Geek Cred: Pwning The Elderly, Ctd.

It looks like my "esteemed" colleague William A. Jacobson has now become completely unhinged (those just tuning in can catch up on my exchanges with the old coot by reading this post first). I really expected a little more from a professor of law:

UPDATE No. 2: Someone Get Him A Life

Did you ever meet one of those people who have to have the last word? The people you just can't hang up on, because as you are putting the phone down you hear they still are talking? (Only people of my generation or older would know about that, because the Real World generation never used a real phone.)

So what's his name, you know, the one McCain doused with a Rule 4 shower, has posted something in response to my Update:

Here's some history: according to his Wikipedia page, McCain was born in 1959. I can't find a definite birth date for Jacobson but according to his Cornell bio page he completed his undergraduate degree in 1981. If we assume a standard matriculation period of four years that would also put his date of birth in 1959 as well. I was born in 1974. That means that when Star Wars came out in 1977 McCain and Jacobson were both legally classified as adults, and I was three years old.

Before I digress, please note that proper grammar requires an initial capitalization after a colon. Didn't they teach that to you in your Stanley Kaplan SAT review course?

And you were 3 when Star Wars came out. Did you watch it then, or only when you got Star Wars toys forced upon you? Perhaps you should have played with Legos and learned to build things and use your imagination.

There are boxes full of action figures, an AT-AT imperial walker, several TIE fighters and many other toys I haven't seen for years in a storage facility back in Texas with my name all over them. I had Star Wars curtains in my room as a kid, for Christ's sake.

Someone please get him a childhood.

And talk about being "Pwned" (yes, I had to look it up on Wikipedia, at least I admit to it). I don't stay up late on a Saturday night drafting posts about you, but you posted your latest screed at 11:34 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, 2009, and posted a comment on my blog at 1:47 a.m. the next morning. What's the matter, can't sleep without thinking about me? Nothing better to do on a Saturday night than worry about me? And thanks for linking to my Cornell Law School bio page; are you having it framed and putting it over your computer for inspiration? Someone please get him a life.

And I don't keep checking your SiteMeter like you do mine (don't even think of denying it). But I thought you didn't judge your worth as a blogger based on hits. Hmm, having second thoughts? Call McCain when you get 30,000 visits, if you can remember next year. Someone please get him the conscience of a liberal.

And someone tell him I'm hanging up the phone.

My buddy repsac3 has already fisked this 2nd update from old man Jacobson in the comment section of the post this one continues from, so I may pluck a bon mot or two from him as well. Did you ever meet one of those people who can never admit when they've been proven wrong? People you just can't reason with because they refuse to accept logical arguments that constantly refute their previous assertions and accusations? *sigh* OK, let's do this.

Really, Jacobson? Are you telling everyone that you think cell phones became ubiquitous when you were fifteen, so therefore the "Real World generation" (me, apparently) has never used them? Cell phones weren't even really in widespread use when I was fifteen. I remember in high school a friend's mom had a portable phone: it fit into a carrying case the size of a car battery with a strap on it and weighed around twenty pounds. Two questions: 1) what the hell kind of an insult or point is this guy trying to make with that comment? Is not having ever used a land line (that's what we're all calling them now, not "real phones", dude) something to suddenly be ashamed of? And more importantly 2) why the hard-on for the Real World? Bad roommate experience in college? Let me guess: you were Felix, right? You certainly sound uptight enough. I used an older reference there so as not to confuse you with anything broadcast in this century, guy; you're welcome.

Now you can tell when someone is running out of reasoned arguments and debatable points when they start saying things like "what's his name" and they suddenly become a stickler for proper grammar. This is a blog. I'm not submitting it as my senior thesis. And apparently I had Star Wars toys "forced upon me" as a child and that's how I came to know about the movie. Yeah, because what kid would want to watch an FX packed, shoot 'em up, sci-fi action flick without all of the attendant marketing to entice them first, right? I also apparently have no imagination now and who didn't play with LEGOS when they were a kid? repsac?:

And when did this become a question of anyone's intelligence or imagination? Looks to me like our lawyer friend is trying to change the subject, employing classic ad hominem--the heart of "rule 4," from what I've seen from these clowns--in the process.

But you can see now where his arguments start to flounder as he has pulled these suppositions about how I discovered the movie and my level of imagination out of the same anally-shaped (Oh no, is that even a word? Kaplan, where are you when I need you?!) filing cabinet from which he extracted his earlier definitive claim that I looked up the spelling of "padawan" on Wikipedia. Oops, I almost forgot that I also have no childhood because...to be honest, I have no idea what he's trying to do here. Accusing me now of not having a childhood? So what, I bought all these retro toys on eBay, boxed them up and shipped them to Texas on the off chance that someone would someday accuse me of not having grown up watching Star Wars? To what, cover up the fact that instead of playing with toys and watching movies I worked in a sooty, Dickensian child labor factory as a kid?

