When Sense Becomes Nonsense

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. You can’t wallow in the mud without getting any on you, and being mistaken for other pigs in the pen.

Which has happened to The Rusty Nail.  After spending years of watching and reporting their antics, Rusty has been developing some of the same symptoms: looking for anything little thing to latch onto, whether it makes sense or not, confusing discussion with attacks, lashing out at people for no reason at all.  It started a few months ago with a comment Daggy made on someone’s blog, the blog writer gave a non committal response, and he was branded a nitwit for no particular reason.

Next Nick Cato posted a generic positive review of Daggy’s short story collection, and snark went up about that, in spite of the fact Nick is well respected in the field, and the review was hardly a rave.

Most recently, Rusty posted about Phailbin and one of his numerous posts of 9/11 paranoia, taking him to task for bad math. then went into her own nitwitesque rant about Obama’s health care plan. Others disagreed with her, or pointed out the way Phailbin did his math, and got invective hurled at them. Myself included. Now this isn’t a grudge, as anyone who’s read my blog, know that Nikita has said some of the most horrible things anyone could say.

It is however a plea for Rusty to take a look at her behavior, and maybe take a step back and look at things objectively. I have nothing but respect and admiration for what she’d done at The Rusty Nail, but there’s a fine line between on reporting the news and becoming the news.

Dagstine’s Delusions

In another futile effort to claim attention and somehow seem relevant, Sir Larry has posted a question on SL which once again proves, when it comes to writing, to being a writer he completely misses the point. Daggy asks here, http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/9270?page=1, whether we write for immortality or money.

It’s been my experience that anyone who writes for either achieves neither.  Many writers I know don’t make a living from it; and those that do, are also involed in the industry in other forms. Then there are the bulk of writers, which I include myself in, who write in their spare time and work other jobs to pay the bills. Oh yeah, we dream of making Stephen King money, having multiple book deals, movie adaptations, accolades and sycophants at our disposal; at the end of the day however, we’re simply doing what we’re wired to do. 

There’s something that compels us to write. We’re storytellers, with fertile imaginations and an ability to entertain others. They called this lying when I was a kid. If I never made a dime from my writing in the future, I would still do it, because I don’t know hhow to stop.  If I do it for money, immortality or whatever, not only does my writing suffer (as then it’s filled with purpose and other pretentious twaddle) but I delude myself. 

And that’s why Dagstine, for all his bleatings about his resume, will never be remembered for anything but being an internet douchebag. He sees writing as easy money, as a way to be relevant, and achieves neither. 

He does however serve a purpose; he stands as a beacon for all new writers of what not to become, what not to do, and what not to emulate. In that, his failure is an overwhelming success.

Larry the Thief – Update

Proving once again that any attention is better than none at all, Dagstine manages to hijack another thread and make it about him. In a quite innocuous thread, S.D. Hintz talked about your first job as a teenager.

Innocent enough, right? Then along comes Larry the Thief who says,

The tips back then ranged from 2 bucks to ten per delivery, throw the regular hourly rate on to that, then throw me “Helping Myself” here and there from the cash register or Lotto box (shhh….lol). That pay on some weeks was more like $15.00 per hour.

 

A thief is a thief is a thief, no matter the age. The fact he was a teenager and, presumably, knew wrong from right, and stole money is a crime. Thus, beginning the pattern of thinking everyone owes him something, rather than relying on his own efforts.

See, some things never change.

http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/8725?page=2

Update – Matt the Grinch

Just as Cussedness pointed out, Matt did lock the thread, and once more I’m left to wonder why? Was it our taking Daggy to task for theft that did it? RN Lee calling bullshit on the whole story? Or maybe Matt, frustrated that his Milton wunderkind is rejecting his overtures, got in a snippy mood and decided to take it out on those of us who know BS when they smell it.

Or maybe it’s because, Larry was Matt’s secret santa, (something Daggy made sure to advertise in another thread), and wanted to protect his “special” friends.

