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Ben Goes To Hell

Okay, I didn't plan on doing this at first, but I just can't take it anymore. I just received another flame from some jerkwad going by the name “Ben Friedman.” The exchange started on Thursday, February 21, 2002 at 10:43AM. Sadly, he's not the first person to do something like this. Go to hell, Ben, and please do your best to hit every thorn on the way down.

Hi Chris! I am a new subscriber. Please advise me of the URL for the application you displayed on “Call for Help� that showed the running processes in task manager and interpreted exactly what they were in clear understandable language as well as showed whether it was necessary to keep them running. I went to the “Call for Help “ site and keep looking for the URL but it is never mentioned. I then went on a search with Google but turned up so many sites itb was just impossible to find it. I really need this application as I can’t figure out what all these running processes really are and what they do. Thanks, Ben

blackviper.com

Is this the way you help people????? Is this the image you want to project instead of the eversmiling wonderful helpful guy on TV. Sometimes the real image comes out and the mask falls off!!!!

Dude, I just sent you the link - isn't that what you wanted?

To be succinct since that is your style of answering those who are your viewers :!1- I donÂ’t appreciate a blunt reply. We are all in the same community and it doesnÂ’t hurt to be nice and address each other in a polite and courteous manner. It goes far beyond being knowledgeable and technically proficient. A salutation was missing as well as a polite gesture that you appreciate your fans. 2- The url should have been offered on your program. Your associate (the grimacer) was WRONG when he lied and said that the URL was too long to be shown . 3_ RESPECT in addressing someone is IMPORTANT! Â….ISNÂ’T THAT RIGHT DUDE !!!!!

Time out, Ben - you're either under the illusion that I spend all my time in front of the computer, or that you're the only person who e-mails me with a question. The fact that I even bothered to reply at all should be something in and of itself. I appreciate you, but I also appreciate the 1,000 other people who e-mail me every day.

Yeah right! What about the conceited individual who is always staring at himself in the monitor and thinks he is so gorgeous and who patently LIED about the URLÂ…this is something that YOU shouldnÂ’t tolerate after all it is your show..you are the host.This goes on repeatedly you or someone else shows us a web site ; goes into the details to whet our appetites and then deliberately doesnÂ’t tell us the URL. To make matters worse when we go over to Call for Help it isnÂ’t there and IT ISNÂ’T there the next day either or the following day. How are we supposed to find it? Are we supposed to go through 15,000 entries on Google or conjure it uo by jumping around a small bonfire and waving a blanket????

As for the fact that you are busy so am I ! How do you know what I do during the day and night? I took the time to write to you and read your column in CPU magazine as well as follow you on Call for Help and subscribe to your Emailed magazine I SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT YOU TOOK THE TIME TO REPLY????????? Shall I kiss your ring as well. Don’t you sound just a little pompous??? Maybe you ought to get an efficient secretary who is polite and can answer your mail with a modicum amount of humility. Regards,Ben PS thanks for leaving out the “DUDE�. I have never been a devotee of dude ranches.

[insert autoresponder here]

Your insulting e mail has been thoroughly been digested and despite the rather inane comments YOU failed to address the point that I have REPEATEDLY brought up! I am NOT in the habit of berating anyone. I simply want to know why you would allow the procedure of exhibiting websites to the viewers and deliberately failing to tell us where they are.Then telling us that the URL is TOO LONG to mention as your associate did. Well in the case at hand the URL wasBlackviper.com. This is not an exceptional situation it is a REPETITIVE one. Maybe you don’t like anyone to tell it “like it is.� I so despise liars and lying that I havr to comment. Not to do so would be to flagrantly tolerate it and cosponsor it. By the way I previously wrote to you asking why Double Click cookies were ever present on Call for Help and Tech Tv’s Screensavers when you are all exposing spyware. Isn’t this a perfect example of a paradox? You never bothered to reply. We the viewers and readers are not the enemy nor are we a bunch of naïve dillitantes. I am not afraid to express my point. I am NOT GRATEFUL that you replied to me. Why should I be? You rely on the public for your bread and we are not outsiders but AN INTEGRAL PART OF YOUR SUCCESS and GOOD FORTUNE! If it weren’t for us you would be sitting there cracking coconuts. Don’t get so personal and stop taking yourself too seriously…this is after all a hobby and it’s supposed to be fun! Regards, Ben P.S. I have suits in my closet older than you are!

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30 Comments

Oh yeah, I've heard of Ben. When this “dude” was a toddler, he actually kicked Big Bird in the balls.

