Today’s Hate Mail, Graded
Graded hate mail for October 13.
Jay writes:
So it’s going on 5 months since the last installment. What’s the deal? I get the feeling that you’re becoming as bored with this story as I have been over the last several chapters. Why not just tell us who the wife is and put this thing out of it’s misery.
The magic has evaporated buddy.
My grade:
Congratulations on using capital letters and complete sentences. Congratulations on excellent spelling and diction. You even demonstrate a grasp of contractions, including the ever-challenging “you’re.” That’s the good news. Now for the bad…
1) “It’s” is a contraction meaning “it is,” but you confused it with “its,” a possessive adjective. You should have written “…out of its misery.”
2) Use a comma to set off direct address, as in “The magic has evaporated, buddy.”
I give you a B+. A solid effort, but I’m sure you can do better.
- Nick
Graded POD Hate Mail
More graded hate mail. See my reply over at the Picture of the Day.
Graded Hate Mail
Today’s graded hate mail:
Message from: <name removed to protect the guilty> :
the more i read the less i like your story.in the
begining , i wanted to know who died,but at this
point i dont care.the arguments are so stupid at
times,and paul seems pathetic going from mature to
immature and back to mature and back to
immature.the longer the story goes the worse it
gets and thats mainly because of the B.S. way your
trying to drag this out,i have an idea for your
next chapter ( THE END)———————————————-
Emailed through StoriesOnline’s Mailing System
My reply:
Thanks for writing, now let me grade your hate mail.
1) Use capital letters to begin sentences.
2) Hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself… Use sentences! Sentences contain a subject and a verb, and end with some form of punctuation, usually a period (a question mark or exclamation point will do nicely as well).
3) Use apostrophes for contractions like “don’t” and “that’s.” A contraction is where you contract two words into one, and the apostrophe is used in place of the missing letters (I won’t burden you with the concept of elision right now… too advanced).
4) The word is “beginning” (two N’s).
5) Capitalize “I” when used as a subject pronoun. Capitalize proper nouns, such as people’s names.
6) “Your” is an adjective used to show possession. The word you want is “you’re” (one of those nasty contractions again), which means “you are.”
All in all, not such a great example of hate mail. I give you a D. You can do better!
Nick
Mocking haters is fun. 
And you wonder why I chew the furniture sometimes…
I received this little gem in my inbox this morning—a great way to begin a lovely spring Friday.
I’ll post my reply at the end. In the meantime, “enjoy.”
With fans like these, who needs enemies?
I got this lengthy gem in my e-mail today. My reply e-mail bounced, so I thought I’d post it here (in its entirety) on the Wall of Shame. See my reply at the bottom.
The Culture of Silence
My grandfather was a study in contrasts. As a child of the Depression, his family lost everything—the family restaurant, the car, the furniture, and finally, the house. Later in life, my grandfather didn’t have something unless he had two of them (or more). He grew up in a time when you could lose anything, including the roof over your head, so you’d better have a spare.
In the last twenty years of his life, he lived like Fred Sanford, with acres of junk scattered across his land. He had more Volkswagen Beetles than I could count, and none of them ran. He had all sorts of cars, trucks, and other machinery. Most of it didn’t work. My grandparents even had two houses. They were both on the same property (one had been moved from another location), connected by a big workshop and a hallway.
But I said that my grandfather was a study in contrasts. Imagine a junk man in tattered overalls, a cap that’s seen better days, maybe socks, and battered shoes. Now imagine that man with a college education, a Masters degree, and a career of military and public service.
Timing is everything…
I recently added links to the Summer Camp “Epilogue.” It spent 6+ months as a semi-hidden part of the site, so I figured it was time to make it official. I thought it was funny. And innocuous. Boy, was I wrong.
It seems that timing is everything. Or maybe I just didn’t count on some folks’ ability to completely gloss over a critical piece of information… like the April 1st date at the end of the Afterword. Maybe I underestimated how well readers know me and my style (not to mention my sense of humor). Maybe I just underestimated people’s ability to jump to the wrong conclusion and then run with it.
I’ll never, EVER mention a date again…
From this morning’s mail bag:
Well it’s already been 6 weeks now since you said you were gonna start writing Book 4, so have you started yet or are you being lazy again?
It was anonymous, of course, and from AOL, natch.
My imagined response?
Yes, you fucking nitwit, I’ve been flogging my fingers to the bone for your fucking entertainment, and I decided to write something else in the meantime. I’m sorry, you unappreciative piece of shit. I’ll try to write your free fucking erotica on a more timely basis.
Ugh and fucking double ugh!
I’m tempted to change the SC-B4 page to read: “When? When I’m good and goddamned ready, that’s when!”
But on a more realistic note, I think this last Anonymous Fuckwit Feedback will break me of the habit of ever mentioning a date, tentative or otherwise. Too many dipshits in the world, and they drown out the nice people.
Fucking morons.
[venting complete]
- Nick
And the one that really pissed me off…
This guy sent me nice e-mail about the PotD with the Camel Toe Ad (and the 666 serial number). Then his sent this dumbass e-mail:
To: nick_scipio@yahoo.com
From: JayCee
Subject: Reader Comments
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:26:17 -0700Well in that case, the Beast in me is telling you “Stop procrastinating and finish SC-B4: Christy…..” Mid-2006 is almost here.
Riiiiiiiight! I’m “procrastinating,” you fuckwit?! And you think I don’t know what the date is? Jesus fucking Christ on a crutch!
Ugh!
I get 100 nice e-mail messages for each message like this, but I’m still amazed by people’s ability to ratchet up the dipshit quotient. You know?
I hope that by “outing” some of these passive-aggressive morons that maybe they’ll see their own anonymous post and feel like the impatient jackasses they are. It’s a long shot, but a guy can hope, right?
Oh well… back to answering e-mail. – Nick
And you wonder why I blow my stack?
I’m answering my e-mail backlog today, and I came across this gem:
To: nick_scipio@yahoo.com
From: Anonymous
Subject: Reader Comments
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 00:32:22 -0700its almost june…….it is mid 2006 where is the fourth book?
I must’ve forgotten the date. Dipshit. – Nick