Goodbye 2015 -- Affluenza

Photo: Ethan "Affluenza" Couch. By the Associated Press, December 28, 2015

And, his mother, also from the AP.  Read about them below. For the whole article, go here.

Good riddance to 2015!  Say goodbye to:

Ethan Couch, who drunkenly plowed into a disabled vehicle and the 4 people servicing it, all of whom died. This happened when he was 16, in Texas. During the sentencing phase, his lawyer said he suffered from "affluenza" because his parents were so rich and had spoiled him so much, he didn't know right from wrong. This apparently worked, because the judge gave him 10 years' probation! Rather than feeling responsible, he attended a party where alcohol was served, though in fairness the video does not show him drinking any. I don't know if that matters in terms of his probation, though. I'm guessing it violates it, because soon he and his mother threw a going-away party, then split for Mexico, crossing the border in an SUV (and after paying someone off, because I don't think people on probation can leave the country without permission, which he wouldn't have gotten because he missed a mandatory court date and a rehab stint). U.S. authorities finally tracked them down because they'd ordered a pizza over the phone, possibly with a credit card. The mother was flown back to L.A. and arrested (While living together after her divorce, she placed her son's bed in her own bedroom, saying he was her "protector."  Ewwwwww!!), but Couch won an appeal in a Mexican court, and is still in Mexico, fighting extradition. The prosecutor said this could take anywhere between a few days, to a few months, to perhaps years.

This nauseating story speaks for itself. But I have to ask: That judge gave him 10 years' probation (and a stint in rehab) for killing four people and crippling two others--if he did so because he believed Couch was too rich and too spoiled to know right from wrong, then doesn't this judge also have to give stupefyingly light sentences to someone very poor, who grew up so poor and abused that he also didn't know right from wrong?

Just sayin'.

So, Affluenza Ethan Couch, goodbye, man. And, by the way, that Mexican detention center you're in until the extradition mess gets worked out--that can't be any better than any American juvie center or rehab for rich kids. Again, just sayin'.  Oh, and one more thing: Do these two look haunted by their misdeeds to you? That first one is a sociopath if I've ever seen one. And the mom? Proud of it all.

More Goodbye 2015 entries to come. Why do you want to say goodbye to 2015?

Randomness 10/23/12

 Photo: Jackson asleep on the couch.  A colleague said he looked "angelic" in this picture.  True dat.  What can you say when your dog is more photogenic than you are?

Been away for awhile again, this time because my dog's been very ill, to the extent that I had to bring him to the vet yesterday and he has to spend two, maybe three, days and nights there to recover.  He's got an infected pancreas, which sounds nasty to me.  Very treatable, they say, and he doesn't have a fever, which means the infection wasn't too bad, but he'd been vomiting a ton of times over the past few days.  So wish Jackson the Wonderdog well!

So a few random things on my mind lately:

--I'm as lazy as anyone.  (Well, actually I'm very hyperactive and always busy, but whatever.)  But I draw some kind of line.  Convenience is just a fancy word for laziness, and there's only so much convenience I can take.  I don't know exactly where the line is, but a lot of money at the cost of convenience/laziness is simply not something I'll allow myself.  (Heck, not even a little amount of money.)

So recently there were two instances on Pawn Stars that drove me crazy.  I temporarily misplaced lost my notes about one of them, so I can only speak about one.  For sale: a 1760 bell.  Very good condition; used to be someplace very important and historical.  (Forgot where.)  Anyway, the expert was called in, and he said that at an auction it would fetch at least $15,000.  At least!  So let's just say fifteen.  Auctions take fifteen to twenty percent of the sale price.  Ten percent of fifteen grand is fifteen hundred, so twenty percent is three thousand.  So now it's twelve grand.  Maybe there are taxes to pay; I don't know, but there'd be taxes to pay, theoretically, selling it to the Pawn Stars, too, so that's a wash.  Let's say that other fees, like shipping it to the closest good auction house (though he's already in Vegas!  He couldn't just drive it to an auction house in Vegas?!?) would bring the total take down to ten grand (and I'll bet the take would be closer to the twelve.)  And that's minimum, as the expert said at least fifteen grand.  Bottom line, then, is that at an auction, the seller could walk away with ten to twelve grand.

He sold it to the Pawn Stars for $7,200.  After the expert says that if the seller takes it to an auction, it would sell for fifteen grand, and so he'd walk away with at least ten to twelve thousand, he sells it to them for $7,200.  That's a loss, minimum, of $2,800, and probably more like $4,800.  Why?  Because he's standing in front of a buyer, right then and there.  Didn't want to make a few calls, and drive it or ship it anywhere--or wait.  That's just crazy.  Someone's got to explain this to me.

