Gee Whillickers

Perfect! Just in the knick of time too. I'm pretty sure I saw a few undead wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart the other day.

Gotta be careful with that interwebz thing. I've heard that kids can actually access stories there. About GAY kids. Gasp!

Where I live, I couldn't imagine any kid over nine years old camping without a good knife and a few matches in their pocket. I mean, the camping where we used to 4-wheel-drive for an hour or two back into the bush, then hike for a day, find a waterfall with a pool at the bottom, and set up the tent and firepit. Not camping within hearing distance of the highway and an ice-cream shop a stone's throw away. It just wouldn't be safe for someone to not have a knife on him in that environment. It's too easy to get yourself into a situation where a knife could easily be the difference between life and death.The choice isn't, "do you want a knife?" It's, "If you want to go farther away from camp than you can easily see, you need a knife and matches in your pocket. No exceptions."

Yup! Thoroughly entertaining and somehow deep and whimsical at the same time. Well done.

At this point, if I were so inclined, I would offer you a teaser for what's coming up. About which only The Dude himself, some editors, and myself know. If I were so inclined.

Let's see...she said, from the sounds of it, one naughty word (probably, "awww, shit"), while in a bathroom, after making a mistake, one that would seriously mess up a day with an important appointment. Oh, and their were no kids around. Or anyone else from the sounds of it except for the people involved in the testing. Yeah, sounds legit. 'Cause, you know, I've never ever done anything like that. How scandalous. Sigh.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too when I read it. It's funny though how schools feel they must respond to complaints like this. They feel their hands are tied. As for the injury, it's hard to imagine how a bystander being hit with a soccer ball could be deemed "serious" but I'll bet Cole is right. I hope temporary is actually temporary. But I too suspect we won't hear a peep once they're allowed again.

It's kind of funny I came across this today. I was just ruminating in another thread on the forums about some of the negative results of overactive attempts to make schools safe without actually making schools any safer. A school in Toronto has banned the use of soccer balls and footballs. Because an adult accidentally got hit with one and was injured. Part of their explanation is that the school's field is apparently quite small, but still. Here's the article. As always, we're only seeing one side of the issue, so take it accordingly. http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111116/111116_Hard_Ball_Ban/20111116/?hub=CP24Home

When I was a kid my dad always had a pocket knife with him. He had a few different ones. When wearing a coat and tie and going to work, or out somewhere semi-formal, he had a small, very thin two bladed one. For outdoors he had a considerably larger and more versatile one. The rest of the time, at home, and just around, he had a smallish but very versatile one. By the time I was nine years old, I too carried a pocket knife everywhere. Yes, even to school. But that just wasn't a big deal. Half of the boys in my class had one too. They had, and have, countless uses. To this day I have one in my pocket almost all the time, and I take it out and use it almost daily. Opening boxes, cutting string or thread, slicing tape, Screwing (screws and bolts you pervs), prying, scraping, and on and on. A knife is one of humanity's most basic, most important, and most versatile tools. Yet, more and more, it's considered socially unacceptable to have one on you. Especially for kids. God forbid a kid bring a tiny little two inch flat folding blade to school! Instant lockdown, expulsion, and mandatory counseling. Alert the police and the military. Cordon off the neighbourhood. How did this happen? It's a tool. It's only a weapon if it's used as one. Much like a chair or a screwdriver or a belt or a hammer or a laser pointer or anything else. All can be used as weapons, but mostly they're tools. And very useful ones. Should we ban them too? Just in case? I'm not at all convinced that banning such things willy-nilly does a whit of good for increasing anyone's safety, and I'm pretty sure the long-term effect is the reverse. By instilling fear and paranoia in everyone, by treating a tool as a weapon and nothing else it becomes one. What's next? Will I be carving a thanksgiving turkey with a spatula?

This is good news. I'll be glad to see the concerns about the dangers of backscatter radiation continue to be publicized and those scanners sent to the scrapyard as quickly as possible. Aside from all of the obvious privacy and personal liberty concerns, the data on the simple negative health effects of backscatter x-rays is more and more convincing. Already, TSA agents are at a considerably higher risk of various cancers than the general population. Frequent flyers should also be concerned if you go through those things regularly. Here in Canada, most of the larger cities have them, the medium and smaller cities not so much.

That pretty much describes every chocolate bar we ever brought home when I was a kid, as long as it was winter. The trick was getting your fingers warmed up enough that you could move 'em without tingles before the chocolate thawed.

