A song by BoA this time. This was my life in high school, so this is your life now. Have fun listening to it.
September 2021 archive
Did I forget to queue a post up in here or something?
Apparently I did. And I had convinced myself that I had posts queued for the next few days, too…
I’m supposed to be sitting here looking for more video games for Bub, ones that he does not already have, but even that is proving to be difficult because I’ve already pre-ordered him much of what I would want to pre-order him. I mean, not that I’m complaining about making a lot less work for myself… but now I have to find him things that he doesn’t already have. I would consider getting him Pokemon plushies, too — ones that he doesn’t already have — but the going prices on some of these, the ones that I’ve found on Amazon and eBay, are absolutely obscene. I’m not going to pay $35.00 for a Pichu plush. I would have no problem paying a reasonable price for one. However, I am not paying $35.00 for one when it is not even that rare.
It might also be that Pokemon plushies in general go for exorbitant prices, which would (and is) making me reconsider purchasing them. I’m not about to cut off my arm or my leg to afford maybe… one plush, two at the most. Admittedly, some of them don’t have the worst prices, but a lot of them are marked up to almost unbelievable prices, and it makes us want to develop a Funko Pop collection rather than a Pokemon one if this is how things are going to be. But between this and the fact that my head has hurt for going on two days now in spite of the medication that I’ve been prescribed, I want to limit my consumption of things that are probably going to frustrate me… and the idea of these things being marked up as high as they are is definitely on the list. Let’s not, please. Let’s actually price things appropriately so that people purchase them.
I can’t believe that I actually have to write this post.
So I found out not too long ago that if you have an account suspended on Twitter, they will suspend all subsequent accounts if they find them (if they discover them on their own, if they are reported). I got to see this in action when someone’s original account was suspended, they went on to make two more accounts, and those accounts were suspended as well when Twitter got around to it. Sometimes this took a day…
The person in question harassed me for twelve hours on a Saturday after repeatedly being told to stop contacting me, which resulted in me actually blocking them when they fraudulently reported my old Twitter account to Twitter for containing self-harm or suicidal content… this resulted in Twitter going through my account, finding that no such content existed, informing me that someone had reported me for it and that this content did not exist on my account. They also made it clear that they wanted, or would have liked to, contact my minor children without my consent. Twitter became privy to this conversation, as did members of law enforcement when other people showed them what had been said when inquiries were made as to who to report this to when. These members of law enforcement came to the conclusion that this was an actionable threat even though I do not allow my children to have social media accounts, especially in their own names — it was deemed potentially actionable in that the person in question, given the opportunity to do so, would contact my children without my consent. The terms “enticement” and “potential enticement” were also used, and they supported — were on the side of — Twitter when it came to the permanent suspension of this individual and the continued suspension of new accounts that this person made.
I haven’t even gotten to the fact that they said that they would provide my children with what was explicit fanfiction (I’ve called this “pornographic Supernatural fanfiction” before, and it still fits as another way to describe these… fanfics). Their pairing of choice was, and would have been, Sam and Dean Winchester together in a romantic and sexual context, which made it even worse. This was another point at which the members of law enforcement who saw this conversation — they saw the same conversation that Twitter itself did, especially as it related to the decision to suspend — brought up enticement and potential enticement, as well as providing minors with access to pornographic material (almost all of W*ncest — that’s what it’s called — fanfiction seems to be rated, and this is something that people just know).
There was also the fact that this person threatened to contact the fathers of my children twice in the conversation. I have a lifetime restraining order against my oldest son’s father, and it was bundled into the custody order because he violated the terms of his probation that stated that he was not to contact me for any reason, to include about our child (as it turned out, he absconded on probation really early into it, forcing the state to convict on the original offense rather than drop the charge). My youngest son’s father and his family were actually told by police not to come — back — onto my property for any reason, to include getting our son for visitation, and that my ex could explain to a judge why he was not allowed to do so unless a court order explicitly stated that he was permitted on my property for purposes of facilitating visitation.
Needless to say, he hasn’t been back, so any attempted contact with these folks would be a very bad idea.
(He did try to get me to consent to allow him back onto my property by contacting me and stating that he had Christmas presents for both of my kids, but I reminded him that he was not allowed on the property and that ended that. I also blocked him on Facebook, all known family members of his, and all of our formerly mutual friends. To this day, I do not believe that he actually had presents — I believe that it was a gambit to get me to allow him [and his family] back onto my property. So does everyone else who knew about that.)
At any rate, people who saw the Twitter conversation who had, and have, no connection to Supernatural fandom came to the same conclusion that law enforcement and Twitter themselves did. More than one.
This is why my children are only allowed to do certain things on the Internet, not have at it carte blanche.
This is classic Bub “I do not like my surroundings”.
He loves this plush so much — it was a gift from a friend — that he takes it everywhere with him, and sometimes he does things like this. And yes, he gave consent for me to take this picture. He doesn’t mind that it is on my blog. If he had his way, I would be mentioning him a lot more on my blog… maybe I should…
Admit it, you came here to admire the curl.
In theory, I have one child who could have and manage his own Facebook account or Twitter account. He’s fourteen, so he’s old enough to. But I don’t feel comfortable allowing him to use a website that requires the use of his full name, and I don’t feel like he’s at a point where he could use any of these sites, would want to, or would get the same meaning out of them that we do. I mean, I could help him manage something… but I’m not sure about that, because if he weren’t enjoying it and wanting to do it, what would the point be? And in a way, it’s kind of ironic. Kids that he has grown up with have their own social networking accounts and enjoyably use them. And here I am, not even using his real name when I make public posts about him. I could if I wanted, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so given real-life (real life? how do you parse that?) circumstances, so here we are. Also, ironically the child in the picture isn’t the child that I’m writing about. He is too young to have social networking accounts of his own. I’m content to allow him to explore on YouTube and YouTube Kids.
Plus, I wouldn’t want to deal with the idea of having to help him navigate online conversations. Not yet.
So here we are. I feel old writing this entry out and I’m only thirty-five years old (my oldest son is fourteen).