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OF YELL_STARS
4.7.2000 So, the story goes like this: a few weeks ago I was looking through my referrer files and I see that someone is linking to one of my graphics. I follow the trail and come across a page on tripod which has my yellow stars background as its background. Linked directly. I rubbed my hands with glee. I may have cackled. See, if someone links to an image directly, that means that they haven't saved it anywhere and uploaded it to their own server or page. Same thing if they were linking to a page, they would have no control over that page. You see the possibilities. I went to my smart, beautiful, faithful (and patient) readership and asked for suggestions. Joy and Lynda suggested Jesus with stern admonishments. Scott suggested scary baby. Elizabeth suggested doing things very, very, very evil. (Very evil.) I decided I would do them all. First, I took a screenshot of her site with my graphic intact. Then I renamed the graphic and relinked it from my home page so that I wouldn't be screwing up my own page at the same time. Then I uploaded the scary baby image from Scott and renamed it the same name which was "yell_stars.gif". I took a screen shot of that. If you were on my mailing list and online Sunday you had the dubious pleasure of watching the offending site and hitting reload. Scary baby hit the site first. Scott sent this truly lovely image of a freaky kid with his eyes bugging out. It was lovely. That was followed by "Hellooooo, Sailor" who I also took a screenshot of but neglected to capture his extremely large important parts in the screenshot. My good buddy, Fabulana, has that fine specimen of our esteemed Navy on her homepage. Then there was a lovely image of a cat's posterior taken from those strange folks over at Cat-Scan.com. Then a sweet little whips-and-chains pic from one of my favorite sites. Somewhere in there I also threw in a tame, repeating animation of blue and red swirls — epileptic seizure, here we come. Finally, I collaged them all together and added a stern missive from Jesus himself and uploaded that. Have a look at the final product. I only regret that I didn't get a screenshot of how it looked on her site. Maybe next time. Rather humorously, I've received a series of indignant emails from the bandwidth offender. She is foot-stomping mad that I should ruin her site this way. Poor, naive little April. This one was sent to two of my email addresses:
From: April
I would like to write you a letter and let you know I
did not appreciate what you did to my homepage. Nor
did I steal the backround [sic] from you. I found the
backround on a search that I did from backrounds from
another person. If you were so inraged by my backround
you could have just emailed me instead of being so
sadistic and immature to ruin it that way. my homepage
is off the internet now and I hope that you are happy
that you ruined it. Have a nice day and please if you
are so upset about something, for gosh sakes email the
person. previously: www.night.dreamer.tripod.com/moon.html
So, fer gosh sakes, I replied thusly:
From: Me
There is no way that you "found" my background graphic somewhere else because you linked to my graphic directly. Not only does that mean that you "stole" my graphic but you also stole my bandwidth, too. The only way I could change your background was if you linked to it directly and that's what you did.
If you had been more honest you could've asked me to use that background.
Splutter, splutter:
From: April I did not get the backround from gawow.com I hadn't
even heard of it until I saw it posted on my homepage.
I never visited your site, honest. I think you could
have let me know with an email and I would have gladly
changed it. I also think you could have told me what
happened, I had never had a homepage before and how am
I suppose to know these things if people don't write
and tell me? I don't know everything and neither does
anyone else in the world.
And, so, I manage to find it in my cold, black heart to hand her a clue:
From: Me C'mon, April, you have to laugh. Of course I could have written to you and said something but... well, you seemed to have no difficulty in figuring out two separate email addresses for me so...? Also, I would like to see this site that you found my background on. If you could forward that URL it would be much appreciated. There's no reason to get all in a snit about what I did... with my own graphic, might I add, it was mine to do and change as I saw fit and for that you must get a laugh. It's funny. How could I pass up the opportunity to needle someone a little bit? And, as for taking down your whole site -- that's your own prerogative. I feel no bit of remorse or guilt over it. We are all free to make our own choices.
You can lead a horse to water.... From: AprilSubject: no subject Sent: Thu 4/6/00 4:14 PM I do not see where me finding your two separate email addresses has anything to do with you writing me to tell me of your backround. At least I wrote to find out what was going on, now I know. I really do not believe that you helped me all that much and that's what life is all about, helping each other figure everything out. Not to make fun of someone. I am sorry that I did not realize that was "your" backround. At least I can say I am sorry and if you had told me of this I would have taken actions to correct it. I am also sorry that I do not find your humor in 'needling' someone that was not aware that this was your backround. True, we are all free to make our own choices. I am sorry. So, it all boils down to this: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." The fact of the matter is that it would be hypocritical of me to get all up in arms over someone stealing my graphic. Although, it did surprise me when I saw it since as far as I know, no one has taken anything from me before. But, the heart of the matter is that she linked to it directly and how could I not screw with her little, 20-year-old mind? Too funny. What a wimp. æ |
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