The Law Fought Me and I Won.

Almost 25 years ago I got pulled over on some BS moving violation - might have been doing 85 in a 25 (kidding!) - and at the hearing the cop lied and I blurted out, "He's lying!" The judge declared that I had an attitude problem and ordered me to, no kidding, Traffic Attitude Class. If I completed however many weeks of it, I'd have the ticket dropped and no points. Decent deal.

Problem is that it made me a marked man in my suburban Detroit town. The fuzz was so obvious about tailing me that it was impossible to overlook; when cop almost flips their car busting a U-turn to get behind you, you know you're popular. I'd heard from my girlfriend who worked at a donut shop that the cops from two towns would get together and trade target lists. Nice. Seig heil, herr officer!!!!

Anyhoo, one night I'm driving through the expensive part of town, noted for its winding boulevard road that used to be an open creek back in the day. I'd just left from a stop sign at a part where the road took a tricky jog when I see in my rear view mirror a cop car BLAZING up behind me with the lights flashing like he's in a hurry. I pull over to let him pass, but, oh WTF?, he was coming for me.

Cop walks up and orders me to cut my engine off and give him the keys. (Think there might have been some civil rights abuse there.) He asks for my papers and goes back to his car without telling me what he pulled me over for. My girlfriend and I are sitting there waiting when he comes back with the ticket. "You were driving pretty fast back there and I could've cited you for reckless driving, but BECAUSE YOU HAVE A GOOD ATTITUDE, I only wrote you up for careless driving which carries half as many points. If you wish to pay or contest blah-blah-woof-woof...." and off he goes. Gee, can you say "frame job"? I knew you could. I go to start my car and....

The son of a bitch had my keys.

Remember, this is 1990 or so and civilians (read: po' folks) didn't have cell phones, so I was facing having a bit of a walk to a pay phone to call for a ride. Fortunately, I had a spare key in my hip pack and I was back in motion, heading for the police station. I go to the desk officer and explain what had happened. Someone called the screw on the radio and I heard him say incredulously, "He's already there?" (Yeah, Bub. I'm here.) He said he'd be there shortly and showed up perhaps 20 minutes later, a neat trick in a town only 12 sq. miles in size, no more than 4 miles from any border to another.

He saunters up to me and asks, "Did you have a spare set of keys?" How about an apology, Oedipussy? Nothing. Time to get to work....

I went to the city engineer's office and got an aerial blueprint of the stretch of road I was on and put it on poster board. I drove the path of the road and took photos showing the sightlines, or more appropriately, lack of sightlines to see from point to point due to the sweeping curves in the road. It was very slick.

Court date comes and my girlfriend and I go together since she was a witness. Cop goes first and tells a story about UFOs and pink elephants and....well, for all the lying he was doing, he may as well have. The capper was when he shared this fantasy with the judge, "When I approached the car, the defendant immediately became verbally abusive." My g/f and I nearly broke our necks and dislocated our jaws whipping to face each other in disbelief at this whopper. The judge - a different one from before and rather old - had to have noticed that we were flabbergasted by this fabrication.

When it came to be my turn, I calmly denied any belligerence (what does my manner have to do with the alleged infraction anyway?), explained with my exhibit how it was impossible for the officer to have seen what he claims to have seen, and told about the keys being taken. The judge, clearly to save face for the hapless flatfoot, said, "While I suspect that you may have been driving in excess of the posted residential speed limit, I don't believe that you engaged in careless driving, so I'm going to dismiss this citation."

One of two things could've happened after this crushing smackdown: The cops could've really stepped up the jihad or they could find some real criminals to harass. Fortunately, they chose the latter option and the heat went away totally. I don't think I've gotten another ticket here since and the last time I got stopped, it was for a totally legit reason - I'd double-parked to drop some stuff off and the cop was cool as ice to me, nicely suggesting that I not do that again.

The baffling thing about the whole incident is that the cops could've ganked me at any time for any made-up charge. Plenty of places to make up a 5-over ticket and screw my "no tickets before you see the judge again" order; they followed me enough. Instead, this moron safety patrol boy with a gun and the color of law dummies up the worst load of malarkey possible, probably on the presumption that what could a 23-year-old traffic offender possibly do to exonerate himself?

BUST YOUR F*CKING SH*T, COPPER, THAT'S WHAT!!!!

I Bought That For A Dollar!

