The one who hopped the fence

I seriously question the idea of wearing something ironically. The world is build on first impressions and when people see you wearing s shirt they assume that whatever the shirt has on it is a cause you believe in. This means that wearing a shirt as some kind of joke is a very bad practice. This is when our story today takes us to a very specific and familiar address.

A man wearing a shirt with Pikachu on it did something reckless. Now considering the rising college crowd that enjoys Pokémon that is not that odd an occurrence. Until you realize that the reckless activity was jumping the White House Fence. He was immediately detained by the secret service but no details have been released about why he deiced to do such a foolish action.

So a guy with a Pokémon shirt jumped the fence of the White House. Considering how much this blow frowns on disruptive behavior, I can say flat out that this is a big no-no. Whether or not the person was wearing the shirt as some kind of joke is beside the point. The masses who see the story will think that fans of Pokémon are crazed individuals who will try to trespass at the White House. The fact that Pokémon fans are crazed individuals is far from the truth. The Pokémon community is filled with kind and carrying people who don’t deserve to be compared to somebody that would try to run to the White House for some crazed reason. I can only hope that more information is released and the criminal was on some drug laced hallucination. Sadly that would only result in the Pokémon community labeled as a bunch of drug users.

Link: Anime News Network

New York performers arrested

Another article about the street performers of New York City. Man, they really need to do something about this. They really need to get some registration or unionization or something to fix all these complications. This once wasn’t even really that bad of an incident. Better jump into this one.

Three customers were arrested in New York City. The three were dressed as Minnie Mouse, Woody from the Toy Story. The three took photos with a family and then demanded tips for their service. Put off by the performer’s demands, the family went to local authorities and the three were placed into custody. The three are being charged with aggregated solicitation.

While investigating further into this article I found that there was another story at the beginning of the year where a Woody (I can only hope that it’s another performer than the one in Today’s article) was arrested for groping a woman. I’ve tried to cover the events surrounding the New York performers with a few words of guidance and the usual suggestion about the importance of portraying a character especially in front of children. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem like its helping anything so I need to step it up a notch. This blog is calling for the registration of all New York City costume performers. Only with proper observation and guidelines will the incidents become less of an occurrence. I know this will take a lot of effort but it’s better than kids being traumatized by watching character they love being taken away in handcuffs. I’d even be willing to help to ensure that things go smoothly. Just offer me a job and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that a new level is established for all the costume performers out there.

Link: NBC New York

Swatting just won’t die

I had hoped that my efforts to keep writing this blog would result in some social change there are some practices that just won’t seem to go away. One of the most detrimental acts that seems to keep popping up in the gaming community is known as “Swatting.” This is a game where people make calls to the police to send SWAT team members towards their intended target. It is a waste of time for police and can be very traumatizing to the victim of the prank. Unfortunately, despite my best to spread the word about these events, they just keep occurring.

Jordan Mathewson is the gamer, who was playing Counter-Strike on a stream when he became a victim of the practice of Swatting. Now this is an incredible detrimental to the community already but the damage doesn’t just end up affecting just one person. It turns out that from where Mathewson was when the prank took place was in the vicinity of many schools. Once they saw the SWAT teams crashing into Mathewson’s place, the schools went into lockdown in an effort to make sure the kids were kept safe. No one was hurt by the prank but there was a lot of wasted time and resources on top of a lot of placing fear in a lot of children.

I hope you are happy prankster. Your prank results in teachers fearing for their life for their students and probably some of those kids being afraid as well. Was it worth it? Are you still laughing over your victory because you made a guy stop playing his game and gave him a bit of a startle? The obvious answer to that question is NO! No, it was not worth it. Swatting is not worth whatever joke you are trying to pull on your intended target. It is the definition of a juvenile prank, no, scratch that it even worst then a simple prank. It is a non-victimless crime as time and resources of hard working law enforcement individuals who are willing to put their lives on line to protect law abiding citizens. They are not around for your amusement. I really wish this practice would die but sadly this is not the first Swatting that has taken place this year. I only hope it will be the last.

 

Link: Daily Dot