-
Alleged Arson Suspect Guy Allegedly Caught!
AS YOU KNOW, we’ve had a harrowing few days here in the disgusting cesspool that is Los Angeles thanks to some guy running around lighting fires!
Thankfully, he’s allegedly been caught but given the LAPD’s recent track record with alleged suspects (cough cough Dodger Stadium beating cough cough), who can really say for sure?
Now, the first thing they tell you in the continuing education class “Blogging: The Wave of the Future But Is It Right For Me And How Much Money Do I Stand To Lose Doing It?” at Oxnard Community College (best $145 I ever spent and definitely worth the two-hour drive to Ventura during rush hour on Tuesday and Thursday evenings!) is unless you’re specifically going to blog about local politics and news, stay the hell away from local politics and news, so’s not to limit your blog’s appeal.
See, the last thing you want is a blog whose content is so esoteric that it’s only relevant to a tiny percentage of everyone on earth who has internet access, insists our professor, Sylvia Haynes-Darden, of Random Musings and Ramblings of A Militant Christadelphian Organic Pistachio Farmer Who Collects Vintage 70s Dannon Yogurt Lid Inserts. And evidently, she should know!
Where the hell was I?
Oh! Anyway, I must have clicked on something accidentally last night and ended up on the website of Los Angeles’ worst newspaper ever, the cesspoolular, to coin a word, Los Angeles Times.
They had an article about “social media” and its role in this whole story:
Credit: The venerable Los Angeles Times
You’ll get the gist of the story from the quote I’ve included below, despite my attorney’s admonitions:
Above: A quote from the LA Times story by Matt Stevens and Richard Winton, and that oughta satisfy my goddamn attorney.And despite what you just read, I’m here to insist that the way Twitter is designed may have, in fact, prevented the cops from catching that guy sooner!
You see, two nights ago, yes, New Year’s Eve!, aware of the situation, I was extra vigilant, keeping a wary eye out for anything unusual. And as luck would have it, I did see something suspicious. So I got on my Twitter account (which you’d know if you actually followed me, which you don’t unless you’re User QuakerChewy or User Nevada, my two goddamn followers, and I love them both) and posted it immediately:
Or at least I tried to! That’s as far as I got before that ridiculous 140-character limit kicked in.However!
As it turns out – and I found this out later – the smoke wasn’t from a car fire as I suspected, but rather someone grilling fresh feral cat on a hibachi. (This was, after all, in the “Little Czechoslovakia” section of L.A. – enough said there!)
So, at least in this one instance, it was probably fortunate I didn’t waste the police or fire department’s time, and just as well that I was limited in my Twitter message (or “Tweet”) and never got the full address out.
But I want you all to know – Sylvia Haynes-Darden, the others in my class, my attorney, the attorneys for the LA Times, and the rest of you who have access to the internet all over our home we call Earth:
Even if I had managed to finish typing out the address, rest assured, I’d have made up for the mishap by treating all emergency personnel who’d have responded to this false alarm to the best feline kapustnika they’ve ever had from an unlicensed street vendor this side of Prague!
Ted Parsnips
?>
