Child Luring

According to this report, one of the newest crazes for kids is going online, pretending to be sex offenders and scaring the shit out of other kids. I’m sure some of them do it to be funny, but the focus here is on the ones who are doing it as a way to get revenge or try to settle a dispute.

I’m not sure how exactly to react to this. On one hand it’s easy to flip out and play the we need laws to protect them and civilization is doomed when are children resort to this kind of immoral behaviour cards, but on the other it sort of shows that maybe kids aren’t as blind to the tricks of pedophiles as we’ve been lead to believe by governments and lobby groups.

Before anybody decides to flip out on me, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to protect kids from predators on the internet. All I’m saying is that sometimes kids are smarter than we give them credit for. They are after all the internet generation, and the smart ones know when something is wrong, just like they do in the offline world when a stranger asks one of them to help find his puppy in exchange for some chocolate. Maybe instead of coming up with brilliant stuff like the “unbreakable internet filter” that some 12-year-old will crack in 20 minutes and legislating that all sex offenders provide their email addresses for a database [yeah, that’ll work], governments and parents should take some time to figure out how things on the internet function. And maybe while they’re at it they could even take some time to talk to a few kids and see what they actually know and don’t know. The results might be surprising, especially the revelation that most of them are probably smarter than you are.

Maybe Honesty Isn’t The Best Policy If You’re Weird

Are all these folks related? There’s 19-year-old Kevin J. Diaz, who after clubbing a passing cyclist in the head with an ice-scraper, said “I just got out of jail. I’m just trying to have fun and whoop some ass.”

Next is Saeko Yoda, who happens to have a fine name. But the point is she killed her sister by beating her to death with a rock. When asked why she did it, she said, “I figured I’d be happier if I killed her, so I killed her.”

Last but not least, seven-year-old Latarian Milton stole his grandmother’s car. His reason? “I wanted to do it because it’s fun to do bad things.”

Well, at least they were honest. Weird, but honest.

Future Aids

I’ve found a new place to buy things. What kind of things? Braille things. Talking things. All kinds of neat things. They’re cheap. They have neat descriptions of their things. Some of them even have instruction sheets you can read. I just bought a talking pedometer, and you can listen to its voice. It only cost me 7 bucks to buy it! They even have dymo-labeler tape for cheap! Wooo! Plus, this place will braille things you want brailled. Business cards, menus, cards, whatever. How sweet!

The people who wrote up the site are wacky. I don’t think I’ve ever added something to my shopping cart and had a dialog appear that says “righto! We’ll add that right away!” ever before.

Something else cool about them is they’re open long, long hours. You could probably call them anytime and have a good chance of getting someone.

The final cool thing about this store is if you’re in Canada or the U.S, they ship their things via free matter for the blind! I have never ever ever seen that before. How awesome is that?

So, if you’re in the market for something blinky, head over to www.FutureAids.com! Maybe they’ll have just the thing for you.

In other technological thing-related news, it appears the BookPort and related support isn’t as gone as I thought. They actually just released an update for the transfer software, and there’s still a faint hope that BookPort II may be made. the support people are going the extra mile to help me solve my problem, as it baffles them too. Oh no. Why do I always find the big problems? But at least I have the BookPort big guns on the case.

Trouble In Paradise?

Ooo! this humdinger conclusion of a wedding night fits into a couple of categories. There’s of course the predictable category of humdinger wedding night conclusions, but also the groom is a dentist!

This story has what the hell written all over it. Why did he Karate kick her? Why did she fight off people coming to her aid? Why heave live plants at elevators? And the one that makes me laugh the hardest, why was he arraigned wearing tuxedo pants, a bloody shirt, and one shoe? I mean, I know booze was involved, but by all accounts, she was more boozed up than he was. Why did he end up in rougher shape? I thought it was funny that one of the hapless victims who came to her aid got a tooth knocked out. maybe, as part of some kind of settlement, the groom can do some free dental work for the person. But would they want that?

Mike’s Hard Lesson

I’m glad we have services in place to protect kids, when they work. It’s too bad they either don’t notice abuse going on until it is too late, or snatch kids seemingly unnecessarily.

