Early one morning 17-yearold high school student Jane Doe (names of minors are protected under the law) got dressed for school. It wasn't just *any* day, it was yearbook picture day. She had planned ahead and knew just the skirt to wear. She also planned not to wear anything underneath.
She decided that the best way to avoid her panty line showing was to just go without. Noone would notice. But when it cane time for her club picture, she was placed in the front row. Sitting down.
She did her best to keep her legs together, but when she got ahold of her yearbook, she noticed something: you could tell.
Yes, according to Jane Doe and her mother, you can see Janes private parts in the yearbook. Other students tend to agree.
Jane has stopped going to school out of embarasment.
Jane and Mrs. Doe have asked (demanded?) that the school collect all of the yearbooks, stop giving yearbooks out, and republish sans the offending picture.
Seems reasonable.
The schoolboard has refuesed.
They claim that every picture goes through an approval process before inclusion in the yearbook and that you can not see Jane's privates in the picture.
"It's a shadow."
They seem to be very strongly convinced that they are in the right, and the yearbooks will remain unchanged. They're even trying to tell the local media to drop the story--because there isn't one.
Jane and mom are still upset.
I can see both parties points of view.
Jane knows that she "went commando" to school that day. Therefore she probably looked a little harded at the picture. She feels, and therefore her mother feels, that she has been exposed and embarresed in front of the entire school.
Having naked pictures of yourself floating around is never good.
The school knows that it will be *VERY* expensive to collect and republish the yearbooks all because one girl made a blunder. Of course they don't /want/ to do it.
The shadow? The moment they admit that Jane is right, and that her vagina is showing, they *MUST* remove the pic. If Jane is right, then the school has published indecent pictures of a minor. The school is guilty of selling and distributing child pornography to minors and adults.
I wouldn't want to be on that school board.
It would cost A LOT to ensure that EVERY yearbook was collected and destroyed. Find the negatives and destroy them.
And what happens when someone refuses?
The safest course for the school is to deny that a problem exists. Meanwhile, hundreds of students have access to one very embarasing and highly illeagal picture.
Anyone of them could be charged with posetion. All it takes is one call...
Fans around the world cried out in shock when it was announced that an entire Klingon sub-plot had been removed from the new Trek movie. There were to be NO Klingons in the film.
“We actually had a sequence that ended up getting cut from the movie that took place on Rura Penthe, in a Klingon prison,” co-writer Alex Kurtzman told SCI FI Wire, explaining the deletion. “And there was definitely Klingon spoken in the movie, and it ended up getting cut.”
WHAT?!
Klingons have been in EVERY Star Trek movie! All 10 of them! But sadly, after viewing the movie twice, no actual Klingons show up on the big screen. The most we get is a simulated attack by three Klingon ships during Kirk's Kobiashi Maru. Which happens to be what we got in Star Trek II.
We've been informed that the Klingons will be available as a deleted scene on the DVD.
But did Klingon fans miss out entirely?
We didn't.
It seems the Klingons were cut at the last minute. Therefore, all of the marketing (official and otherwise) assumed the presence of Klingons.
Kellogg's
It started with Kellogg's cereal. Inside select boxes of Kellogg's cereal were "beam up badges". Three Starfleet badges, one Romulan, and our favorite, Klingon. As you can tell, it looks like a Klingon communicator, and it lights up. It looks SO much cooler than the Romulan badge.
Burger King
We shall now move onto my friends over at Burger King. Burger King went all out this year. They filmed their commercials on the actual Star Trek sets and they even revamped their mascot, The King.
Behold, the Kingons! (Get it? King-ons.)
Yes. According to Burger King, "Kingons" may be the product of a 'special moment' between The King and a female Klingon.
Burger King even set up a special site Kingon Defense Academy. On this site you can complete your training to protect your BK glasses from Kingons. After you complete your training, it allows you to print out a diploma and rank badge. It even comes with a Kingon mask for your friend to wear while he attacks you.
Yes, Burger King put A LOT of effort into this.
But that's not all! Besides having Kingons, they also had toys! Yes toys. And if you were lucky, you scored a Kingon Warbird.
Scene It?
>
Like all of you, I bought Star Trek Scene It? when it came out a few months ago. And of course all of the tokens (game pieces) were Federation ships. Big deal. But wait! At Best Buy, and Best Buy only, you can get your very own Klingon Bird-of-Prey token! All you have to do is buy Star Trek on a fancy blue disc. Or pay for it.
Yes, now you can challenge your friends to the ultimate test of Star Trek trivia, and show of your Klingon pride!
Ultralingua
Ultralingua has come out with their Regulation Starfleet Klingon Language Suite for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Now you too can learn the warrior's tongue. And on the go! Their Klingon -English dictionary is also available for Windows.
