Not the right place to comment, but Cathy Seipp has died. If you never read her material, you should have.

I saw it linked somewhere else; looked like a similar story to my friend last fall -- fast lung cancer out of nowhere.

I never did read her blog -- links to anything interesting?

Yikes. Should this have its own thread?

http://cathyseipp.journalspace.com/
She had some really funny pieces about her daughter's application to college, and in general dealing with limousine liberals. Maybe someone will do a best of.

True, this one should be devoted to the entertaining cheesiness that was Double Dragon. I always found the fact that the animators made sure the girlfriend's panties were visible when she was hauled away added a nicely anime touch to the whole thing. Where anime means sleazy.

I heart you, LB. I found that hilarious as well. Maybe we should photoshop d/e/n/B/e/s/t/e's head on one of the heroes' bodies.

5. Anime is surely all about the panties, unless there are tentacles involved.

He watches hentai for the articles.

It is going to be very hard to talk about Final Fight now. Her poor daughter.

Oh, speaking of games, you know that Edgar Huntly game I wrote? Tia says she showed it to some members of the C/harles B/rockden B/rown S/ociety (including Dave B? Right?) and that they play it! But I know one of the CBBS, who is one of my friends/professors. Dare I ask if he's played my game? Or would that out me as a ridiculous nerd?

Hey, I played it, except that I got bored and gave up in the cave after falling to my death a number of times.

I didn't know she was ill. I hope she didn't suffer.

Sad to say, all I know her for is this kind of thing.

12. She did come across as a post-modern Erma Bombeck. But she was one of the first bloggers I read on a regular basis, back in the stone age.

If the site won't burst into flames at the link:
http://www.nationalreview.com/seipp/seipp200401050855.asp

10: Wait, what?!? An Edgar Huntly game? Where can I get a copy of such fineness? How I've longed to see Clithero Edny digitized!

15: It is yours.

I was very sick when I wrote it, Greg, and it was my first TADS game. My second, which I worked on after having figured out the ropes on EH, is actually totally awesome and bizarre, but only half-done. If I ever get the flu again, I'll finish it, for sure.

Since sickness is the preferred condition for doing anything EH, I count 17 as modesty. That book frustrated me for two years (ssssoooo much longer than it took to write), yet I am still fond of it. I look forward to hours of massacring indigenous creatures and peoples!

There's lots of gruesome shooting to be done! Go to it! Of course, it's a text game, so no awesome graphics of raw panther eating or waking up to find one's hair dried in the blood of the body beneath one.

Alas! But if I find I have awakened in the middle of Norwalk with nothing but a laptop and your game, I'll certainly be happy enough, digitized graphics or no.

Double Dragon II was awesome. The original Double Dragon was hampered by the fact that, as LB points out, it was impossible. There was that part in DD2, though, where the helicopter door kept opening and you could get sucked out. I had trouble with that.

I think she meant my game was impossible, no?

DD was impossible, though. I think I never got past the second or third boss, just like I never got past that damn pre-Dracula wraith thing in Castlevania.

What, no love for Streets of Rage?

This game really puts the "Drago" in "Double Dragon".

You're welcome.

Oh, I beat Double Dragon. You only think the guy with the machine gun is tough; then you get to the level after that.

King of Dragons. 'nuf said.

Because I am an utter whore for leveling up and getting new weapons.

OT: In Soviet Russia, canned herring eats you.

With enough quarters, anything was possible.

It probably only took me $50.00 to get Dragon's Lair down pat, for example. I don't remember how much it took to beat Double Dragon, though.

Wow, video games, and people's tragic death: great choice of a post to highlight one against the other; positively brilliant, and so tasteful.

I only hope that when I die, discussion of my wasted potential is intermixed, as an afterthought, with discussion of anime and panties, which will rightfully dominate the conversation. People will respect me then!

Presumably the inevitable next step is discussion of what sort of panties were Cathy Seipp wearing when she died, and if a video game will be made out the event.

Call me old-fashioned about showing just an iota of respect and sense as regards tragic death. I can live with that.

3: "Should this have its own thread?"

Definitely a question that needed to be asked, and clearly the answer is "no." This way is so much better; who wouldn't choose that their own death, or that of their mother or sister, be addressed this way, instead?

Gary, don't be an ass over five off-topic comments at the beginning of a thread.

Don't worry, when you die, I'm sure we'll find someone to stand-in for the part of supercilious, condescending crank.

Ooo! Ooo! Can I do it?

