You Did What With A Snack?

Every now and then you read something on the internet or in a newspaper and do a double take. Today the news story contained a few kids, a frozen snack and some lawyers.

I'm not sure how I can best explain the back story. As far as I understood it, there were a couple of young teenagers (say, thirteen or fourteen) and they had a bet. A bet that involved shoving a frozen snack - a Dutch 'treat' called frikadel - up one of their backsides.

What amazed me was the fact that this act of sodomy isn't seen by the court as a sexual act because the context does not support that. Freely translated, the news story said that 'it was just a couple of young boys hanging out as they do, and it was part of a bet.' So since there's no intentional rape or any sexual fantasy involved, they're just gonna let it go. Weird.

But the underlying thing is so much worse. How On Earth do a couple of boys come up with that stupid, insane, unhygienic idea In The First Place? It's food! Bad food, but still food. What a ridiculous thought - and what idiot said 'hey, let's try this'? And frozen, too. I don't know if you've ever had your lips frozen to a popsicle (I have; they bled furiously for a while), but just the mental image of putting two and two together, my god!

Sure, based on the merits of the case perhaps it wasn't intended as a sexual act. Based on what that judge thinks, it's rather a leftover of baby boyhood when they had to fit all sorts of wooden toy shapes into a box with exactly those shapes as holes in its lid.

But for Pete's sake - I do hope he didn't pass up the opportunity to give them hell about it. Just rant on for a half hour about the sheer stupidity of their little 'bet'. I mean, if he merely shrugs and says it isn't sexual, isn't that just inviting these kids to expand their franchise? Try and see what might fit next or what the girl next door can or can't take?

Writing 50.000 lines saying 'I'm a stupid little idiot for shoving a snack up my bum' isn't nearly good enough. Nor is a fine, because it's hardly coming out of their own allowance. I bet that they do have some explaining to do at home. At least, I should bloody well hope so.

Pulling wings out of poor flies in itself also doesn't seem like a hugely violent thing to do in itself. The victim doesn't put up much of a fight, he won't scream audibly. Still, that is one of the first steps of any good and proper psychopath and perhaps serial killer. I'm just saying.

Popstars: What An Idea

First things first, I haven't watched an actual entire show of Idols or Popstars or whatever in ages. Maybe the first two years and only the auditions to have a good laugh. I mean, honestly.

But this year they've come up with a new aspect to the show. Every now and then, I gather, they introduced a "Mystery Popstar". How sad, indeed. This MP would never show their face, just sing a song. I think most of them got through to several later rounds, though some didn't. The trick with these MP's is that in some way they're famous already.

Picture it. You have a tv presenter whose daughter enters the contest anonymously, with a big blur instead of a head and later on a nice carnivalesque masque around her eyes. Fortunately for her, she wasn't famous enough on her own to be recognised that way. She got away with the Superman-style makeover. And she wasn't that bad, either.

But I heard later that there was also one Mystery Contestant who actually won one of these programmes a couple of years ago. She came in the top five, that is; she didn't actually win Idols. Truth is, after a single or maybe two, she dropped from public view entirely. Public wasn't complaining as far as I know.

To nearly win one of these shows is one thing. To go back to one of those shows now as a Mystery Popstar seems like a huge risk to me. Especially when your career's been lagging anyway. In this case, she proves the point. She got pretty bad reviews - which, again - must be humongously embarrassing after almost winning a few years ago. That's like a champion swimmer who returns to the kiddy pool one day and gets criticised by one of the teachers for their flawed technique.

I mean, I know these popstar-finding programmes are mostly for our entertainment anyway. Not many of them actually make it to something - not in this country, that is. It's not America or the UK. Here they either fade into the world of musicals, fade from public view entirely, or make a public bid for donations in order to record and publish a second album. But I'd have to be pretty uber-confident to enter one of these contests again after several years. Gosh, if she even had a record contract left, she's surely lost it now. What a bad idea. Really, whose brilliant plan was that?

Political Politeness Overdoing It A Bit

We've all heard about PC: political correctness, where you basically use some lame euphemism in case it might otherwise offend someone or something. Apparently there is a new abbreviation making its debut: PP, political politeness.

Above our freeways, we have signs that indicate the length of a traffic jam on the road ahead. And on alternative routes. Which is a good service, in case it turns out to be better to take the exit now and save on some costly minutes.

Okay, so now they've come up with a different version of the same thing. They won't give you the length of the traffic jam any longer, but instead opt to tell you the number of minutes you'll be delayed. So from now on you're not staring at "20 km" but they'll tell you how long exactly they think you'll be stuck.

Why?

Is it less off-putting to say it with minutes than in kilometres? Does it really make a difference either way? The traffic won't move any faster for it, only this time perhaps you can call home and tell them your estimated time of arrival rather than say 'I dunno, it says 20 kilometer, so who knows?' Personally, I'd rather see a vague '24 km' that leaves me guessing than have them predict '1,5 hours'. That'll do your mood in for sure at the end of the day. At least you can't measure the kilometres on the watch you'll be staring at every three minutes.

And how do they know exactly the amount of minutes you'll be delayed? What if it's a bad car accident and the road is closed. Does the driver then see the number of minutes go up or down depending on how long it takes the ambulance to get there or how easily the jaws of life will do their work? Or will it simply say 'Sorry folks, we have no idea tonight'?

