Don’t Laugh — This Could Actually Happen

There are still some small towns in northern Ontario, off the highway, down a dirt road, where this sort of thing happens. In fact, most people up there would tell you this is their favourite part of the wedding reception.

Keanu Reeves Says You Are Getting Very Sleepy

Does Keanu Reeves cloud the mind of others? Does he use his nefarious powers to force himself onto unsuspecting women? Does he use his shape-shifting ability to assume the form of a guy named Marty from Ontario?

No. That’s stupid.

This is what an Ontario judge decided today, but it’s strange that it took a judge to make that call. It’s the ruling in a strange, strange case in court in Barrie, Ontario right now, in which a woman claims she had several children with Reeves, the “whoah” actor famous for the major hit films Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Speed, The Matrix and Feeling Minnesota (well, that one, not so much).

She told the judge she and Reeves (a Canadian) have known each other since they were children, had a long-term relationship and he was present for the birth of their children. She asked for $3 million a month in spousal support (retroactive to November 2006) and $150,000 a month in child support (retroactive to June 1988) for her children, now 25, 23, 22 and 21. Take a wild guess at the results of that DNA test: “Keanu Reeves …. you are NOT the father!”

Ah, but there’s a reason for that, she told the court: Reeves is a master hypnotist who can change his appearance and assume other identities, including the woman’s ex and someone called Marty Spencer. He can use those powers to change DNA results. Sometimes, she told the court, he comes and finds her at McDonald’s and uses his powers there. And she can prove it, she told the judge (she represented herself).

• Judge: “Okay, prove it.”
• Woman: “I have the proof. I just can’t show it to you.”
• Judge: “It’s time for you to leave now.”*

This whole thing is ludicrous. Really, if someone like Keanu had the ability to change his appearance and control other people’s minds, he wouldn’t be going to Barrie to make babies. He’d be at home shining all the Oscars he collected for the Matrix sequels.

* Conversation imagined

He’s Making His List, Checking It Twice

This song is dedicated to Mandi.

Mayor Sallie

This small-town American mayor ordered her police officers to stop chasing suspects on foot, then gave reporters the runaround about it. I like how this guy keeps his cool in the face of this kind of lunacy.

This has actually happened to me. Man, I don’t miss being a reporter.

Today’s Moron: Khamir Grant

This 15-year-old from Brooklyn learned a tough lesson this weekend about handguns. He was out with his friends, wearing his saggy pants, a pistol in his waistband. In other words, he was really, really cool. Until something happened:

He shot his own cock off.

I guess I shouldn’t make light of what happened to him. He’s just a kid. But he’s a kid with a gun. He’s a kid swept up in a stupid world that encourages and endorses criminal behaviour, a world where it’s easier for a kid to buy a cheap handgun than cheap alcohol. A sad world.

Guns are attractive. We all know this. We watch action movies, or crime dramas, and we like the shootouts. Remember that scene in The Matrix? “We need guns. Lots of guns.” Tell me that isn’t cool. I recently saw Shoot ‘em Up and Wanted, two okay movies that dwell on the cult of the handgun in a big way. How about Equilibrium, with Christian Bale’s gunkata martial arts?

By liking these things, are we contributing to the problem? Are we telling young people that they should be carrying firearms? I don’t think so. I’m in my 40s, and I watch action flicks. I like watching people fight … when it’s fiction. And I continue to do so, as I did as a kid. I liked all those things as a teenager, but the closest I got to illegal weaponry was the time we found an old stop sign in the ditch, took it to the school metal shop and made ninja throwing stars out of it.

But I had strong parenting. A lot of people don’t. Whether they live in Brooklyn or small-town Ontario, Canada, England, the U.S. or wherever, there are some kids adrift. And when handguns are that easy to find, shootings happen. In this case, Khamir — who I will conclude is not very bright, given the position he’s put himself in — made a series of stupid decisions that have guaranteed he’ll never be the same again.

