Over in the best damned blog in the business, on December 23rd, Libby made a post that was long overdue and that I thank her for. It was specifically in reference to my post in this blog from December 2nd, and there was also a lot of similarities to my post on January 10, which was reposted in her blog on July 16. I will confirm that despite these measures of support, Libby doesn't agree with me totally. There are things we vociferously disagree on. There are things I'm going to put in this post she would most probably disagree on. But that's okay. What matters is that we're both acknowledging that what we're putting out there now is a lot closer to the truth than what was out there.

Two and a half years ago, a lot of lies were spread about me (and it should be pointed out that a lot of what Libby had said on her blog was deleted by her months ago), and I've gotten at least some chances to say some things about them, but given how long had passed and Libby's relative silence, it was easy for those so inclined to believe I was just making it up. My real friends knew I was telling the truth all along, and even when I wasn't saying anything, that what was being put out there couldn't possibly be true.

But now you've heard it from both sides, the final needed link in the logic train:

• Rob was never Libby's e-boyfriend. He was just a guy who proclaimed himself to be such out of a chat joke he posted without consent, and put both myself and Libby into a hell of a position. We thought he was our friend, and didn't want him to be hurt. Libby told me she didn't want anything to change between us, and to trust her and let her handle it. That's what I did. Nobody's ever going to convince me that's wrong. When it appeared like that trust had been broken, I told Rob just as soon as I could. I didn't have to do that, but I did, going above and beyond in loyalty.
• Rob, my supposed friend and brother viciously turned on me despite the fact that I did nothing wrong by him, and did everything he could think of to hurt me. This treachery soon included the idea of using other people and their blogs to attack me, not only not caring that it would cause problems between us and could cause the end of those friendships, but even HOPING for that. The people he did this to and their blogs are just as much his victims here as I am, even if they don't realize it.
• My real friends had the wisdom to see this wasn't some mutual thing that should be stayed out of, and the loyalty to not tolerate what he was doing. People who weren't really my friends, simply refused to care, which is intolerable, particularly in a certain case of someone who always demands to be backed up in her claims of victimization by... well, practically everyone from the President and major professional sports figures on down. This is someone I was always there for, but who was never there for me. I suppose it was just my turn to be painted as her victimizer so she can have all of everyone's pity... but don't worry, everyone else will have THEIR turn soon enough.
  

I've been criticized because supposedly it was wrong to "publically call people out". All I have to say about that is that they had no objections to their name and property being used to attack me, so they've forfeited their claim to object to their name being used to set the record straight, no matter which alleged tragedies they try to exploit into a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in this matter.

I want to compare and contrast that to Matt, who in his December 19 post (unfortunately his blog structure doesn't allow direct linking to an article) realized the same crime was being committed against him as Rob committed against other blogs. To wit, someone was trying to drag their fight with me, his friend, into his blog, using it and him as a tool. Rather than ignore this, he showed real integrity and loyalty and put an immediate stop to it. (I also had an innocuous comment deleted, but this was at my suggestion in the name of peace.) Notice that Matt didn't have to totally take my side here... all he had to do was care enough to not allow this problem, to nip it right in the bud and make it clear their name and property will not be used like that. He did so, when others have failed in that simple task. And I thank him for that.

The only other loose end to tie up is those people who cold-bloodedly exploited this disagreement to get what they want, not caring what was best for Libby or the community. They are a large reason I was banned from IOP over this, and never got to return. Specifically, I got left out to avoid the continuation of the fights they started. I believe that this hurt Libby, and hurt the community. If not for this, the community may have been considered to be worth saving. The fact that IOP is gone makes this issue moot at present, but the people who I'm referring to know who you are, and your misdeeds have neither been forgiven nor forgotten. You deserved banning far more than I ever did, and I deserve this being set right. Should Libby ever start up a new community, redress will definitely be discussed. And in the meantime, you should definitely be ashamed of yourselves. You are pathetic excuses for friends and for human beings.

To conclude, there is one major problem I have with Libby's post. It makes it sound like all fault is on her, and that's definitely not the case. There's a lot I did wrong too, a lot I did to force her down some of these paths. I catalogued a lot of my own misdeeds (which were against Libby and Libby alone) in my January post, and I will apologize to her again, and thank her for not giving up on me either.

In the meantime, this ugly incident that's been there for 2 1/2 years has finally been lifted away and the light of truth shined underneath. Those who aren't exactly good people have been exposed for what they are... just as those people who really are quality have been revealed.

I'm just glad it's over.