--Two girls, both twelve years old, were murdered this past week by someone as they were walking or riding a bike to a friend's house.  And a twenty-two year old woman in Oregon was killed by a man who punched through a window of her SUV, got in the car and killed her, dumped her body, used her phone and then dumped the phone (cell phones can be traced), and then left her car somewhere.  It's a sick world out there.

--I've heard weather experts say it's going to be a very cold winter around here.  I've also heard the same number say it'll be a warm winter, though not as warm as last year.  A warm winter actually means more snow around here, as it's too dry to snow when it's too cold.  I'll take the too cold anyday.  More snow means bad driving, more shoveling, less walking of the dog, which will lead to much more whining, and possibly paying a neighbor to plow my driveway if the snow gets crazy.  So here's to the cold--but no ice on the roads, please.  Hate that.

--If Romney wins, I don't want to hear it from the 47% he obviously doesn't care about.  In his head, he's the rich white man's president.

--During the last debate, his facial expressions ran the gamut between obvious lovey-dovey towards Obama, to looking like he was about to vomit, with the occasional greasy used car salesman thrown in.  Weird, sad and slimy, in turns.

--His chin and jowls are tucked; his hair is slicked; his chin got in a duel with Jay Leno and won; his smile is either slick, sick or frozen.  He's more superficial than flavored ice cream on the nip and tucked face and silicone lips of a bottled blonde with chest enhancements.  And he openly and honestly doesn't give a damn about at least 47% of the country.  Voting for him would still be less insane than voting for Bush, especially the second time, but it would still be insane, nonetheless, and if you believe his assertion that he's run businesses and so therefore he can run the country, then you must think that snuffing out a lit candle makes you a professional firefighter.

--You can break a mirror in one second, but it would take a ton of hours to fix every little piece of glass into the mirror frame.  And so it would obviously take more than four years to fix eight years of broken pieces.  In fact, it would take at least a generation.  We can't give that, but we can give four more.

--This is post #250 on this site.  I appreciate my audience.  Thanks for reading, everyone.

How I Almost Got Beaten by the Salvation Army Guy

photo: The Salvation Army shield, from its Wikipedia page

I had a successful yard sale this past Saturday.  I very impulsively decided to have one for many reasons psychological and emotional, but in the end it came down to needing more space in here.  I'm fortunate to live in an area that is inundated every weekend with yard sale fanatics, so all I have to do is post a few signs on the major roads that lead to the peninsula I live on, and then on the side streets to lead them to me.  I don't even have to advertise on Craig's List or anything.  A neighbor was coincidentally having one at the same time, so we told our customers to check the other sale out.  So a few interesting tidbits from this:

--If you're more interested in getting rid of the things, and less interested on making a huge profit, the best thing to do, from my experience, is to not put a price on anything (it's okay to price any huge, expensive items you might have)--but also don't let anything go for free.  If it's free, people will think it's junk.  If it's twenty-five cents, people think they're frugal and getting a bargain.  This is what I did, with most items selling for between $.25 and $2, and at the end I just had one SUV trip to the local Salvation Army store.  This was a unique experience in of itself, which I'll get into later.

--My friend was amazed at the things people bought.  He kept saying: "I would have just thrown that away."  But it's true: People will buy anything.  Never underestimate the hoarding tendencies of many people.

--If you have a yard sale, take down your damn signs.  They litter up the telephone poles and trees, look like an eyesore, and make wary yard sale customers drive aimlessly around a neighborhood that had a yard sale a week or two ago.  I can't tell you how many times I drive around following old, undated signs.

--Speaking of old, undated signs, do not make a sign that says: "Yard sale today."  When you're looking at it, "today" could mean any day, not just today.  Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if people took down their damn signs.

--And take down the nails you use, too.  I almost couldn't nail up my signs because there were so many nails on the poles already, my nails couldn't dig into the wood.  In fact, I told my friend that I wouldn't need any nails because I knew there would be so many there already.  I was pressed for time, so I didn't have the time to re-use all of the nails there, but I did re-use many of them.

--Someone's complete Community Service Hours could be spent taking down yard sale signs and removing nails from telephone poles.

--Speaking of that, awhile ago, when I volunteered for my local Historical Cemetery Association, the woman asked me how many community service hours I needed to do.  Apparently it's kinda creepy that I'm interested in re-finding my city's many lost historical cemeteries.  (I do have one re-find to my credit.)

--For the second time in a year, I decided very impulsively to have a yard sale the next morning, and it turned out very well.  Last year, I decided firmly at 2 a.m. to have one.  So I put up the signs by 8, for a 9-2 yard sale, and was still bringing out stuff from my garage when I got mobbed at 8:30.  I had to shoo people out of my garage; I even had to raise my voice at one lady.  When I had to put up another sign that fell down, someone watching the sale called and said that people were rifling through boxes in my garage.

