David Thorne

[Gaear]

I just discovered this David Thorne guy on the net yesterday but apparently he's been doing his thing for a long time. Wiki describes him as "an Australian humourist, satirist, Internet personality and New York Times best-selling author ... 27b/6 (his website/blog) features a collection of humorous emails and articles from Thorne's life."

The last bit is most important, as it's there that he shares humorous e-mail exchanges and the like that he has had with various people. Apparently he works or worked in an office environment as a logotype designer, and that's where much of the humor begins. I can't figure out if I would spend my day laughing working next to this guy or planning when and how to kick his ass, lol.

Some highlights from his blog that I've seen so far:

• Dear Neighbour, you are not invited to my party
  A neighbor sends out a flyer apologizing for potential noise regarding a house warming party and Thorne invites himself.
  
  
• Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.
  Thorne responds to coworker's 'make it big' website schemes.
  
  
• Easter Play Permission Slip
  Thorne goes toe to toe with a 'Christian Volunteer' and eventually cracks him.
  
  
• Overdue Account
• The seven-legged spider - the one that apparently made his name for him.
  
  
• Missing Missy
  The saga of Shannon's missing cat.
  
  
• Ten F26-A Formal Complaints in six months
  Humorous back and forth between Thorne and coworker Simon. Thorne changes his business cards to read "horse whisperer," among other things.
  
  
• Justin's Floodlight
  Funny story of a neighbor with one of those big ass floodlights.

Trust me, if you've got some time to kill, this will be worth it.

[Dice]

OMG, I just read the first one and I'm worried that with my open window the neighbours will think I'm crazy hearing me laughing so loud. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of them when I get back from some errands.

[Blackthorne TA]

That logo/pie charts one coudn't have ended better than this:

Ok. Good luck with your project. If you need anything let me know.

ROTFLMAO!

EDIT
BTW, some of those links don't have the proper URL in them...

[LKD]

There is some humor there but to be honest it's the kind of humor that is funny when it happens to someone else. This guy delights in just being a complete jerk. He is unnecessarily rude and insulting. I'd likely be filing complaints against him as well.

The Christian one got to me. He doesn't believe in Christianity. I get it. Such is his right. But unless I'm misunderstanding part of the context all he had to do was just say "I don't want my child participating" and leave it at that. Instead he was just insulting for no other reason than being a smug bastard. I just didn't see the point in his belaboring the issue.

[Barmy Army]

These have been around since Jesus was a lad. Really funny, though.

[Blackthorne TA]

I just didn't see the point in his belaboring the issue.

It seems he objects to the bypassing of separation of Church and State laws by having "Christian volunteers" in a public school for no other reason (apparently) than that they are free.

[Dice]

@LKD - You know LKD, you are intelligent, have some pretty good values and are generally a pretty nice guy but sometimes you are just a Grumpy Gus!

[LKD]

Maybe, Dice, but I just don't find someone scoring points off someone just going about his normal business to be funny. It's like giving a waitress at a chain restaurant a hard time about prices that she personally has no control over.

[Splunge]

I agree with LKD. I'll admit the first two Gaer listed were funny, but generally, the guy just seems like a prick. The Missing Missy one, for example, seemed totally unnecessary - the woman asks for a favor, and Thorne is a total douche about it; he whines about the fact that he's to busy to spend what would probably be a few minutes helping her, and then proceeds to waste the next 3 hours being a jerk. I almost get the feeling that one day he thought "hey, let's see how big an a$$hole I can be in responding to emails, and when I get enough material, I'll put them in a book".

[Blackthorne TA]

The guy is a huge a-hole. That's what's so funny.

[Dice]

The guy is a huge a-hole. That's what's so funny.

YAH! So there Spunge and LKD!! *Dice blows a raspberry at them*

[Splunge]

Ah, I get it. We're supposed to be laughing at him, not with him. It's a "look at me, I'm a gigantic idiot!" king of thing. Sort of like Jackass, except that he has to drag other people into it. So I guess it's more like a big kid sticking a smaller kid's head in a toilet, and laughing at the big kid for being a moron.

I still don't find it particularly funny.

[Gaear]

Fun governors.

[Blackthorne TA]

Not exactly IMO. In every case I read, he had a legitimate gripe, he just went all a-hole on the perpetrator, which I find funny.

For example Missy the cat: A secretary is asking him to do for free what he gets paid to do; and in this day and age anyone can put together a simple poster if they know how to email a picture to someone else, there is no reason should couldn't have easily done it herself.

Instead she's an idiot, and even though he heaped a load of nonsense on her, what did she do? Did she ask another designer in the office to do it instead? Did she throw up her hands and do it herself? No, she took the abuse and went back for more. Hilarious!

