While re-establishing a Fidonet connection, I stumbled upon this.

BV> When I find myself talking to people who find the adherence to
BV> a non-existent "specification" the most important thing in
BV> their life and their sole reason for being, then I know I'm not
BV> in the right place.
BL>  Don't overreact, mate. It's a joke... remember?
BL>  I think it was Paul's way of telling me it was you, without actually
BL> dobbing you in. Either that, or my first message worried him a little
BL> bit and he was covering his arse.
PE> No, Brenton was right.  Conformance to spec comes first.  I couldn't
PE> give a rat's arse if he pretends to be from the ATO, that's an issue
PE> between him and the echo moderator.  But posting (esp deliberately)
PE> out-of-spec mail through here is just being a dickhead.

Thank-you for conforming my abilities to pick a looney Paul.

PE> It's not something he was able to do when logging on to the BBS and
PE> using QWK, and the purpose of a point is not so that you can break
PE> the FTS specs.

True. When I revert to becoming a normal end-user after this message
I will have to log into an unknown BBS and create a dummy user to
post messages like that. It won't be impossible, just a tad more
difficult, thats all.

PE> Actually I will rig up an auto-message-deleter here one day to catch
PE> anyone doing that sort of thing, but I don't have the technology
PE> yet, and instead rely on good will.

ROFL...

PE> Mind you, I have no idea why Fidonet has been good for "light
relief"
PE> for the past x years, but the first time he's asked to conform to
PE> spec it's like Fidonet is suddenly no good for light relief.

That wasn't it at all Paul. What irked me was that your blind obsession
to " The Spec ". When a person who has obviously been at the wrong
end of a frontal lobotomy starts yelling, then there is a problem.

PE> Actually I do know, he's busy at work and can't cure his email addiction
PE> so he's trying to put the blame on me. He was only meant to be calling
PE> each Friday, but I think he's actually been calling every day!  :-)

Nope. Not quite. I don't have a problem with "email addiction". I must be
mad, but I actually enjoy chatting with some of the participants and
consider them friends. I know that this is a term which is foreign to you,
although it is one which I hope you come to understand. Yes, I was calling
in every day after posting the message from Michael because I was curious
as to how Bob was going to react. My curiosity then switched from his
reaction to yours. To say that I was surprised by it would be somewhat of
an understatement. Yes, I did expect you to dob me in, but not quite
in the manner in which you did.

You really didn't see the humour in it did you ? I feel sorry for you
because it was an all time classic and I was almost wetting myself as
I was writing it. Here is Bob who thinks he's seen the light and stumbled
onto a gold mine. In his excitement, he rushes to tell the world of his
grand vision. Who replies (other than Rod Speed of corse ), none
other than the Commissioner of Taxation himself. Not some little minion,
or do-gooder extolling the virtues of paying taxes, but God himself.
The reply even started with "Hello Robert", words sure to strike fear
into the heart of Bob's everywhere.

Leaving my point address at the end of the message would have taken
away all of the punch. Part of the humour was that it simply appeared
and couldn't be traced. Just like a tax man. I did toy with the idea
of placing a fake address in the packet but thought that would be a
cardinal sin and decided to make it clearly obvious that it was a
hoax by simply hiding the originator. I know that this does not make
it any less a crime from your viewpoint, sorry 'bout that, but tough.

I hold no animosity and depart a happy man. I still get a chuckle
when I think about it. It was worth it.

PE> However, I checked and he hasn't called since he posted that
PE> message, which means it looks like the bastard doesn't even
PE> have the decency to deselect himself from the echos.

This is the only reason you are getting this message. The other message
in this packet will be to AreaFix deselecting all areas that I have
tagged. I figured that you would simply have to do something like
DEL 0000007.* or sumfin. An inconsiderate bastard, I am not.

PE> Crikey, I am quite happy to be a doormat, this board is specifically
PE> set up to be such, but I don't think it's unreasonably to expect the
PE> same courtesy that my feed expects of me, ie
PE> 1. Mail must conform to the appropriate specs.
PE> 2. Bear in mind that your waiting mail takes up disk space on
PE>    your host's machine.

I sincerely hope that you don't feel I have treated you like a doormat as
I have genuinely appreciated the facilities you have provided to me since
pointing off of TML. I am sure I have said it before, and I would like to
say it again, Thanks Paul. You're just a tad to sensitive for me, that's
all. I mean after all, we live in a world where you get 3 years detention
for breaking into a house in the middle of the night and slaying a 6 year
old boy while he sleeps. If you rock into a Pizza Hut and blast the head
off of the first person you see, you get 13 years free room and board. If
you are smart enough to loose over a Billion dollars and squirrel away a
paltry 20-30 Mil for yourself, you get setup on a Spanish Isle for life.
And your biggest worry in life is the adherence to a specification with no
regard to how the violation may impact on the overall system. I love it.

BL>   I am really proud of the way I joked the joker. No one would have
BL> believed that I got to talk to Carmody, but you ought to believe
BL> that I got through to his secretary and accidentally made all hell
BL> break loose. I'm only a silly old fart, after all...
PE> Actually, if you hadn't forewarned me I would have probably
PE> thought it was real.  I'm pretty gullible like that.  It's a
PE> bit of a shame really, I would have abused the crap out of
PE> you for that.  Fuck it, I think I'll go back and reply anyway.

Yeah, why not. Then go and kill a few more pigeons and you'll feel heaps
better. BTW, I have this great mental image of you sitting in McDonalds
holding your Big Mac with only one bite taken from it.

Your eyes are bulging out of you head and you want to scream in terror
but you cant because you've got a hamburger spatula implanted in your
neck. The terror really takes ahold when you realise that you can't
even scream with your larynx smashed, having been severed by the
impaling implement, as your mind reels, "People aren't supposed to
die this way. That isn't in the spec".

Goodbye.
@EOT:

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