Larry the Loser

Lorenzo the limpwristed, loser is at it again on SL, http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/7590?page=2

with thinly veiled threats against someone, most likely Janrae. I’m so tired of the chickenshits like Larry. They have a huge chip on their shoulder, all because they’re douchebags. They spend time plotting revenge, nursing grudges and living a life of bitter jealousy. To compensate for being such a shitheel, they pick on others. All big talk in misspelled words, often in bold or caps.

Larry, you’re a despicable, worthless piece of shit. The tragedy in your life, is the fact your kid will spend their entire life being embarrassed by you. You have no talent, no redeeming qualities, and are one of the biggest liars I’ve come across.  You’re a joke. A farce. A fart from God’s ass. Nothing more. You have no substance, no dignity and certainly no respect. 

For all your tough talk, you’re nothing but a punk ass bitch. You lie about your credits, your health and everything else under the sun. If you were dying of thirst, I wouldn’t even piss on you; it would be a waste of body fluid.

In short, Larry, go fuck yourself.

When Lorenzo Speaks…(no one listens)

I’ve thought about whether to write about this or not. Thought about it on and off all day actually. On the one hand, there are some good lulz to be had, and on the other, something about it doesn’t sit quite right. Dagstine claims he’s being interviewed by Johnny Guerrero a former writer for Game Pro magazine.  At first, that rang true, as I’ve read gamepro for a long time, and the name sounded familiar.  However, knowing daggy’s inability to tell the truth about anything, I googled the name. Nothing came up. Well nothing about Johnny Guerrero or gamepro, anyway. I then googled Tyler Nagata, a writer over at gamesradar.com.  He came up. I then googled John C. Dvorak, a writer for pcmag.com and also of the cranky geeks podcast. He came up. Hell, I googled my name and I came up, and even my blog when I searched for raingods. 

Yet Johnny Guerrero didn’t. Not only that, there are only two posts. The first post talks about how he deleted his old blog and started a new one.  and then there’s the headline: Money in the Bank Writers; An interview with sf writer, Lawrence Dagstine. Yeah, click the link and read the post. If Johnny, does indeed exist, and did work for gamepro, he could come up with a more accurate title than that. By Larry’s own admissions on his blog and various posts on Shocklines, money isn’t something he ever seems to have. There’s the boast of 300 plus stories, etc. One would think, even a game journalist, would be able to do a little research on someone before they herald and trumpet the spin that daggy likes to put on his career. 

so I’m calling bullshit on this, until it’s proven otherwise.

Dagstine On the Loose

Not one to have an original idea ever; Dagstine rips off other nitwits for pointless threads. The original post here, by ace nitwit dlatham: http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/7289.

And Dagstine’s follow-up is here: http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/7296?page=1.

The good part is his last sentence:

 P.S.: please give me attention now; or, a nickel for your thoughts.

Daggy, neither you, your thoughts, or writing are even worth a nickel.

Philbin and Dagstine, together again

It never seems to fail, when one nitwit pops up like Nikita did today, the other two follow. Dagstine was a busy, busy ear cancer survivor today posting on most every topic on the first page over at shocklines tonight.  He even manages to create a topic of his own: What’s your fiction approach http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/6994

Lorenzo, you should learn how to write fiction first before trying to pretend you actually know something about it. BTW, I guess the ear cancer miraculously vanished as well, you haven’t been pumping that for attention lately. Or maybe you finally realize no one takes you seriously. Not as a writer, or as a person.

Not to be left alone, brit-hack Philbin is whoring another review of his crapic (a shiity epic is what that is), over here:http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/7007. Do I even have to say the first (and only) one to comment on it, is his favorite butt buddy Lorenzo?

Looks like they’re all gearing up for another clusterfuck this weekend. 

Don’t worry, I have plenty of popcorn to go around.

