in the primitive pile of electrons once known as Usenet.

It’s a brave new world. We’ve got gif’s and jpg’s. We can even steal them from your site.

— Reid    Dec 16, 08:43 PM    #