The past couple days I have felt like Connie Booth in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“We found a witch, may we burn her?”) and I know many still have doubts about me. That’s fine and I’m not going to try to convince anyone otherwise. The fact is, the admins have decided to let me stay and I enjoy posting on these boards too much to leave over one incident.
I just want to address a couple things. I have stated before that I am fiarly new at this job and my previous background is electrical, not electronics. When I started using the internet, I was told to go through our proxy server and not to dial directly online. The possibility that someone could dial directly and bypass the proxy never occurred to me until I read it here.
As for Tigress, she made a post about being hit by a semi in a thread about calling 911 (sorry, I feel too lazy this morning to post a link). That is true. The things she says about her biological parents on her homepage is also true. She has had a hard life, but what she left out is that she was married and had a daughter by the time she was 19. Her husband and 3 year daughter died in a car accident, and the post about me upset her beyond anyone’s imagination here. She was so upset when she called me yesterday morning that I had to hold on twice while she threw up. She was upset and shaken for most of the day. I hope this helps to explain her outbursts on the boards, if not excuse them.
The bottom line to all of this that I can see is no harm, no foul. None of you were hurt, I am not hurt. The admins have decided I should be trusted and I hope that’s enough for the others here. I do not want pity or symapathy. I do not want to be a martyr and I am not pointing any fingers or blaming anyone here. It was a confusing situation and your reactions are understandable.
I said this in the TRUTH thread and I’ll say it here (somewhat edited):
Welcome back Brat. I had faith that the Admins would clean this up and I am pleased that you were cleared. You are a welcomed and entertaining poster and I look forward to seeing your name out there again.
Lets wreak some havoc. I think it’s time for a blantantly sexually themed thread with much debauchery and drinking. Thats right, your typical MPSIMS thread. I’ve taken the liberty of calling a few strippers and buying this keg, who’s got cups?
BratMan007, I never posted in any of the other threads because frankly, I didn’t think I had enough information to run my mouth. I’m pleased that TubaDiva has satisfied herself you are to be trusted, and her evaluation is good enough for me.
Welcome back to the board! It would’ve been a shame to lose another good poster because of bullshit.
Excelsior! Damn the torpedoes (trollpedoes?)! Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute! Who says cocktail hour doesn’t start before noon?
Where’s the beer? And those dancing girls?
Welcome back, Bratman. A generally unpleasant experience, but I’m not sure it could have been worse than falling into the litterbox!
Welcome back, I guess. Frankly I was turned off by your comment that “no harm done…no one hurt”. I felt that you were back only by hook or by crook. What I saw in the past couple of days was an almost successful tearing apart of the SDMB. The board is way too slow to search someone’s elegant posting re trolls. It was only when TubaDiva posted her message that I felt relieved that this soap opera was over and done with. I think that we all are going to be more sceptical about responding to bad news messages due to this experience. Now I will assume that this wasn’t your fault, however I shall be more alert to such ugly behavior from anywhere.
Sheeeet, I thought the psychopathic co-worker that pointed a rifle at me was employee from hell… just remember that what goes down, comes around…
An unsolicited tip from me regarding Boo Boo’s Tigress: I can understand that her past might have given her reason for violent reactions, however it does not grant her license to continue. Don’t let her push boundaries with you; remain the caring and patient guy that you appear to be and, hopefully, she will realize that her off-the-edge or beyond-the-fringe behavior towards you is not worth loosing one of the better aspects of her life.
Welcome Back…BOO BOO BRATSHEEP! Are you going to change your name? ::shuffles big toe in dirt while coquettishly smiling from the corner of her eye::
Everyone, the girls are coming in and they need a place to dance. No, your lap is not the correct location, Brat. Lets give the nice strippers some room to work. They have a very large swimming pool full of Jell-O and they need the space.
Good work ponch, for your ingenuity you’re next in the Jell-O pool. Now that the guest of honor is here, the real party can begin. Thats right, I brought twister. Clothing optional.
Me? No. I’m glad that you’re able to do that, Ron. I simply can’t. Not right now. I am extremely uncomfortable being a part of a group of people that could possess such a lynch mob mentality as what I saw happen yesterday. If an established poster such as yourself could be turned on with such hideous vitriol, I don’t doubt that the same could happen to me here.
That scares me. Not because I’m afraid of being thought ill of or because I’m afraid of not being believed, etc. It scares me because it’s a frightening thing to see people behave like an angry mob, ready to believe the absolute worst in someone at the drop of a hat.
And no, I don’t care that people thought they had reason, given all the trolling that’s gone on here. That’s simply not good enough for me. There is room for reasonable suspicion in certain cases. There is never room for what happened yesterday. Not in my world, anyway.
And I’m extremely disappointed with the administration, who played into it, even perhaps caused some of it, by making vague accusations that people could then glom onto and accept as fact, spreading rumor and innuendo all over the board. We all know that people read that stuff, believe it at face value in spite of the fact that all the facts aren’t in and nothing conclusive has been established. Then they spread it around further until so many people believe it that it will be a long time before many can ever really trust that person again even after they’ve eventually been cleared of all charges and accusations.
It’s an atmosphere and environment that I wish to separate myself from for now. If this were the first time I’d seen it happen, I’d brush it off (as I have). But this is at least the 4th time I’ve seen it and no one seems to learn from it and change the way these things are handled. That makes me very leery of the future here, knowing that it will most likely happen again - and next time it could happen to me.
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Three months, two days, 13 hours, 53 minutes and 29 seconds.
3743 cigarettes not smoked, saving $467.89.
Life saved: 1 week, 5 days, 23 hours, 55 minutes.
