Category: Crime & punishment

Roundup

Darth Vader has a little fun with Luke Skywalker.

I’m Asian?  Why didn’t anyone tell me????

A sad moment in Canadian naval history.

Organlegger update.

Thoughtful silverback is thoughtful.

New giraffe in Abbotsford. Cute!

New police brutality in Abbotsford.  Not so cute!

Oh, how nice.  The VPD will move into a building made for the Olympics.

Ashton Kutcher’s recent tweet: Barbra streisand is at my house. I have to admit I’m a little nervous.  Ashton is aplusk on twitter.  Yes, his spelling and capitalization suck; he’s an ecktor, not a friggin English teacher.

Also from twitter, William Gibson’s wife (whose name I should know but has not turned up in my research) recommends this video of an angry dude at a roadside pull over request.  I’m sorry, even though I knew it was coming I still laughed.  She also recommends this one too. I looked it up, Cullman Liquidation really exists.  Also from Ser Gibson, the following link.  Tibetan time lapse mandala.  William Gibson is GreatDismal on Twitter.

I have written in homilies and other places about how the disappearance of a language is a marker for genocide.  Here’s some good news internationally.


London Cops is Dumb.

Drug addict shot at 19 times by one London ON cop…. do you suppose the cop hit him even once? But he managed to hit three houses!!! Cop should be suspended for failing to demonstrate firearms proficiency.

Reminds me of two London cop stories from my fabled youth.  In one story, a man wrestled a cop’s gun away from him and shot him in the head at point blank range.  The cop didn’t die; he went back on duty after he recovered.

The second story…. Cops are called to a ‘there is a man with a gun inside this house’ call.  They try to talk to him.  They lob tear gas in and storm the place.  There is no one in the house.

Not all London cop stories are bad.  If I can get permission from the participants, I may relate them.

Wonderful dream

I haven’t had a decent dream that I can remember in months, and I just had a splendid one.

I was living in a third storey walk up and got involved in a drug bust.  This is all because Jeff and I blasted through a couple of episodes of Homicide last night.  Man, that was a GREAT show.  The writing, the acting; and John Waters was the bartender in one episode, what more could you want?  Anyway, huge drug bust in one show, tiny drug bust in Allegra’s dream.

I swiped the evidence while my neighbour was being busted so of course they had to let him go (serves the cop right for busting the guy without backup) and then he came looking for me.  I just handed it back to him, so he was somewhat startled (it was only weed; I would hardly have helped the guy if it was something stronger).  My feelings of paranoia and discomfort while waiting for him to get back from the cop shop were NOT pleasant; nor was realizing he’d shaved off his dreads between the time he was busted in the time he got back so he got real close to me without me recognizing him.  Man, hair is a major disguise element.  Dreams are wild, hunh?  Anyway he was all happy and then I woke up.

Salt, sand and sunjuice (the day at Wreck)

Mike picked me up around 2:30 – wearing his kilt.  Ten minutes later we were at Suzanne’s; she was waiting downstairs after I called her to come on down, and you should have seen her mile wide grin as she saw Mike’s ride pull up.  They introduced themselves.  We had a gorgeous, rather warm ride in Mike’s Mustang convertible.  We spent about ten minutes gossiping about family members – neither of us being too pleased with the respective number two childer in our families, nuff said, and then dispensed with further whining for the rest of the day. Continue reading Salt, sand and sunjuice (the day at Wreck)

so many layers of wrongness

Take your kid to work day goes really wrong.

On the other hand, brute force and ugliness DOES work for some applications. Just ask any guy who fixes aircraft.

You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.  This is CANaDA? I just don’t remember Montreal being like this.  Trigger happy anti immigrant cops, sure, but this is ridiculous.  Okay, I’m definitely learning a cop brutality song. Pukka Orchestra’s Cherry Beach Express, here I come.

I know we’re all too smart to fall for this

But here’s a reminder from TELUS anyway:

 

TELUS is warning customers to be aware of these frauds, and to just hang up when scammers call.

