Ten Reasons That Make Leaving Gather Sound Reasonable To Me

very funny. Thanks for posting. I'm with the icon.

"There's no flag for egregious spelling or grammar errors."

My personal fave.

J, I love your list *and* your icon.

I'm here doing my best to protect the integrity of homophones. What more do you want? A police state?

What if we found a way to embed William Shatner saying, "KHAAAANNNNNNNN!" into a comment -- would that make you stay? ;)

(Thanks for the morning laugh!)

jen, what we really need is Spock saying, "Fascinating."

Oh gee. You made me smile ~ and I just got up ~ there you go! There's a reason ~ smiling before noon! :o)

Love it!

Highsterycle

I can almost understand your wanting to leave because of Gather's gross oversight in the flagging department. I won't even mention the missing 'this article has been published every day and we're sick of it' option, since I want to talk you out of quitting, not send you running out the door.

If you can can hang on just a little longer, I will work on some Paris Hilton articles today.

LOL!!

If it's Paris Hilton articles you want, let me think on it during my escapades with the boyfriend and Merri today. I'll post Paris Hilton articles if nothing better surfaces. (On the rating scale, are odes to ingrown toenails better or worse than Paris Hilton articles?)

Orange is a very disturbing color. They made me wear it in jail last night when I was arrested for indecent exposure at the grocery store.

Okay...the term "reproduction ephemera" is giving me frightening flashbacks of my daughter's birth 15 months ago...

How close are you to 50.00?

You can have this one:

You can have this one, too:

I'll surrender this one, also:

DB 10

TeeeeeHeeeee!

What fun we have here, Orange and the Yellowjackets of TJHS, siss, boom, bah.

Hold on, J. There's hope

If you print any of my comments and present them during checkout at Home Depot, you'll receive a $50 discount. It's practically the same thing as a gift card.

Some days I think I AM the living embodiment of a flag for egregious grammar and spelling errors. Then I look around and realize I need to be cloned.

Jackie, I tried using one of your comments as a gift card at Home Depot and got arrested again. Thanks alot.

No, Andrea, they profiled you for not being culturally aware (*cough*Avril Lavigne*cough*) and then added to the charges when you tried to play the "Mommy" card.

Someone tell Avril Lavigne that Cyndi Lauper's on the phone and wants her non-punk gimmick back.

Oh, wait, sorry. Wrong post.

Andrea, you were arrested because you were (still) only wearing underpants.

An icon SHOULD be frightening! Mine is a fat bald guy singing; what (except for a scowling marsupial baring its teeth) could be scarier? The sheep do not love the sheepdog; they fear his teeth and thus will go where he directs.

I am hoping that when word of my extensive arrest record gets out I will no longer be asked to babysit.

I'm disappointed by the lack of audio. I'd like to use "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."

I need to finish the article on my encounter last year with Britney, Anna-Nicole, and Paris. I'm disappointed that I can't post the video here but when the little problem with youtube is ironed out I'll post a link.

Andrea, there is nothing you can do to get people to stop asking for free babysitting. NOTHING.

Jackie, there is one thing I guarantee will stop it: pedophagia.

Not so, Jackie... Drop the damn baby just once, and your career as a babysitter is over.

Not necessarily, Pete. Pedophagia is well-accepted in some societies, especially if the child is well-breaded.

Are you still here? William Shatner says he feels insulted. Insulted?! I ask you.

Dame Ruth, you are so funny.

Oh, where's Lyrical when I want her. She has a great William Shatner insult story. (She accidentally insulted him very badly one time.)

OMG. Hilarious. I read all the comments too. Even more hilarious. I've been assured by Gather execs that a video option is coming.... So, William Shatner will soon be able to tell you he's insulted, in his own words.

I love your humor J.!! Keep it up.

Arlene, how can Mr. Shatner feel insulted? I started a group for him here and made a Shatner page over at Squidoo.

Kate, Vols and Vols fans are the orange kudzu strangling the very soul of Knoxville.

Bite your tongue, Kris! Cyndi Lauper wrote the best song about masturbation ever.

I've missed your comments, Charles.

Melissa, once I get the ten points from all the pictures I posted this week I will be over the hurdle. After that I only need about 100 more cards to fix everything...

Oh, Sandy, I want to read that insult story. Post a link. Pretty please?
I had the dubious honor of being told off very publically by Harlan Ellison about five minutes after we were introduced. It wouldn't have lasted as long but he noticed that we had an audience...

I once was interviewed by William Shatner. One of the strangest experiences of my life.

Pete, PLEASE tell me that you have that on tape.

Unfortunately, no. It is a story for which the world is not yet prepared, but I may tell it anyway. What's it worth to you, cookie?