Comedian Richard Pryor died Saturday of a heart attack, his wife told CNN. He was 65. Pryor had been ill with multiple sclerosis. Jennifer Lee Pryor tried to revive him before paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital, she said. Pryor, who was born in Peoria, Illinois, on December 1, 1940, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986.

More here

I demand one of you people buy me this!

Midway Home Use Arcade Machine

It's a full size arcade game machine. It includes Joust, Defender I & II, Robotron, Rampage, Splat, Satan's Hollow, Root Beer Tapper, Wizard of War, Timber and Sinistar.

Yes, I have most of those games on retro packs and the others on MAME, and no quarter slots will take away realism... but still, your own stand up arcade machine... how is that not about twenty kinds of awesome?

Who is my best World of Warcraft character?

Morsh was the first character I made, and I thought an Orc Warrior would be pretty straightforward and simple. I used the random name generator for him. After a few tries, it came up with "Moresh". I decided deleting the E and just going with Morsh would sound more guttural, and thus more Orcish. His battle cry is simply "Morsh Morsh Morsh!", because WoW needs more than one guy whose battle cry is just his name.

Iridiscia, my second character, was named after a character I used in a story I wrote as a teenager. I liked the name, so I used it again. Why is she a female? Because sometimes you like to look at a girl's butt as you run around the world, rather than a guy's, as Tomb Raider convinced us all of. She's a hunter, which means she can tame beasts into being her "pet", and assisting her in attacking. Pictured also is her current pet, Bitey. Unfortunately, after I picked the name, I learned that Owls can't use the Bite ability in WoW, but I like to pretend that's his normal attack. After all, Claw is the special attack he does use... but what's he left to do when he's not clawing? Throwing punches?

People who have known me for a long time won't be surprised to see Sapsinger here. Sapsinger was a character created for RPGs that DarkHelm GM'ed. He was a Kender, with the unfortunate tendency to bounce about the space/time continuum, with a magical bag of holding, into which many "souvenirs" have "fallen". DarkHelm was kind enough to create a character named Sapsinger, essentially reserving the name for me until I got into the game myself. Gnome was the closest I could get to Kender, and Rogue fit his personality best.

Libbi was, of course, named after my great friend Libby. She's a Paladin. Mental note: Get Libby a sword.

Muucau was me being humorous... just like about 90% of the people who play this race. Say it out loud to get it. He's a Shaman.

And with that shirt and those cuffs...

"The away team will consist of myself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Ensign Muucau."

"Aw, crap."

Ilp, my undead Priest, was intended to be a salute to Peter Cook's great character in the movie The Princess Bride, who proclaims "Mawwaige!" is "what bwings us togedder tooday!" Ilp is an acronym standing for Impressive Looking Priest that I felt sounded sufficiently Undead-ish. Unfortunately, after I created the character, I found out that technically, the character was credited as The Impressive Clergyman (at least according to IMDB), but that wouldn't have worked as well anyway. It was DarkHelm's idea to use the face of Undead that didn't have a jaw, which could only help with his pronunciation.

"Son loves mother, sweet romance! Poor old father has no pants." - Franklin Sherman, The Critic

I finally decided it'd be good to make a character named after myself, and chose a Human Warlock. Warlocks are limited to cloth armor. Since I don't like robes, thinking they look bad, and obscure part of the tabard, as you can see on Ilp, I stick to vests and other such things. Unfortunately, the best "leg" armor I could find right now is just a "loincloth", which are usually intended to work with robes. So yeah, it's pretty disturbing.

You can see each character has a common design on the chest. That's the "tabard" for my guild in the game, WorldofWar.net.

The United States Postal Service has announced that they will be issuing 20 new stamps with images of DC Comics heroes on them. 10 heroes will be featured. Each hero will get one stamp with a new picture of that hero, and one stamp recreating a classic comic book cover of that hero.

Here are the stamps and the covers:

1) Superman - Superman #11, 1941
2) Green Arrow - Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #15, 2001
3) Green Lantern - Green Lantern #4, 1961
4) Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman (second series) #22, 1987
5) Batman - Batman #1, 1940 (with Robin)
6) The Flash - Flash #111, 1960
7) Plastic Man - Plastic Man #4, 1943 (with Woozy Winks)
8) Aquaman - Aquaman (third series) #5, 1989
9) Hawkman - The Brave and The Bold #36, 1961
10) Supergirl - Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #1, 1982

You can see all 10 stamps here: http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/stamps/06_dccomics_600s.jpg

Courtesy newsarama.com

Holy reconciliation, Batman!

