I'd completely forgotten I wrote this three years ago:

Joshua Kinsberg has been released. But his bike and invention are impounded, at least until his court date on Friday (after the RNC is over).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5850151/

NYC's anti-graffiti law is very strict:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nograffiti/html/legislation.html

"No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained."

I wonder if the framers of that law realized they were banning kids from chalking hopscotch onto their schools' playground or onto the sidewalks in front of their houses. I wonder how many children have been arrested for chalking up a 4-square game.

One important point: the police did not see the chalk-spraying invention being _used_. So the inventor probably could not have been charged with the above law. But the only other anti-graffiti laws describe "aerosol spray paint cans," and the video of the arrest clearly shows the inventor explaining to the police that it uses chalk, not paint. Predictably, the New York Post gets that wrong, describing the invention as "a convoluted spray-paint mechanism": http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/29532.htm

Earlier this month, a family was threatened with a $300 fine for their 6-year-old girl's drawing with sidewalk chalk.

On her own front step.

It's legal of course. The police screwed up. Notice the final clause from the law as of 2004 ("unless... permission of the owner... has been obtained") and the similar clause from the 2005 law Natalie Shea was threatened with (only if "not consented to by the owner").

But a street artist was later arrested for drawing on the sidewalk with chalk (while being filmed by PBS about his artwork!). And I won't be surprised if sooner or later some kid literally chalking hopscotch onto the sidewalk or a school playground gets arrested.

That's the law, after all. We had to make sure nobody chalked anti-Bush slogans while the RNC was in town. And the law's the law.

The Ann Arbor party seemed to go great- lots of people packed Leopold Bros place, doing battle with barflies and football fans. It was somewhat bizarre watching obvious normal bar people try to figure out what this large crowd of 'different' people were all about. We handed out a ton of t-shirts, drank much alcohol, ate nachos etc. Our party had a great number of Slashdot and SourceForge staffers... all folks who have been with Slashdot for so many years it's hard to remember Slashdot without them. I'm not exactly sure how many people eventually showed up... a lot of our RSVPs didn't show, and a lot more didn't bother sign up at all, so I think the two balanced out.

For me personally these sorts of things are always difficult. I'm not very good at crowds. I can smile for a picture, but I'm perpetually nervous when surrounded by strangers who have certain expectations of me. There's a reason I live life behind a keyboard!

Further compounding matters lately is baby induced chronic sleep deprivation. Me want REM cycles. It's always nice to get out and have a beer. Kathleen & I get only so many hours "out" together now, gotta make each one count. The party attendees were all cool... and understanding that I was pretty tired.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who showed up... I've still got the california party later this week. Hopefully my throat heals up by then. The only real problem with this location was the acoustics... I had to shout to be heard, and stick my ear in front of people to hear them (baby crying has done some amount of hopefully temporary ear damage). My throat is raaaaw from yelling. Sucking on cough drops helps.

As for other parties, boxes have been shipped. Hopefully they have arrived to most places on time, although I think they were shipped on a slowish shipping option so I'm not sure. I know some folks got shirts on friday, but I'm sure the others will arrive monday or so. Also, keep in mind that we only had 700 shirts and 2300 attendees from 136 parties with more than 5 attendees. So obviously not every party is getting a box... when we sent out the bulk mail, we had over 100 replies, and I'm sure there was nowhere near enough to fill even that.

But shirts or not, I hope your parties go well. Remember to submit videos or pictures or whatever to anniversary at slashdot dot org for your chance at the $1k ThinkGeek gift certificate grand prize.

So if you only count anniversary parties with 5 or more attendees, we have 128 venues with a grand total of 2366 attendees. The largest parties include Pudge's in seattle with 129, mine in Ann Arbor with 194 and Hemos's in CA with 197.

I'm sure that there will be many RSVPs that no show, but still, that's still an awful lot of interest. We'll be shipping shirts to a good number of those parties, but we have triple the attendees to shirts available, so we'll see just how far we're able to spread the love. Emails will be going out to party planners in the next couple days to get postal addresses.