[Splunge]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne TA

Missy the cat: A secretary is asking him to do for free what he gets paid to do

She was asking him to do her what is commonly referred to as a “favor”. This is apparently an alien concept to you, so you might want look up the word sometime; in essence, a “favor” is what friends or co-workers often do for each other, particularly if it’s not that big a deal. I’ll even make it easy for you and provide a link (this, coincidentally enough, is an example of doing you a favor); just click on the underlined part and prepare to be amazed (you might want to make sure someone is nearby when you do so, as the shock could put you in a coma):

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/favor

in this day and age anyone can put together a simple poster if they know how to email a picture to someone else

Maybe she’d never made a poster before and didn’t realize how easy it was, and given that there was someone in the office who knew what he was doing, she turned to him for help. Now granted, as you say, she probably should have gone to someone else when she realized that the idea of a favor was as foreign to Thorne as it was to you (before I enlightened you, that is), but that still doesn’t justify him being a tool in the first place.

[Blackthorne TA]

I'm amazed that you can't understand how someone can be annoyed that people ask them to do favors that involve a paid talent.

Doctors get annoyed when people ask them for free medical advice at parties. Lawyers get annoyed when people ask them for free legal advice. Computer builders get annoyed when people ask them to help them build a computer for free. But I guess that's an alien concept for you.

And again, that's what makes it so funny. He goes to all kinds of trouble just to annoy the hell out of these people because they are annoying him, and they keep coming back for more!

I mean seriously, if you were the secretary and got that first email response what would you have done? I imagine you'd think he was an a-hole and go elsewhere for help or do it yourself. But no, she just kept coming back for more explaining exactly what she wants on the poster. If she knew exactly what she wanted, then how hard could it have been to just do it? As I said above: Hilarious!

[Splunge]

From your reply, I guess you didn’t get the fact that I was being ironic, in that I was intentionally being a Thorne-like a-hole in my response. I guess it’s not as hilarious when you’re the target.

Anyway, to be serious for a moment regarding favors, I’m an accountant. How annoyed I get when people ask me for accounting/tax advice depends on how well I know them, and what giving the advice entails. If it’s a friend or someone I work with, then I don’t mind, but only if I don’t have to spend hours doing it. So yes, expecting a friend to pay me for a quick favor is an alien concept to me, as you state. In the Missing Missy example, since posters are easy, it wouldn’t have been a big deal for him to help out.

As for the “coming back for more” part, yes, they probably should just ignore him after a point. But I still don’t find it all that funny.

[Blackthorne TA]

I think you need to brush up on your prose then because it wasn't amusingly written

How annoyed you get also depends on how many times the same person asks you for a favor. This may have been the last straw for all we know.

And that you don't find it funny is certainly understandable... not everyone has a well developed sense of humor.

[Gaear]

Originally Posted by BTA

I mean seriously, if you were the secretary and got that first email response what would you have done? I imagine you'd think he was an a-hole and go elsewhere for help or do it yourself. But no, she just kept coming back for more explaining exactly what she wants on the poster. If she knew exactly what she wanted, then how hard could it have been to just do it? As I said above: Hilarious!

Same with the pie charts guy, who at various stages said "That's the final straw!" and "You've gone too far - TOO FAR!" and "Now you've crossed the line!" Then some e-mails later he was asking "So are you going to do it or not?"

[Blackthorne TA]

Same with the guy who emailed to tell him he's a "foggot".

At the end the guy says he won't be responding to any more emails. Thorne replies with "Yes you will", and the guy responds to that with "No I won't!"

[Splunge]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne TA

it wasn't amusingly written

Exactly!

Now, I'm not saying that the ones where the people deserved the abuse because they started out being stupid aren't funny. "Foggot", "Bob's Artwork", the party invite, pie charts - these were hilarious. But some of the others - not so much.

---------- Added 0 hours, 33 minutes and 50 seconds later... ----------

I just read "Timesheets". I'm going to assume Simon is an annoying twit rather than just some poor guy that Thorne decided to pick on so that I won't feel guilty for laughing so hard.

[Blackthorne TA]

Isn't Simon the pie charts guy? Maybe I got the people confused, but he seems to torment Simon a LOT.

But I have to disagree about how funny his writing is. I find what he writes (the style and the implications underneath what he actually says) hilarious.

[Gaear]

I thought the F26-A one with Simon was brilliant because he basically had Simon tell the story the through the F26-A complaint forms.

[LKD]

If someone is being a douche, then they deserve to be mocked, absolutely. But if someone is not being a douche, then this level of mockery and dickery is not nearly as funny.

[Dice]

LKD, he does it with flare. Personally I agree with BT. All of the people who were mocked in these pieces had it coming to them in some way. Also the guy with the F26 - formal complaints does sound like a real douche. But really what is the point in arguing about what a dick David Thorne is? I'm pretty sure we are in the Sensorium and not The Alleys. Not everything has to be a debate. I would say that if he really bothers you, don't read him.

@ Splunge - Your humour fell short.