When I did my recent pieces, I did it with one intent and one intent only... to clear my name of the unfair charges against me that I was trying to "control people's blogs" that were being spread around by the person REALLY trying to control people's blogs, and break up my friendships with those people, caring more about hurting me than the fact that he would be hurting the people he called friends, because that's the type of person he really is.

Even though I said one of the friendships was salvagable, I didn't imagine this would make some progress on it. But I suppose that's what happens when you actually try to read what I say and discern if I have a point rather than go OMGWTFKSHJFBHJHF over the fact that your name was mentioned, and admit that yeah, you could possibly be the person in the wrong.

(Or, if I could have my wishes about the past, how about the possible idea that maybe it should have been Rob who got the "Take it down, apologize and publically retract it OR ELSE" treatment when he was the one bringing her name into the public to cause this mess in the first place. Of course, reasonable suggestions like that would assume she cares about anyone but herself or was ever really my or anyone else's friend.)

Unfortunately, my ability to comment in other blogs is pretty limited right now because of the fact that someone doesn't mind dragging their fights into other blog's comments (which is basically how Rob started this whole mess in the first place, dragging his fights into other people's blogs) if I happen to make a comment, even on a completely unrelated subject... so I guess I'll make my comments right here now that this blog is the happening place everyone's hopping to.

First off...I would just like to say that I haven't read the post myself (and EVERYONE knows what I am talking about), but I do know what isn't about. And I don't know from hear say, or what is posted on other blogs...I know because I have been there...I lived it. I know it. And, I would like to make a couple of statements...or whatever...here it goes.

Like she says here, she hadn't read the post yet. Unfortunately, BlogSpot had a massive outage yesterday. I wish she would have withheld comment till after the post, or at least until after we talked, but c'est la vie.

• I love Rob. He is my friend. He doesn't tell me what to do, he doesn't tell me when to do it. He doesn't brain wash me. He doesn't make me be his friend. I am his friend because he is a good person. He is my freind because he is there for me. He is my friend because he doens't kill a freind ship because of someone else.

Does Rob brainwash Krissie or tell her what to do? No. Does he force her down paths that are good for him and bad for her by his actions, yes. Krissie wanted to be my friend. I wanted to be Krissie's friend. Rob didn't want that, and did everything he could to make sure that wasn't the case.

I leave it to the audience to decide whether that sounds like a "good person" or not.

• This is my blog. It has always been my blog. It will always be my blog. Nothing goes on here, or comes off here, unless I say it's ok. And btw, if you don't like the red writting that is on here from time to time, get over it, or get on with your life.

Krissie certainly didn't authorize all of Rob's little attacks before they happened.

It isn't so much that I don't like the red writing (though I'm not alone in wishing it could be just Krissie's blog, not Rob's blog featuring Krissie), it's that I don't like being attacked, and I refused to stand for it. Any person with any self esteem whatsoever would refuse as well.

And it would be just as wrong if I posted there and was attacking her friends that I didn't like. However, I'm a better person than that. I'll take my shots here, but I don't speak for Libby or Krissie or anyone else. Rob put himself over to people like he did, and of course they trusted him. He was their friend, and Krissie was keeping him on regardless of what he was doing and saying. That sent a message, even if she never intended it.

• How can I be a bad friend if I'm not a freind at all. Someone once told me never to send him/her emails every again becuase we weren't friends and we would never be friends again. So, I stopped sending my emails...and today I find out that I am a bad friend to this same person.. hmmm...does this make sence to anyone out there??

This confused me, because I remember it differently. From what I remembered, the last time we really talked, Krissie raised me over e-mail, and it seemed we were actually making some progress, but then it seemed to turn into a deal where she was merely attempting to convince me she was right. We turned to an outside opinion, and he agreed with me that these attacks were taking place, and that they were a serious problem that needed to be addressed. She just said "Ok" and stopped talking, and it came off like she didn't want to talk any more if she couldn't be right.

I certainly don't remember ever telling her not to contact me any more... but I'm not going to call her a liar either. Maybe I'm right, maybe she's right. Maybe both or neither of us is right.

• None of my friends have ever told me what to do...except one, who according to him/her, is no longer my freind. That is the only time that anyone has ever told me to do anything. And btw, that friend didn't try to take over my blog or run it...he/she just told me to get rid of someone.

I *think* what Krissie is trying to say here is exactly what I was trying to say in making my post: I did not ever try to control her blog. I simply tried to make the attacks stop, which again anyone in my position would do.

• When the worst of this stuff went down...I was in the WORST breakup of my life, whith someone who I was completly in love with for all the wrong reasons, someone who hurt me so bad, and abused me...yea. Not to mention that during this time, I was having to adjust to school, being aways from my parents, and making new friends....yea.