And talk about being pwned (sorry Reppy, you got your numbers a bit jumbled here as well but not nearly as badly as Jacobson), let's have a short primer on the movement of celestial bodies and how we as humans measure the passage of time based on these movements, shall we? You see, as the Earth orbits the Sun that fiery orb appears to be in a different position in the sky relative to where any one person is standing on the planet at any one time. In order to keep a relative sense of the passage of time around the world we divide the planet up into 24 different zones all with different relative times; let's call these time zones. Still with me, old man? Cause this is where it gets tricky.

I posted my "latest screed" as he calls it around 5:00 pm PST (the screed being the update to the original post on this topic below; there is no documentable proof of time because it was an update). Now what Jacobson is referring to is not my original update but this follow up post in which I called attention to that update because it had moved further down the page where others might miss it (that's why this one is a new post) and yes, it was indeed at 11:34 pm PST. Now what codgers like Jacobson can easily forget is that Blogger lets you set the time zone from which you are blogging and every time stamp (comments included) on your site are recorded as such. So the comment I posted on his site (in the Eastern time zone) actually posted at 10:47 pm PST, 47 minutes before my follow up post (I wanted to talk some shit to his old ass).

He's right that I don't sleep well but it's not because I can't seem to get a certain wrinkled pentagenarian off my mind, I just have insomnia. And I linked to his bio page because I have this really bad habit of backing up any assertions I make online with this little thing I like to call "evidence". As he lacked a Wiki page like the other McC, I used the next best thing to extrapolate his age and then documented my source; that's something else I like to call "research". It doesn't surprise me that these are foreign concepts to you Jacobson but you must have heard the other more competent lawyers discussing them while you were writing down what everyone wanted for lunch.

And yes, I checked your Site Meter (should I deny that? Nah, better not even think about it; imagine the consequences!). Of course, the only reason I even checked out your meter (does that sound gay?) was because I remembered this specious claim from a little while back on a comment thread by some old guy I'd never heard of at the time when I was having fun teasing my special blog lady:

William A. Jacobson said...

Link to me, I can throw you more traffic than McCain (please don't look at my sitemeter, it's not functioning properly; I really get a lot more traffic, but the vast leftwing conspiracy is playing games with my blog).

Now doesn't that sound suspiciously like, "I swear, this never happens when I'm with other women..."? I just figured that maybe you were trying to be ironic. To his credit, McCain did send hundreds of hits my way when he attempted to talk some shit about yours truly so you can imagine my utter surprise when nothing even close to that happened when you tried to do the same. Hell, I got more hits when my own blogging mentor (he doesn't know he is) linked to me a few days ago than I got from you two old coots combined and that was just an indirect link to give me credit for the site I pointed out to him. Anyway, Reps?:

Sorry... Not only don't we judge our worth by blog hits, we don't even judge your worth by blog hits. A trained monkey can get hits, as RSM so ably proves... Don't mean he can write, though... (I know, Grammerman... It's intentional... Put away your super hero cape.)

I never said that I don't look at my or even other people's Site Meters, just that I don't judge my own self-worth based on those numbers. I mean, what's the point of even having a meter if you never check it? I look at it to see where my hits are coming from when someone else links to me and I look for family and friends; when I see Dallas or San Leandro or Walnut Creek or Redmond or even Birmingham I know who those people are and that they're reading my stuff. If anything I'm more of a digital voyeur than an insecure old man sizing up my own dick (you must feel sick when you watch pornos, huh?).

The last line is great not only because, as repsac3 pointed out, you've already taken another shot at me in an update to another post but also because only a fogey like yourself would think that a phrase like "And someone tell him I'm hanging up the phone"would translate in any way to a back and forth on the Internet. You can't hang up this phone Billy boy because you're not the only one I'm talking to; what you've done here is the online equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming like a child who doesn't want to face reality. And the best part is that everyone reading this on my site and coming here from yours will now know that the dickless lawyer (see how I squeezed two unnecessary insults in there?) just took his little ball and went home.


[Update:I just sprayed my chocolate milk all over my keyboard. I'm seriously:

UPDATE No. 3: He realized his 15 minutes of fame are over.

This is what happens when someone realizes that his 15 minutes of fame are over:

And the best part is that everyone reading this on my site and coming here from yours will now know that the dickless lawyer (see how I squeezed two unnecessary insults in there?) just took his little ball and went home.

And he posts a silly photo-shop of my head on a chicken in front of Cornell Law School -- must have stayed up all night working on that one.

Wow, some people don't even know when they have been played. My post that I was "hanging up the phone" brought out the best in you, as I knew it would. Apparently it always was there, just needed a little prodding to shake loose. Too bad, I was hoping you had a sense of humor. But then again, you do brag that you "supported Barack Obama before it was cool to support Barack Obama" so there is a sense of humor in there somewhere.

Oh no, my fame! I need that to be famous!! I guess that phone was harder to hang up than he thought it would be; maybe arthritis is kicking in (the old fart won't even link to me anymore). But let me just repeat that one line again:

And he posts a silly photo-shop of my head on a chicken in front of Cornell Law School -- must have stayed up all night working on that one.

Maybe I should use one of Jacobson's rhetorical techniques to get this through to his addled brain: Someone under fifty please tell him who's body his head is on in that silly photo-shop. Remember what I said about pop culture, old man? And talk about no sense of humor. How exactly did I get played here? Screw this guy, I'm going home.]