I felt oddly guilty over hardly having heard of her (that is, it seems as if I must have seen links to her stuff sometime if so many people know about her), and now she's died. I'm not saying this makes any sense.

WTF, Gary? Why should I give a fuck that Cathy Seipp died? My grandmother died last year. But I didn't see the Unfogged thread dedicated to that. Oh, I see, Cathy Seipp mattered because she appeared in the media somewhere. Anyone who ever appeared in the media gets a thread, then. But John Backus, the leader of the team that invented Fortran, just died. I don't see the Unfogged thread for him. He just, you know, helped inaugurate the computer age, and designed the programming language that NASA used to put a man on the moon. But hey, he never had a blog or wrote for the New York Times, so by the Gary Farber rule, he doesn't rate.

"Gary, don't be an ass over five off-topic comments at the beginning of a thread."

I didn't have in mind five off-topic comments at all (though since you point out numbers, I count nine), actually ("off-topic" is a ludicrous concept in most online venues, it's always seemed to me); just the tastelessness of the single comment of TLL in trying to start a conversation about Seipp's sad death on a post about Double Dragon. That's not a terminal offense, of course, -- just a passing dumb choice, and we all make those at times -- but I think a single sarcastic comment on the bad choice is appropriate. YMMV.

32: As usual, I'm an outlier. I sympathize with a terrible loss, and that merits a personal attack. Sigh. Really, Cala, is this how you'd like people to react when your own parent or sibling or loved one dies? Or even to someone you knew casually for years? And then if someone is bothered, you're going to call them names?

Double sigh.

Fine, fine, I shouldn't have been bothered enough by a single comment about someone's death to make a single critical comment.

Because that's so unusual here. What was I thinking?

Nah, I think Gary was sad about the quick transition from Seipp to panties, not that we had to discuss Seipp at all. And it does look kind of unseemly -- I thought the same thing, even though I was the one doing it. I just didn't have anything else to say about Seipp, and the video game was the topic of the thread.

But it's sad and weird to be talking about a public person's death and not to care at all because you don't know a thing about them.

"WTF, Gary? Why should I give a fuck that Cathy Seipp died? "

I have no idea. Why you might want to give a fuck about the people who do care about someone who died, I'll leave as an exercise.

The rest of your comment I'll leave you to talk to your imagination about, as it seems to have nothing to do with anything outside it.

I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your grandmother; may she rest in peace, and may the rest of your family and her friends find peace as well.

(Call me wacky for thinking that's an appropriate response to hearing of the death of someone close to someone, rather than "why should I give a fuck?"; probably more people should use yours, though; may the choice serve you well.)

Since this sort of interchange inevitably perpetuates itself, I'm now quitting this discussion; ta.

But it's sad and weird to be talking about a public person's death and not to care at all because you don't know a thing about them.

I'd say that's completely normal, actually.

"X died."
"Who's X?"
"A writer."
"Oh."

I sympathize with a terrible loss, and that merits a personal attack.

If this is your sympathy, Gary, I'd hate to see your sarcasm.

Christ.

A minor flame fest: for when you want to memorialize in style.

I am with 39.

People die tragically every single day. Oops, there went another couple of thousand.

How many minutes is the proper mourning time? If a death is mentioned in a thread, no frivilous discussion is allowed from that point forward?

On a more serious note, since this thread is already ruined wih off-topic comments, let me tell you about the Flight of The Damned that I was on last night:

Picture the Phoenix airport. It's exactly like every other airport, which means that at least 80% of the outside wall area is glass, the better to let people stare at the various aircraft, ground crews etc. as if that will make their flight depart sooner. Of course, in Phoenix, all this glazing means that a lot of solar radiation penetrates into the terminal, raising the temperature to unpleasant levels.

Now imagine a terminal with half a dozen flights to various midwestern cities leaving within an hour of each other, several of which are delayed, re-assigned or otherwise FUBARed. An angry crowd develops.
A little island of quiet in the sea of fussbudgets is represented by a family consisting of Mom, papa, abuela, hermano y hermana -- that is, four fairly dark-skinned Hispanic (and let's just assume: Chicano) people and one blond Anglo woman. The kids are extremely well behaved and everyone presents the picture of decorum.

After what seems like an interminable wait (but really it's not, 'cause obviously "interminable" is almost always used as hyperbole) the passengers board. The little family has just seated itself, when Mr. Hissyfit Whiteguy pulls a flight attendant aside:

"Excuse me, I want to know why these people -- when I've been on this flight for 4 hours -- why these people get to come in and take up this whole row, with their attitude, and why I have to move out of my seat?"
Mom, to flight attendant: "They seated us apart from our kids, so I had the person at the desk reassign us."
Flight attendant, to Mr. Hissyfit Whiteguy: "Well, there you go then, looks like the problem was solved and everything is okay now."

