Nerd Rage!

patricius posted:

A 33% cut in the price of a big-ticket, high-hype item like the iPhone, after just two months, is unprecedented. Nobody (at least, nobody reasonable) is saying that the iPhone price should have remained static, or that they didn't expect it would drop at some point. I personally expected it to drop within a year at the absolute latest, and any early adopter who doesn't know they're paying a premium is uneducated at best and stupid at worst. What's going on here is a question of degree. A $50 or even $100 price drop wouldn't have been too drastic, but we're talking about a third of the price.

Apple didn't sign a contract with those who bought iPhones on June 29th saying that the price would be maintained for a set period, and anyone who acts like they were required to do so in some legalistic way is a moron. But there's a larger question at work here... it's about how you treat your customers, especially the most loyal ones who play a part in selling your product for you--for free--because they're enthusiastic about what you have to offer. I love Apple products, and have "sold" them to friends and family because of that.

Business culture these days is dominated by playing games with your customers and fucking them over in the name of short-term profit if the opportunity arises. It's an act of bad faith, even if it can be justified from other points of view. Whether it's big enough to make an impact (and I have to say I doubt it'll have a long-term impact, even if Apple does nothing to address the discontent here) remains to be seen, but it wasn't a cool thing to do, and to dismiss ANY behavior like that, be it Apple or Microsoft or Best Buy or whoever, with "oh, that's just business" is to be complicit in a system and a culture that condones fucking the customer over instead of earning his loyalty with good service and acting in good faith.

For me, at least, it's not "YOU OWE ME $200, HAND IT OVER OR I'LL SPEW ALL OVER THE INTERNET ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE YOU," it's about retaining my goodwill as a customer by treating me fairly. We'll see how it ends up, I guess.

I see a lot of shit in threads about fights. Tough guys saying how they would do everything right. Nerds saying how it would be over in the first punch the guy lands and that you have no chance to fight back in a 2-or-more-on 1 situtation. It's time to get some truth out there. I can only go on anecdotal evidence since there's really no reaserch on street fights. I'm going to post four of my fight experiences starting from the earliest. The first two I had minimal experience fighting (mainly from rough housing with friends, "boxing" with my dad, McDojo TKD) and the second two I had boxing and high school wreslting under my belt.

I'm going to start with a fight that happened when I was a freshman in highschool(year 2000). In my highschool's cafeteria freshman through juniors were mixed and the seniors had they're own cafe. It was a haven for bullying. I used to sit with a group of punky kids just because one of the kids from my homeroom sat there. I was more into rap at this point in my life and one of the junior's in my cafe, Mark, started giving me shit about sitting with the punk kids. It went over for a few weeks him talking shit me telling him to shut the fuck up and him challenging me to a fight in the bathroom. I would always decline since I didn't want to get suspended. Junior kid took this as me being afriad of him and started talking even more shit.

So one day I just said the classic after school bullshit. A mutual friend of Mark and I, Johnny, said he would ref the fight and keep things fair basically reasuring me I wouldn't get jumped. We went to a friends backyard right by the school and I put my hands up. Then Mark pulls the biggest bullshit ever "He has to hit me first because I'm on probation." I go yeah fine whatever just put your hands up and we'll fight. Kid refuses. I start getting pissed push him and let a right hand fly. Johnny steps in and goes "Mark you're a bitch you let a freshman get your heart, no offense Hec'(that being me)."

This second fight was when I was a sophmore it was against one of my teammates on the football team. This kid, Jeff, was a junior, the field goal kicker, and a total asshole. One day he for some reason spit on some kid as I was walking by. I said to another teammate if I ever got spit on I'd fucking murder the guy. Jeff being the asshole he is comes over to me and tries to spit on me I dodged it for the most part but some of it got on my arm. So I took my pads off and said we're throwing down. We square up and for some reason I inside leg kick him and he stumbles and everyone boo's being as the whole team is watching. So I scrap that start throwing some jabs out and catch him with a nice right hand which he stumbles. I start hammin it up and trip over a helmet on the ground and the kid jumps on my back and starts punching the shit out of the back of my head. I got up with him on my back and rammed my back into a locker which got him to let go, threw one last punch that connected right under his eye, and ran back to my locker as I heard the coach coming. Kid was oddly nice to everyone after that.