Wasn't blackviper.com on TSS and not CHF like Friedman claims? No wonder the idiot couldn't find it. In fact I found the link under the show notes (http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/shownotes/story/0,24330,3372735,00.html) under “Windows XP Memory Problems” in about a minute. What a jerk. For some reason I think you just can't win with this guy he said –”I am NOT GRATEFUL that you replied to me.”– but methinks he would have been just as upset if you hadn't replied to him. Ughh, some people…

Oh yeah, I think if he sends another derogatory message, you should post his email address so we can all write him a note about what a great guy Chris is.

I think it's quite amusing how he said that he thought Chris was being pompous, when in earlier replies he wanted the e-mail that was sent to him to be nice and perfect. Obviously this guy had nothing better to do on a Friday night… Love that autoresponder thing.. Hilarious

I've been saving this for someone special:
http://gbg.bonet.se/ivil/you.html

Make sure you sound is on and wait for the small wav to download

I think someone is in need of a deep cleansing session on the throne. Relax! Let it all out. That's it….

Ben must be one heck of an idiot to not realize that as the “Lockergnome” and host of Call For Help you get bunches of e-mail. I have no idea where you find the time to answer them.

“A salutation was missing as well as a polite gesture that you appreciate your fans”… LMAO!!! It sounds like he only e-mailed Chris so that he'd get some kind of “Hi Ben, here's the URL… [blah]. I love my fans Ben, and don't forget how special you are to me. Come on over to my place any time you like!” I wonder if Ben's just insecure?
“As for the fact that you are busy so am I ! How do you know what I do during the day and night? I took the time to write to you and read your column in CPU magazine as well as follow you on Call for Help and subscribe to your Emailed magazine…” Darn, this guy sounds like a stalker!

This guy is totaly wack:
“P.S. I have suits in my closet older than you are!”
What does that have to do with anything?

heh heh heh You have got to laugh at this - else you'd go mad Chris. This guy is plainly an insecure Jerk with no sense of humour at all. A constipated insecure Jerk at that!

Ben: Excuse me shop assistant, where can I find the free samples of shampoo?
Assistant: Just over there, sir.
Ben: Omg what the hell are you doing?! It is people like me who are keeping you in your job, I just asked for the free shampoo and you just point me to it and don't ask how my wife is and how my kids are doing at school! You may have several other people who need your attention aswell, but you are going to talk to me because I cannot take your lack of interest in me!
Assistant: …
Ben: And I have a pair of shoes in my shoe rack older than you!

Ben: Excuse me shop assistant, where can I find the free samples of shampoo?
Assistant: Just over there, sir.
Ben: Omg what the hell are you doing?! It is people like me who are keeping you in your job, I just asked for the free shampoo and you just point me to it and don't ask how my wife is and how my kids are doing at school! You may have several other people who need your attention aswell, but you are going to talk to me because I cannot take your lack of interest in me!
Assistant: …
Ben: And I have a pair of shoes in my shoe rack older than you!

grrr stupid brower… :)

Hey Chris, My keyboard came unplugged on the back of my computer…… can you come over and help me plug it back in…??? Don't give me that “I don't have time ****” either…. When you're done I'll let you try on one of my old “leisure suits”. *S*

I send chris e-mails and i get the same type of response back and i think thats totaly cool, we should be thanking chris for even answering our e-mails in the first place!! He's not getting anything in return for answering our e-mails!! Its a great thing he does, and when he gets 1,000 messages in his mailbox i dont think he wants to go through each one saying hi and writing an entire full page response, if he did that he would have to take every other day off from work just to do that!! The guys not a machine! Ben's a moron.

This guy sounds like he has as much common sense as Bernard Shifman http://petemoss.com/spamflames/ShifmanIsAMoronSpammer.html . Chris, if anything, the Shifman story will make you laugh!

Jeebus! I couldn't bring myself to read halfway through his little tirades.
What a silly, silly man Ben is.

“Okay, I didn't plan on doing this at first”, a good instinct. I know you've put it on one of your lists of rights you reserve the right to post whatever you want, that doesn't mean you have too. Ben is a jerk, but as far as I know hasn't chosen to make himself a public person as you have. I certainly understand your frustration and a go to hell ben reply to his email was appropriate, but contrary to what your other fans say, this fan thinks you were wrong.

