Mystery Solved--Kind Of

April 28, 2008

Topic of the day: Blog Trolls.

In the past, people have told me that the sign of making it big as a blogger is the involuntary adoption of a blog troll. In other words, the day some heckler starts leaving nasty anonymous comments on your blog, is the day you've become successful. I completely disagree--the day my blog troll came along was the day I developed a mild to moderate case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

If you're a long time post & comment reader of this blog, then you'll probably recall that I had quite a bit of trouble with an anonymous blog troll several months ago.

I would write about my child and he would say, "Get a life."

I would talk about visits with my parents and he would say, "You're a loser. You live with your mom and dad."

I would mention my marathon and he would comment, "No one cares about your stupid race. You suck."

And so on and so forth. Eventually--once I ran out of toilet paper and tears--I blocked anonymous comments and *voila* my heckler (and my stress-induced abdominal cramping) disappeared with a simple click of the mouse.

Last week I made a very short trip to Connecticut to attend my father's mid-week retirement party. I had Italian sausage, I had chicken wings, I had cake. I also had a shining moment of clarity when a portion of the blog troll mystery was unraveled. If you'd like to know the identity of one of my blog trolls, read on my friends, read on.

This guy was not the blog troll:





His name is Clark, he works with my Dad, and he's an avid reader. If I'm not mistaken, he also uses a blow-dryer on a day-to-day basis. His hair was flawless people. Flawless. How could I not post his picture, ya know?


This is my Uncle Roger (top and front view), and he was the infamous mystery troll:



Trust me people, I only love him because I have to--it's as simple as that. He claims that he was messing with my for the simple sake of fun. I think he was messing with me because I called him "Big Boy Fluffy" instead of Uncle Roger from 1985-1991. Really, I did.

Some of the trolling was far too sophisticated for his doing, so I know there's another craptastic commenter or two floating around in cyber-space. But for now, a significant piece of the mystery is solved.

Case closed...kind of.

And since we're on the topic of inappropriate blog commenting, I'm going to have to use word verification again--at least for the time being. I've had way too many spammers trying to sell my readers discount gold, vacations to Asia, and penis enlarging products. Don't fall for 'em guys, they're totally fake.

And on that note, I hope you all have a great day troops! Yes, even you Uncle Roger.