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RIP Billy Mays

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Comments

  • You forgot David Carradine,
    I guess it happened in the month of June, but his death wasn't really as close as all the other ones were.
    McMahon
    I guess I heard about this maybe once this past weekend. I still don't know who he is or what he is known for, and don't give enough of a shit to go look him up.
  • Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson's announcer/co-host of the Tonight Show.
  • edited June 2009
    This was on Fark yesterday and was too good to not repost:
    image
    Post edited by trogdor9 on
  • People die every day. It is always sad in some way, but why should I care doubly just because I know the person's name? They aren't loved ones. I wish that the media would just move on to something relevant.
  • McMahon
    I guess I heard about this maybe once this past weekend. I still don't know who he is or what he is known for, and don't give enough of a shit to go look him up.
    It is totally in keeping with the 'lazy punk-ass piece of shit" character you affect that you would wallow in and be proud of your ignorance and laziness.

    This is also why you will never be as successful as McMahon and why, unlike McMahon, your death will be completely obscure and will be mourned by no one.
  • your death will be completely obscure and will be mourned by no one.
    Way too harsh! Not caring about a celebrity enough to look them up is fine. Do you care enough about Britney Spears or Ryan Seacrest to look them up? Just because someone doesn't care about one celebrity doesn't make them uncaring and lazy in every respect.
  • edited July 2009
    No, I think it's pretty easy to look up something like that. A person may say he doesn't care after looking it up, but if that person is so incurious and lazy as to pretend that they can't be bothered to spend ten seconds on Wikipedia and proud of the fact that they are that lazy and incurious, then indications are strong that person will die alone and afraid.

    For instance, when all this "Jon and Kate" stuff started to hit the "news", I was highly suspicious that I wouldn't care about them. Nevertheless, I spent the ten seconds necessary to look them up because I was curious as to why people were talking about them so much.

    Really, if a person can't be bothered to look up something that simple, how can you trust that they'll actually do what's necessary to understand more important things?
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • edited July 2009
    Since when is knowing what any one celebrity did or didn't do important? Being incurious about one item that is plainly unimportant to his life does not translate into a lack of curiosity in general. I could look up a million things on any given day (i.e. who invented the stapler, the name of Angelina Jolie's children, the average life span of a bumble bee), but time, necessity, and interest dictate what I will actually look up and what I won't.
    If your curiosity about "Jon & Kate plus 8" was piqued and you looked it up, then bully for you. Did looking up J&K+8 honestly give you anything beyond a reference for discussions that you have little-to-no interest in? Obviously his curiosity was not piqued by McMahon or his death. To be knowledgeable about every aspect of trivial pop-culture is simply impossible and a lack of interest in celebrities is just as valid as you not being interested in knowing every Barbie design that is currently available for sale in Australia.

    Knowledge is vital and curiosity is a wonderful thing. Filtering curiosity based on taste/interest/relevance is not necessarily a bad thing.
    Post edited by Kate Monster on
  • You're either missing my point or I haven't been clear. The thing that I find appalling is not the lack of knowledge about trivia but the lack of curiosity and the pride shown in that lack. That makes me think there are probably other areas in which he lacks curiousity and has limited knowledge as a result of his laziness, his lack of curiosity, and his pride thereof.

    Actually, it's probably just an affected pose. If he really cared as little as he would have us believe, he wouldn't have expended the effort to write about it. In my opinion, that just makes it worse. He's not just an honest lazy, incurious, piece-of-shit, punk-ass kid, he's a poseur lazy, incurious, piece-of-shit, punk-ass kid.
  • edited July 2009

    Knowledge is vital and curiosity is a wonderful thing. Filtering curiosity based on taste/interest/relevance is not necessarily a bad thing.
    So, people should limit their curiosoity and impose restrictions on their knowledge based on those limitations?

