You'd figure that people would have learned not to get into flame wars by now. You'd figure wrong. It all started with a complaint to the movie house's Web site, expressing disgruntlement with a particular theater policy and vowing never to patronize the place again. He showed up, found out it was, went home, and bitched. You stew for a few minutes more and eventually forget about it.
Life moves on.
You can vent your initial flash of anger at the exact moment you feel it, to the exact person you feel it toward. What started out as a small complaint somehow ended up as major flamage, with both parties saying things neither would probably dare utter in person or on the phone. As far as I'm concerned, both should be smacked smartly on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper for egging each other on. This whole debacle reminds me of a similar tussle back in July 1998 between then- City Paper senior writer Van Smith and Baltimore Linux advocate Jeff Covey. Covey e-mailed an announcement of a local talk being held by RedHat Software, makers of RedHat Linux, in hopes that CP would cover it.