I like to debate, no doubt about it. So this is my way, I'm gonna argue with nowhereman, he can either step up or step off. Feel free to take it as seriously or non-seriously as you want.
I never once said that having an opinion is a bad thing or that the dude isn't entitled to his opinion, what I'm saying is that coming into a topic that's about astronomy and saying it's all a waste of time is a bit like walking into an art museum and saying "art is crap" to everyone in the place. I simply do not understand why someone who has absolutly no interest in a subject would interject themselves into it simply to say it's pointless. So you feel it's pointless, fine, there are other places aren't there? I mean, do you sit around your living room watching all the TV shows you dislike just so you can yell at the television about how pointless the shows are? There's no logic or intelligence at work here.
Yeah, so I'm new to this forum, so what? Why is it that some people believe that just because you're new to a specific website or discussion forum that you're like a newborn baby that just popped out? You're people, I've been dealing with people for 41 years, this is a website, I've been using and designing websites since the early 90's, it's on a computer, been using computers since the 70's. The only thing that's different here is the colors and pictures and the way in which certain words are put together by certain people. Which is to say, there's not much new here, I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, etc etc.
Yeah, I don't know the players in this particular game personally, that's true. That doesn't mean that I'm going to change who I am until I get to know them. I'm gonna be me no matter who you are. That means if someone does or says something amazingly dumb it's going to bug me a little bit. (Trust me, I'm not even bugged a little bit yet here). What I am is confused about the mindset of a person who'd come into a thread on a topic they have no interest in and espouse on how pointless that subject is when they can easily go to any one of a number of other threads where there are subjects they DO enjoy to discuss. Nobody has yet explained this to me.
Believe it or not, I'm not a total asshole, I'm only part asshole. You just haven't had a chance to see the side of me that doesn't smell like shit yet. It isn't all up to me to blow sunshine up everyone's asses here to be able to fit in. Since I joined I've stuck pretty much to the topics that are on a specific subject and contained posts by someone I know personally, as a means to find more out about this site. Within 48 hours someone posted something inane, that's not exactly giving me a great first impression of the place. No, I don't mean to judge everyone based on that impression but you know what they say about first impressions. <Shrug>
After looking through some of the other forums here, what I see is basically EBaum's World Forums Lite. Neither a good nor a bad thing, just, I've seen it before is all. If I find a niche here that appeals to me, that's great, talking astronomy was one area I was interested in but, if it's got to be like this then it seems rather pointless to try to have that kind of discussion. So you take nothing seriously, that's cool, I can understand that. Thing is, I'm on several other forums like that and I thought maybe this was different. I was wrong.
There are other things that are confusing me and bugging me a bit. Having read some of the threads I can see it's obvious that you know Jerry better than I thought you did, so I guess I have to be more open about what's confusing me. There seems to be no small amount of gay bashing here. I honestly don't understand it. I figured, if Jerry's saying the site is cool then the people there must be pretty open minded but I'm not seeing evidence of this. Hell, Jer, I even saw you use the word gay in the negative way in one post. HUH???
Oh well, this will just be fodder for certain individuals to use as grist for their ridicule mill, so be it.
