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[It's so hard to not comment. I can't resist. Comment count on the rise. This may be the lamest MNSpeak post ever. I'm sorry. Seemed like a good idea in theory.]

DeRusha is a tool.

Okay, I'm a lurker and I'm going to share a few of my impressions:

-You seem like a very non-judgmental guy, Jason. I base that on your postings as I haven't seen you on WCCO (no offense).
-You seem like a smart, fair person, Rex.
-I can't help it, but I don't feel decadent enough to relate to "foodies."
-My neighbors and I are working-class DFL'ers of modest means, but we live in a suburb, so I have the impression that many MNSpeak regulars would assume cultural retardation, environmental recklessness or conservativism. Jason and Rex, I know that you two guys would not make such assumptions.
-I read postings several times a day, pretty much every day.

Thanks for this lurker's indulgence, Jason. Hope you like Seattle, Rex.

I lurk. I've been lurking since a friend's blog linked to MNSpeak about a year ago. At the time I was living in WI and a little homesick for MN. Now I'm back in MN and desperately miss Madison. Such is the way of things, I guess.

I'm living in the 'burbs with my parents while I finish my dissertation (how many cliches can I embody at once?), so reading MNSpeak helps me feel less isolated.

And I'll second John's comments on Jason and Rex. I like you both electronically very much!

i like you electronically. heh. that's funny. i like the electronic jderusha too -- i saw the unelectronic one walking down Nicollet Mall earlier this week, and he was so much shorter than i expected that i paused and he and his quick little legs were gone before i could say hi. i like the electronic one better.

[look i'm not registered - i'm a lurker too!]

i always feel like ... somebody's watching me ...

I'm willing to lurk at your next late night Happy Hour.

I lurk. Waiting for Bob from ALAMN to set me off.

God I love smoking.

Jason,
While you're just fooling around chatting it up around the newsroom, I'm working hard trying to make you look good on TV. Oh wait, you didn't make the cut tonight.

At least you got me to register here. Now I can post smart-ass comments every time you submit something. Enjoy.

well, we lurkers would write more but the idle self posturing, self indulgent comments from mn speak regulars make it hard to contribute. The tiltle of MNspeak is a misnomer. It should be called: DESPRATE WRITERS FISHING FOR BLOGG CONTENT.
Man djerusha, GET OVER YOUR SELF> With your argotic dialogue and balles of invaluable content, can you expect any grade A stalkers? Seriously. You present nothing other than scattered facts. Lurkers don't reply decause you are not aware of what the reader comes to this site for. Do you understand what the reader/lurker of mn speak logs on to this web site for? Keep ignoring the average mn speak lurker and you'll keep boring us, and we'll stop coming here and the advertising dollar will deminish. The very fact that yoy have to inquire about lurkers in your 'real" life shows that you are very out of touch with what the rest of us think about mn speak.....where is rex when you need him....

Wow. There's the thanks you get for trying to invite new people to the party, Jason. Someone pissing in your face.

At least I'm not alone in being beset with absurd typos.

Quasi-lurker in that I am not registered. Curiously, no one has ever told me they read my posts on MNSpeak in person. Curiously, girls don't talk to me.

Man djerusha, GET OVER YOUR SELF does not constitute a contrarian viewpoint to me; it's just pure assholishness. And I'm the first to admit to my typos. I'm lost without a copy editor, which I can't afford for my Wb pages.

yawn.., no..hipman...you bore me as well as others. Like I said, STOP being a school yard bully. Nobody cares what you can and can't (afford) or what you think is contrarian or not. Now go run along and do what you do best: spoof 1950's cookbooks...

I've been posting on here with all sorts of crazy names for years, but Jason's post was the first one to push me over the edge and convince me to read some of what you all had been writing.

Apparently this thing is supposed to be interactive/coversational.

Who knew?

A very special hello to all the virgins out there.

I think Minnesota Stories has a much higher lurker/commenter ratio. Maybe people just like watching the videos, not so much reacting to them? I finally installed some spam blacklist software so you no longer have to be registered to comment. (For the two of you that might care about such things.)

Alastor the Insane does make a decent, partial point, although I'm not sure why he ripped "Mr. Sunshine" Derusha.

Quite a few MNSpeak regulars will pick apart any dissenting view, not on it's merit, but on minor points like grammar, etc. (wish I could think of more examples but I'm tired).

When a person posts, and they get into a pissing match with someone who bogs everything down in minutae, but ignores their obvious salient point, that is frustrating.

What is the word for that kind of arguement? Who ever invented it, and teaches others to do it, should stop. It doesn't help anyone, it's obvious, and it's insulting.