Somehow, Christopher Ratte didn’t realize he had bought his 7-year-old son Leo Mike’s Hard Lemonade at a ballgame. He asked for lemonade, and the guy gave him a Mike’s Hard. The kid was drinking it, and then a security guard came and told the father that the drink was alcoholic. He was shocked, but the guard snatched it, called police and then things went straight to hell. they took Leo to the hospital to make sure he was ok. I get that. then they made an order to remove him from the home, and social workers came to get him at the hospital. Even social workers seemed annoyed that they were taking the kid, but they could only follow orders. Uh, what happened to taking everything on a case by case basis?

When relatives came to get the poor, traumatized boy, Child Protective Services workers told them they couldn’t see him until they had a hotel room. They got one, and when they came back, Leo was taken to an undisclosed foster home. What the hell?

Finally, somebody saw reason, and let the boy go back to his mother. But they didn’t completely see reason because they tried to make dear old supposed booze-feeding dad stay in a hotel for a while. Then someone else finished off the ability to see reason and dismissed that bullshit.

What the? It was an odd mistake, but it was just that. It was a mistake. I could think of worse things a parent could be doing to their kid.

Dog First-Aid Course

I figured I’d post this here to spread the word any way I can.

Remember back in that Trixie post where a dog came at us out of nowhere? That really scared the hell out of me. I thought about how isolated it is on that little stretch. I wondered what I would do if a dog ever laid its teeth into Trixie. Would I be able to stop the bleeding? What if something else happened? Would I be able to stabilize her until I could get her to a vet?

This led me on a quest for doggy first-aid classes. You wouldn’t believe how difficult this is! I called my vet, and they gave me a number for a company in B.C. I called them, and they offered some classes in Toronto, but nothing closer. Since their classes were 2-day classes, that would mean I would have to stay somewhere. I didn’t think that would work. I contacted them, and asked about what would be involved in scheduling a private class in Guelph if I could get enough people together, and when they found out I was bllind, they just about flipped their lid. They wanted me to attend one of their already existing classes and bring someone along to be my eyes. Uh, how about no?

I eventually found Corinna Bollmann’s site, where she offers the course at Doggie Minder, her doggy daycare in Pickering. I emailed her and started asking her about how easy it was to bus from guelph to Pickering, and explained why I wanted to take the course. To my surprise, she offered to come to Guelph! She said she’d never taught a blind person the doggy first-aid course, but she was willing to try stuff if I was willing to be a guinea pig. In fact, she was hoping to get a group of blinks together to all be guinea pigs for her. She wants a group of four students in the class. I thought sure, if I can get some people together.

It sounds like an interesting course. She even wants to explain what makes a good dogfood, and other doggy health tips that I think it would be great to know. It’s always good to learn about different things that aren’t always discussed by your vet.

So, if you’re interested and can come to Guelph on Saturday, May 10, please let me know. The course runs from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and the cost is $100. Shoot me an email if you want more details.

I’m really looking forward to this course. I hope I never have to use it, but it’s always good to have another tool in my belt.

Skullcrusher Craigslist

That’s just slightly goofy. I just finished posting an ad on craigslist, and there’s a part where you have to fill in the word verification box. They do have audio, pretty good audio that does phonetic spellings for letters so you know exactly what to type, like “h as in hotel.” But you’ll never guess what’s being used as distraction noise around the voice speaking the letters to type. The beginning to Skullcrusher Mountain by Jonathan Coulton! That’s just wacky. I emailed him about it. Let’s see if he knew about that.

Strange Questions In The Google Searches

28 Apr, Mon, 06:20:44
Google:
is superantispyware a piece of shit?

Interesting. It sounds like you’re having a bad run of luck with it. No, it’s pretty good. It found about a zillion cookies that Ad-Aware never found. Plus, if it makes a mistake, you can tell the company so. One time, it thought one of the files in a Kitchens Inc game was an evil Golden Palace Casino file, so I toldit nope, you’re wrong. Now that Ad-Aware doesn’t work with JAWS, I’m all over SuperAntiSpyware. Why did you think it was a piece of shit? You’ll probably never answer me, but oh well.