Pete, I can't imagine what I'd have to bribe you with that I'd be willing to let go.

Actually it's not all that exciting; it's one of those "you had to be there" events. A couple or three years ago WS was going to write his memoirs about "Star Trek". Since my late colleague Joan Pearce and I had done the E&O/authenticity/production research on the original series (as well as on most of the stuff that followed), his secretary asked us if we'd be willing to come over and talk to him, and he'd record the interview. We arrived, and sat on a couch opposite his chair, and we started in. It quickly degenerated into the sort of conversation you might have with an old friend you hadn't seen in decades, then moved off onto the dismally bad science on the show. I mentioned that the Universal Translator was my bete noire, and I explained why, which got us off onto linguistics, which is My Thing. He'd never heard of it as a scientific discipline, so I endeavored to instruct him, all the while trading off my end of the conversation with Joan, who was one of the brightest and most interesting humans I've ever met, and was a friend and colleague for almost forty years. Bill discussed "Free Enterprise" with us: "The plot for that was hatched right where you're sitting".

But it was William Shatner, one of the iconic figures of the late 20th century, and he was in full Bill Shatner mode, commanding but with a hint of confusion, and definitely a man who takes himself only slightly seriously. Actually, he takes himself seriously, he does not take his image seriously. He's a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the afternoon (it was supposed to be an hour and a half; it ran to four) immensely.

I've seen the book, but haven't read it; a cursory scan showed no references to me or Joan, but I'll have to read it eventually, as he does talk about several of my friends and acquaintances.

J., great article!

Pete fun, fun story!

I've never met Harlan Ellison or seen him. I've read some of his stories. I don't find your story hard to believe. Especially the part about the audience.

He did make a major contribution. He put out two very big anthologies containing the work of science fiction authors to avoid. The tables of contents are very handy references. (OK, some of the authors are worth reading.)

Pete, I like theShatner story.

I saw him on a TV show some time in the 80s, I think it was on Comedy Central, where he was the MC to some sort of comedy event. He made some remarks about "so funny he could sound funny reading the phone book" and then started reading from a phone book. It made me feel a lot better about him. He was willing to be silly on national TV in spite of his Star Trek character.

Since Lyrical won't come in and tell her own Shatner story, I will. When she met him, she said, "Aren't you the guy who was in Miss Congeniality with Sandra Bullock?

He was not happy.

Oh, boy, Ivy. I wrote it up a few years back, and I tried to make the best of an incident that made me cry (later, in private) by making a funny story out of it.
So, let me find it, and dust it off, and I'll publish it as an article.

Thanks for telling us the story, Pete.

My own Harlan Ellison Story which should open up the floodgates; everybody who has even met Harlan has a Harlan story. I've talked with him at several Cons. He can be friendly, witty, and truly interested in talking to you; he can also be a raving SOB. At the Worldcon in Berkeley CA in '69, think it was, he was wandering about, trailed by an entourage only slightly smaller than that of the Vice-President of a small West African nation. And despite the fact that the entourage was roughly half and half hopeless geeks and attractive women (or girls, as we used to call them back in the late '60s), he was bemoaning his fame, the wretched destiny which caused his followers to follow him. "Harlan, take off your dark glasses," I shouted, "so no one will recognize you."

This was the same Con at which during the banquet Robert Silverberg, the evening's MC, described Ellison as "a man who thrusts his charisma at you". The Guest of Honor, Philip Jose Farmer, revealed to the audience that he suffered from stage fright. But, he said, if he starts to feel nervous, he reminds himself that this is a captive audience of people who want to hear him speak. "And if that doesn't work, he continued, "I just say to myself over and over, 'I am Harlan Ellison. I am Harlan Ellison...'."

OK, 'Possum, you're up.

I will never forgive Harlan Ellison for not beating up enough people to get his script of "I, Robot" made. Never. *sniffle* Yo, Pete! Laphroaig! *pushes cat dish forward*

Harlan is certainly an interesting and witty fellow, and once in a while he will write something quite good (or better). Unfortunately, he needs an editor with a baseball bat to get him to exercise self-discipline.

Lydia: The 10 or 15 year-old? I prefer the former; it has no pretentions toward refinement; it marches quicktime down your craw, picks you up by the the scruff of your neck, shakes you a bit, throws you in the corner, and asks "How'd ye like that, Laddie?".

OK, Mz. Ivy and Mr. Pete, I posted the meeting Harlan piece I wrote back in October '01.

Won moor reason: its the inn thing too dew. If lay to Ron yew miss the homo phones yew can all ways come back.

The 15, Pete--I'm a cat, we're all about pretentions to refinement. ;)

I'm BACK!