The scams are:

  • Fraudulent email to telus.net email customers. The email falsely states TELUS is sending this email to all customers for ‘safety/maintenance from spam mails.’ It asks users to reply to the email with account information including name and password, saying they will be disconnected if they do not reply.
  • Credit card limit increase phone scam. The fraudster claim to be with your credit card company and offers to increase your credit limit. He/she asks for information to verify who you are. If the caller was actually from your credit card company they wouldn’t have to ask for basic information.
  • Vehicle warranty. There are several variants of this scheme and in most cases the caller is attempting to sell a warranty extension for your vehicle. Several of the organizations behind these schemes have been banned from soliciting in some provinces and states due to misrepresentation of their products and failure to comply with local insurance laws.
  • 809 Caribbean scam. The fraudster will try to convince the customer to call a number starting with 809 about winning a prize or a lawsuit or for information about an injured or ill family member. 809 is the country area code for the Dominican Republic, which lacks the robust phone laws Canadians are accustomed to. When victims call back, they are often put on hold for an extended period of time, racking up large phone bills.
  • The 90# scam. This phone scam affects businesses with a commercial switchboard called a PBX. These systems have a feature that allows switchboard operators to give callers an outside line by dialing 9, 0, #. Fraudsters take advantage of this feature by posing as technicians or other legitimate callers, and convincing operators to give them an outside line which they then use for an expensive overseas call. While residential phone customers cannot be directly affected by this scam they do get calls, which can often be frightening.

 

Everybody, as one!

Allegra, you are bleeding crazy!

I spent most of last evening with Dax, and then went to Suzanne’s.  I didn’t argue with him.  I didn’t give him any money.  And we worked on cover letters and talked.  I also met his dad.

Why the **** would I do that?  Well, I have a number of reasons.  First, I wanted to be very clear with him what my rationale is for going anywhere near him after all the horrible stuff that happened with Katie.  I want him to be working, not in jail.  If he’s working, he can pay rent, help his family, think about getting some money together for school, and have something resembling a life. If he’s in jail, not so much.  Second, I am wanting to shed my reputation as an evil cow; I got to hear some of the stuff Dax said about me second hand, and I kinda want to prove it’s not really true.  One can say, “But if he’s in jail he can’t hurt Katie!” but I would really prefer he was paying taxes.  Third, it’s really hard for me to model forgiveness and getting on with your life if I refuse to do it because it’s hard.  Humans is apes.  It’s easier for the ape to do what it has seen being done.

Tammy said that the biggest difference between poor people and rich people is that poor people don’t get a lot of training or practice in deferring gratification.  There is no next year; there is no tomorrow.

Except, unfortunately, there is.

Update, and then off to Victoria

Keith was here last night.  I always feels me some better when my peeps are here.  (Cheeze Whiz,  maybe middle aged white women should lay off the ghetto slang.)  More to the point – we watched CSI and hung out.

I spoke briefly to Katie on the phone (I had been communicating with Dax and wanted to give her the update (she was supportive)) and gleaned the intelligence that she’s called the cops on him for phone harassment.  Given that even speaking to her technically puts him in breach of conditions for the last time he assaulted her, his PO intervened and said, slowly and clearly, that if he called Katie again he was going back to jail.  Dax has issues, but a desire to go back to jail isn’t one of them.

To be fair, I have to stay clear of him as well, never mind the temptation of being Evil McNasty to him in emails.  I am not proud of myself at the moment, but I HAD to vent, and Katie, as I said, reviewed my comments and at one point giggled and said, “Go Mom!”   So, the damage is extensive – Katie had 5 years in an abusive relationship, is out about 1700 dollars – most of the school money she saved for herself, which was why she ended up at my door and Paul’s for funds – pawned gifts, broken guitars, assaults by Dax’ housemate, and her relationship with Suzanne going sour…. yeah, she’s done.  For all of you who wanted to know is this it, I think calling his PO and threatening to file a report looks like a stake in the Slayer’s hand.

That said, IF he got and kept a job, paid her back, made amends, abjured violence and verbal abuse, and made peace with me, Paul and Keith, AND Katie wanted him back, I’d accept him as a son in law.  Stranger things have happened.  I believe very sincerely in the ability of people to change for the better, but it seems changing for the worse is easier.  As things stand now, Katie might want him back in an alternate universe, but this one will have to survive without their love.