A farewell -- of sorts

A funny thing, the internet.

Last week, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a fixture in this city for 146 years, printed its last newspaper. There were a ton of people who bemoaned the loss but I wasn't one of them.

Not that I didn't care for the newspaper, usually referred to as the P-I. In fact, I much preferred it to its competition, The Seattle Times. It's just that for me and tens of thousands other readers, the P-I hasn't gone away.

As a former newspaper reporter, I probably shouldn't admit this; in fact, some of my former co-workers at The Times-Reporter, in New Philadelphia, Ohio, and The Canton Repository, in Canton, Ohio, might just harbor notions of stringing me up by my thumbs. But here it is; I haven't read a print newspaper in almost ten years.

I get my daily dose of news via the internet, have read seattlepi.com since April 2007, when we first began to consider a move to the West Coast, and while the P-I may be dead and gone, seattlepi.com is still very much alive.

There are some differences, of course.

Some of the old standbys of print newspapers are gone, as are a few smaller items of local note, and a couple of the columnists have departed. But coverage of major news, international, national and local, is still available, as is movie and book coverage, the want ads, David Horsey's editorial cartoons and the one comic strip I still read -- Funky Winkerbean.

The Hearst Company, owners of the now defunct P-I, also own its online version and it's still available at no cost to readers.

All of that may change, of course. The Hearst people may decide to initiate a subscription to read seattlepi.com. That has happened for the online versions of a number of national newspapers; if it happens here, I probably will pay it. They may decide the online news site isn't paying for itself and scrap it, too.

But I'm not going into mourning yet.

I can't afford to pay you, but ...

Craigslist is a network of online communities that feature all sorts of free classified advertisements. From time to time, I flick through the Seattle/Tacoma “gigs” listings; it is amazing what some people will ask other people to do, without any sort of compensation.

Here are a few listings from the past week:

SEEKING MODEL WITH SNAKE: I need the snake for a product shoot. I am willing to do pictures of a model with their snake in exchange for letting me do the product shot with it. I can set up make up and all that, just show up with the snake and we can talk wardrobe beforehand.

AUDITIONS FOR: Actors and Actresses for Ernie the Elf Lord film.

LOOKING FOR FIGURE MODELS: For studio photo shoots. I need Seattle's thinnest female models or those wanting to begin modeling. The emphasis is on thin or even beyond thin.

WANTED: TV JUNKIE: Pick a show from Column A and a Show from Column B, then watch season one of each show and write spoiler-free "Quick Reviews" after the pilot, after four-six episodes, and after the season finale of each show.

This one offers compensation, but it caught my attention.

SEEKING TATTOO ARTIST WITH HEBREW EXPERIENCE: First time getting a tattoo, finally found something that I want on my skin for the rest of my life. Nothing fancy, clever or revolutionary, just some Hebrew classical block text. Added bonus if you can help me translate it from English into Hebrew.

I almost responded, just to find out if the translation is required before or after the tattoo is complete.

A Troll encounter

I have maintained an Internet presence for more than a decade; my e-mail address is just my name, without any numbers or letters added at the end, and I didn't have to pay a penny for it.

Over those years, I have floated in and out of chat rooms and bulletin boards, maintained a web site and started a blog, and not once in that time have I ever received e-mail, chat or post, aimed just at me, that has given me pause.

Until this weekend.

I have posted before about Every Day Fiction. It is a marvelous site that not only publishes a piece of new flash fiction every day, free to all to read, but also maintains posting forums that provide opportunity for writers to chat about the craft, to exchange ideas and just goof with folks who don't consider your strange for thinking about stories all the time.

I love the site; would hug and kiss it, if it were a person, and I was very sad to see, last week, that a Troll was lurking there. In Internet lingo, a Troll is someone who submits nonsensical or inflammatory posts to illicit an emotional response.

Since early July, the EDF Troll has been submitting posts filled with non sequiturs. Friday night, he aimed a post at me that was way over the line. I won't repeat what he said here, but it rambled and it threatened physical violence.

I don't know about the State of Washington, I haven't read over state law since we moved, but in Florida, where I had to know the law, as a corrections officer, the Troll's post would be considered grounds for a felony assault charge.

The EDF editorial staff, God bless them, jumped right on it, and have taken, according to Rachael, who is a systems moderator for Play Station, exactly the right steps.

I am certain that the post was just the Troll's idea of a stupid joke. I am certain that there is no chance that anything will ever come of it. Besides, as former corrections officers, Rachael and I are both well trained and well armed, and no Trolls are allowed here.

So, I'm going to forget about that post. I am going to go on about my life, here in Seattle and upon the Internet, as if nothing happened.

But I'm not laughing.