Picture your narrator contemplating whether it would be a good idea to volunteer to tie up the air-rage-waiting-to-happen-guy with napkins and sit on him for the rest of the flight. (Decided I'd better not.)

Then, after a turbulent flight, made more turgid by the rambling, useless excuse for a piece of cinema that is Deja Vu (Tony Scott, 2006), the passengers are unloaded in Minneapolis (or really, Bloomington). As they wait for another eternity around the baggage carousel, a big dopey looking guy finds his huge suitcase (which is upholstered in a ridiculous "Route 66" motif brocade), opens it, pulls out a small black case with an orange tag reading "Firearm: Unloaded" and unlocks the firearm case, to verify that the malicious fingers of the TSA have not been caressing his precious semi-automatic pistol. Sadly, if you are picturing him then being tackled by several police officers and Tasered repeatedly, this is only happening in your imagination, since he shambled off into the crowd, secure in the knowledge that any muggers who might approach him when he stepped out of the taxi somewhere in the 952 western suburbs would be facing a not-very-armed, not-very-clever man with a large, gaudy suitcase.

Also, I managed to spill ginger ale on myself, luckily missing the laptop of the frozen food marketing VP I was seated beside. Did you know that March is Frozen Food Month?

Oh, Gary, get over yourself. You're so touched and moved by Seipp's death (loved the post about it on your blog), and so incredibly shocked at... well, I'm not quite certain, actually, as the sentiments that a) this isn't really the thread for a discussion of her death and b) a death should merit its own post have already been noted by two of the bloggers here.

So you're berating people who agree with you, presumably for not stopping the discussion for a woman most of them hadn't read.

Your grief at Seipp's death isn't what's making you supercilious and condescending.

Gary, if you said "I was close to Seipp", then of course people would have expressed their sympathies. Since a) we don't know who you know, and b) we don't know anything about Seipp, I don't see why you think you or Seipp deserved something different. TLL thought it was important that Seipp had died, so he mentioned it in what was the very top thread at the time. We don't know anything else about Seipp, so what else is there for us to say? Whenever someone dies, we should say "My sympathies, Gary Farber"?

FWIW, I took you to mean that Seipp was entitled to a thread because she was of intrinsic importance as a media figure.

Gary, what's the issue: that TLL mentioned that she had died--presumably this is the kind of respectful noting of someone's passing that you seem to be calling for--or that Labs, in his omniscience, failed to make the post about Siepp rather than DD?

I only hope that when I die

When you die, we will say, "No more masturbating to Gary Farber."

"So you're berating people who agree with you, presumably for not stopping the discussion for a woman most of them hadn't read."

I violate my "ta," because that's what people do on the internets: I only berated (with a single comment) a single person -- Tassled Loafered Leech -- solely for the choice to pick a post about Double Dragon as appropriate to try to discuss a tragic (cancer that young is in that category for me) death.

I didn't say a damn word about anyone else, though I immediately grant that, looking back at what my first comment, I see that I erred in neither quoting TLL nor making it crystal clear that that was solely my point.

However, I do think I made it entirely clear, for anyone who misread me the first time, in my second comment. But, naturally, I can't be the judge of that.

However, all this stuff addressed to or about me, about anything other than my being sarcastic that TLL made the choice of such an inappropriate thread to try to start a discussion of Seipp's death, are completely off-target, I'm afraid. I criticized no one else, and didn't address any of that other stuff.

As it happens, though, Cala, there are three people who have died in recent months that I was close enough to, that I've not been able to bring myself to write a post about on my blog yet.

Just as there are hundreds and hundreds of topics I've not posted on in recent months, or the past couple of years, for that matter, because I'm too fucking depressed.

I don't mention this because it's anything unusual: a jillion people suffer from clinical depression of all sorts, including a number of hear; it's no excuse for anything, but since you go to the "you don't care because you don't post" assertion: well, gee, thanks for that.

And my grief for Seipp is, frankly, minor, relatively speaking; we'd exchanged a couple of brief e-mails, and I'd read some of her stuff over the years. What I do have is, as a rule, respect for the grief of others.

But that wasn't relevant here as regards anyone. At least, not until people started demanding to know why they should "give a fuck" about such respect, or regard for taste, which is ex post facto to the only point I addressed, which is that it's a good idea, when bringing up the death of someone you think some people may care about (which is obviously what TLL had in mind), to pick an appropriate venue -- or in this specific, topic thread -- to attempt to start such a conversation in.