One of the cool features about Android devices are the Live Wallpapers - snazzy, interactive and/or animated wallpapers that really liven up your home screens. (That my Samsung Galaxy S II phone has part of the functionality crippled by the petty harassing lawsuits by Apple is a rant for another time.) Many of these wallpapers are available for free from the Google Play store, but to encourage people to pay a buck (i.e. 99 cents), many developers lock customization settings on the free versions. It's a decent trade-off: Cheapskates like me can get some basic cool papers for no cost and people who like to tweak are welcome to pay.

Why looking around for some new walls, I came across the Mystic Halo Live Wallpaper Free which looks a little like this (not my video; from Play page):



As usual, when changing wallpapers I hit the Settings button to see what options were available and was greeted by this:



The listing of what features are unlocked for your penny less than a dollar is the usual stuff. The picture of the puppy thinking, "So hungry!" and the promises that buying the wallpaper would feed the dog, capped off with the button text is sheer genius. I'm a cat person and I wanted to feed the puppy and felt a little bad when I canceled out the first time. I posted about this on Facebook, but it merited some pictures to make the point, so this.

Since I had credit from my Nexus 7 purchase, I decided to spend 4% of my balance to feed Lizzy. He should buy her a kitteh to keep her company!

This is a useful lesson in marketing. When so many people are using the same "freemium" technique to distribute - and hopefully monetize - their wares, you need something extra to differentiate one's self. If he'd just put up the usual nag screen, I wouldn't have bought it. By being different and memorable, he made me say...



...and pried a virtual dollar out of my hand where none* had done so before. Bon appétit, Lizzy!


* To be honest, I've paid for a few other freemium wallpapers when Play had a sale with stuff for 10 cents a pop. I'll buy anything for a dime; a dollar, not a chance.

I Didn't Expect To Be Ghandi, But Come On Now!

Stupid Intarweb quizzes!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

God bless us, everyone! :)

Trying Twitter Again.

After a one-day dalliance with Twitter a couple years ago, I blew it off as too short and inane to be useful. I'm not convinced it's not the latter, but I'm starting to think it will get me more active in updating little info tidbits that are too small for a full blog post. The feed is at right and you can follow my tweets by clicking the link. We'll see how this goes.

"What's the difference between evaporated and sweetened condensed milk?"

That's the question that Hermione called me with at 2 pm, rousing me from my slumber. She was making a pie and needed evaporated, but had the condensed. I read her this article which is pretty clear that they aren't interchangable, but she's going to do it anyway. Oy vey.

New Sig Time!

The photographer in me still cracks up at this one:

The Story of Voter #1304.

I stopped at my voting precinct this morning about 7:30 am to vote before heading to work and found the usual spot empty. Going into the school, I was told that they were voting in the gym. Popping my head in, I saw a line running all around the perimeter and realized there was no way in heck I'd get to work on time.

Returning a bit before 6 pm, I had no problem getting parking and a guy holding a sign for some Circuit Court judicial candidate said the wait was about 15 minutes. I had a paperback and my PDA, so I was ready for a long wait as I entered...

....the nearly empty gym. Huh?

There was no line at all. I walked to the ballot signup table and presented it to the woman handling the "B"s who asked if I was related to my mother. I told her about Mom's stroke and where she was in residence. Looking over to the voting booths, I spotted a woman I know whom I always seem to see at the polls. Taking the next booth over, I said hello and we proceeded to chat and joke about how we were canceling each others' votes out while we marked our ballots. She asked if I'm Republican and I said, "I am this week. More accurately, I'm voting anti-Democrat, as usual. If it was Hillary, I would've voted Barr (the Libertarian), but because it's Obama, I gotta go McCain." She said she liked McCain, but "hated" Palin for all the usual reasons. (God, abortion, blah-blah-woof-woof.)

I skipped most of the ballot - why vote for trustees and board members you know nothing about? - scattering my non Moose-Slayer votes among Libertarian and Stupid Party candidates. I voted yes on medical marijuana (though I believe it's a punk half-step instead of a proper decriminalization) and no on public stem cell research funding (let the private sector play Frankenstein on their dime).

On my way out, a young guy from the University of Toronto college paper (apparently he's from my area) asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed and, of course, I dropped a ton of science on him. I could tell by the look on his face he didn't know much of what I was telling him about how the Treason Media (just "media" for his purposes) had deliberately failed on vetting Obama compared to the anal probes Palin and others got. When he took my picture, I thought, "Good thing I shaved this morning." (I somehow knew I should tidy up this morning. I even wore pants!)

1300 people voted ahead of me, so it's a good thing from a civic perspective, though the fact that so many voted ignorantly for an ultra-radical fascist makes me wish they'd stayed home.

