Apparently a stupid little run-in with some North Carolina Ted has connected thousands of people of the Internet in a weird sectarian battle of witlessness. I've been contacted by all sorts of people saying, "I don't think you were being snarky at all," and by all sorts of lesser people saying, "You were being super snarky! Ha! Snark has an s in it! Ha!" And thus we're in this awful battle of the Ted's. Both he and I dropped it, yet some people with major penis envy seem to want to keep it going...
Take this recent example (linked above). After mentioning that this guy finds out I'm an OSU student, he wonders if I know a guy named Joe, who also goes to OSU. Apparently Joe does know me.
9:27:54 AM gyllstromk: yo, do you know a guy named [guy’s full name omitted to prevent him googling this page]
You LINKED to my blog! You didn't think I was going to notice once someone clicked on that link and I got a strange referrer in the logs?
9:55:25 AM imtallgermanjoe: yeah i do
9:55:27 AM imtallgermanjoe: why do you ask?
9:55:30 AM gyllstromk: ha
9:55:30 AM imtallgermanjoe: thats crazy how do you know [guy’s name]?
9:55:37 AM imtallgermanjoe: i used to ta with him
Correction: I used to TA imtallgermanjoe. He was a student first. Eventually he too became a TA. We once TA'ed a class together, but the majority of the time we weren't in the same classes at all.
I also got him a job at IBM. I said nice things about him. I recommended him to all sorts of people who wanted to know who the smart up-and-comers were. In fact, one of the reasons he was not only a TA but a TA of the advanced programming class in FEH was because of my strong recommendation for the job. I thought Joe deserved it. I also hoped that by the time he started TA'ing, he'd grow out of needing to impress me.
9:55:41 AM gyllstromk: what’s his dealie
9:55:50 AM imtallgermanjoe: he’s the smartest person i have ever met
9:55:58 AM imtallgermanjoe: he’s also super arrogant and he used to drive me crazy
9:56:08 AM imtallgermanjoe: we used to argue about stupid shit
9:56:10 AM imtallgermanjoe: all of the [censored] time
When I was Joe's TA, sometimes he'd do something incorrect on an assignment, and I would mark it wrong. Joe would, of course, defend his wrong answer. If he didn't bring it up, I wouldn't have even remembered he made the wrong answer, but he ended up highlighting his folly. It still didn't really matter to me, but it seemed to matter to him.
Joe was one of those students who keeps you from helping students who really need the help. I enjoyed sitting down next to students who really wanted to learn and walk them through things. They had good questions, and it was nice to see that answers I gave could help them. However, Joe might have a question that he's already answered. He just wants to argue with me to show that I'm wrong (and often these were philosophical questions -- weakly versus strongly typed languages, for example -- that were not meant to have a "right" answer). This got worse when Joe was a TA. It's really hard to get away from an argument when the other TA can follow you around the room (injecting his own opinion over your shoulder, without considering the lesson you were trying to give or the question you were trying to answer).
9:56:18 AM imtallgermanjoe: hey remember that [censored] girl?
9:56:21 AM imtallgermanjoe: he used to date her too hahahaha
And this is just petty. What does that even MEAN?!
You see, Joe obsessed over a girl that I dated. This was during a time when no one knew we were dating. We didn't advertise it then, and we were working some things out ourselves, but we both admitted that we were passed the point of no return. Meanwhile, she was nice to Joe. She was a friend to Joe. Remember that IBM job? Well, Joe was apparently unhappy at it. She felt bad for Joe and wanted to help. It was a nice thing to do. Evidently, Joe thought this meant that she wanted to date him. Eventually she explained to him that she and I were dating, and Joe went completely cold to her. He said awful things to her. He made her really feel awful, and she didn't understand what she was feeling awful about. Joe was a big fat jerk.
If I did any crime by being short to Joe in class, Joe did a much bigger crime by being a complete ass to her. (though, I did warn her ahead of time that Joe was going to get attached; she had more faith in Joe... Now she knows better)
And now, because being an ass to her didn't convince her to come running to him, he insults her. In fact, he mixes her up in an ad hominem attack!!
Great... Now I've done it. Joe and his friend aren't going to know what that means. It's just another example of my arrogance.
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