Ch19: Whisper (sing in the library)

I oughtn't be blogging tonight as there's not much going on - which, ironically, is my incentive for blogging, as if I didn't, I'd be more bored. So I may as well take a few minutes to catalogue the miseries of today.

For starters, I ran into Mr. Andrews. Blecch. For those of you who never took CommTech, Andrews is an incredibly difficult man, because he insists on these wisecracks when he in fact has no notable sense of humour of any sort. He also never liked me very much - at first because of the bad blood between he and my brother, and then later because of reasons mostly unique to me (short-tempered and generally difficult, though I like to think I grew out of that by Grade 12, he still had a negative imprint of me.) Is it my fault that I have plenty of places to go that mean I have to go across the WOSS property? It is not.

Then there was the dentist appointment. It's bad enough they have to treat my jaw as a prospector might a mineshaft, the TV had been set to CMT whilst doing so. Ecch. In a final moment of vindication, I was walking Xena along the path behind the plaza and I saw a discarded toothbrush and floss. I smiled at this open rejection of the dental gastapo.

I guess that's about it, although hours of jawsore misery ensued as feeling gradually returned. It didn't make me the happiest fella today, and thus followed numerous minor skirmishes with the brother. I'm a big "one thing leads to another" guy who always feels a problem can be traced back numerous steps until something that was unavoidable - like being at the dentist - can be blamed for any given problem.

Two mysterious figures messaged me on MSN - which is odd, it didn't ask if I wanted to allow them, it asked if I wanted to accept messages even from people not on my "allow" list. Suspicious, I said "no" and the messages disappeared. They were highly suspect as far as e-mails go, I didn't get to red the messages. So if thy were real people and it was important I should expect to see more requests for authorization in the near future. If not, then I avoided an appalling new breed of spam/virus.

It's funny, MSN. I only ever got it by accident. I originally signed up for Hotmail planning to play a (stupid, flawed) ruse on a guy in my class in Grade 8. When I found that a buddy of mine, Rohan, had MSN, I got another Hotmail address (the one that is now used,) and started adding people to MSN. Then the River Oaks yearbook included a directory of peoples' e-mail addresses and I included that one instead of the one I've had since 1997 (and still use for many things.) And now here we are, 5 years later, and not only do I not speak to very many people I knew in Grade 8, but it's become a bona fide e-mail address for me (though I still sign up for most things with my classic Yahoo address.)

I wonder how parents go about monitoring their kids on the Internet these days. You've gotta believe this is a major area of concern. I was 9 when we got the internet. That was, at the time, a decent age to let a kid go off and explore games and chat, but the rules have definitely changed as the perverts got more savvy and aggressive. Remember the series premiere of Degrassi: The Next Generation (incidentally, along with the Kevin Smith episodes and the one where she gets her first period, that's one of the few episodes I can remember seeing.) I remember that when I was a kid all I wanted to do was go to websites about Star Wars and the Simpsons (ultimately, very little has changed.) By the time I'm a parent, they're gonna want it so that kids that age aren't having their own e-mail addresses and websites and surfing by themselves, and I certainly can see why. Not that I have any immediate plans on becoming a parent.

I think I've sufficiently ranted for tonight. Hope this has inspired any sort of cognitive thought in you, my dear readers.

Keep on Rockin'
-Master Williams