How to be a nitwit in 6 posts or less

Going by the name AD.thenewabsurdistforum, this new Shockline member has shown how to be a nitwit in 6 posts or less. You’ll remember a brief mention of him from a post about Lorenzo last week when he called Janrae batshit crazy. He did everything to kiss AD’s hind quarters to get someone, anyone, to pay attention to him. well the oozefest continues. And not surprisingly, they go after the english language.

http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/6779

apparently, AD doesn’t believe you have to write using proper english. L33t speak, txt speak is perfectly acceptable. After all, according to AD, William Gibson wrote a short story using nothing but full stops and commas for grammar. New nitwit writes:

This is the 21st century and language is changing… communication has developed… ever sent a text message? Did you understand it? I wager you did. 

Why yes, I have sent text messages, and I generally understand what I write.  The question here is do you? Simply because one author wrote a story to experiment with style, does not make it okay to further corrupt the principles and rules of communication. So I would kindly suggest you learn how to write first, and then maybe experiment. Simply because language is changing (something very open to debate anyway) is not an excuse to write crap. 

But you’ve been tomoviewed so you know that by now.

and Lorenzo, ever the helpful parasite, posts a link to this article, for evidence. Read it and hurl. 

http://ezinearticles.com/?Free-Lance-Professional-Writers-Hate-Amateur-Writers&id=227821

Class dismissed.

Everybody in the pool!

Well if it’s not NIkita extorting people for money, stealing their stories or finding sleepsacks, it’s Phoolbin with his tinfoil brigade. and now we have Douchestain being an uteer and total prick. Again. 

It starts at shocklines (well of course it does, what doesn’t start there?) Where a butt hurt author who got tomoviewed here http://tomoview.net/forum/index.php?topic=14185.0, whines about elitism. Douchestain makes a snarky comment about Janrae in the guise of railing against the very same people he tried to fit in with a few months back on Odark.  Janrae defends herself and Douchestain then has the gall to call her batshit crazy.

Look you nitwits, I work 10 hours a day, try to write, play World of Warcraft, keep up with the info on Palin over at mudflats, and keep up on my blog.; would you cooridinate your meltdowns so they don’t all happen at once? sheesh.

And Lorenzo, if you really want to see batshit crazy, look in the mirror.

time for me to settle a score with a dwarf (and I don’t mean La Femme Nikita).

Lorenzo’s laments and spins

Rusty posted about this earlier, but I couldn’t resist commenting on his latest hijinks. In this corner, the mighty Larry weighs in on his problems with ebay and its shipping and handling rules. Seems that with 300 credits on his resume, he can’t seem to make ends meet and has put some books up on ebay. Not content to play by the rules, he whines how unfair ebay is in protecting its customers from being gouged on shipping charges. 

http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/6595

Here’s a hint Larry, and others have mentioned it, do what most people with half a brain do, incorporate the charges in the price of the book. Since they’re not one of your own, you’ll actually make money! Use media rate! Donate them to the local library. Stop whining about every little thing in the world. 

In the other corner, Lorenzo talks up his Coney Island project on his website. http://lawrencedagstine.com/2008/09/08/lawrence-dagstine-the-coney-island-project/.

As usual, he provides quite a few lulz in this one. 

TCIP will be a 5,000 word article, which may even top 7,500 words, 

Now I’m no math whiz, but even I know 5000 doesn’t top 7500. Nothing like clarity, and proofreading is there, Larry?

This is my first reporting gig, too, and so far I’ve taken a total of 192 pictures — 20 of which can be found below; these particular ones will probably not make the final cut.  

given, you limited abilities, also your last, if it even makes the cut. I’m also quite positive those pics won’t make the cut, but I’m sure you can use them to accompany your story in Asimov’s. What? You’re not in Asimov’s? Make that 299 credits, then.

I’m also now looking beyond the landmarks presented before you (the ones they can’tknock down), to make room for a non-fiction book filled with equally rich photography and history about the location. 

So they’re making room for a book? Seems to me, they wouldn’t need much space, even if it was a coffee table book.

This was one of my crappier shots

Larry tells the truth! Alert the media! First explain who Dagstine is though.

He ends this spin by thanking two people, one for access to photos of the Mermaid Parade, and another for upgraded  (meaning something other than his camera phone) camera equipment.  Here’s another hint Larry, it’s not the camera quality that creates a good picture, it’s the photographer.