Wonder how she’s doing now, 11 years later? If Weirddave was her dad, he was banned in 2009, so I guess we can’t ask.
Naw, weirddave was a friend. She and her husband are still married, though, and little Emma Kate is doing fine, though. She posts about her on fb once in a while.
Why this thread just fizzled out nine months ago I can’t remember. But here’s a bump to bring it back in view for the sake of newer Dopers and to see what might be added.
really.
Okay, I’ll add that as one of the old farts, I find this thread both endearing and sad…
I remember differently. IIRC. Wally’s death? A lot of people believed it at first. Dr. Watsons? Not so much. The general attitude for Watson was much more like RTFirefly’s in that thread–amused disbelief given the absurd circumstances of his “death”.
Remember, Wally just had an industrial accident. Dr Watson, on the other hand was allegedly gunned down while on a secret spy-mission by jeepers! Enemy agents (or some similarly bullshit story–I remember machine gun ambushes were involved). No-one I’m aware of believed it. (Except maybe Melin, who seemed to be a few kumquats short of a fruit basket at that point)
Here’s his 1 year “eulogy” by Melin (who apparently DID drink the Kool-Aid)
Relevant (and hysterically funny, unintentionally) quote
Oooh! Mysterious “machine gun death”…and he died in her arms, too! Drama!!!
Maybe so, but in that thread, RTFirefly was the sole voice some skepticism (and not for the first time). Everyone else who mentioned Watson pretty much had bought the story. There was a weird coincidence that made Dr. Watson’s “death” appear more credible. That is, a (non-SDMB) “Dr. Watson” did indeed die at about the same time as our own intrepid spy who was killed on the safari.
Yeah, but also at that time there was a contingent of Mods/posters who were abso-fucking-loutely insane about any hint of any inaccuracies about Wally’s “death”–threads were shut down when questions arose, links to whichever version of the Snark Pit was around at the time were censored*), etc. So I got the impression that people didn’t talk about it here for fear of ‘reprisal’ (and because he wasn’t all that important here compared to Fathom), but it was certainly laughed at on IRC and other places (if I’m getting the timeline right)
*So much so that Uncle Beer had to apologize for talking about it once,
There was an incredible amount of hysteria around WallyM7.
Hysteria over his death, including an actual online wake.
Much anguished posting over the loss.
It was only after all this tsouris that there began to be some critical thinking on the matter. And for quite a while thereafter anytime someone questioned the authenticity of the situation the hysteria started up again with the anguish of the mourners/now infuriated people who loved and lost and felt Wally’s memory was being besmirched.
In the wake of that (no pun intended) Straight Dope management was contacted by people who had credible evidence that some of Wally’s most famous postings were not original works by him but rather had been lifted from other sources. (The actual copyright holders.) More screaming and anguish.
By that time we really had heard more than enough about Wally and sick to death (again, no pun intended) of the uproar. We declared a moratorium on the whole damn mess.
Time wounds all heels and now I guess we can talk about it, sort of. I still think WallyM7 was an incredibly selfish and mean jerk who hurt a whole lot of people and told a whole bunch of lies and none of that had to happen.
The saddest part of that story is that he never understood that he was loved for himself. Maybe that wasn’t enough for him, he had to steal from others and cheat and tell lies. He didn’t need to go there. He didn’t need to hurt people.
And Dr. Watson? Another one, who didn’t hurt as many people but cruelly wounded those he did touch. No excuse for that kind of bad behavior and all the more evil because he purely and deliberately took advantage of the vulnerable. That ain’t ever right.
Happy Jew and the wally/putz 
Cite to icon?
Also good band name.
The gif name for the Orthodox Jewish icon was happyyid, not “Happy Jew.” The wally/putz icon was created as a remembrance of the legacy of wit of WallyM7 after his death (such as it was), as it was apparently one of his favorite epithets. Looking back, creating it was kinda dumb, but it was done with the best of intentions.
What was the SDMB smilie code for the joyful man of Jewish ethnicity? I’m not remembering yid as being part of it, but it has been a long time …
I think the smilie code was :j the name of the graphic was happyyid.gif.
Yeah, that was it!
Thanks