Offensive Squid

I started reading through some of that and boy are those avatar icons fucking annoying. I can see why Watts named his blog that way.

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sheila said:

and I haven't read Cormac McCarthy in a while, or Kazuo Ishiguro… but, I'd be willing to put them in to the ring. In fact, I haven't even read The Road, see? but check out Blood Meridian. And Ishiguro, not so much on the violent and bleak side, but the grim acceptance of defeat and death. just give up.

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I have not read Blood Meridian, either. Is a good read but grim, or is it medicine? Frank McCourt. Angela's Ashes. Now he'd be more of a challenge in a Wattsian doom-n-gloom slapfight, but Harlan Ellison would relish a slapfight, and he'd probably get a little box so he could climb up on it and get closer to Dr. Watts' head with this little slapping hands.

Hljothlegur said:

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sheila said:

and I haven't read Cormac McCarthy in a while, or Kazuo Ishiguro… but, I'd be willing to put them in to the ring. In fact, I haven't even read The Road, see? but check out Blood Meridian. And Ishiguro, not so much on the violent and bleak side, but the grim acceptance of defeat and death. just give up.

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I have not read Blood Meridian, either. Is a good read but grim, or is it medicine? Frank McCourt. Angela's Ashes. Now he'd be more of a challenge in a Wattsian doom-n-gloom slapfight, but Harlan Ellison would relish a slapfight, and he'd probably get a little box so he could climb up on it and get closer to Dr. Watts' head with this little slapping hands.

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I have not read it in so long that I find it hard to say. When you say medicine do you mean that you have to force yourself through it because it is supposed to be good, or something else? I haven't read Angela's Ashes. It wasn't like that. If you mean something else, clarify and I will try to remember.

Harlan Ellison used to type in a shop window for fun. I don't know if Peter would enjoy the same theatrics, but if he did, there could be a one page competition where they write for fun… like how Randal Monroe went against New Yorker cartoonists. That was cute. I think they do that a lot because the Rhymes with Orange author won a bout recently.

at some future con, probably Harlan won't be there, but maybe there could be a panel of writers who enjoy that kind of thing and take suggestions and then 15 minute sprint to write a paragraph or something. then they read them. it would be fun.

sheila said:

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wow, I don't think I noticed that one because the avatars were so annoying it distracted me enough not to finish reading the thread. I should go back with lynx or w3m to read it in all text.

I always thought the "cutesy fucking icons" had to do with places like livejournal where users have little square avatar icons (reasonably sized compared to the site you linked to! gah!) as well as graphical emoji. I suppose he has gravatar and avatars.

(I still have a livejournal. I kick it old school).

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Oh, yes, LJ.  I still have mine.  And LJ icons can be pretty cutsey.  Also, 4-chan is image-heavy and the posters skew 15 years old, maybe he was thinking of that as well.  In fact, most bloggy locations have made images easy to attract the young audience – the real writers in the essay format are becoming tl;dr to a younger, more ADHD cohort.

 

Gravatar?