If you're running Linux as your OS just install the Totem player and everything will work perfectly with just a click.

Bruin's right. IE is a horrendously written, insecure, non-standards-compliant, slow, cludgy, pig of a browser. True, it's far better than it used to be. But MS only caved in recently and because they had little choice. The latest version kind of works. Sort of. In a way. And only grudgingly and only because MS finally felt their hand was forced. Now, IE is only a distance third or fourth in useful browsers, instead of actually off the list entirely. Now, IE is merely ridiculously slow to render, only semi-non-compliant, and only hijacks your searches and input some of the time, provided you ensure your settings are correct. Really, listen to him. It's like trying to get a friend who still uses a corded dial phone or a TV with no remote control and a dial to change channels to try something new. They say they like the old one. They say it works for them, that it's all they need. Then, if you can actually get them to try the new one long enough to see its advantages, they wonder why, and how, they could ever stand that old piece of junk. I mostly use Chrome these days, though Firefox is still installed and I use it sometimes too. Either of these, if you're on windows, is far and away superior to IE. More secure, far faster, far easier to customize with add-ons to make it do what you want, and much, much more standards compliant to ensure web pages show up on your screen the way the webmaster intended, rather than the way Microsoft thinks would be best for their bottom line. Internet Explorer really, really, really sucks. Really. Don't use it.

Tell you what. You have up to Chapter Five now, so if I keep you a chapter or two ahead, then you can accept bribes for each one, and dole them out slowly. Provided I get a cut of course.

For those of you who have read my story, "Borderline Insanity," it would appear our protaganists have moved on to other pursuits, hosting web sites among other things. http://www.oregonl5.org/mist/marsbar.html Institute of Candy Controversies. Kind of catchy, isn't it?

And even more. Things are happening folks. This has garnered worldwide attention. The kind schools really really hate. http://www.towleroad.com/2011/10/chillicothe.html#.Tqr4b8Pp9Bg.reddit

O'Brien will marry a longtime staffer and his partner on-air during one of next week's episodes. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Conan-OBrien-Wedding-1039126.aspx

Unrequited Love. http://i.imgur.com/JUCkC.gif

Some more information on this story: The Sherriff's department and the local police department have received literally thousands of complaints from every corner of the world. Email, phone calls, and letters. They are investigating. The school and the school district themselves have also received thousands upon thousands of complaints. This won't go quietly into the night. The mom is indeed pursuing charges. I'd agree that suing the school, the school district, and specifically the teacher in charge of supervision, the principal and the Asst. principal personally should be included in the suit. Money is all these people seem to understand, so that's often the best place to focus the battle.

Could be. Anyway, I have to semi-retract that statement. I did some reading and it turns out he did publicly come out as gay a few years ago, when doing an "it gets better" video. So I put my foot in my mouth there a bit.

Unfortunately, it's also more than a bit hypocritical. Rick Mercer is gay. Yet he doesn't every directly reveal that fact, either in this video or in any of his other work. He doesn't hide it either, it's common knowledge who his partner is, and his volunteer work with LGBT is well known, but still....

I've played around with this a bit. I haven't actually used it for writing yet though. Maybe my next longer work I'll give it a try. It certainly looks well thought through, and has some features that I'd find really useful for my workflow.

That's great, and it's also great to hear how the students are, for the most part, strongly supporting the play and its content in their school. As for the bald guy in the news report. Yeah. The effect of the media's desperate need to try and "present both sides" of every issue, by finding someone to talk for and against every issue covered, without context, without facts, without evidence or knowledge, and presenting each and every issue in such a way to make it sound like both sounds are equally valid and equally represented. When they're quite simply not.

I don't know, but maybe it's time I got over my anger at the mechanized looms taking over and forcing my great great great grandmother into a new line of work. She was such a good wool spinner too. Ned Ludd will be so disappointed in me. Sigh.

There is some good news in all this. Another boy, also living in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, was posting very similar things over the past few weeks on his facebook page and on his blog. The boys didn't know each other and there isn't any reason to believe there was any relationship or correlation, however somebody reading about Jamie somehow came across it. This person apparently alerted the boy's school (wasn't hard to do, it was identified on his facebook) as well as local police. The school is resourcing appropriate counseling and the police are investigating this boys' bullies. Unfortunately, it's not all positive. This boy wasn't out to his parents. Or to many other people in his life. I seriously doubt this is still the case after all this attention suddenly being foist upon him. I hope it goes well.