The Judi Awards
Joseph
April 1, 1998

This gentlement, Joseph, had written me a letter some time ago telling me that I should put all of the sponsors' messages at the bottom of the page because he was just too busy to waste his time reading through the "crap". He was pretty indignant about the whole thing and said he'd seriously have to consider unsubscribing if I didn't change the way I did things.

Well, naturally I reminded him that this was my listing and if he didn't like it, he should remove himself. Anyone with half a lick of sense realizes that the only way to afford to do Joke A Day is to be sponsored. He fired back a couple of other letters.

While this was going on, I had received a half dozen or so letters from . . . well, pure idiots. Folks that would write and tell me, "my fucking 10 year old nephew tells better jokes" and that kind of mess. So, I decided to make a Dweeb Letter that put all of those letters out in the public with the author's email addresses. My theory is if you're going to express your opinion in a completlely asanine mode, you've got to deal with the results of that action. (Note: I always welcome constructive criticism. But telling me to "fuck off" isn't constructive.)

So Joseph's name and email address got placed on the Dweeb letter. A few folks sent me copies of letters they'd sent to Joseph, telling him what they thought of his original letter. Eventually, because of "Ray's First Law Of Dweebitity" (they're "Never Ending") it wasn't long before Joseph and his buddies were swept from that page to be replaced by a fresher group of fools.

April 1, 1998 I posted an April Fool's version of Joke A Day. I tied in completely truthful historical events with the public's knee-jerk reaction to lawyers and stupid litigation and was able to pull off a rather successful fooling of many of the thousands that read Joke a Day.

Lo and behold, I heard from Joseph again. The subject line of his letter says it all. Joseph and I didn't have the kind of exchange Jon did. It's not humorous. It's rather sad that there's people out there that really would like to see Joke A Day go the way of the dinosaurs. Perhaps that's the saddest commentary on Joseph and his ilk -- that they'd seek to deny others entertainment based on their own lack of a sense of humor.

The newest Judi Award winning entry and my response.

Subj: HA, HA, HA!  We get the last laugh! - A lesson learned.

Hi Ray,

WELL... It appears you are getting a taste of your own medicine.

I didn't like the way you posted my "dweeb" letter on the Internet for every one to see.

I can hardly blame that lawyer for suing you for harassment. I don't know the details, but if your harassing conversations were kept as private e-mail between the two of you, he probably has little grounds for a lawsuit (the antics of two "children" arguing privately would hardly stand up in a court of law). However if you posted some of his messages for everyone to read, that's a different matter. In that case, he probably has a case against you.

I voiced my opinion on what I thought about your jokes being "loaded" with advertising. I'll even admit it was a "dweeb" letter (sorry, but I wasn't aware of the fact that you could pay to get the jokes, advertising free).

But I didn't like the fact that you posted my message for everyone to see. That was supposed to be a private e-mail between me and you. You could have rightfully told me off, and respectfully taken me off your list for good, but you did not have the right to publicize my words, without my permission, ESPECIALLY including my e-mail address!!. If I was a high class lawyer with a reputation, I may have considered a lawsuit against you too!

When I started getting those e-mails in response to my dweeb letter, I started to panic. I thought, with the popularity of your site, I could easily have gotten a flooded mailbox. Fortunately that did not happen (I got about 20 snappy responses) and I'm thankful that's all that happened.

I hope you have learned a lesson from all of this. At the very least, you will be more prudent when you set up your next web-site enterprise.

Good luck, I wish you well, wherever you go.

Sincerely,

Joseph

Hi, Joseph:

Man, you just don't know when to leave it alone, do you?

Here's the last line from the 4/1 joke:

". . . If you think about it, drop my lawyer a line and thank her, Lirpa Sloof, for her support, but spell her name backwards before you do."

There's no lawsuit.  There's no lawyer suing Joke A Day for millions.  There's no settlement for $100,000.  It appears the "lesson learned" is that you failed to read, sigh, again. It was an April Fool's Joke.  Imagine that.  A business devoted to humor telling an April Fool's Joke.

To the fact that I published your email address:  you lost ownership of your email the moment you pressed the send button, Joseph.  From that point forward that email belonged to me.  The very same way that when I send a letter to you (or anyone else) I should take care in what I say as I would FIRMLY expect it to be used against me.  You should learn to take care in the targets *YOU* pick.

The lesson *I've* learned in all of this is that there's never any end to the amount of fools out there.  But I'll keep fighting "the good fight", just the same.

Good luck yourself, Joseph.  I do suspect you'll need it.

Ray
Joke A Day