I'm currently downloading the free trial, so I don't know too much about it. But I've heard from people who have the suite that if you don't have an iPhone/iPod, you'll want one now.
Trek Phrase
In competition with the official Ultralinga app, Trek Phrase has released their own Klingon language app for the iPhone. It's not currently available, so I haven't heard any reviews. It's also not "official", unlike the Ultralingua app that's made in cooperation with Simon & Schuster. So we'll see if they even get approved to sell their app. I hope they do.
Sophos Klingon Anti-Virus
And now my personal favorite, a Klingon language anti-virus! Translated by me!!! Okay, I'll admit that I'd rather play with a Warbird than scan my laptop for viruses. But I'm still excited about having this big translation project under my belt. There's not much else to say about this one. It's a Klingon version of thier Anti-Virus scan. That I translated! Download it!
So, with all of the media attention on the Klingons this year, hopefully CBS Paramount will take a hint and include them in the next film.
Honorable Mention
Movie or not, Diamond Select Toys released this Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Worf/Gowron 2-pack. This is another one that I haven't been able to acquire, but it's on my list.
Sadly, there were two not connected to the recent film that also got cut.
Kruge-and Maltz from Star Trek III had their own 2-pack planned. Reports from DST indicate a lack of Internet pre-orders, therefore not warranting production. This had been my one "must have" item of the year. Star Trek III is a GREAT film. It's the reason we have the Klingon language that we have today. It's the reason that the Klingons STILL have the ridges that they have today. And Maltz is the Klingon informant that Marc Okrand gets all of our new Klingon words from.
As many of you know, my birthday is on December 31st. All of you just said a phrase including the words "New Years". And for some reason, whenever I try to make plans, everyone is allready busy.
I have to compete with some ball in New York.
Not only that, but it's less than a week after Christmas. Nobody can afford to give a birthday present a week after Christmas.
Because of this (and other reasons), my friend Tym gave me a second birthday of April 16th. He stuck it in the middle of the summer, away from the distracting winter holidays.
Why he picked this exact date remains unknown.
But it just so happens that after he tried to free my birthday from the shadow of Christmas, I went put a wedding on the second. So now my birthday is in the same month as my anniversary. But that's okay.
So I went to this furniture warehouse the other year, and they gave everyone free popcorn.
So everyone is walking around with these bags of popcorn. Adults and children alike. And they're sticking their greasy fingers all over the furniture, and there's always going to be the occasional spill.
Since when to furniture and popcorn mix?
Anyway, you're probably thinking that it's no big deal.
What if I told you that these weren't "floor models" people were messing up, they were the inventory...
---------------
So a friend of mine used to work at a movie theater, and every night when they closed, they would scoop the popcorn out of those big bins into these big plastic bags.
I appreciate them removing the old popcorn everynight.
But the same popcorn went right back in the bin the next morning...
Today is opening day for "Hannah Montana the Movie", so it makes since that when I went to Kroger earlier, their bakery had Hannah Montana cupcakes.
Why was I buying cupcakes?
Well, back on December 31st, I had a birthday. I got TWO flat tires. The second one was on the way to an extra run that Desiree the Dispatcher had convinced me to take. She felt bad, so she bought me a birthday cake.
It turns out that today is Desiree's birthday, so to return the favor, I went across the street to Kroger to see what their bakery had.
Entering the store was a challenge. When I go to Walmart, they have a Greeter welcome me in. No matter when you go, there's a Greeter.
Not only did Kroger not have a Human welcome me, they barricaded the entryway with shopping carts making me fight my way through the check-out lanes just to get into the store. How hospitable.
I figured that cupcakes would be best. Otherwise I'd have to provide forks, plates, and the like.
They had a rather poor selection.
When I had left the pharmacy, there was a large group of drivers waiting around. Bringing back a 4- or 6-pack of cupcakes wouldn't work.
The *only* cupcake tray I saw was the one pictured. A small cake surrounded with cupcakes, decorated Hannah Montana style.
So I took the tray to the checkout. Only the SelfCheck was open (I hate checking myself out).
When I went to scan the tray, there was no beep. Turns out there was no barcode or price on it.
So I told the cashier. She told me to look on the bottom, which I had allready done.
She said that there was *nothing* that she could do.
I then said, "So I can't buy it?"
And she replied that no, I wasn't able to buy them.
What?
Here I am, holding an item, wanting to pay you for it, and you tell me "No"?
Part of me wanted to just leave the tray on the scanner and walk off, but I'm just not that rude.
So I took it back to the bakery.
And of course, I had to go out through the check-out area to avoid the blockade. And when the cashier saw me leaving empty handed, she said "There weren't any more?"
