Letters column 34: I'm so tired of explaining the retardation, I'm not going to anymore

This first letter, regarding this feature, is from Alan Jones in Yorkshire, England. Enjoy.

Dear Mr Ryan,

Epilepsy Action was recently contacted by one of our members who had logged on to a website called 'Epilepsy'. It turned out to be a page which flashed rapidly, while displaying the word 'epilepsy'. Within seconds of opening the page, the flashing caused her to have a seizure.

Pages like this can trigger the first seizure in people who are unaware that they have photosensitive epilepsy. Seizures can be extremely distressing, and as the person having the seizure can lose control of their limbs, they can seriously injure themselves.

Anyone of any age, from any walk of life can develop epilepsy. It can be inherited, or it can be caused by a severe blow to the head, meningitis, oxygen starvation, or stroke; or its causes can be unknown.

In many countries having just one seizure means you lose your driving license. If you need to be able to drive for your job, you could lose your job. In some cases a single seizure can be fatal.

Even though your site is intended to be humorous, it could cause someone needless distress, could put someone in hospital or it could even kill someone. It may already have done so.

The police are now investigating similar sites with a view to prosecuting their owners, and therefore I ask that you remove the page or the file in question from your site, and any other locations on the internet.

Sincerely,
Alan Jones
Web Officer

This letter worried me at first, but then I realized the first paragraph was written as a scare tactic. Mr. Jones was trying to make me think someone had contacted his organization about my website, and a lawsuit was pending. But in reality, it's just a carefully worded piece of trickery from someone who has nothing better to do than harass people over the Internet. Hey Alan, maybe your words would mean something to people if you didn't try to trick them into removing content you don't like.

So in retaliation, here's a fun picture I made for you, Alan. I hope you find it as hilarious as I found your lame trick e-mail.

This second letter is from Samantha in Pennsylvania, who is apparently disliked enough by her friends/family to be forced to do the dunk tank at a local fair.

Can you give me some insults i can use because i volunteered for the dunk tank at a block party and i don't know what to say to them.

What am I, a struggling stand-up comic who has to pimp himself out by selling lame jokes to others? I keep telling you, Louie Anderson lives down the hall in the smelly apartment. Seriously though, insults are easy. You just state the obvious. If someone is a huge fat ass, you say, "Hey, nice throw you huge fat ass". If someone is ugly, you say, "Hey, when your boyfriend has sex with you, does he throw up before or after he climaxes?" If someone has no visible defects or problems, just make something up, like, "You may appear confident on the outside, but I'll bet you molest children!"

Also, it gets people especially mad if you make fun of their significant others. Boyfriends and husbands especially get anal when you call their girlfriend or wife a "fat, smelly bitch".

Our final letter - thank God - comes from Paul, who lives in "Thompson", wherever the hell that is. He kind of comes off as a jerk, but maybe I'm just reading his letter wrong.

your photos are so fucking shit that it is unbelievable. There is nothing at all artistic about your photos. You couldn't have made them look better with darkroom techniques because they are already so shit that they hurt my eyes just looking at them. Do the world a favour and never take another photo again in your life. I can't beleive you call yourself a photographer. You are a FUCKHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the all-caps and extra exclamation points, Paul. Without them, I might not have known you were excited about this subject. Not a bit. Anyway, I can only assume you're referring to this really old column. That's the beauty of the Internet. If I write a satirical column, dumb people who can't figure out I'm being facetious will harass me with brainless, poorly spelled e-mails for the rest of my life. It's like a curse.

Those photos were not intended to be artistic, Paul. They were intended to be crappy. That was part of the humor, such as it is. If you want to see examples of real photos I've taken, check out my resume website.

That's all for today's column, reader. That's it. Go home. If you're already home, pull up your pants and unlock your bedroom door, pervert. This show is officially over.

Billy Talent Similar to:  AFI, Sum 41 Billy Talent absolutely rocked the stage at the Warped Tour. I probably never would have seen them, but they were so popular that they were moved up to the main stage. They completely came out of nowhere. They're now one of my favorite bands, a mix of AFI's screaming vocals, and Sum 41's crisp guitars. I've been rocking out to them for the past week, and now you can too. Instructions Music archives

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