As we're nearing 100 signed up people for the A2 Slashdot anniversary party, we've changed the venue to Leopold Bros... it's just a block south from the other place and they can handle us. I've also got word that we'll be printing a few hundred extra shirts since there was already like 50 parties with 5+ people in attendance. We certainly won't have enough for everyone, but we'll make a good dent in it.

I will of course put this information into a story next reasonable chance I get for a story, but I figured at least I could get the word out there. The anniversary party entry on the official page has been updated with the new location & address.

The A2 party already has like 70 signed up. We're going to have to rethink venue or time I think if we really have that many people. Wait a few more days and see what we can work out. Keep reading in the party forum for info. We have 500 shirts to print and hand out... it'll be fun to see where they go.

more info as I get it. There will be notes on future stories as days get closer.

The $150 laptop was apparently too good to be true. 2Checkout has suspended all sales of it, refunded all orders that were marked shipped, and allowed all authorizations not charged to expire. An email from 2CO said there may be a time in the future when saleswill resume but its mentioned as a "when and if" situation.

Sometimes, you know something is (su)real only because no one would believe you if you made it up. Take for example the following MySpace email I got from my crazy ex tormentor, who unfortunately, also happens to be the mother of my sister, Mary. Yes, that part of my family lives in Virginia, and no, I don't want to talk about that aspect of this. What I want to talk about is the blatant hypocrisy, and the epiphany I had while reading this crap.
 
To whit:
 

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Linnie
Date: Aug 21, 2007 1:17 PM
Subject: In doing some thinking I have decided..............
 
 

That I would rather you not have anything to do with Mary.......... or at least not up close anyway........you can write to her, etc, but I think it best you keep your distance.

You think I don't know your lifestyle, but I do. I do not want Mary to have to deal with any of that until she is an adult and can decide for herself. She right now does not want anything to do with that and thinks it is wrong and feels that it goes against Gods word.

You have a girlfreind who is married and has a child or children and her husband and she swing. This is not acceptable behavior for my daughter to be around or be around anyone who thinks that is acceptable behavior. It is wrong and it is against Gods word and anyone who says it is not has not read the Bible nor cares if it is wrong or not, they are doing what they want to do and do not care if it is wrong or not. Nothing you can say is going to change my view on that and its just what I said and I am not going to change my mind on this.

You do not know what love is, you only know what sex is and lust, you will never know what love is because you are not capable of feeling it. You would come here when Bill dies and say and do things that would make it uncomfortable for all of us and I am not willing to put up with that. You have a tendency to mouth off at people and do what you want and they cannot do anything back because you get mad and act as if you are so put upon. Well I am not going to have that in MY house. So you are not welcome to come and Mary will be fine without you. She has many, many people who love her and are her support and that includes the church and the friends she has and extended family.

You have decided you are better than Bill and should be able to say and do whatever you want about him, well you are not better and you should do better than he did only you do not. YOU act worse and in that I do not want you around my daughter.

Live your life the way you want but don't expect others to accept or like it. And also don't expect them to put up with it just because you are Scott Lockwood. I don't have to and will not. Mary is my daughter and you are only her half brother and you have no say in anything that happens to her at all. When you choose to live your life the way you do, you choose to lose your sister and anything else about family ties when it comes to her. You might have thought about that before you started doing this again...........or I guess you never stopped.

Do not respond to this as I have blocked you from here. Do not write to Mary and tell her a bunch of garbage about her father and me as it will do you no good and she will likely delete it as she is tired of that bullshit. She knows a lot more about you than you think........it doesn't take much when you can look at your page and see all the trash on it in your freinds list. What do you think a innocent young girl would want with that in her life and its somewhat embarrassing to her. You don't care, you do what you want........always have, others do not matter. So now you have what you want. Go cry the blues that you are the victim and got hurt once again.........doesn't matter what you do........you are so innocent in everything. Poor Scott.

Just don't contact her with anything negative or you will lose all contact with her. I mean what I say and you need to listen this time.

WOW. First of all, what does one even say to that? "Hi. This is your brain calling. I'm very lonely. Would you please consider letting me back in your skull?"