Honestly, it looks to me like someone either received a PhD on this nonsense or someone just wants his name attached to some motion in Parliament before he retires. Really, is this the thing that big bucks Thinktanks spend their time on? 'Oh, I know, let's tell the drivers how long they'll be stuck in minutes from now on, it's friendlier!'

Hah. Here's one: try to fix the damn traffic jam problem itself, that'll cheer 'em up to no end!

Life without the Internet

The title doesn't intend to be Utopian. Not at all. I wouldn't want to be without the internet for too long, but I can actually manage without it. Unlike some people I know...

A year ago we had a power outage in this zipcode area. Suddenly we could see from our window that most neighbours left their houses, got in their cars and drove off. Where to, I wonder, but I never found out. They'll probably spend a few hours with a mate who had power. And television. And computers that worked.

Me? We just took out a few candles, placed the laptop in a bag, and started reading a book and a magazine. Me the book, him the magazine. I may have been working on my laptop and riding the battery for what it was worth, but not because I can't entertain myself. I was working on something and happy enough that I hadn't lost it.

Either way, it's happened several times now that my father lost his entire internet connection. Bad cable or bad wiring on his part (I mean the house, of course) but also bad mainenance by his service provider. Who can't be reached during weekends. And who doesn't know you can put service notices up on the website so that someone with a connection can check to see if anything is up.

Well, either way, the rants and ravings began fairly quickly for my dad. How am I going to update my website? (Well, you can't.) How can I check my mails? (You can't.) What if the mailbox overflows again. (Just let it happen, nothing you can do about it anyway.) What if I unplug and replug the modem? (You could do that. Not much use, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead.) Should I call the provider? Do you think they already know? At least if they know they can start fixing it. I'll feel better at least knowing they're working on it.

The underlying question, of course, was: what on earth am I going to do while I can't work on my computer? He doesn't read. No books, no magazines, no newspapers. He doesn't have any hobbies that take him out of that computer room. I don't count smoking as a hobby, although I'm sure the internet blackout upped the cigarette intake by a percentage. He only watches telly at night, with a strong preference for reruns of incredibly silly movies he's seen hundreds of times.

It was even worse for him when one day his computer itself decided not to budge anymore. You could prod it, ask it please, promise it the moon, but it just died. He had to bring it in to us, see if my boyfriend could fix it. (He could, but it took time.) I think he was computerless for three or four days and he just didn't know what to do with himself.

What I'm trying to say is: it's not just young people who don't know which way is up when the power is down or the computer freezes up. It's almost as if people forget that technology depends on the smallest components that need to work. If the cable's broken, there won't be much dsl-ing going on.

It's like the computer keyboard. Pour coffee over it and the computer won't respond. It's not the computer that's broken, though, is it? (Although I saw a tv-show last week that seemed to suggest exactly that!) And why do guys always ram their fists into the keyboard when the computer doesn't do "what it was told"?

The problem, usually, is that the computer did exactly what it was told, but you just told him to do the wrong thing. Pressed a button next to the one you intended. Didn't give it proper time to load. Didn't inhale, exhale before trying again.

But I'm digressing.

Is It Mexican?

In America it's called Swine Flu. In Holland we gave it the name "Mexican Flu", although I can't for the life of me remember why. Because the first person who had it came home from a vacation in Mexico? Either way, once the WHO decided to raise the alarm and apply the name Pandemic to it, we were all hopelessly lost. It's like the credit crunch. If you yell loud enough, you'll scare just enough people to hype it beyond all bounds. Whether it deserves that or not. And it doesn't.

Well, yes, soon there were reports of people dying from this New Flu. The thing they usually either didn't say until after the break or that was only added in the tiniest letters - like a legal disclaimer - is that first of all, people die of the regular flu every year. They just don't call up the papers and tv stations for each one of those. Second of all, most of the patients that did die from that New Flu were already sick with something else. And not just a scraped knee, either.

For a while, nobody could so much as sneeze or cough without sidelong looks from people around them. Hah. Those must be the people that drive from home in their pristine cars every morning, park three steps from their office building and get inside. Not us commuters. If we who take bus, train and tram every day would worry about every sneeze, half the world population would be paranoid and afraid to leave their houses.

So I did get sick this weekend. It was terrible. Shivers, hot flashes, back to shivers. Back ache, muscle ache, sore throat. OMG, those are all flu symptoms! Yes, indeed. I've had it before, I do recognise them by now. But then comes the inevitable question from colleagues or family: Is It Mexican?

All I can reply to that is there's no funny Spanish accent coming out while I speak and I haven't seen my complimentary sombrero anywhere either. Truth? I have no idea whether it's Mexican or not. How would I tell the difference?

Ah, but they have something for that, too. Several websites with "free health checks" and bulleted lists and facts. Those say that if it's Mexican, I should have diarrhoea or be more tired than usual. Shows how well they know me: I have irritable bowel syndrome, so diarrhoea isn't something I would even notice as being "different" and I'm always tired!

Even the next-door neighbour looked at me half-panicked when I said I had the flu. Like she was on the verge of hurrying back into her house, bolting the door and staying inside for three weeks just to be sure. Or until her pantry runs empty, I don't know.

For pity's sake, people. This is mob behaviour and this isn't the nineteenth century! Yes, there is a new kind of flu. It shares most of its traits with the regular kind. The solution, for example. Any which way, if you're not a risk category, you crawl in bed and wait till it's over. Just like you always would have done. Same chicken soup, same licorice, same teas and herbs and packets of tissues. Buckle up, sweat it out, wash the sheets and be done with it. Santé.