And that sucks. If I was there, I'd take that boy, stab him in the face and delete his house to be sure for hurting Krissie.

At the same time, all of us go through crappy things in our lives. The easiest thing in the world to do (as we've found out lately) is to try to use those things to justify being a crappy person. But they don't. Though it does make you a better person to stay a good person when this is happening.

And I know Kris knows this.

• People can say whatever they want about me. I don't care. And the people that believe what they say...well, fuck them too. Because if your gonna believe what someone else says about me...before you even talk to me about it...then fuck you. You aren't my freind and you never were.

Words to live by. I'm doing what I'm doing because even despite that, I felt it was important to get the truth out there, both for the sake of my reputation and peace of mind, as well as to let those quality people who supported me this whole time know they made the right decision.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, even though people SHOULD always check with the person in question, they often don't, especially when they think they can trust the person talking and he seemingly has a position where he can speak on their behalf.

• This is high school shit. I went though all this shit in high school. Adults should not be worrying over things like this. And some people need to pick what side of the fence your gonna fucking stand on. Becasue, when this comsumed my life...i had people telling me one thing, and telling him/her, something completly different. The supported me when they talked to me, and they supported the other person when they talked to him/her.

I've talked to Kris, and she realizes this isn't high school. This is just about me wanting to be her friend and not have to tolerate constant attacks for it, to not have to tolerate the message being put out there "If you like Krissie, you should hate Dave."

I should say this isn't high school on my end. A mature, rational person who really cared about her wouldn't have created all these problems (that are obvious to multiple people) in the first place.

I Read It.

I finally got to read the post that is all the news around here. I have to be honest here and say that I wasn't bothered by anything that was said about me.

And I have to say I'm glad it was actually read, and this was realized. If your name isn't Rob, I didn't say anything all that bad about you until after I was pushed and decided to let out the old "take no prisoners" Dave.

If you do something wrong, accept that it gets said that you did. And realize that if you don't want that said, don't do something wrong in the first place. Don't try to force the truth to disappear from the Internet.

Things said about certain others though....yea, I didn't like that, and believe you me when I say that I voiced my openion on those.

I'll verify this. She did. Doesn't change anything I had to say or the correctness thereof, but I can respect that.

There were some points in the post that I didn't like...but over all..I was not offended by the things that were said about me. I did (still do) have Rob on my blog. It did cause problems with a friendship at the time. I did try compromises, but the only person responsible for breaking those compromises is me bc I never had the intition of following though.

I can see why Kris is saying this. Certainly, if you say "If this person does X, I promise you I will do Y." and you have no intention of doing Y even if X is done, that's pretty scummy. That's not being a very good friend, particularly if I deserve having Y done RIGHT NOW because of what's been already done, but I went ahead and compromised... gave up something I deserved in the name of preserving the friendship in trust that Y would happen if X continued to happen. Unfortunately, that trust was let down.

At the same time, though, that doesn't mean that that person doing X isn't wrong to do it. It is not Krissie's fault Rob attacked me in her blog. It IS Krissie's fault she continued to LET Rob attack me in her blog and did nothing about the situation.. That's what led to the end of our friendship, as it would to any friendship where both participants had a healthy sense of self esteem. I can forgive her for this if the friendship can be repaired, just as I hope she can forgive me for wrongs I've done against her.

Let's just say that NOW, I hope that even if she doesn't want to do Y now... that if X is done, she will stick to her word this time.

At the time, the last thing that I wanted to worry about was my blog and who ran it. And, by the way, I ran it then, I run it now, and I will always run it as long as I live. And again...I would like to say that no one tells me what to do or tries to tell me what to do...then or now. I do things because I want to do them. Rob doesn't tell me to do things, B doesn't tell me to do things, Matt doesn't tell me to do things, Dave doesn't tell me to do things (besides of course to get Rob off my blog). I would just like to make that clear.

(recent edit by Krissie bolded by me for emphasis)

Again, I think what she's trying to say is that I don't control her blog, and that I never even tried to do so. Yes, I told her to get Rob off her blog. I hope though that everyone reading this realizes that if they were in my shoes, so would they.

Hopefully Kris can confirm some of my interpretations here, just for the sake of those who would rather believe she was joining the lynch mobs.

Sorry about the color changing here, folks. Blogspot really didn't like my whole stunt of trying to use Krissie's color here for her stuff, so I had to improvise.