    Sorry for double posting, but I'm typing this on my phone and I'm too lazy and incurious to figure out how to paste this into an appropriate place in my last post.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • edited July 2009

    So, people should limit their curiosity and impose restrictions on their knowledge based on those limitations?
    I am saying that the sheer amount of information available makes it necessary to limit and focus one's curiosity. Out of that necessity, people rely on various factors to pick and choose what they seek to know and utilize many factors including interest, relevance, etc. to filter out information. This process is natural and valid.
    Someone flaunting their apathy in one particular field doesn't make them apathetic in general. While you find his statement distasteful; I find your statement regarding his meaningless death distasteful and I did not need to belittle you or make sweeping value judgments to make my point clear.
    Post edited by Kate Monster on
  • edited July 2009

    So, people should limit theircuriosityand impose restrictions on their knowledge based on those limitations?
    I am saying that the sheer amount of information available makes it necessary to limit and focus one's curiosity.
    If you have self-imposed limits on your curiosity, I feel sad for you.
    I find your statement regarding his meaningless death distasteful
    You have your distastefulometer set too high. I suggest deep-breathing meditation exercises or maybe switching to a decaffeinated blend.

    So, people should limit theircuriosityand impose restrictions on their knowledge based on those limitations?
    . . . and I did not need to belittle you or make sweeping value judgments to make my point clear.
    . . . but you did feel the need to point out a typo made by someone typing on a phone. Nice. That's not belittling at all. No sir.
    One less reason I will need to mute my TV when commercials come on.
    . . . also not belittling or making a sweeping value judgment, I presume? Certainly not distasteful - equating a human death with TV viewing convenience?

    Maybe I missed the tone of the thread a little, but I supposed after human death was welcomed as a herald of more enjoyable TV viewing, that comments about meaningless death wouldn't be quite so "distasteful." I guess I was wrong.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Why you gotta be stirrin' up trouble?
  • Well, this past week I've started chewing nicotine gum. wearing a nicotine patch, and I've switched from Chesterfields to Camel filtereds, so I haven't been getting enough nicotine.
  • Smoking is dumber than admitting that you don't care about celebrities.
  • edited July 2009
    Smoking is dumber than admitting that you don't care about celebrities.
    Obviously he's a piece of shit who will die lonely and afraid.
    Post edited by Walker on
  • edited July 2009
    . . . but I'll go in a blue haze of sweet, sweet tobacco smoke.

    Oh yeah, and I'll outlive you, I've already outlived a bunch of anti-smoking Nazis I used to know. They've all assumed room temperature and I'm still here.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Hey, I didn't say anything about HungryJoe's death. I just think smoking is stupid.
  • edited July 2009
    Hey, I didn't say anything about HungryJoe's death. I just think smoking is stupid.
    Smoking: Unhealthy, definitely. Stupid, how so?
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • Hey, I didn't say anything about HungryJoe's death. I just think smoking is stupid.
    Smoking: Unhealthy, definitely. Stupid, how so?
    Because it's unhealthy. Of course, I'm not the healthiest person so I'm being a hypocrite, but whatever.
  • Based on his track record HungryJoe may outlive us all.
  • edited July 2009
    @ hungryjoe: Everyone has varying levels of interest. Just because someone is not interested in something doesn't make them incurious by nature, just a person with taste preferences. As for my comment about Billy Mays, the only interaction I have with the man is through my television. I found him abrasive, annoying, and could never understand why he was considered a great pitch man. As I have said to people at work that bring up his death and the death of other celebrities: I am sorry for his family and those that loved him. Every death is sad in some way, but knowing a person's name or looking them up online won't make that person's life or death any more or less important to me. People die every day. Did Billy Mays care when my Grandfather died? No. Did he have the basic human reaction of feeling sympathy for the loved ones of those that died? I have no clue, but let's assume yes. I am displaying no more or less concern than he would have had for my death because we are not in any way connected beyond the most basic human level.
    There is a major difference between being unruffled by a stranger's death and wishing someone that you have conversations with on a routine basis to live an empty life and a lonely death.
    You point out that I have my "distastefulometer set too high" when you openly wish tragedy on a living person that I interact with, but your level of distaste at his disinterestedness in a celebrity's life or death and your reaction to it are somehow more reasonable?
    As for pointing out a typo, that wasn't intended to be belittling. It is a common practice on the forum. If you took offense, I do apologize.
    You and I see eye to eye on many things. I can see your point about incurious and callous natures being harmful. Can you see my point that everyone has differing levels of interests and those interests dictate the level of knowledge a person will pursue on a given subject? Can you also see my point that wishing someone a meaningless life and an mourned death is spiteful and beneath you?
    Post edited by Kate Monster on
  • edited July 2009
    Based on his track record HungryJoe may outlive us all.
    Based on his track record, Hungryjoe may outlive god. If he hasn't already.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Based on his track record HungryJoe may outlive us all.
    Based on his track record, Hungryjoe may outlivegod.If he hasn't already.
    For all we know he might be God. *que The Twilight Zone theme* o.0
  • edited July 2009
    You and I see eye to eye on many things.
    True, but that agreement apparently does not extend to limitations on curiosity.
    Everyone has varying levels of interest. Just because someone is not interested in something doesn't make them incurious by nature, just a person with taste preferences.
    Interest is what governs how deeply I delve into a subject, not whether I choose to bother spending time with it at all. The ten seconds or so that I need to google something is trivial, and so I will google ANY subject that I hear/read about if I have no previous knowledge of that subject. Interest level is what determines how much time I spend reading after the initial search, but I ALWAYS do an initial search. I can't stand knowing that people are talking about something I don't know anything about. If I don't find out at least a little bit about the subject, it will get under my skin and bug me like a bad case of eczema.

