Thursday, May 13, 2010

Ground rules

Okay, people don't understand the rules about "Kirby Was Wrong". I will attempt to explain them. The rules actually originated from a argument I had with Toni Doty.

The rules are simple:

1. I have to be wrong.
2. I have to do so in a public setting.
3. I have to be absolutely sure I'm correct, and unwilling to accept being wrong in the heat of the moment.
4. I have to at some later point become utterly and totally convinced that I was in fact wrong.

If you're Toni Doty, and the above conditions had been I buy lunch for you. So me saying something stupid like 2 + 2 = 5 doesn't in fact qualify. It does meet conditions 1 and 2 (2 because it's on this blog). When it is pointed out to me, I'd say oops, you are correct. Conditions 3 and 4 would be not be met, thus no need for a blog post.

There are some classic examples of "Kirbyisms" (many cases of nominal aphasia will likely be contributed) which will end up being posted mostly because they are funny. But generally speaking the rules were setup as a safety net for Toni and my's working relationship. I could publicly be an ass and declare her wrong any time I felt like it. However, I had to own up to my being wrong, and buy lunch or dinner for her when I was an ass and I was wrong.

Many of my friends have pointed out to me that I'm a pain in the ass. Lots of the time I am totally and utterly correct. When I'm wrong I can be a pain in the ass, and my mitigating factor to make it tolerable to put up with my attitude it to publicly fall on a sword, and admit that I was completely, totally and utterly wrong when I was an ass in public about a topic.

Just so we understand the rules, not every mere mistake counts as "Wrong", notice the capital, it's important.

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