Moving on, over in her bailiwick , Libby posted a really interesting quiz from Wizard magazine, that teases what the One Year Later Universe of DC Comics will look like, so named because of the fact that after Infinite Crisis, the entire DC Universe will skip forward one year in continuity. The intervening time will be told in a weekly series called 52 (same concept as the show 24... each issue is a week, though the first 10 are rumored to be a revised history of the DC Universe). They're promising a lot of changes, including what seems to be change for change's sake.

I'm a pretty fair comics guru myself, so I'll give the quiz a shot, with my comments:

1. Which one of these heroines will give birth in '06?
a. Wonder Woman
b. Power Girl
c. Catwoman
d. Oracle

Hmm. I don't think it'll be Catwoman as that would put an end to her career, although they have been doing a lot of teases that she and Bruce will be getting married lately. One of the most blatant ones was during that Teen Titans two part story where the Titans ended up 10 years into the future, and it wasn't a very nice place. At one point, Batman (Tim Drake) takes Robin (Tim Drake) to the graveyard on the grounds of what used to be Arkham Asylum. Bruce Wayne's headstone reads "Beloved Husband". Selina Kyle's reads "Beloved Wife". As an aside to that story, the Titans learned that they had to stay together, because disbanding is what caused that future... and now Superboy's on a huge leave of absence from them... hmmm. Plus, let's face it, if Bruce and Selina had a kid, it'd basically just be a matter of time till the kid was abused and/or killed in this day and age. The Killing Joke Revisited or something like that.

Anyway, getting back to the story, yeah, I agree with Libby that Power Girl seems the most likely. Her character could support the twist. If it were Oracle, the father would be Dick, and the DC creators just can't make him decide between Barbara and Starfire, not to mention the random girls falling at his feet, the latest being Supergirl in Supergirl #3. Dick is the Poochie of the DC Universe, I tells ya. Wonder Woman I just don't see with a baby.

2. Which of these heroes will be stripped of their powers?
a. Superman
b. Wonder Woman
c. Supergirl
d. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)

I agree with Libby's reasoning that Supergirl and Hal just got reintroduced, so they seem very unlikely. Superman is DC's Golden Goose, so that leaves Wonder Woman by process of elimination. However, I don't think she'd be without powers before, and even though I haven't historically been a reader of Wonder Woman (I get bored with all the Greek mythology nonsense it goes through sometimes), but I don't think DC is going to permanently change their Trinity or the JLA (as hit upon later) Change might sell comics in the short term based on curiosity factor, but dumb, non crowd pleasing change will just draw complaints, and people will stop reading the book if the complaints aren't addressed.

3. Who will become mayor of their crime-riddled city?
a. Wally West
b. Dick Grayson
c. Bruce Wayne
d. Oliver Queen

I can't see Wally in that position, given that his identity is no longer known, and for all the world knows, Wally West is a mechanic in a police department motor pool now. Bruce being the mayor of a major city like Gotham would seriously cut into the time he needs for his mission, though he could really make his own life easier. "Commissioner Akins*, I order you to go easier on Batman!" I'm not even sure where Ollie is based these days. Star City maybe? Though you could raise the point that with his extreme politics, he may be un-electable.

I like Dick for that. His "city" is Bludhaven now, a suburb of Gotham and much smaller... and he's recently been known for trying to find alternatives to doing right besides the way Bruce does it. Plus he's actually a former police officer there, and now that he is Bruce Wayne's legal son and thus heir, he wouldn't even have to raise a sweat to finance a campaign."

*Yep, Commissioner Akins. Gordon retired. Akins and Batman don't quite get along. Wacky fun for the whole family. Though if Infinite Crisis results in a reboot, we may see Gordon returned.

4. Who will have amnesia and become unable to tell friend from foe?
a. Martian Manhunter
b. Aquaman
c. the Atom
d. the Elongated Man

I agree with Libby that Aquaman seems unlikely. But I'll actually go with J'Onn here. Not only has he been through trauamtic events, his whole life has been rather traumatic. He was an adult when he saw his entire race wiped out, and he lives among total aliens now. And this was before the dude in the red cape made the Watchtower go boom.

5. Who will take the mantle as the most powerful hero in the DCU?
a. Booster Gold
b. Animal Man
c. Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)
d. Earth 2 Superman

Silly mortals, Booster Gold pwnz j00. Or however you say that.