--This year I had the signs up and I was back at 8:58 and kept everything in the garage until I got back, and still managed to bring most things out before people came.  But I forgot things in the attic, garage and washroom that I meant to put out, so it looks like I can combine that stuff, with even more stuff, and have another one this coming Saturday.  It's too late to reserve tickets for the newest Batman movie, anyway.  And who wants to see that with a ton of loud teenagers and mobs of other people?  I'll see it in a few weeks.

--Okay, so the surreal Salvation Army story.  My friend and I took my SUV full of my unsold yard sale things to the local Salvation Army, where I donated literally thousands of dollars of things last year.  Now, I know these guys have had a tough time, and I believe everyone deserves a second (and third, and fourth, and...) chance.  I've certainly needed several dozen.  And I've always had a good experience here.  These guys are usually very helpful, and normally sociable.  Sometimes they seem a bit morose and downtrodden, but that's expected of an ex-addict having a bad day.  (You should see me early in the morning when I haven't had my iced coffee.)  But this guy was just plain mean.  Not even rude.  Mean.  And he simmered with bitterness and anger.  His face was a bit pock-marked, round, and with scruffy facial hair that unfortunately made him look even more bothered.  So I back up the car and open the trunk door, and instantly the guy says, "We can't just take everyone's junk."  And he said it meanly, threateningly.  I was a bit taken aback, but I said that was fine.  How about I unload the car, and whatever he doesn't want, I just load back in?  He shrugs.  So I unload the car, and he says, "We won't take that," to many things, but with a bite of control.  Whatever.  No problem.  I wondered about a few things, like Christmas Tree tinsel, unused, still in the unopened box.  Nope.  "We won't take that."  Gruff.  Angry.  Fine.  I'm able to unload about 75% of the stuff I brought--first time it wasn't 100%--and I go into the store to fill out the form as my friend puts the other 25% of the stuff back in the car.  My friend told me later that they had this conversation:

Salvation Army guy: "You guys from around here?"
My friend: "My friend lives around here.  I spent some time here, but I grew up in Providence.  Now I live in Pawtucket."
Salvation Army guy: "I grew up here.  But I lost everything.  Now I have to live in Providence."

My friend tells me that he said this last part so angry and bitterly that my friend just shut up on a dime and put the stuff in the car.  So I return and the guy's just glaring at me.  I close the door and head to my side of the car when this woman approaches the guy and says she needs help unloading things.  He sort of glares at her.  She goes back to her car, a little gingerly, then walks back towards us with a box in her hands while her son backs up the car.  In her hands I see an Ionizer.  With zero intent whatsoever (Seriously.  I was in the midst of yet another sinus infection and my neighbor and I had spoken about our many infections the same day), I say to my friend, "I get around twelve sinus infections a year.  I should get one of those."  The woman immediately says to me, "Do you want it?  It's just been in storage for five years."  I'm flabbergasted.  I know the rule: Once it's on the property, it belongs to the Army.  As it should be: You can't have cars of people picking through things near the receptacles and just taking what they want for free.  And knowing how pissy this guy was already, I said, "I don't know.  I don't want to create any problems."  She said, "It's no problem.  I haven't brought it over there yet.  [We were about twenty feet from the receptacle at that point, and the thing was clearly in her hands.]  And I'm offering it to you.  I'd feel better knowing it's going to someone specific I know will use it."  (She says this like the thing had been her husband's, or someone, who had just died; she was emotional about it.)  I ask her if she's sure.  She says Yes.  As she's handing it to me, the guy twenty feet behind us bellows: "Once it's on the property, it's ours!  You can't take it!"  The thing's in my hands now as I look at the guy.  He is simmering with rage, and red in the face.  Before I can say anything, he said to the woman, "Did he take that from you?"  She said, "No.  I gave it to him.  It's fine; I want him to have it."  I felt terrible, and said to the guy, "Seriously.  She gave it to me.  I'm a good guy, really.  I wouldn't steal from the Salvation Army!"  I'm mortified and babbling at this point.

Now here's the worst part.  In the meanest voice I've ever heard (and I've heard many), and I mean the meanest--not sarcastic; not angry; not frustrated; but almost erupting with a flatlining monotone voice, I mean seething, like Tom's early male owner in the Tom & Jerry cartoons--this guy says to me: "Okay, you can take it.  You can take all your stuff back, too."  This is way out of control, so I put the thing on the ground near my stuff and say, "Hey, no problem.  Take it.  There's no problem here."

But the woman is so upset at the guy that she says to us: "Meet me over there in the Benny's parking lot," and picks the ionizer up off the ground, right in front of the guy (and maybe had a few words with him), as we drove away.  My friend's astonished.  So we park where she said, far away from the guy, and she gives it to me, after I asked her if she was sure she wanted to, and she said the thing was hers and she could give it to whoever she wants.

And that's how I almost got assaulted by an embittered Salvation Army guy.