Piling on is fun

Unless you live under a blogospheric rock it would be hard to escape any mention of the recent adventures of Robert Caina Calvan, Gentleman Adventurer and Journalist. Seems he saw fit to blog about what happened when he said the equivalent of "Do you know who I am" to a Green Zone checkpoint guard instead of showing the requested ID. The entire blog is gone now, either from the concentrated gaze of the Lidless Eye of the Internet, all wanting to verify that he was indeed that stupid, or because he's removing the evidence pursuant to joining the French Foreign Legion to forget. Not to worry, someone thoughtfully preserved in electronic amber a copy of not only the post itself, but the comments. They were the best part, and as others have remarked, quite rare in their complete unanimity that the poster was, is, and likely will remain forever, an ass. This one is my favorite. I laughed so hard I frightened the cats. The spirit of Mark Twain lives on!

82. Glad I’m Not You said:
October 24th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Bobby,

I’m so glad I’m 42. When I was young and immature, like you, and I made an ass out of myself it was usually in a room with a Fire Marshal-rated capacity of under 100 people. Even if the place was full and each person told two friends what I did, I was still under the 300 mark of people I needed to avoid for a week. And since memories are short and someone else was bound to make an ass out of themselves in a relatively short amount of time it never really mattered that much. But you, Bobby, have the distinction of making an ass of yourself on the World Wide Web, which is currently accessable by just over 1.2 billion human beings. On top of that, your friends - and apparently rather plentiful enemies - can now copy-cut-paste your idiocy and keep it forever. And ever. And ever.

Bobby, in the year 2065, when you are 80 or so, you will receive an email with this blog post in it. All of it. Each. And. Every. Word.

I’m so glad I’m 42. And not you.

Best of luck with that reporter thing.