Seriously though, the rumor is for Kyle to return to the powers and mantle of Ion, rather than remaining a Green Lantern... possibly just to placate the Kyle fans angry that Hal has basically usurped him now, while still not having too many Green Lanterns on Earth. (They've changed the Green Lantern Corps to being 2 GLs a sector, and thus 7,200 Lanterns strong, and Hal and John Stewart [who is over because he's about a billion times more interesting in the cartoon] are the GLs for sector 2814. Kyle, Guy and Kilowog are currently on Oa helping train new Lanterns)

6. Which hero will become a criminal in the eyes of the world?
a. Green Lantern (Hal)
b. Superman
c. The Flash (Wally)
d. Shazam (sic)--it's Captain Marvel pictured.

A note on the (sic). Due to the weird way the whole thing worked out (DC bought Cap from, I think, Fawcett Comics, and Marvel created their Captain Marvel character just so they could claim a legit use on the name), DC can use the name Captain Marvel, but only within books themselves... not for any marketing purposes. This includes covers, or things like Wizard. So even though Captain Marvel is certainly a distinct character from the now-deceased wizard Shazam, if you use that name, people know who you're talking about.

That said, I don't see them making Hal a villain just after making him a hero again, they ain't messing with Superman, Wally just seems wrong... so I'll go with the Big Red Cheese too. That could be an interesting plot for him.

7. Which one of these heroes is the only one who'll be around after Infinite Crisis?
a. Wally West
b. Conner Kent (Superboy)
c. Guy Gardner
d. Dick Grayson

Dammit.

It's either Dick or Wally.

And I really like Guy.

I'm saying Dick. Maybe in 2025, we'll have another Crisis and they'll kill another Flash.

8. Which superteam doesn't survive Infinite Crisis?
a. Justice League of America
b. Justice League of America
c. Justice League of America
d. Justice League of America

Um... yeah. The JLA title is getting the boot (along with several others) but are you trying to tell me the DC Universe is going to go without a JLA? Not for long, I say.

9. Who's about to become the US military's secret weapon?
a. Cyborg
b. Wonder Woman
c. Red Tornado
d. John Stewart

Process of elimination... Wonder Woman is certainly not a tool of the US, her allegiance is to Themyscira. US declares war on Themyscira, and you could see Wonder Woman attack the White House. John Stewart answers to the Guardians of the Universe. Cyborg doesn't seem like the type to work for the government. So I'll go with Reddy. About time they did SOMETHING with him.

10. Which villain will destroy an entire country and kill millions in 2006?
a. Brainiac
b. Sinestro
c. Black Adam
d. Vandal Savage
e. Dynamite Kudo

Nice trick question here, but Dynamite Kudo doesn't exist in the DC Universe. Given Libby's desire to top people, though, I do suspect Dynamite Kudo will be getting rid of that pesky Eastern Hemisphere for us.

I agree with her that it'll be Black Adam and the country in question will be Kahndaq, just to put him cleanly on the "black hat" side of the fence again. Maybe he'll frame Captain Marvel for it, and that's why Marvel will be seen as a villain.

What's your guesses?

It's been a long two and a half years. (Ssh! Quiet! He's gonna be controversial again!)

Frankly though, I'm feeling good right now. All these shitty things were happening to me, some at the hands of supposed friends, and I stayed quiet. The sole reason I stayed quiet is because I wanted to save one special relationship, and undo some of the ways that I had screwed up in. And hopefully, we're nearing an end to that process. In the meantime, the truth is coming out, and it's pretty cathartic.

I've lost a lot of friends over this intervening time, and thus OO has lost those people as well. But I've still got some good friends left, and more than one has suggested that this isn't really anything to feel bad about. They suggested that no matter what else this horrible time has been, it's been a crucible, that's separated the good people from the bad.

If I had a magic time machine where I could go back in time and prevent this all from happening, and we were all nominally friends, I still might go on a purge, since I'd know just what kind of people these are when the chips are down.

The Internet has never been famous for its good people, and that's why Our Oasis was formed. It was easy to separate out the "I can irrationally hate X more than you can" folks in the wrestling forums, and the downright psychopathic cyberstalkers doing every disruptive tactic they can to try to force the truth to disappear from the Internet (why does that sound familiar all of a sudden?), but not all of the bad people reveal themselves right away. Some can really seem like good people, especially when they're getting everything they want. Some of them certainly had me fooled for a while. And a lot of them have some good people out there fooled. Unfortunately, too many people just stop thinking at "Well, they're cool to ME" without ever looking at the evidence of how they treat other good people and realizing that good people wouldn't do that, no matter how cool they are to them right that second.

I've seen a lot of varieties of the not so good people as well.

