Citizen Olentzero (possibly a pseudonym) has posted multiple times on this message board, each time including the following sig: “All Hail Unca Cecil, or the next best thing available!” (emphasis added). These italicized words are perhaps meant as an innocent, high-spirited prank. Unfortunately, hinting that anything other than undiluted Cecil-ness is permitted marks you as guilty of heresy and/or thoughtcrime. (Do you really want to be responsible for your sig’s effect on weak-minded visitors to this board, who might be mislead into thinking that viable substitutes for Cecil exist?).
To avoid dire consequences that wrongful thinking will bring upon you, your friends, your family, and the geopolitical entity in which you reside, if not the entire planet, I suggest you change your SIG to something more appropriate. Acceptable alternatives include:
I like the sig. And I think Cecil can appreciate the humor there.
Don’t think he’d have anything to worry about in this little corner of the Mill
Melis
Wench #407, IWG
Wenchmommy extraordinaire
Goddess of Typos, Dark Chocolate and Fyne Ale
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Wow, check it out! I got my very own flame thread! Glad as I am that I got some personal attention I must say this to whitetho:
EAT ME.
I been reading Cecil Adams for years and have found that he’s made more sense outta stuff than anybody else in the business. But if you’ve actually read some of the posts on this MB, you’d have noticed that there are actually reliable sources out there that Unca Cece hasn’t gotten to yet for whatever reason (I refer to Holger’s post in the “Two Hours Later and I’m Still Hungry” thread as a prime example).
My sig basically means, if Cecil can’t answer the question, we go find whatever really reliable sources we can. We can’t just look to him to fight all the iggerince in the world. We got to learn to do it ourselves.
All Hail Unca Cecil, or the next best thing available!
< rant>
You do realize how silly that sounded? Especially since you have no freaking clue as to who I am. If you follow one person blindly, then you:
1-- cannot and/pr will not think for yourself.
2-- Don’t have the brain power to be able to form an unique opinion.
3-- Will run off a cliff like a lemming. Thirsty? Would you like some Kool-Aid?
Cecil is wonderful, Cecil is great. But Cecil is one man. And he can’t answer everything all the time. He’d appreciate being called on something that he needed to clarify better… or some help on subjects he might not know much about-- then total blind acceptance that whatever he says is gospel.
You want to damn me for having an opposing opinion? Fine. Whatever. Just realize that we all live in glass houses, and some people throw their stones with less accuracy then others.
Get a clue, get a life, and just deal.
< /rant>
Melis
Wench #407, IWG
Wenchmommy extraordinaire
Goddess of Typos, Dark Chocolate and Fyne Ale
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
mmmmmmaybe he is being facetious; but then again he put it in the BBQ Pit. I couldn’t let it pass unanswered, especially since he put my name up in lights. Besides, it was a good exercise in thinking fast.
All Hail Unca Cecil, or the next best thing available!
Melis did ask: You do realize how silly that sounded?
Of course. It was supposed to be silly.
Melis later noted: 3-- Will run off a cliff like a lemming.
A metaphorical lemming, of course, since real lemmings don’t actually run off cliffs. (I know you already know that–I just didn’t want people to think that I didn’t).
Frankly, I thought that any post that included “accusations” of “Cecil-heresy” and “thoughtcrime”, for the alledged offense of “using the wrong sig”, was so over-the-top it would be immediately recognized as intended to be humorous, even sans smilies. I’m sorry if Olentzero and Melis felt offended, for whatever reason. Apparantly, this was a literal case where “Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.” (On alt.fan.cecil-adams, a charge of “heresy” is sometimes seen as an opportunity for the accused to counter-attack that they are in fact the more committed follower of The Omnicient One).
I do still think it’s more politic not to publicize other, lesser, enlighteners, at least when posting on The Master’s own message board. That is my own personal opinion. Not that I am claiming that makes me a more devoted disciple of Cecil, or anything.
[Note to self: Self, never, ever make fun of Olentzero’s sig again.]
Take Care.
All hail Cecil! Source of all knowledge worth knowing!
You make an important point–Cecil has quoted, thus implicitly endorsed, other crusaders against the forces of ignorance. However, my own, personal, admittedly strict, rule-of-thumb is that only those specific sentences or thoughts from the works of other individuals which actually appear in his writings can be accorded the same certainty as that of Cecil’s own works. (Cecil quotes Little Ed a lot, but even Ed Zotti’s own book “Know it All!” is just a tad, well, you know, suspect).
I also acknowledge that it is something of a challenge to try to base your entire life exclusively on the five Straight Dope books–Cecil’s five-fold way, so to speak, albeit additional folds will be appearing someday in a bookstore near you–plus a handful of not-yet-published columns, and Cecil’s few scattered postings on this message board. Cecil, unfortunately, has not yet filled in all the gaps. (For example, Cecil doesn’t write phone books. Without his steadying hand, can I really be certain that all these thousands of names are actually listed with the correct numbers?)
In many areas, the only thing really possible is to try, to the best of your ability, to determine “What Would Cecil Do?” For example, I have concluded that the most Cecil-like soft drink is Diet Coke. But I live in fear that some day Cecil will announce, in his terrible tone, that I should have been drinking Pepsi all along. Especially if Ed lands that big product tie-in deal…
Sometimes
In the nighttime sky
I stare at the twinkling stars
And Cecil smiles back
And whitetho-- I gave it the thought it could be something over the top… but let me put it to you this way. There are some very odd people out there. And…well… :::shrug::: You call names in the BBQ pit, expect some stuff tossed back at you. If that makes me too serious, or my panties in a knot, so be it. The people who know me would understand what I do, how I do it, and why. And they are the only opinions that I care about.
Melis-- very tired Rennie
Wench #407, IWG
Wenchmommy extraordinaire
Goddess of Typos, Dark Chocolate and Fyne Ale
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Oh, lets leave poor Olentzero alone. This is a free country, and if he wants to worship other false, misleading, and evil gods, he has a perfect right to do so.
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Hunter Thompson
I must say this to whitetho: