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Two more things to add to the “To Do”-list that never gets anything crossed off of it:

1. Program a Nintendo DS game.
2. Learn a second language. Esperanto?

Like everyone, I worked in a call center for a short time. My very first caller was a woman who had “a very serious problem that she needed to talk with someone about.”

She says “Hackers hacked my computer and now there’s this porno all over it!” I tell her it’s very unusual that someone would do this, and she tells me that “there’s no way my husband is looking at photography of naked men. He just would not do that. It’s not right.” You’re probably thinking what I was thinking; dude was in the closet, right? I figure that or the guy’s bi/bi-curious, even if they’re and older couple, maybe he’s carried this for a long time. Well, during the whole process of removing porn adware installed on her computer (processes running, startup options, etc., nothing special,) she says something that tips me off…

She says, “I’m just worried my daughter saw this stuff while she was on it last night while doing her home work. They work the kids so hard these days. She was up half the night in here, and I just do not know how she got it working with all these pop-ups.” Eureka.

So, I have a category/tag/whatever called ‘Project X’ that I use for tagging items that will likely never come to fruition. This is another.

In the writing of a story, it quickly became apparent to me that the characters (at least many,) are heavily reliant on Stickam more than typical IM or something audio-only like Ventrilo. Of course, I know nothing of the culture, so I have to immerse myself in it, right? Research, right? I mean, I figure I’ll even ask a few people if they mind if I stick around their room to get the hang of the whole thing. So I decide to do this. In my best effort not to be a weirdo, I even try to find someone around my age amongst the fields of kiddies so I don’t appear so much like a creep. To my surprise I find a woman that’s twenty-five and even bears a superficial resemblance to one of my characters, so I figure “Hey, here’s a good place to start!” I enter the ‘room’.

The first thing I see? The woman has fallen asleep on her bed, and the webcam is on her laptop in front of her. Her pretty face is clearly seen in lamplight as she snoozes away. In another small video window off to the side? A man has pulled out his penis and is masturbating to her. Ahhh internet, like an abusive lover you’ll never change. Any time there’s a glimmer of hope, or something new to entertain, you disappoint me, and my only solace is to try to convince myself that you hurt me because you love me.