I have a right to have whomever I want in my blog, they scream at me. It's true, but that's not the point. They certainly do have the right to have someone in their blog abusing that position and their name to attack a friend, or just rewarding that person despite all he's done to that friend, but you can't sit there and say that person's still a good friend if they do that. If one of your parents is hitting the other, you have a perfect right to say "Oh, well they're both my parents and I'm staying out of it." You're a pretty crappy son or daughter, and a pretty crappy person in general if you do that, but you've got a right to do it. And that's not even mentioning the idea of FACILITATNG the abuse... helping it happen, lending your name and resources to it. But I'm not allowed to say that's wrong? Yeah.

Others want to use me in order to feel better about themselves, whether through constantly evoking pity, even if none is deserved, or putting themselves over at my expense. There's an element of "shame on me" for not realizing that sooner, but I'm not going to allow that to happen at my expense from here on in. Please go get help so you don't need to do this any more.

Others have told me "Well, I'm not your friend any more because this friend is a better friend" even when I do far less to them with justification than they've done to me without it. Well... thanks for confirming you never really were my friend. It kind of makes you a shitty person to pretend you were this whole time. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And one last one is pissed just because he doesn't want to be held to an apology like the rest of us offer on our own when we've done someone else wrong. Well... I'm sorry you didn't graduate Kindergarten like the rest of us. Have fun growing up, preferably away from me.

And what's the end result? I'm surrounded by quality people, who I know will be my loyal friends when the chips are down, and who know the same about me. And my friendships are stronger than ever with these quality people. And I thank these quality friends for their true loyalty and support, concepts utterly non-understandable to the other people.

On the flip side, there's a collection on the other side of the not so quality people. The funny thing about that, though, is that if they couldn't help letting me down, they can't help letting each other down.

Take for example, one recent incident from a while back. A-hole A decides to go post a whole online conversation from A-hole B without his consent. A-hole B is mad... mad, I tell you! But with good reason. Doing that is wrong, although "wrong" is a concept quite beyond the grasp of A-hole A. But in a way, it's almost funny, because A-hole B has infamously posted chat bits without consent before, and at least once put friends into a hell of a spot because they didn't want his precious little feelings hurt (without knowing he could care less about their's). Don't get me wrong, A-hole A is still a pretty major waste of life for what he did, but if anyone deserved it, it was A-hole B.

Now if you guys on the other side can actually be reading this without thinking "Side with Dave must be bad! Side other must be good! Urrrr!", carefully consider this. Your fellows over there on the other side each did something wrong by me. And what was I, a friend they had on the Internet. They somehow found rationalization that it was okay not to be a good friend, or even outright attack me. And what are you... a friend they have on the Internet. There is precisely nothing stopping them from hitting you with the same kind of behavior the second something resembling a reason pops up in their twisted little heads, just like The Misadventures of A-hole A & B above here. It'll be entertaining to us who turns on who first... who lets the other down first... because, I just told you so.

It might be less than entertaining to you though. For the sake of the friendship we used to have... watch your backs.

In the meantime, I'm blissfully insulated from psychopathic rantings, and so are my quality friends, who I couldn't even convince to check it out even in the name of a good laugh. But all the ranting does nothing but encourage people to come here and thus the distribution of this piece (which along with the other is staying on here until the end of time if I have anything to say about it) is nicely increased.

At least by everyone not driven away by incessant negativity, undefendable extreme opinions, and suicide threats whenever someone dares to disagree. I can't imagine that's many people.

I also want to point out that in talking about the damage that's going on, I don't blame Libby.

Other people have done bad things without provocation. Rob, in particular, I stand by that I didn't do a single thing wrong by him. In fact, I went out of my way to do RIGHT by him the second I could... even though there was no obligation to given what he really was.

Libby, though, I did a lot of things wrong by. I made a lot of mistakes. I gave her reasons to be upset enough to do some of the things she did.

I want things put right, but I don't hold any malice towards her. I've forgiven her. And I'm sorry for the grief I've put her through and hope she can forgive me too.

A couple of years ago, as you all know, there was a big to do between myself, Libby and Rob, due to the fact that Rob proclaimed himself to be Libby's e-boyfriend when in reality, I was. A way to disabuse him of this falsehood did not readily present itself (nor was I in a position to do so, publically or privately). When the situation broke down, he started spreading the story that I was "with his e-girlfriend behind his back" and used it to justify the behavior described below. This is patently false. Rob was never really Libby's e-boyfriend, and therefore I was not ever "with his e-girlfriend behind his back." His behavior comes solely out of the quality of person that he is.

And for the longest time, because I wanted to salvage things out of the meltdown that followed, both with Libby and with Rob, I couldn't defend myself, which has hurt my reputation and cost me friends. I'm still trying to put that right.