This third fight happened in January of this year. It was just after a hard break up I was at a party got pretty drunk and ended up at a diner with some friends and some random kid they knew. I end up getting into an argument with my friend about mma and about fighting in general. The point comes up that I had been boxing for a while. Somehow this random get's it in his head to start mouthing off to me about how he could beat me. I being pissed off drunk already stood up and said "let's take it outside then." Kid backs down immediately saying let's wait untill the food comes and I'm not having that fighting on a full stomach is not fun. Kid keeps mouthing off so I smack him in the face hard as fuck. "You know why I smacked you in the face? Because you're a bitch that should have never opened his mouth in the first place." This kid still keeps saying "after the food comes watch." I sit back down wait for my food chow down and bulllshit with my friends more while this guys all moody looking like he's gonna cry.

Time comes to leave I feel like passing out in my bed and this guy starts getting his beer muscles back. Outside kid does a haymaker swing, I slip under it and counter with a left, and all my friends grab me because they know if it continues I'll beat the shit out of the kid. I'm really drunk so I just power out of their holds on my arms and wail on this kid. He tackles me head down as soon as I saw that I put in a guillotine choke. He managed to get me down to the ground so I pull him into full gaurd. There's nothing this kid can do. My friends are still trying to seprate it and I'm just not having it. They get us up of the floor they're all holding me back and this guy punches me while I'm being held and runs in his truck. Not happening I run over and punch the shit out of his truck leaving a dent in it. He gets out looking really scared and I wailed on his face and broke his nose. Next morning I wake up to what looks like a bloodbath on my jeans and timberlands and a semi hurting jaw.

This last fight happened two weeks ago. Typical house party but with a specific guest list all close friends. Someone goes and ruins it be inviting these grimey ass kids about ten of them. All the people I'm close with eventually start leaving so I head of to my friends apartment with him and 2 other kids. I get a call from my friends girlfriend and she sounds like she's about to cry asking if I'm still at the party I say no and she hangs up. My friend immediately class me back and tells me what's up. Someone stole $300 from his girl. I head back to the house with the three kids I was with. I'm super pissed someone stole money and broke away from the pack because I got to the house about a minute before any of the people I was with did. First kid I see I go up to and ask "Yo dude someone stole $300 from my friend tonight here in this house do you have any idea who it could have been?"

As soon as I finish the sentence the kid gets hostile and goes to throw a punch at me. I step in and grab him by the throat and drill a right hand right into his face. All of the grimey kids in the room jump on me about 8 total. I just start hulking people put my left up by my face and start let right hands fly. Jabs, hook, uppercuts, overhands whatever. I punched ever single face I saw and then jumped back. I see a kid putting his keys in his fist to punch me and I just fucking let one go and cut this kid with it. He now had a vagina on his face. I'm getting walked out the house by my friends and the girl who owned the house's stepdad. Outside one of these stupid fucks that happened to be in the kitchen at the time this all happened comes out acting big yelling. I drop a hard left right on his nose and then grab his head with my right hand and put my thumb right in his eye. I start pulling his head down to drive my knee into it and one of my friend pulls me off. Minutes later cops show up and the morons tell them they jumped me cops come over to me and and ask "They jumped you?" "Yeah pretty much." "But there's not a scartch on you and they're all fucked up." "Yeah I dunno." Cops start laughing at these kids and ask me if I want to press charges. One of the kids goes "What about us?" Cop answers "Just because 8 of you couldn't put a scratch on this kid doesn't mean you get to press charges." Cops leave, I laugh at the kids and head home. Never did get the $300 back. But the girl thanked me for kicking ass on her part.

Those are 4 accounts of actual fights I've been in. It's controlled chaos at it's best. That's how things happen and I hope it gives some of you insight. I'm not saying every fight will go like that and I know some day I'll get my ass kicked. That's not what matters. Of course in most of those instances fights could have been avoided but I'm not a person like that. I don't want to discuss me or why I fight. I just wanted to get some information from my personal experiences out there and discuss fighting.