Ok. That might make a good, emotionally satisfying start, but I even admit, it's not very helpful. The thing is, why should I be helpful? This is the woman who emotionally abused and manipulated me for 7 years, cost me my marriage and children, and now feels it's her place to come down off the mountain, having just had a conversation with a burning bush no doubt, stone tablets in hand, so that she can bash me for a bunch of imagined BULLSHIT. WHAT. THE. FUCK!

For starters, I'm not a swinger. I was, once, a long time ago. I used that to justify a lot of bad behavior. I don't do that anymore. I am not a monogamous person, either. I'm Poly. If you don't know what Polyamory is, look it up. Wikipedia is a good place to start, for example. Look for a book called, "The Ethical Slut". It's referenced in the Wikipedia article on Poly, so you can get the ISBN there, if you're interested.
 

I'm tempted, in true Lockwood fashion, to write a point by point rebuttal of Linda's bullshit, but it's really not necessary, is it? For those of you who are joining the train wreck that is my life late, Linda and I were once together. Very quickly, I realized that she was kind of less than stable. The fact that she was married to my father also kind of bothered me, a little. I tried to break it off. She responded by swallowing a bottle of pills. I then spent the next 6 and a half years, trying very hard to have a 'normal' life and relationship with someone who kept abusing that trust. Multiple attempts to kill herself, almost always because she'd fuck things up for both of us in some form or fashion, and I'd then want nothing to do with her. Breaking her word repeatedly, like saying "I won't try to kill myself again, honest - oh, what? You're leaving me because I'm a crazy bitch and I scare the shit out of you? ARRGH!!! Where are teh pillz0rs!!!". Spitefully trying to ruin my life on several occasions "Oh, you're marrying that woman? Here, let me send her every email and naked picture we've ever traded. You didn't actually think I meant it when I said that I could handle a no-strings relationship with you, did you? That was all bullshit. You belong to me, now, and if you even think about trying to get away, I'm going to kill myself, and leave your sister without a single decent parent."

Let me be the first to say that I am not a saint. Far, far from it. I also don't have a 'standard' concept of morality, though it's getting much closer than you might think. For example, though I DID used to be a swinger, and would basically fuck anyone who wanted to, I stopped doing that quite a while ago. I realized at some point that sex wasn't what I really wanted, what I wanted was a good woman (or two) to love me for who I am, to hold me, to care about ME like I want to care about her, or them. All the sex, and the lies, all that did was hurt ME in the end. Is Linda hurt? If the above rambling rant is any indication, I'd say yes. Am I responsible? Perhaps, to a degree. Let's face it - I really should have figured out if she was a raving lunatic before sticking my cock in her. Not that it wasn't fun, mind you. It was. I enjoyed it every single time. She makes really excellent noises, and could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. Unfortunately, she also has at best a fleeting, intermittent connection to reality. This allows her to pass judgement on me, for example, when she's just a big a fucking ho bag as I am.

Yes, that's right. I have spent much of my life acting like a low down, dirty, ho. I had no respect for myself. I tried to find it in others, specifically, between their legs. Know what? I never did. What I did find was a lot of hurt, abuse, scorn, loneliness, and $1100 a month in child support that I pay out, every month, without fail. So yes, I have spent most of my life catastrophically failing it, hard.

The good news? I got some therapy, I took some medication, and I started to DEAL WITH MY OWN SHIT! And now, it doesn't have power over me. My shit doesn't define who I am, I do. My shit doesn't cause me to take a giant crap on people in my family, no matter how badly I think they deserve it. My shit is getting cleaned up.

For example, I have met someone very special. Her name is Dot (Hi dear!). She is the most amazing woman I have ever met. I truly love her, and have a commitment to her that I have honestly never felt to anyone else. Yes, she is married. Her husband has a Girlfriend, too. Know what? We all know. Honesty. That was the thing lacking from damn near every single other relationship I've ever been in, and I have to tell you, it's freeing. I don't have to hide anything from Dot, not even the ugly, venomous, cancer that is my former lover, Linda. For once in my life, I'm with someone who loves me for me, not who judges me based on my baggage. All I have to do, is stay 100% honest, not repeat the mistakes of the past, and I get to spend some real quality time with her.
 