But I wanted to focus on debunking one of the myths in particular. Rob insinuated himself into a lot of blogs back when the blog craze started. I ended up urging people who had him in their blogs to get rid of him. Because of that, Rob started telling people I was trying to control other people's blogs, and it got jumped on by a lunatic or two out there with their own axes to grind against me.

Nice sounding story, but it's crap. And anyone who believed it should be ashamed of themselves. Yes, I urged Libby, Krissie and later Madonna to take Rob out of their blogs. But I had a right to do it, and anyone else with a shred of self respect would have done so as well.

After the big meltdown, I was still hoping for reconciliation with Rob. I had considered him as close as a brother once, and didn't realize what a vindictive person he was. Shortly after the meltdown, he started posting bits into Libby's blog to attack and/or insult me. In January 2004, he moved on to doing so in Krissie's blog. And in September 2004, he used his position as designer and host of Madonna's blog to post something in his own blog attacking me and others supposedly "on her behalf".

What this was was a cheap and transparent attempt to drag friends of mine into this conflict between us by a very vindictive and angry man. And any one of you reading this would have urged his ouster too, especially after Krissie and I went through compromise after compromise to solve the problem with her still "getting" to have Rob in her blog, and each time, Rob forced her to violate the compromise.

It's because of these attacks that I started urging those involved to take Rob out of their blogs. Yes, people have the right to do whatever they want to do with their blogs, but it doesn't follow that everything someone does with their blog is right. If a friend of mine attacks me for no reason, that's wrong. Friends don't do that. I would have a right to be angry at that, and demand it stop if the friendship was to continue, no matter what the venue of those attacks were. It would therefore follow that friends don't allow someone to attack their friends with their name and property.

What Rob did was just as wrong to the blog owners as it was to me. These were people who wanted to be my friend, but Rob took that away from them. Rob hurt them by causing all these fights between us. In the latter two cases, Rob is responsible for ending these friendships. I have no doubt that on more than one occassion, Rob was crying crocodile tears in chat with the person in one window over things being this bad, while in the other window, hypocritically escalating the conflict by continuing to post attacks.

To hammer this point home, ROB DID NOT JUST HURT ME. ROB HURT PEOPLE WHO DID NOTHING BAD TO HIM OTHER THAN JUST BE MY FRIEND.

Libby deserves some public shoutout. She fired Rob, and then went on to delete every word he ever wrote in her blog. This wasn't the sole or main reason she did that, given that he was really jerking her around in a lot of ways, but it was the right thing to do.

As to the other blogs... one of the friendships is beyond repair. The other would have to completely fire Rob, make it clear that it's for his misdeeds as described here, and delete everything he ever wrote in that blog. Given that it hasn't happened already, it's not likely ever to, but there it is.

Therefore, I want to make some public calls:

• I call on any blog owner who has Rob as part of their staff, particularly if he is allowed to post, to fire him from staff immediately. I would call on Rob himself to resign these positions, but he has no class and cares about nobody but himself, so it won't happen.
• I call on my friends in the blog community to help spread this message around, both to help clear my name of these unfair charges against me, and level blame where it really lies.
• And I call on everyone that if Rob is not fired from these blogs to recognize them for what they are: Rob's blogs, featuring whomever (to paraphrase Matt), and to make their decisions as to whether or not these blogs are worth reading accordingly.
  

Thanks for your time.

P.S. Nice rant. Of course, she leaves off vital elements to the story like how she didn't care that Rob betrayed me and did everything he could to hurt me, specifically through blogs, before she brought him in... or how about how she jerked me around trying to offer me the position of designer just to push Rob into doing it... and how she sat there and ALLOWED Rob to use the position she gave him to attack me and other people who called her friend and did nothing about it, for all intents and purposes making those attacks herself.

That's the thanks I get... for bringing her into this community, for talking her down from suicide at least four times, and for being on her side in multiple occassions where she was done wrong, even though the people involved were just as much my friend, and even though they did a lot less wrong to her.

All that was is a tantrum that someone dared to say she was wrong... in her world, wrong isn't something she does. It's only what other people do.

But thanks for the laughs, and the advertisement for people to come check out this piece. Thanks for alienating your few readers even further.

This piece wasn't even about you. It didn't even say a single thing all that bad about you. You should have just walked away and if this blog bothered you so much, stop coming here, just as I've stopped coming to yours. You still can walk away.

It isn't my fault the truth hurts.

EDIT: Just for the sake of fairness, let me say that this is coming from me and me alone and the opinions here do not necessarily indicate those of the rest of the Our Oasis community unless they choose to indicate otherwise.