I'm sorry that my initial comment was, clearly, unclear about that.

But for the record, I only berated a single person, TLL. (Which makes me simply wrinkle my brow in confusion at the bizarre readings I got back, such as Walt's conclusion that I was saying something about famous people, or that I was "berating people" (plural), or addressing anything other than what I've now explained several times I was addressing.)

Gary, you're being an ass. TLL posted the comment because the DD post was the top post on the page. Shit, he's probably the only person on the site who read her regularly and liked her, and certainly one of the few who knew who she was.

Your depression isn't relevant, except inasmuch as it may--probably does--narrow your field of vision and sense of perspective to the point where a misreading of the significance of TLL's comment becomes a moral crusade. Using it to bludgeon Cala for insensitivity because she misunderstood *your* initial post--as apparently did *everyone else*, you may have noticed--and responded accordingly, is obnoxious.

"FWIW, I took you to mean that Seipp was entitled to a thread because she was of intrinsic importance as a media figure."

See, that's completely imaginary, I'm afraid. But I repeat that I fully grant that my initial comment was far less clear than it seemed to be in my head (that's largely because I was trying to avoid berating someone by name when it seemed unnecessary; that wound up being, obviously, an error, since it resulted in multiple misreadings).

46: I assume I've made this clear by now, but just for the record: neither. My point was "when announcing the death of someone one thinks some others may care about, pick a comment thread where such a discussion won't be inappropriate."

That's all. It had nothing to do with anything else anyone else said. Not nobody, not nuthin'.

I hope we're all clear now, so people can go back to berating me for sarcastic, condescending, things I actually think or say, rather than those they imagine I must have meant.

Gary, it hurts my feelings when you write sarcastic, condescending things, and I think that means that you are not a very nice person.

When it's the first post in a comment thread on a blog where staying on topic almost never happens, especially on goofy postlets like this one, it's a forgiveable sin against ritual propriety.

And I'm not the only one who misread 30, probably because you use 'conversation' (instead of 'comment') and then go onto to wonder if the discussion is going to combine panties and Seipp's death, strongly implying your target is the entire discussion. That seems to be a lot to drag out of comment 1, but okay.

I usually try to be very careful and conciliatory when I'm inclined to berate people, myself. Either that or I just close up that window and move along.

"Your depression isn't relevant, except inasmuch as it may--probably does--narrow your field of vision and sense of perspective to the point where a misreading of the significance of TLL's comment becomes a moral crusade. Using it to bludgeon Cala for insensitivity because she misunderstood *your* initial post--as apparently did *everyone else*, you may have noticed--and responded accordingly, is obnoxious."

To use one of your favorite suggestions: learn to read.

My depression isn't relevant, save as that it's why I've not been posting about people who have died in quite a while, which was the point Cala charged me with. The only way I could avoid bringing it up would be to either: a) lie and claim there was another reason; or b) let the accusation stand as reasonable.

I specifically wrote:

I don't mention this because it's anything unusual: a jillion people suffer from clinical depression of all sorts, including a number of hear; it's no excuse for anything, but since you go to the "you don't care because you don't post" assertion: well, gee, thanks for that.

"Gary, you're being an ass."

You say this pretty much every time you comment to me, so it's getting a little worn out as an assertion.

Gary, it hurts my feelings when you write sarcastic, condescending things, and I think that means that you are not a very nice person.

"You make me completely uncomfortable with your words."

"I think that means that you are not a very nice person."

Do we have to be nice people to post here?

I really hope that this doesn't disqualify people from posting at Unfogged.

Via.

54: Cala was responding to what she, and everyone else, thought you were bitching about, i.e., that there wasn't a proper post memorializing Sieppe. Her point was that since few of us even knew her name, it would be irrational to expect a post on her death; by way of illustrating this point, she asked you, rhetorically, if you post about every person in the world that dies. The presumed answer is, well, no: no one does that. This is what I meant by saying Cala "responded accordingly" to her misreading of your intention.

The fact that you chose to take this as being somehow about your depression is your own weird, self-centered (and depressed people are like that) little spin on it, but the rest of us live in our own minds.

55: Holy moly. Anybody who didn't click that link, go back and do it now.

I didn't ask any rhetorical questions.

56: I was being sarcastic, duh. And I was also being condescending, although I don't suppose it would ever occur to someone like you that words might have different meanings depending on their order and context.