Do you know what that makes me feel for Linda? Pity. It's a pity, that she has to tear me down, to feel good about her self. That she has to talk about her religion of peace and love and tolerance - and yet, look at how she acts! It's a pity that my sperm-donor is dying, and my sister needs a shoulder to cry on, yet now I can't come out? I can't visit? I can't comfort my sister? What bullshit. Here's a big "FUCK YOU" to you, Linda. I hope you get over yourself at some point.
 
As to my sister, I forwarder her your little note. I let her know that I love her, and that she's always welcome in my house, that once she turns 18 and you can't control her, she's always got a place here. Who knows, maybe she'll take me up on it.
 
In the meanwhile, I suggest some research. For starters, open that bible you were thumping at me so hard, and re-read James, Chapter 4, paying close attention to verses 10 through 12.
 
Again, to whit:
 

10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?

This really convinces me. There is no God. Not in the way we were all taught. God would not stand idly by and let his followers preach intolerance and hatred, almost without exception. Christian Fundamentalists are no different than their Muslim cousins. They are all, nearly without exception, self-righteous, self-centered, self-important assholes with nothing better to do than force their view of morality down my throat. ENOUGH.
 
I should never have come back to Catholicism. I should have just stayed Buddhist. I think now, I will learn about Paganism. After all, if I'm such a reprobate, I might as well indulge my curiosity, right? Besides, two of the people I care about the most are both Pagan, and they seem way more well adjusted than the idiots I have spent so much of my time around. Linda, for example.
 
So. What have we learned? Well, I think I have finally figured out that sex is not love. Neither is control. Nor abuse. Love, real honest, true love - that's a very special thing. I have that now. I don't want to ever give it up. It's also very freeing. That bitch no longer has any control over me, and soon, she won't have it over my sister, either. 4 years is not a long period of time. What will you do, Linda, when your hate and invective, and intolerance come home to roost? I don't know, and I no longer care. I have something you don't. I have true love. And it's taught me some very humbling things. I was wasting my time, trying to bag everything that I could. What I wanted wasn't there. What I wanted doesn't even always come from sex! All that time, all those women. What a complete waste. It was sad, and pathetic. It was like groping in the dark, finding lots of switches, but never the one that turned on the lights. I have that light now, and I thank my lucky stars every single day for being exposed to it. No matter what happens to me, I have known real love. I pity you, Linda, that you have not, and never will.

The Oregon Brewers Festival was interesting. I attended with out at OSCON 2007. Lots of tents. Lots of beer. Lots of people.

But the most odd thing of all was the 'beer growl'. Seriously, people would just kinda do this. It was like a roaring growl. I hear this unique "thing to do when drinking good bear" was invented in Portland and is a common thing at this festival.

On my trip out there I had a number of local beers. I don't recall finding a single one I didn't like. I should have kept the labels, because I now remember none of their names :( Aw well, maybe next year :)

I'm signed up for EcoTours of Oregon's Columbia River Gorge Waterfalls
and Mount Hood Loop Tour.

I had contacted them months ago, when I knew I was going to OSCON (ie, when the payment check was cut). The guy from EcoTours who responded was nice, but informed me they have a minimum-party requirement. One, well, just wasn't enough. But he said he had any one else inquire about doing that tour, that day, he'd let me know.

He called sometime today while I was in bed (the flu). The tour is on! I'm psyched! Geek to the woods, here I come!! ha ha

I've never done anything like this before. I figure I'll take my camera (wide angle lens and a 70-200) and my hiking stick/mono-pod, along with hiking boots and hat. Add in an extra battery and an extra CF-card too. That should do the trick I suppose.

I'm going to OSCON this year. If anyone who's reading my journal's going, let me know and let's meet up for a cold beverage or something.

I am going to be there Sunday to Sunday. In fact, if any of you would be interested in doing an Eco Tours Columbia River Gorge Waterfalls and Mount Hood "Loop" Tour on the 28th, let me know. They do it in packages of 4 people. I have one person, myself, interested for that date.