Total time spent at polls (not counting the interview): 13 minutes, and most of that was chatting people up. If I hadn't stopped, I would've been in and out in five minutes.

Mmmmm...Babybel!!!

That is all.

Why Moving To Australia Might Not Be Too Bad.

Just as Jews had to flee post-Wiemar Germany, people not down with the fascist tyranny of an Obama Regime are going to need to find someplace else to live. Canada would be an option, but as Mark Steyn's persecution has shown, it's rapidly following the terminal England into the darkness of Islamofascism under the rubric of "diversity" and it is even worse than what America will become as far as speech freedoms go. With those two big English-speaking countries out, that leaves Australia to investigate as a new home.

One selling point is Natalie Tran of YouTube fame. She's cute, Asian, has the Ozzie accent and does funny self-deprecating videos like this one:



She was recently ranked #7 on G4's Women of the Web countdown (jump to :56 to see her bit) and her video mocking this was a hoot, too.

Yawn...

I'm sleepy. A couple nights staying up playing Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 makes Dirk a tired boy.

Busiest. Month. Ever.

Even though I have a pile of un-blogged items - like a comprehensive post about the jihad Obama's Brownshirts have conducted against Joe the Plumber; despite many references to the situation elsewhere - I see that the post below this one was the 80th of the month, surpassing my previous one-month tally of 79 in August 2005. With a couple days to go, the bar is going to be set quite high, methinks.

New Sig Time!

Combining my two favorite things: kittehs and annoyance!

Dirk's Dish du Jour: Lizzy Caplan

Jeez, after all the depressing Obama items, we need some brighter items, so here's Lizzy Caplan, whose topless hippie chick character on "True Blood" has made that schlockfest a little more bearable. I'm sure she'll be gone shortly, but for now, here is a SFW shot:

Chivalry Isn't Dead, But Manners Aren't Doing Too Good.

I was at Big Food (aka Costco, and yes, Supermodel Cashier was there) on Sunday and while walking in the side door, I held the door for my girlfriend and two women who were coming at the same time. Did the strangers say 'thank you' to the kind gentleman holding their door? HELL, NO!!! I'm guessing they were Democrats based on their selfish arrogance. YOU'RE WELCOME!!!

Kan U Spel nd Reed Gud?

Got this invite to a show from a local musican/acquaintance telling me...

Your presents is requested!

Someone is either:

1. Trying to bring back Ebonics.

B. Demanding gifts. (In Ebonics.)

3. Suffering the effects of dating too many anarchists and commies.

4. Thinks that...jeez, I don't know what they mean...

E. ?????

6. PROFIT!!

Suprise Grapefruit Leaves Bad Taste In Mouth!

I was hanging with my co-worker and she was tearing apart what I thought was an orange. I asked her for a piece and the moment she popped it into my mouth, I realized it was a grapefruit. I ate it, but without sugar, it's not pretty. Or tasty. And a mint doesn't help. Bleah.

Oh, yeah...something negative about politicians!!!

Do Something Genuinely Good For Children

I've criticized the political correctness of Amber Alerts here before (i.e. how they leave out the race of the suspect thus making them useless - "Be on the lookout for a guy that's yay tall and about that heavy...") - they do serve a good purpose.

Now, if you've got a cell phone (and who doesn't?), you can receive free text message notifications of Amber Alerts in your area. Just click over to Wireless Amber Alerts and register your cell phone number. All done. Nothing to it. (And it won't cost you billions of dollars and leave a child programmed to hate America!)

New Sig Line Time!

Changing these like crazy lately.

Friday Fiver Triple-Play!

Wow. I can't even remember the last time I did one of these. Let's bust a few:

1. Last party you went to?

My drummer's birthday gig. It was already over and everyone was gone when I finally got there.

2. Do you pee in the shower?

No. (I'm not Madonna, yo!)

3. Have you ever fired a gun?

Yes.

4. Where do you call home?

Um...home.

5. What's your favorite board game?

I guess Monopoly.

=============

1. What's your weather?

Huh?

2. Where are you on your way to?

Bed.

3. Are you good with directions?

Yes.

4. Do you know your neighbors?

Not very well.

5. What do you smell?

Too much coke and too much smoke.

==============

1. Last laugh?

The crack Palin made about no one getting Biden's lame joke.

2. What do you love?

The bad love of a good woman. Wait, what? Do I have that backwards?

3. Gold or silver?

Silver.

4. Who do you hold hands with?

The nice police occifer.

5. Friday fill-in: There's no time to ____.

Kid around with the madness of electing Barack Obama. (Chthulu/Satan 2008: Quit settling for the lesser of evils!)