(Aside: Bob from ALAMN, you are a great one for that tactic).

Derusha is sugar sweet, but some others need to loose the Yearbook Club feel. (was yearbook a club? we just called it yearbook. I imagine my entire high school yearbook staff is relentlessly harraunging people all over the blogsphere. Just the kind of dinks they were.)

Russ, that sort of argument is called "ad hominem." It means "at the person." It's what people do who can't handle the actual issues in question. e.g. alastor.

Russ the Retarted...bite me... 'insane'...yah baby it's fun over here!

alastor, here's some more Latin for you: (I quote The Onion,) "Tu Stultus Es."

My favorite commenters are richq, leigha, jderusha, and of course, rex. Learning about Godwin's Law target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law stands as my favorite moment as a mnspeak lurker. Priceless information.
Mean people really suck & long live mnspeak ...I'll drink to that.

Some people have too much mind on their hands.

lol. This post was actually good idea -- I've had that very same discussion too, with more than a few lurkers.

I'm a cronic lurker. here, there, and everywhere

I lurk. For leigha, who asked, the main reason why I don't comment is because I don't have time. I like to look at the posts, and if it interests me I might read the comments...beyond that, I don't usually have a lot to add. russ makes some good points. I've read so many fights over the suburbs and other crap, and I just don't really need or care to get involved in that.

I'm a broken record on this, but to MGM:

A community is only as good as its participants, and if you don't like the level of commentary, you have all the tools within your control to change it. I encourage you to post on issues you find more relevant (unless by "local topics" you mean political diatribes, which don't enhance communities and tend to kill them).

I wish that all fit on a t-shirt.

One thing that I'm working on is bringing in local people who know a lot about specific topics so they can post about them. The only problem is that they often get accused of pimping. (I have absolutely no problem with most pimping as long as it's acknowledged.)

I will admit that Rex was/is a much more active member of the local online and social scene than I am. I just don't know as much about what's going on around town or the good places to find out, so I depend more on everyone else to send me stuff or post about it. That might explain the increase in media related posts since I started since it's kind of the world I grew up in.

This is only my third comment after a month or so of lurking, so I guess I count as invited to comment on this post (and the second comment was really just an excuse for an ad homineum attack against hipmn). I lurk here because the Mpls. Issues list gets bogged down in really boring rehashes of the same 20 year-old arguments between the same couple of dozen local political cranks and because one is not allowed to talk about anything besides Mpls. stuff there. I haven't posted any posts because I'm not really sure what the criteria are, and I'm too lazy to find the FAQ. (Is there a FAQ? It's not right on top like it should be.) I've been amused by many of the comments, although this forum is certainly prey to many of the flaws that plague internet discussions (e.g. Godwin's Law, execrable punctuation and spelling, in-jokes and confusing silencing entries.) Still, there are far fewer orcs on this site than on many others I visit.
Finally, in defense of urbanism and its defenders, I don't think the suburbs are necessarily evil, nor are they always a cultural wasteland, b ut if you're looking for some vestigal traces of community, (and why else are you reading this?) then you'll find very few in the 'burbs. The vast majority of people that I know from work, school and other activities who have moved to the suburbs have done so out of a desire to insulate themselves from the very issues of the day that are discussed on this site. That this desire is doomed to be thwarted seems to me a just reward for their anti-community bias. So for suburban lurkers/posters, why bother coming to a site like this unless it is to wallow in nostalgia for what you have lost or to excoriate those of us who've chosen to live in the city for our perceived romanticism?

One more thing: Can someone find out who that "just plain Bob"* guy is, find out whether he has a blog or website of any kind, and let everyone know so we can trollishly post annoying comments that ask him to define common abbreviations and nicknames?

*He's the one who's always asking "What's a Strib?"
Wanker.

I've been lurking for several months and have only posted a couple of times. Count me in favor of the obscure art/local music scene/generally hipsteriffic tone of many of the posts/comments. It's an interesting way to hear about stuff or read opinions about stuff that I never would have access to otherwise, since I don't generally spend a ton of time with the hip-young-urban crowd.

I don't comment more often because I don't feel like I have much to add to the conversation. I get out a lot of lame crap that nobody but me or my friends cares about on my blog, and I don't have much left for y'all. But I appreciate the wittiness and perspective of the frequent commenters.

Oh, and just a tip: We lurkers and semi-lurkers would be more inclined to post topics if it was less likely that somebody would label it "worst post ever" within five minutes. I know that nobody wants this to devolve into a situation where every jackass is posting a topic on whatever dumbass thing comes to mind, but if the community really wants more participation, it should go easy on the newbies.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Ugh, my wife sent me a link to this site because some people were talking about a subject that I knew some stuff about. Now I'm getting sucked into this vacuum. I am going to return to NOT coming here because it is a waste. This post was/is like a cold bucket of water and snapped me out of the monitor induced daze.