If you know someone going to OSCON that'd be interested in doing this with me, please by all means forward this JE to them.

If any of you are using an iPhone and are willing to help test out some Slashdot handheld crap, shoot me off a note... my email is the same address as always, and if you can't guess it, you probably can't help anyway ;) I've built a stylesheet and Tim put together a few little options that we think will make a few bits of Slashdot look nice on an iPhone (or really most lower resolution displays) but unfortunately none of us actually HAVE one yet... so anyway, let us know. Or if you work at Apple, send us freebies dammit!

Ok, so I think we can finally say, the mentally deficient shouldn't play WoW.

Ok, I hate these stupid quiz's that people send around all the time, but I'm curious to know the answer to this, so I figured I'd ask, and post it as a bulletin (and maybe also a blog). After all, the fastest way to spread something on MySpace, is to post it as a bulletin, which will cause all 50 million people to repost it (and repost, and repost, and repost, etc. etc.) for the next billion years. :-)

Note that questions 2 and 5 do not necessarily have to include the numbers from questions 1, or 4, but may.

If you're not comfortable posting this, but are still willing to participate in the survey, any responses emailed back to me will be treated as strictly confidential.

My answers are in the parenthesis that follow the questions.

1: How many friends/loves/others do you have in your top X list (where X can equal 4 to 24) with whom you have had actual, physical sex? (3)

2: How many friends/loves/others do you have in your top X list (where X can equal 4 to 24) with whom you want to, or strongly desire to have sex? (6)

3: How many friends/others do you have in your top X list (where X can equal 4 to 24) with whom you are willing to have sex, but not enough that you would initiate a sexual relationship? (5)

4: How many friends/loves/others do you have in your total, aggregate friends list (your top list, plus the ones not listed there) with whom you have had sex? (3)

5: How many friends/loves/others do you have in your total, aggregate friends list (your top list, plus the ones not listed there) with whom you want, or strongly desire, to have sex with? (14)

6: How many friends/others do you have in your total, aggregate friends list (your top list, plus the ones not listed there) with whom you would be willing to have sex, but not enough that you would initiate a sexual relationship with them? (5)

On my route to work each morning, I go through a ~2 year old neighborhood for about a mile before I reach the turn-in for the office. The houses are built right along the Scioto river. The houses along the river have woods seperating them from the river (as well as steep banks). Most of the development's completed, but they are still building the last 10 or so houses and there's a handful of for-sale lots.

So I was driving down the road, ogling the $500 - $700k houses that maybe, someday, I'd be able to afford. When I noticed the car ahead of me just miss something rather large in the road. As I approached, I could see it was a turtle. I looked, no one oncoming, no one behind me, so I pulled over.

It was a rather large snapping turtle. I carefully picked it up on it's sides, towards the back, and started walking to the other side of the road where it was heading. At which point it let lose a torrent of, well, piss. Luckily, I was not wanting to get dirty (since I had my dilbert outfit on) and I didn't want to get bit, so I had it held out far from me. But most importantly, I had it pointing the opposite way. So it's jetison was no where near me.

I grumbled some explative about how unappreciative it was. Maybe something towards the idea of I should put it back down and let it be flattened. But I didn't, continued walking across the road. Went to put it down, and *swoosh* it let loose another torrent. Luckily this hit the mud that was on the other side of the curb where I was putting it down.

After it was down, I waited a second to see if it'd scoot away, but it was too alarmed to move. And I had to get to work, so I left.

Towards the end of that street, I noticed another large object on the opposite side, right on the curb. It was another turtle, looking to make the opposite journey the other had. I didn't stop. I hope he made it.

Looking back on it I should have pulled out my cellphone and taken a picture of the turtle. Tho not having handled all that many turtles in my life, this one seemed a pretty good size.

I'm really, really fucking tired of Jhon and Pudge's bullshit. Since they've decided to invade a moderate, tolerable republican's journal, please feel free to jump in and add your two cents. I'd actually devote the time to researching my replies more, except that I have a life.