Also, yes, that guy with the crank letter was really something. I've never gotten a crank letter even half that good, and I've gotten some pretty insane ones.

Minneapolitan, you didn't stay at the Ritz while you were in Phoenix, did you?

63: Didn't stay in Phoenix at all, thankfully, it was just the closest airport to my secret destination. Or was that more sarcasm? It's so hard to tell on the internet.

60: See if I ever take your side again, Cala.

55 really is just too brilliant for words.

minneapolitan:

On the other hand, I was being completely serious. I was told that only nice posts were allowed on Unfogged.

Besides, when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.

(Rogan: I stole that.)

Like Frowner in her comment at SEK's, I can't help feeling sorry for the guy, somehow.

67: It's hard to read without knowing that guy had a long, long road ahead of him. On the other hand, maybe it began a positive string of transformational experiences. Either way, he isn't dead (that we know of) so I'm spanking it as hard as I possibly can.

63: I was at a sympoium in Phoenix at the Ritz last weekend. There was a financial industry event in the ballroom next door. Just wondering.

60: That'll learn ya.

56: "The fact that you chose to take this as being somehow about your depression is your own weird, self-centered (and depressed people are like that) little spin on it"

No, it's something you are completely hallucinating that has nothing to do with what I said or thought.

Bizarre.

When I die, I hope the random and completely inappropriate snark shows up first on the blogs of people who are close to me, and only then on the blogs of people who had heard of me but couldn't figure out quite why they'd been asked to be respectful of my passing.

Also, I would like to be stuffed an mounted in this position.

Everybody feel better!

No, sadly I don't get invited to any financial industry events. Although whenever I take a vacation, the market seems to jump, so maybe they should fly me around a bit more.

Based on being driven through it, Phoenix was pretty much what I expected. They're really gonna be screwed when the cheap oil runs out. Does anyone know what's up with the aggressively, yet boringly, topiaried shrubs? It seemed like everywhere (near the highway) you went there were squat, cylindrical shrubs in counterpoint to the cacti. Fetishistic almost. Weird.

I'm sorry if I made you feel bad, will. Ever since I came upon this cursed blog, I've known only viciousness and cruelty, and I fear that it has warped my emotional response until I have become a veritable sociopath. Had we but met before the terrible day when it was suggested that I check out the "Fuck you, Clown" poetry, you would have found me pleasant, friendly, and indeed, nice. Now I can only look back on that naive minneapolitan with scorn and brittle ridicule and wonder whatever became of him.

I posted the information of Cathy Seipp's death on the top post which also had no comments yet, and announced that the comment was inappropriate to the post. I thought her passing was significant enough to warrant a threadjack. Given that no one but me had read her work, obviously I was wrong. I will commit sepuku over my shame.

Don't worry about it. It would have looked appropriate if enough people had known about her for a respectful conversation to take off, and you didn't have any way of knowing that there weren't a lot of her readers here. What looked bad was the "Whatever, back to talking about video games" reaction, and while that wasn't wrong, you couldn't have known it was going to happen. And there are two 'p's in seppuku.

Oh thanks. Let me off the hook for inappropriate posting, and drag me back in over foreign language spelling errors. Ritual suicide is the only answer.

I'm sorry that I missed the Fuck You Clown off.

67: You wouldn't feel sorry for him if you knew the shit he subsequently pulled -- endless grade change petitions, demands that we let people outside our corrupt department look over his work, &c. He was a real piece of work. (Consider this posted as a president.)

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do 't?
Prithee, why so mute

Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
Fuck that clown!

It's clear that at least once a day, Unfogged should have a default Thread of Respect where appropriately tasteful messages informing Unfogged readers of potentially relevant deaths may be posted. There are several ways this need could be satisfied:

1) Political threads here generally seem pretty serious, at least until Ogged starts talking about swimming somewhere in the discussion. Maybe you could post a policy that Respectful Death Announcements should go in political threads. But maybe it would be disrespectful to follow up "My friend just died" with "Fuck Dick Cheney"? (Personally, I think that would be a pretty good epitaph, but that's just me.)

2) Threads on domestic or personal experience might be a good place, at least the non-porn, non-hott sex ones. Well, maybe those don't happen frequently enough to serve the demand for Respectful Death Announcements.

3) So maybe one of you should just have a Respectful Death Announcement thread every day. Post it with a picture of a kitten dressed in black or something like that.

"My friend just died. Fuck Dick Cheney"

That should be the poetry contest.

I thought this was going to be the running "respectful noting of people's deaths" thread. In fact, I will continue to act as if it is.