My oldest son loves guns. He loves war, soldiers, video games, anything to do with firearms. And that used to worry me a bit. But he’s lucky — and I’m lucky, I suppose — that his stepfather is an avid hunter and shooter, so he’s learning the real rules of firearms, the safe way to shoot, from someone who knows the danger signs and understands how to balance that gun fascination with the real world. I’d like to think that my kid can play Halo without feeling the need to hide a stolen handgun in his waistband.

Anyway, let’s hope Khamir feels better as his case works its way through the courts. And let’s hope his story inspires at least one other teen moron to chuck that illegal pistol in the river.

Today’s Morons: PC World Staffers

I have never shopped at PC World, because the electronics chain is in England and I am not. But I am a gadgety guy, and I shop in a lot of similar stores, and I know what it can be like. Techie nerds who work in techie stores sometimes display a kind of contempt for those of us who do not know as much as they do about things with a lot of initials, like ADSL, DRAM, BIOS and PMU. It’s all GIGO to me.

Here’s a real conversation I had in 1995, when I decided to try out this “Internet” thing and went to the storefront operation run by the only Internet Service Provider in town.

• Me: “I’d like to get the Internet running on my computer at home.”
• Sales Dork: “Great! Blah blah blah $16.99 a month for X amount of minutes, here’s the floppy disk that’ll install it all. Just put it in your PC and away you go!”
• Me: “I’m on Mac.”
• Sales Dork: “Oooh, Mac, yeah, I’m not sure if Macs can go on the Internet …”
• Sales Dork Supervisor: “Sure they can! I’ll take over from here. We can offer you the same Internet package as our PC users, sir.”
• Me: “Great!”
• Sales Dork Supervisor: “But we don’t have the setup software available. No problem, though. All you have to do is go to our FTP site and download it.”
• Me: “Uh, how do I get to the FTP site if I don’t have Internet access?”
• Sales Dork Supervisor: “Just go to the FTP site and download it.”
• Me: “Like I said, how would I do that? How would I go to the FTP site to get the software I need to go online if I can’t get online in the first place?”
• Sales Dork Supervisor, after a long pause: “I guess … uh … go to the FTP?”

Luckily, I had a friend who had a friend who could fix me up, and I was up and running. And going online with a Mac — in the days when you couldn’t cross-platform things like floppies, CD-ROMS, peripherals and even websites, in some cases — was no easy task. I spent years dealing with small-town computer sales dorks … by the time things stabilized, I had somehow ended up as a Windows user anyway. Go figure.

I had a point here. Oh, yeah: PC World morons in England have been caught using a Facebook group to insult their customers. This seems to fit with the way PC World staffers have been described in the past. “Our chain has been repeatedly criticized for poor service, and customers are leaving, and retail in general is suffering, and electronic retailing in particular is hurting, and jobs are being lost … let’s tell the people who keep trying to give us money that they’re annoying losers.”

Until today, the only things I know about PC World came from the occasional remark made by some of my British associates, who will often mention the chain as being particularly poor when it comes to decent service. Also, I used Google to learn more. Now, though, as I read about this Facebookery gone wrong, I have to shake my head. Again and again, people land here at Today’s Moron by forgetting that what they do online can actually be read by other people. For computer-industry “professionals” to make that mistake points to a bigger problem.

Here’s my solution for PC World: Don’t just hire the first dink who shows up. Screen your candidates. Train them. Treat them well. And make sure they know that they’re there to take that money from people who want to spend it. Pissing customers off is no way to save a business. Letting your staff get away with it makes them think they can keep doing it online.

Here’s my solution for PC World workers: Some customers will be assholes. They will be rude. They will not know what they want, or have a limited understanding of what they’re asking for. You will not like this. Too bad. They’re there to give you money, and you should do whatever they want.

Here’s my solution for customers: If you get even the slightest taste of bad service, walk away. I’ve done it. It works. Just this week, I spent 15 minutes in line at the pharmacy while the one cashier on duty dawdled. I was running late, and couldn’t wait any longer, so I turned, left my purchases on a vacant checkout, and walked out. A manager chased me down, opened a till, processed my purchase and treated me like gold. That’s class.

I’ll bet you he didn’t complain about me on Facebook afterwards, either.