    DumbKong didn't say he was merely uninterested, but that he was too lazy to even search. That's too lazy for polite society.

    And before you type it - it's not celebrity alone. Karl Malden is a good example. His death was in the news yesterday and today. Now, usually when someone is important enough that their death makes the news, they've done something of note. That piques my curiosity. Who was Karl Malden (assuming, for the sake of argument, that I don't know already)? Was he an author? A scientist? A musician? A politician? Oh, I see that he was an actor. He was in a couple of movies with Marlon Brando. Oh, I remember those movies. He was in a TV show called The Streets of San Francisco with Michael Douglas. He starred in a series of ads for American Express that introduced the phrase "Don't leave home without it" into the lexicon. Now what's more appealing? Finding out that stuff after about ten seconds of work (or, even better - knowing it already) or saying "Oh, some old guy died and I don't give a shit"?
    You point out that I have my "distastefulometer set too high" when you openly wish tragedy on a living person that I interact with, but your level of distaste at his disinterestedness in a celebrity's life or death and your reaction to it are somehow more reasonable?
    Read what I wrote. I didn't wish Kong an unmourned death. I predicted that he will have an unmourned death. Most people who are that apathetic do. I wouldn't wish anything on him, because I don't care enough about him. If he can't be bothered to care about anything, then I can't be bothered to care about him, so I wouldn't expend the energy to wish him an unmourned death, but I fully expect that he will have an unmourned death. His death will certainly be mourned by fewer people than any of the celebrity deaths that have happened in the last couple of weeks. In fact, most people will be mourned less than those celebrities. SO, you see, it's not a wish, but an observation and a prediction.

    I do not have distaste for his laziness and the pride he takes in it. Rather, I am enraged by it. It's one of the many things that just really makes me angry. Being lazy and not caring is bad enough, but a person's pride in their own fecklessness just really takes the biscuit. Fuck him.
    As for pointing out a typo, that wasn't intended to be belittling. It is a common practice on the forum. If you took offense, I do apologize.
    Not Only did I take offense, but I went into the bathroom and cried. I wept and wept until my contact lenses washed out of my eyes and down the drain of the sink. I bawled like a newborn baby until I puked out a thick, ropy stream of bile and continued puking until I had the dry heaves. Then I went back to my office and cried some more.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Wow. The bile level is rather high today.
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