This is the first thing I've said on the issue and it's the attitudes like yours that made me comment...
It's more of a critique on society than anything.
How little the worth of our word and our integrity have become is pathetic.
Even a hundred and fifty years ago, people would challenge each other to a duel and someone would be shot over their honor. Now it's drop it let it go.
Pathetic.
Society has become a bunch of pussified, selfish, useless, lecherous bastards that don't deserve to be pissed on when caught on fire.
Jaden
I said this in another thread but it bears repeating here. Society has always been and always will be corrupt. Fighting physical duels over "honor" is archaic. People still fight in words and actions when they feel their honor has been impinged. People still kill over words unfortunately.
I think that at no time in the past were we as a species more honorable than now. We don't own slaves, we don't practice class discrimination, we don't practice racial discrimination, we don't behead people, we don't have public duels at ten paces.
We broke promises then, we scammed people then, we didn't fulfill our obligations then, we didn't act with "honor" and civility then all the time and we don't now.
What did Bill really do here? He fired up everyone's imaginations. He got people excited about what could be done and the ideas poured in. He got us talking and reinforcing our love of cues. At the end of the day only one guy could win anyway. So he did and unfortunately he will probably never see the cue. But the harm is far more on Bill's soul and character here. He can't come back to AZB and participate, he can't come here and bask in the adoration of 3 generations of pool players for all the great cues he put out. The guy who won just didn't get a cue which could have happened for any number of reasons other than lack of desire on Bill's end.
It's a sad situation but at the end of the day it's not the end of the world. Those who value pool cues don't really care about whether Bill delivered a cue or not just as we don't know or care if Monet ever stiffed a client along the way or not.
The way I see it is if you are truly upset then make a website and detail the whole saga. Put it up for anyone to read and decide for themselves if they want to purchase a JossWest. At this point it's pretty certain that those who own JossWest cues are going to hold onto them. As you can see they very rarely come on the market as it is.
Lastly instead of damning Bill why don't you all just sue him? If you feel that you have been damaged somehow then file suit and take him to court. I think that there is precedent for this when it comes to contests where the prize was not paid out. I am sure that with the combined brain power on this site the legal ground can be ascertained. Take action if it means that much.
The way I look at it is that this is somehow more damaging than the people who have actually stolen money from the community members here. Jason Lee from Singapore, Sam Engles/Tommy Stanfill, Chaz Dillon to name just a few have stolen collectively more than $5000 in cash and merchandise. I am sure if we were to go through all the deals where the money or product is gone over the past two or three years then it would add up to around 20 thousand dollars.
In contrast Bill Stroud fired up your imagination. Brian you wouldn't have that out of this world Eastwood case were it not for Bill's contest. You didn't win and I gave you the idea to make a case out of it and I still want to do something with it. You ran with the case idea and look at the work of art that now exists!
All the ideas are still there for anyone to work with. Those ideas are what's worth it. Why don't WE as a community let the cuemakers here bid on making the cue that won? Then we all chip in and get it made.
Wouldn't that be a much cooler way to go than to continue to dredge up how awful it is that an 80 year old didn't come through on the cue? As mom used to say this is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you and I would bet the world that Bill has to think about this every time he enters a pool room knowing that a lot of the folks there know he stiffed on the cue. So let that be enough and let's move on to realizing the idea and making a rocking cue out of it.