Post his e-mail! That way maybe we can send the jerk 1000 messages and pester him when he doesn't respond to each of ours! I think someone with some extra time should start bensucks.com

I've heard from way too many “Bens” in my life. You just can't win. I've had to make sure that I just de-escalate pretty fast and stop responding. I've had people who read columns I've written about the Mac, and decided I was a total idiot who deserved to be berated. I'd ask them to back down and - wham! - they flipped out.
I had to boot someone from a moderated mailing list because I wouldn't post his every thought on GoLive. I wound up getting a pseudo-anonymous threat from him (full of lots of clues). I called his house and wound up talking to his wife (who I assumed was his mother because of his mode of expression) and told her I'd call his local police and the FBI if I ever heard from him again. I got one more message asking me to leave HIM alone!
You can't win, so I try to stop after one or two go-rounds when it's clear the person is just not going to be civil at all. That kind of response from Ben just chills my soul. How can someone be so ill and nasty?

“Ben is a jerk, but as far as I know hasn't chosen to make himself a public person as you have.”
If Ben believes that he's right, he won't mind everybody seeing what he wrote to Chris, in fact I'm sure that he'd want the whole world to see just how 'mean and evil' Chris Pirillo really is. If he's bothered about other people seeing it then obviously that would mean that he feels some level of guilt, and would prove that he was wrong.
I think this whole situation is best out in the open, it will be a reminder to everybody out there not to be so selfish and petty, and to respect people.

This guys probably spent 45 minutes look up synonyms for his pathetic argument……….

Ben sounds cool!

Ben sounds cool!

Chris: With all due respect, you let him get the best of you. In this age when a lot people think that they're a unique little snowflake and the world revolves 'round them, you can be sure that this won't be the last time for this kind of thing.
My recommendation? You should have kept on goading him until *HE* gave up with shorter & shorter responses from you so that his rants would have been longer and longer. Responses from you ranging from “Could you be more specific?” to just plain “Huh?” to “So what's the weather like over there?” would have sent him into a spinout with each e-mail and provided you with much entertainment.
Just my 2 cents. Good luck to you and Gretchen.

Ah, don't get bogged down with the old “having the last word” thing. Just respond with what you feel like, as long as you feel you've successfully conveyed your point then who cares?
I think there should be a “Lockergnome Named and Shamed Hall of Fame”, where jerk e-mails are displayed for all to see. Hmm… maybe not, everybody would create fake ones just to get on the “Named and Shamed” board, then Chris would have even more mail to wade through. Ignore me, I'm waffling.

Chris,
I have to admit that I am not your biggest fan. Sorry.
But, I do agree with your feelings on the way that this person acted towards you. It's obvious that this guy is a jerk. It's almost blatant that he was looking to instigate something.
I agree with you. No one should have to take this ****. Not even you, Chris.
Keep doing what you're doing!!

Hi Chris,
Somehow, I'm finding it hard to jump on the bandwagon of support for you. Why?
1) If you were the bigger person, you would have let the whole thing stop after the guy's second (and obviously deranged) reply. If you really didn't want this guy to reply to you, then you wouldn't have replied any further to him. There's no use in complaining when you get what you ask for, right?
2) Surely you must have some personal insecurities yourself…? I mean, obviously Ben's rantings upset you if you went to the trouble of publicly posting your dialogue with him, I guess for the purpose of getting “revenge” ?
3) “Go to hell, Ben, and please do your best to hit every thorn on the way down.” Chris, aren't those rather strong words? Honestly, I'm skimming through this guy's manifesto here and it doesn't seem as if he swore at you at all. He didn't say anything to warrant such language.
You might want to take this guy's advice! “DonÂ’t get so personal and stop taking yourself too seriouslyÂ…this is after all a hobby and itÂ’s supposed to be fun!”
You really are taking yourself too seriously. Don't get worked up over this guy! If he has suits in his closet older than you and he still hasn't been able to achieve a basic level of competency in the English language, his opinion should mean nothing to you.
I also kind of think your one line URL reply was kind of rude myself. I would have prefaced it with a “Hi Ben” and perhaps followed up with a “Good luck” or something of the sort… it would have only taken an extra second to do. I can imagine the volume of mail you have to handle, however, and perhaps had I been in your shoes Mr. Ben would have gleaned absolutely no response at all from me. :-)
I apologize for being so hard on you, but I expect more from you. I know it sounds cliche but it's really sad to see you sink to his level.

So wow that man was itching to fight, and show you that he can’t spell one stinking word right. I’m sorry but grammar and spelling bother me, and if this guy expected you to write a professional business letter than maybe he should have started it. I find that maybe posting it was wrong but who cares! Reading something like this is almost like having someone scream in your face about some stupid junk that they got upset about. So imagine having that happen to you over and over agian for no reason; I find Chris’ response perfectly sound and truly Ben was a jerk ready to explode. Reading his first response shows that he was ready to go off on Chris with what seemed to be slighted comments and maybe a goading or two. Just had to say something since well I do sit on the computer all night long so this was my three cents.

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