Join Hands and Let Us Sing, "It's a Small Wendy Garner World After All"!

Was watching the Olympics last night (NOT volleyball, but women's 3m springboard, thankyouverymuch--favorite would be Canada's Blythe Hartley (who attends USC)--she's a robust little thing) and was doing some Internet searching for Middle Girl's social studies class. (She needed info on Birmingham, Bessemer, and Vulcan) After I got that done, I figured I would hop over and check my e-mail and stuff, and found a most interesting message:

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 04:50:42 +0400
From: "Frank Myers"
To: terryoglesby@yahoo.com
Subject: Howdy fellow blogger


I am enjoying your site.

LIES! ALL LIES! But much appreciated.

I am a friend of Wendy Garner's which is how I came across your site. When you google Wendy, you pop up, lol. Try it.

If there is a SINGLE ONE OF YOU who tries to come up with some sort of double entendre for that last part about googling Wendy and popping up, I'll hunt you down and thrash you with a buggy whip! Unless you like stuff like that, in which case I WON'T! Hmph!

I am from Birmingham, but recently mobilized with the Army Reserves and I am in Iraq for a year. My blog chronicles my year:

www.frankmyers.blogspot.com

If you would give me a plug on your site that would be much appreciated!

Frank Myers
CPT ARMOR
Baghdad, Iraq

Of course, I cannot let this opportunity go by the wayside, and neither should you. Captain Frank has some great posts and photos, and you owe it to yourself to go see what he has to say.

I wrote Miss Wendy to let her know she has another online stalker, and she sends back the following (which I sure hope she doesn't mind me sharing with you):

Hi Terry! That is funny! I read his blog everyday. He and his wife are good friends of ours from church. In fact I'm having dinner with her tonight. I hope you have a chance to read what he's written. It's pretty amazing; he's a great writer. I was trying to encourage him to do 'reports' for a Birmingham talk radio show (I suggested Burt and Kurt) but he hasn't had much of a response from them since he's been in Baghdad. Anyway, please keep him in your prayers. The Myers family is very dear to us. [...]

Well, that settles it!

I think this calls for a special Battlefield Commission into the Axis of Weevil, and the promotion of Captain Myers to Brevet Possumblog Special Iraq Field Correspondent!

Under the supersecret powers granted to me by several CIA guys, I hereby bestow upon Captain Frank Myers, USA, currently quartered in lovely Baghdad, a high and exalted place alongside the other members of the Alabama Quilting and High Explosive Club (also known to and feared by many as the Axis of Weevil), with all of the incredible benefits and cool prizes devolving thereto.

As with all new members of the Axis of Weevil (which we might take to calling the Axis of Wendy), CPT Myers will be receiving the World Famous Axis of Weevil Gift Pack consisting of a rack of Dreamland ribs, a gallon jug of Milo's sweet tea; a G-Lox Wedgee gun rack from Mark's Outdoor Sports for the Humvee, a package of Bubba's Beef Jerky (according to Dr. Weevil, this is homemade and is available only at the gas station at the end of Highway 82 in Bibb County); a three piece, 24 ounce box of Priester's Pecan Logs; a box of Jim Dandy grits; a 16 ounce bottle of Dale's Steak Sauce; AND a six pack of Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale! (We do warn all recipients, however, that delivery of these gifts relies on Chet the E-Mail Boy being able to drive to the intended location. Being that the overland route to Mesopotamia is a bit difficult, this delivery might take a bit longer than usual. And the company Pinto just burnt a valve.)

In addition, Jimmy from next door (not Jimmy from Accounting), although his "condition" was recently aggravated by yet another run-in with his aunt, has decided to honor Frank with a beautiful artwork that he made himself--a full-size sculpture of Richard Petty made entirely of MRE wrappers! It is a thing of great...interest.

SO, all of you be sure and welcome our new Baghdad stringer to the fold, and continue to support him and his family during his deployment. We all look forward to hearing more from you, Frank, and are praying for your continued safety.

NOW THEN, ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: You will notice that the most recent post deals with Frank's problems with a comment troll. What this poltroon is writing is pure spittleflecked gibberish that would make an exchange between James Carville and Chris Matthews look like Shakespeare. Frank has decided to leave the comments up, and asks that anyone who posts be civil. My own advice is A) DNFTT. This guy (or guys, but I think it's one guy with several sock puppets) wants nothing but attention. Don't try to argue with him, don't even respond to him. B) Get a different comment system that's more owner-friendly. When Blogger upgraded and added comments, I tried using it for a bit to see if it was any good, but it's very hard to keep track of comments on a running basis, making it hard to monitor and delete offensive stuff, and you can't ban people. Although I complain sometimes about Haloscan, it's not that bad for free software, and it does offer comments in a central listing with easy to use ban and delete buttons. You can ban a specific address or a whole range. And C) No one should think that because you have comments that you have to accept people on YOUR site being rude and disrespectful, no more than you would have to allow someone to come into your house and act that way. Trolls and other such pests are one of the reasons why I hesitated so long about adding comments to this site, and thankfully I have had a vanishingly small number of turds to deal with. And it's not that some of you don't agree with what I have to say--I know you don't, and sometimes you even state it plainly. But you know how to do it civilly, which is all I asked in the beginning.

In Frank's case, I hope this garbage clears itself up soon, but until it does, I offer my sincerest appreciation for the job he and his troop are doing, and I look forward to hearing more about his tour.
posted by Terry at 9:44:00 AM