Thanks to all for 3 days of wasted time. I'm going outside to play with my daughter. You guys should get on with your lives.

Buh-bye.

Good heavens, I'm about to become a commenting monstah. And I'm trying to respond to about 15 things at once...

First, okay, I realize that lurking could be the electronic equivalent of window-peeping at dinner time. And someone raised the idea of a FAQ bit that might be helpful to folk like me. 'Cause it seems like a number of you actually know each other, or do you just know each other electronically? And what's an appropriate way to introduce oneself electronically in this venue if I don't feel ready to register? (Hey, I like to take things slow.)

Second, Rex, thanks for correcting my apparently erroneous timeline. I haven't been lurknig as long as I thought! I'm perhaps not a creepy e-stalker! And your point about electronic communities is, I think, a good one.

I'd also like to add that in my very limited experience of them, frequent flare-ups of rage (or whatever strong emotion) are common, here and elsewhere. I mentioned liking people electronically because I think it's useful to make the distinction between an e-persona and the actual person. Jason, to pick an easy example, cannot possibly be in a good mood at all times (Jason, if I'm wrong, then I'd really like to get on those drugs!), but I suspect the public nature of his job has led to an extremely careful construction of his (very agreeable) e-persona. And some of the folks who like to jump on people probably aren't as aggressive in person as they are here. And finally, I'll state the obvious that not everyone in the suburbs is there because we love the lack of community. For me, it's a temporary economic necessity.

I think DrPasolini has had one white russian too few. I post and comment here for the same reason I do elsewhere -- I think the company's pretty good, but for a few stray lunatics, and there's plenty of good humor, and the posts, when they're good, point out local news and events that might have avoided my attention otherwise. If the same old arguments start popping up, and I'm not interested in them, I skip them.

I think the site is fine now, but it sounds as though some FAQs might help new readers feel more encouraged to post. If this site becomes more popular, moderation will be required in the comments -- unmoderated posts quickly turn to absolute shit.

No "e" won't be. I'm his older brother and he is stuburn as hell.

f u.

RE: rating comments, this would be good. When I used to use plaastic.com I always found this a good feature. The jackass comments usually were gone by the time I got there and if I really needed them, I could always view all.

Yes, I'm a lurker and I never comment although I've been tempted a few times. Mostly because once I comment than I have to check back to see if anyone has commented about *that* and it becomes a vicious cycle. But thanks for finallymaking me get off my ass and say something Derusha. Viva MnSpeak.

I'm a chronic MNspeak and Minnesota Stories lurker. I don't post because I'm not living there right now and I can't say I have much to post about MN news etc. But I seriously do appreciate that these sites exist because I love them and they calm my homesickness from time to time.

Wow. That sounded like a fucking public service announcement.

I posted twice ever, the day Kirby died... depressing.

Thanks, Ross. I think Alexis is my favorite, but just because I like clicking on her name and seeing her photo.

Oh my God, I've just become Bud.

We lurk because it's like having a hidden microphone at the cool table in the junior high cafeteria. Now that we can actually hear you, we nerds no longer are trembling in awe . . . we're laughing too hard to type.

Oh and by the way... Liddy - congratulations on your many successes in the past year. Quite an accomplishment for such a young man like yourself. Enjoy it and all the best.

i don't comment much because threads like this make my head hurt.
and yet, i hang around, for the useful information and the occasional photo of DeRusha in go-go boots. it's like a microcosm of why i live here, really.

I lurk b/c I'm too lazy to paw through all the news!

Another lurker here. But I'm registered. I posted once before and it was a hit and now I'm afraid that I'll never be able to create that buzz again. See? I just proved myself correct.

But FYI, that was great way to hear from lurkers -- use your own name and you'll get emails from them for days. And I also like how I've been able to identify another 2-3 lurkers on this thread just by their own special lexicon.

And Steve Marsh lives in my building so sometimes I lurk him for real.

Mostly I just read the comments...but can't for the life of me, come up with anything new and/or interesting to add to the thread.

I lurk. It's a hobby.

All my friends in Junior High played Dungeons and Dragons. I think the closest they ever got to the cool table was after school closed they would sometimes set up war games on top of the recently vacated cool kids table.

My horse has many thousands of legs, that can expand to become bigger legs.

my horse can eat your horse faster than anyones horse

you mean to do good deeds? - Rashan???

actually, its called blurking