My new mantra for dealing with obnoxious idiots:

"That kind of talk doesn't invite me to admire you" is effing brilliant. I want to memorize it and use it every time someone starts acting shirty around me, because it nails everything down in one short sentence: the typical abusive loudmouth is childish and narcissistic, everything s/he does is in an effort to get attention, and (whether s/he realizes it or not, whether s/he will admit it or not) the abuser is desperate to be liked, loved, and admired. (yes, s/he wants to be liked and approved of by the person s/he is screaming at, beating up on, badmouthing, etc. and s/he has NO idea how to go about earning that esteem, so s/he's reduced to just trying to beat it out of you. "If you won't look up to me from where you're standing, maybe you'll look up to me once I've slammed you into the dirt.")

So pointing out that their abusive behavior is achieving the opposite is probably the best way to lay out and enforce a boundary and stop the abusive behavior in its tracks. We'll see how it goes.

OK, so I got one good thing out of The Verbally Abusive Relationship. Mostly that book just made me mad.