Internet cowards

One sad property of the Internet is that it lets small-minded cowards make nasty comments with no repercussions. Today, I was checking my e-mail and found that some anonymous person had left a nasty comment on my blog. Nothing specific was said... just nasty words. Okay, I'm a big boy and can deal with that, but I'm not going to let some moron with a small penis and the attendant frustrations get his jollies on my blog.

So now I've set the blog so you can't post comments anonymously. Since the real comments are usually from named people, it shouldn't make much of a difference. It's just sad that some double-digit IQ reject caused this change.

This reminds me of the old days when I used to chat on IRC. I was in there one day, and some guy came into the channel. It was a nice, friendly, no-sex-talk-allowed channel. All was lovely until this guy shows up and starts gay bashing, so we threw him out.

Never one to let someone like that off easily, I messaged him directly and let him have it. He then told me he was going to come to my house with a baseball bat. Now it got amusing.

I explained to this young man that my job at that time involved my carrying a badge and a gun (all true, btw) and that he was going to look really dumb, lying dead on the ground with a baseball bat in his hand and a bullet hole in his forehead. For some reason, this stopped his tirade.

The really interesting part for me was that the guy was actually a teenager (like 15 or 16, as I recall) with sexual identity issues. After assuring him I was not kidding, he apologized and then told me he was scared. We chatted for quite a while, and I was able to talk to him about his issues and his fear that he might be gay. That, I suppose, is a story for another day.

In the meantime, sorry for the change, if it inconveniences anyone other than today's guest coward.