Journal The_Messenger's Journal: Goodbye, and good riddance. 5
Slashdot died in 1999, and, only now, has it realized that it is dead. The Slashdot janitors have finally proven themselves to be children that we trolls always knew they were. The sun rises, the day begins anew, and the posters and moderators slowly wander out of Slash-town, blinking in the glorious sunlight. They shout, tears streaming down their pale cheeks in happiness, "I can see again... how could I have wasted so much of my time, for so long, on such a crappy weblog?"
The janitors stumble out of their Greek bathhouse, unable to believe their eyes as the banner advertising revenue hits the ground hard, like a WTC roofdiver. "What will be do now," they ask. "VA Software is a sham, and this awful Perl script was all we had. Shall we be forced to go out into the Real World, where our lack of social skills and laughable technical skills will force us to learn Visual Basic.NET in order to eke out a simple living?"
It will be difficult for the janitors to survive in a world not built upon hypocrisy and unwarranted arrogance. Malda still doesn't see what's wrong with dissing the MPAA while hyping DVDs, slandering the RIAA while pirating MP3s, and mocking Micosoft while playing games on a Windows 98 machine. Michael still doesn't understand that large corporations make the world go 'round, and will only find refuge in a backwoods white-supremacist militia, where his anti-government attitude and NAZI censorship experience will be heartily accepted. JonKatz doesn't understand the fact that he can't write, but that doesn't mean he won't get plenty of experience scrawling requests for help on pieces of cardboard with a magic marker. (Such signs are highly valued by the homeless population, for they are believed to increase the chance of donation while wandering the highway median by almost 7%.) Jeff doesn't understand that there just aren't many "armchair scientist" employment opportunities available in today's world. And Gay Nik, poor fellow, will finally have to come to terms with the fact that *BSD is dying.
Only Pater, who has enough energy and heat reserves stored in his belly to survive the next ice age, will live to see the Itanium released. He will be employed as a clown at an amusement park for disabled children. But he will be a sad clown, forever doomed to remember his friends and the stupid way in which they wasted their lives. "God, why have you forsaken me," he will scream, "why am I alone, doomed to wander the earth like a shade, remembering the sins of my compatriots? How I crave the sweet release of death! For to burn for all eternity in Hades with Malda by my side cannot hurt as much as living without him!" (One of the disabled children will then shit on Pater's floppy clown shoe.)
AOL chatrooms, instant messaging applications, USENET, and other weblogs will soak up Slashdot's newly forum-less users, who will rediscover the joy of communicating without the constant worry of being censored by someone who disagrees with them. The evilest users, unable to abandon their moderator ways, may become IRC operators, but are easily ignored.
Slashdot, you will not be missed. From the very first days of your existence, you were doomed to an anticlimactic end. Your fame and userbase are unwarranted. Your success was undeserved. You have fucked your users in so many ways, from editorial moderation abuse to allowing Katz to profit from users' comments, that it is unbelievable that you were able to stay alive as long as you did. Perhaps it is a testament to the parasitic, viral nature of the GPL, and the blindness of the Cheap Software community. But, enough -- we know your crimes. The real mistake was not shutting this shithole down when it died in 1999. Since then, it has only rotted and festered and stank as the trolls ate its carcass. You will never be able to walk in public without people pointing and laughing as recognize you and remember your embarrassing Internet identity.
The things you have done are unforgivable, and finally your bad karma has returned to take its toll. Slashdot is doomed to the ultimate punishment: it will not be remembered well. You won't burn out; you will fade away, and the very last memory of your existence will probably be a goatse.cx hyperlink.
Goodbye, Slashdot, and good riddance.
-- The_Messenger
User #110966. Now crashing at TRoLLaXoR's place.
Please visit the Slashback homepage and the Troll Tuesday 2k1 memorial.
Wow (Score:1)
Oh no! (Score:1)
Phone Firm Adds Insult to Bill, Apologizes (Score:1)
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's largest phone company Telecom Corp. of NZ on Wednesday apologized and offered compensation to a customer after charging him a "penalty for being an arrogant bastard".
Telecom has ordered an investigation into how Auckland businessman James Storrie received the $140 charge shown on his monthly mobile phone bill.
"How can they speak to their clients like this? It's downright rude," Storrie told the New Zealand Herald newspaper, which carried his photograph holding the objectionable bill.
Telecom spokesman Martin Freeth said the company was appalled and embarrassed by the rude statement and had made an offer of compensation.
"We've apologized and taking steps to stop anything like this...it's an aberration," Freeth told Reuters.