The Blockly Maze Demo is fun, and simple, but it won't occupy the kids for all that long.

(Somebody already posted about Scratch, which seems to have a similar programming interface but is more mature.)

Portland, Oregon has been offering free light rail and bus rides on New Years Eve for decades. There is a news article about the most recent event here.

I'm not trying to contradict your argument, just pointing out the rare exception. I have lived in the US all of my life and you have highlighted a number of cultural issues that I don't care for either.

My advice is to save your money. As other people have observed, the police are unlikely to investigate your stolen laptop even if you give them the name, phone number and home address of the thief.

While working for an ISP last year I was contacted by a corporation using laptop tracking software because their stolen laptop had phoned home from one of our IP addresses. When the investigating officer found out that the laptop had been spotted in Portland, Oregon, he declined to even contact the local police. The Portland police have a well established reputation for ignoring the "small" stuff, like large-scale car theft rings, and aren't the least bit interested in a case involving a single laptop.

Since the ISP had a privacy policy that didn't allow subscriber information to be released without a subpoena, I could not tell the laptop owner anything about the subscriber whose premises apparently held the laptop. Besides, maybe he just had an open wireless network? Even so, assuming the subscriber was the thief, and assuming you were willing to kick his door in and take the laptop back... well, OJ has recently demonstrated that this is probably not the smart thing to do.