And interestingly, it was only the grandma comments that needed an apology.
Oh well. Enough of this - I’m getting back to work.
Alice, you worry me…
You said that you came up with an argument against that other guy “while driving to work”…
My god, how sad. How much time during the day do you spend thinking about the Straight Dope?
It’s so important to you that you have to tell people how much it sucks to have people comment on your appearance and then you post pictures of yourself? Eeck…
Is the Straight Dope so important to you that you have to bring up your dead grandmother in order to win an argument?
It just seems tacky to me to do a thing like that. If I could write as well as cmosdes, I would make fun of you too.
lezlers and Turpentine -
Thanks to both of you for the vote of confidence that I wasn’t too far out of line.
For those curious, I’m an engineer. I wasn’t trying to be secretive about it. I also wondered how many people would know the “cmos” part of my name.
I dunno…it’s been a day and I read back what I wrote.
Damn, I sound really mean even for the Pit, despite the lack of swearing.
I think what I said was irrelevant and very uncalled for, and I would like to take it back, if I could. I’m a bit ashamed of myself.
I’m sorry.
Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, non?
I’m also an engineer, and I also understand why you brought up the grandma thing that you did.
I wouldn’t slam alice’s grandma, but I do think that using someone’s suffering and death to try to make a point on a message board shows extreme disrespect for the deceased party’s life.
So you were right, some people would see where you were coming from with that one.
(Bolding Mine)
Pretty weak arguements to me and 3,000 deaths per year from second hand smoke (if that’s even true) doesn’t sound too high to me. It seems drunk driving kills more people each year than 2nd hand smoke. So why don’t we ban alcohol completely? It’s a more socially acceptable habit than smoking, I know, but it kills a helluva lot more people each year… most of those people innocent victims of the drunk behind the wheel. You ever known anyone killed by a drunk driver? I’ve lost a few friends this way. It’s every bit as painful as you losing your grandmother to cancer. You’d think that people wouldn’t drink and drive knowing that it killed more than 15,000 people last year… but they still do. Putting a ban on everything that pisses off other people isn’t the answer. Everything in the fucking world would be banned then because someone’s always going to be bitching about something whether it’s smoking, drinking, BO, bad breath, dog poop… whatever’s out there that you don’t like.
Thank you alice_in_wonderland for the compliment. That’s quite a crowd you put me in with. I’m honored. 
Zev Steinhardt
Want to see how far they are going Banned in your own apartment? NYC Co-op bans new smokers…