And I'm all like, I told you that this was the only one. And she's all, well let me go and see what I can find. Maybe there's one in the back.
Too little, too late.
No, you allready told me that you weren't going to sell it to me. Waiting for me to walk out the door with my money still in pocket is *not* the time to turn on the customer service charm. If you had other options, you should have used them while I was holding the merchandise in my hand, when I wanted it. Not after I've given up.
So Saturday, March 21, 2009 somehow turned into "Hannah Montana Day".
The day began watching an episode of "Hannah Montana" with Scotland. Then I had a bowl of Hannah Montana cereal while talking to Ireland.
After we were all up and dressed, we headed up to Marsh (a grocery store) where Radio Disney was hanging out, and celebrating Hannah Montana, and the upcoming movie.
Highlights from the Radio Disney event include:
The head Radio Disney crewmember wore a Hannah Montana-esque blonde wig.
While I was entering Ireland's name into a drawing, Dalyn ran into an old friend, Cory, who was their with her daughter.
I entered the parent hula hoop contest. They gave us a few minutes to practice, and I wasn't doing too well. There was one other dad and a mom competing against me. The mom lady was doing as bad as me, but the dad guy was showing off his mad hooping skillz. The mom and I didn't have a chance. When the contest started, I managed to get a good couple of spins from the hoop, but nothing I could sustan. Amazingly, the dad guy seemed to have gotten a bad start and was fighting to keep his hoop up too. Somehow, against all odds, I managed to outlast them both!
I WON! Not only did I win a hula hoop contest, I won FOUR tickets to an early screening of "Hannah Montana the Movie" AND a two-sided poster!
I'll be seeing the movie two days before it's official release date. Exciting stuff.
After that, the Radio Disney crew taught us how to do The Hoedown Throwdown (the dance to the song of the same name from the new Hannah Montana movie).
Let's just say that I'm better at the hula hoop.
Things slowly moved on, and we eventually left.
Oh! And Dalyn's friend's daughter won the Wii game for the movie.
It turns out that Dalyn was willing to stay, but I mis-read her signals and thought it was time to go.
Then we went to Barnes & Noble so Dalyn could get the new Fruits Basket manga.
I started to look at Miley Cyrus' new autobiography, "Miles to Go" when I correctly interpreted Dalyn, and put it down.
As we headed back home, Dalyn checked her voicemail, and she had missed a call from her friend who was still at Marsh. Turns out, about 20 minutes after we left, Ireland's name was called in a drawing. She would've won the soundtrack to the new Hannah Montana movie, but we weren't present. How disapointing.
***UPDATE***
We ran into Cory at Walmart and she informed me that Ireland's name was also called to win the book.
*** ***
After we got home, Ireland and I hung up the Hannah Montana poster in her room. This is the first item to adore her walls. As it was a two-sided poster, we had our choice of looking at Hannah Montana or Miley Stewart. Dalyn voted for "the horses", which was the Miley Stewart side.
Now normally I would work on a Saturday night, but I had taken the night off to get some translating done. So at 7:00 I turned on Radio Disney to listen to the Planet Premere of the soundtrack to the new Hannah Montana movie that I ('er Ireland) would've won.
Ireland slept through most of it, but when she woke up during the last song (a new version of "The Best of Both Worlds", the theme song from "Hannah Montana"), she requested her Hannah Montana microphone (c.f. http://iksroney.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-of-both-worlds.html). We had tried to find it before going to Marsh, but couldn't.
We searched high and low for the mic. It was gone. The longer this went on, the sadder she became. It was only a few dollars at Target, and we needed a trip to the market anyway, so we rushed out the door to pick up a replacement before they closed.
Dalyn and Scotland stayed in the car while Ireland and I ran inside. (I should take this time to point out that I missed a couple hours of sleep during the day) Somehow, Ireland and I left Target with $16 worth of Hannah Montana merchandise: 3 different Hannah Montana microphones, a Hannah Montana 3-in-1 pen/stamp/bubble wand, a Hannah Montana notepad, and a Hannah Montana stickerbook. We also got a generic bucket of chalk.
We then had an interesting trip to Kroger, where we did not buy the Hannah Montana Easter Egg decorating kit.
After we got home, and Ireland started playing with Her Hannah Montana 3-in1 pen (she is still unaware of the other 2 functions) and Hannah Montana notepad, I did some laundry. In the middle of the laundry basket, was the origional Hannah Montana microphone.
Go figure.
And of course, I spent the day updating Brightkite and Twitter with all of our Hannah Montana happenings. And no one said a thing about my almost exclusive Hannah Montana updates.
--------- We will be seeing "Hannah Montana the Movie" this evening, I'll let y'all know how it is :-)
