S.KRAUSE

31 Days has ...

Kaylin was so kind as to send me an email regarding a page of tasteless jokes located elsewhere on this site.

The thing about webpages is that they do not jump out at you from around dark corners, from behind curtains, from out of wardrobes and the like. You must seek them out. In the worst case scenario someone sends you an email or IM with a URL to click, but before clicking you can always look at said URL and try to determine the nature of the material. For example, if you saw a URL of the form http://site/humor/deadbaby.shtml you might think to yourself, “Self, I suspect the humor designation indicates a page of jokes or similar, and the deadbaby part of the file name tells me that the page is probably about dead babies, perhaps even dead baby jokes, given my inference about humor and jokes.” One's self might be quite put out when, upon clicking such a link, an advertisement for a KRUPS coffee grinder appeared. Truth in advertising, you see. But would anyone be surprised, upon clicking on /humor/deadbaby.shtml to find a page of dead baby jokes?

I should hope not.

source
~Elipa @ DA

I know, I know. I was astounded—no, horrified is more like it—when I visited Slashdot (News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters) and found technology stories. I visited the NY Times and found content appropriate to a newspaper. Can you believe that the Internet Movie Database ... has information about movies? I know, I was shocked.

Awed.

Thus, as a critical reader, I was a bit concerned when dear Kaylin stumbled upon a page of dead baby jokes purely by accident. Though, upon second thought, upon second reading, I had to take her statement “I was surfing the web, and came acrosss your website with ‘dead-baby jokes’” at face value and conclude that she had sought them out. Why would someone so horrified by dead baby jokes seek them out? Are we dealing with some barely repressed existential Angst? a curious fetish? self-hatred? Something akin to the anti-semitic self-hating Jew? the homophobic closeted gay man?

Say it ain't so!

But my critical reading soon turned its critical eye upon Kaylin's critical skills. “I am telling you right now, I find your thoughts on babies horrific and disgusting at so many levels.” What disturbs me—it's the paranoia speaking—is how she (Kaylin ... if that is your real name!) managed to find out what my thoughts about babies are. I mean, I do not, until this point, recall penning a missive, a letter, an essay, a sloppily encoded secret message in which I stated my thoughts on babies.

For the record I'm rather fond of babies, and over the years babies have become fond of me, toddlers even more so, as my experiences around my step-nephew and around the children of my colleagues attest. Were I to find the appropriate partner I would be inclined to procreate—for the less educated out there, that entails babies.

Back to our dear Kaylin, who seems a rather hateful person, all things considered, the type that engages in unprovoked, ill-advised, and barely coherent ad hominem attacks.

I must send Kaylin a polite response.

The True^TM ads I posted in December and in early January were of the square (or nearly square) and vertical variety—but they produce a whole line of horizontal banner ads as well, and why should I leave them out of my presentation?

For something more uplifting and perhaps up Kaylin's alley I recommend the following:

With a name along the lines of Emmanuel Energy King how can this man fail? He's a walking Power Bar, a bite-size morsel of Bible-thumping goodness, a communion wafer on two legs.

I'm afraid, however, that the line about bondage might scare off poor, innocent Kaylin.

—January 31 2007