I’m going to use a real example (from a real conversation, with quotes sourced from a few different actual emails) from a year ago to explain how one could contact me and actually get me to respond.

How are you going with the Student Life thing?

Start with a question, one that summarises your point and assumes that I will communicate and respond via email. I live far away from you, I’m not wasting $20 and a whole day just to come and reiterate points I have previously made over the internets.

I know that we have had issues in the past but if you want to talk about it give me a yell (well not literally :)).

Acknowledge the previous issues that exist, how you have failed to communicate regularly – because you have failed in that area.

Anyway let me know what plans you have for the future …. We hire people to contract them out to IBM and a couple of other computer places (you know how I feel about computers!).

Explain some kind of practical help you could give me at the current time, as opposed to just saying “wanna chat”

I am praying for you Dan, and I meant what I said on the forums about the way that you have shown God in people’s lives, God has done stuff in and through your life on campus and He isn’t going to stop because you move to another location.

Actually compliment me…. this doesn’t happen to often.

It if makes you feel any better about the IT thing I also HATE IT with a passion …. heck I have a lot of things to interrogate the creator of the universe about that I don’t understand.

Sympathise with my situation as much as you are able. Validate my concerns and issues.

Don’t do anything dumb dude.

Assume the worst. Assume that I am sitting in my room with a knife in one hand staring at my wrist. Assume that unless urgent action is taken things will be very bad.

YSIC [name_deleted]

Be someone who I have trusted in the past to share things with. I know that severely limits the people who I will respond to…. and cuts out pretty much everyone who has attempted to contact me in the last week, but that is your problem. Maybe you might want to inform those people of my current situation…. In fact, it has been a long time since I have heard from almost all of those who I would open up to. With the one I’ve quoted it has now been a year since we communicated, maybe they would like to make an attempt (drchaotica@optusnet.com.au).

I’ve been listening thru whole albums recently, rather than just shuffling around the whole collection. I’ve just finished listening thru Metallica from Kill ‘Em All (released 2 weeks after I was born) to ReLoad, and I came to a startling conclusion, they are no longer my favorite band.

In fact, unless their upcoming album is a masterpiece they may slip from my top 5 bands all together.

“Now the body of one soul I adore wants to die
You have always told me you’d not live past 25″

Yes, This is completely related to the new counter on the left

Is a phrase I have been expecting to hear, buy I haven’t. It is obvious that I have exposed myself to “demonic influences” like pr0n and metal. I have rejected Christianity. This should be seen as a clear cut case of demonic interference at the least, if not full on possession.

Yet, I haven’t been doused in holy water, or prayed over, or been beaten with a Bible.

Hell…. No one of serious authority or theological know how (or a great body) has made a recent or decent attempt to “bring me back”. There have been a couple of “hey, wanna chat” emails…. but those seemed almost perfunctory. There have been no random books for me to read, no forwarded articles, and no persistence. One email does not bode well for those who are supposed to be like the shepherd who lost one sheep, and left the other 99 to find it.

Maybe they are scared that I’ll outwit them, or tempt them.

Maybe they are scared that I’m right.

Either way…. it seems that you lack the courage of your convictions. All the remote prayer in the world can not save me…. you need to take the initiative and confront me with the truth; but you haven’t. Some would argue I’ve been asking for it by still hanging around the same haunts (both virtual and physical). However, I think I’ve communicated with more podcast hosts (hi to justine) than Christians trying to re-save me.

You have failed to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching”
You have failed to “do the work of an evangelist” or “fulfill your ministry.”

You. Have. Failed.

Is called the drunken intern theory. If we assume that life develops on even a small percentage of the small percentage planets that can be inhabited, then the likelihood of a range of intelligent life throughout the universe is quite probable.

The drunken intern theory posits that a new universe is formed when a drunken intern from one of the intelligent races in the old universe fiddles with the dials on the particle accelerator…. and makes a “big bang”.

This theory requires a lot of weird physics to be true, but if it is possible to blow up the universe with a particle accelerator; then the statistics would point to this being a virtually inevitable outcome. Which would lead to a negating of the first cause argument, as the universe is just the latest in an infinite line of universes.

It took me some time, but I finally found what I was looking for. My internets skillz are low. Linky McLink

I’m not a trendy asshole
I do what I want
I do what I feel like
I’m not a trendy asshole
Don’t give a fuck
If it’s good enough for you
‘Cause I am alive

I am allowed to do one seemingly trendy thing each year, this year I’ll be adding twitter to the ways I trick myself into thinking I have a social life.

The reasoning being that I had stuff I wanted to say, random thoughts mostly, and I didn’t feel they could be developed into a decent enough blog post. This’ll allow me to post those non sequiturs, and allow people to “find me”; or at least know how I’m going in my quest to hit bottom.

High-testosterone People Feel Rewarded By Others’ Anger, New Study Finds bought you from ScienceDaily via digg and supported by the blood of christ (aka penfolds cask port)

“It’s kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for,” said Oliver Schultheiss, co-author of the study and a U-M associate professor of psychology.

Just item number 151 on my psychological glitch list.

So…. I’ve been thinking about things, and wondering whether those Christians will ever use kryptonite in an attempt to “save my soul”. Frankly, if they really believe I am in serious danger, and they really “love” me, they should be willing to do whatever it takes to protect me….

As for the substance that is my kryptonite…. that should be a well known and oft-documented fact.