A Case Against Blogging

Do you have a blog? If so, great--your career's going places.

Also if so, are you self-involved? Of course you are; you have a blog.

Even further if so, do you use Google Analytics (or a similar program) to monitor your blog's traffic?

If not, maybe you shouldn't. It's a window into bad things. Bad things like the knowledge that 2 of the whopping 18 visitors (hold your applause) to this site on Saturday accessed it by looking up the phrases "iranianporn child" and "metroville fucking pictures", respectively:

(For the record, there is no child pornography--Iranian or otherwise--to be found on Metroville, but there is this. As for "metroville fucking pictures", your nightmare is as horrible as mine--probably less so, actually.)

I want my blankie, I want my mom, and I want to get the hell off the internet.

(But I won't, because it's there.)

The Day the Email Died

The little-known Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Technical Difficulties, paid a visit to our world last night and knocked out all of the Blackberries in the western hemisphere.

If by some miracle you are even able to read this, you must be accessing the internet with something called a "computer"...which a lot of Blackberry owners might not remember is a machine that was invented around the same time as the butter churn. Get the word out to as many people who were victimized by the outage as you can, show them that a computer--while not nearly as cool or portable as the Blackberry--can help assuage some of the trauma they're currently experiencing. If employees in the entertainment industry, the legal profession, and/or on Wall Street aren't able to communicate electronically...what's the point of even living?

UPDATE: The nightmare is over. Let's do what we can to pick up the shattered pieces of our lives and get back to not speaking directly to one another as quickly as possible.

Teacher to Fight Pornography Conviction Using "I Don't Know Nothin' 'Bout No Computer Machines" Defense

In October of 2004, substitute teacher Julie Amero was assigned to a class of seventh-graders at Kelly Middle School in Norwich, Connecticut. Last month, she was convicted of exposing those students to pornography on her classroom computer, and today she is facing a possible 40-year prison sentence. (Tell that to someone who thinks that a career in education doesn't lead anywhere.)

Amero's excuse? She's practically a Luddite. The 40-year-old Windham resident with no prior criminal record is maintaining her contention from the trial that pornographic images kept popping up on the computer throughout the day in question, and--despite her most valiant efforts--her lack of technological savvy rendered her incapable of quelling the barrage of hardcore sex before it could befoul the once-pure souls of the children in her keep.

I have little trouble believing that an inexperienced computer user could fall victim to a pop-up storm, particularly if the machine in question was lacking in a firewall or any kind of spyware protection (as a computer consultant who testified in the trial confirmed that it was)...but I'm compelled to side with the jury on the fact that one very suspicious question remains:

Why didn't Amero throw a blanket over the computer or just unplug the damn thing?

A possible answer to that question? The woman is way into porn and likes sharing it with 12-year-olds.

Of course, I'm no lawyer.

UPDATE: Perhaps Amero could count on a Christmas miracle to get her out of trouble, seeing as she's married to Santa Claus.