Last Night Google Saved My Life

Due to one of my old posting topics, namely the aftermath(s) of the local party scene through the amused eyes of the editors of the local sheriff’s blotter, I get a lot of search engine hits from queries on crime in Isla Vista. I momentarily resurrect this topic because something in this week’s blotter caught my eye:  

Working on a hunch after spotting an acquaintance wearing a T-shirt similar to one she’d been missing, the victim decided to check popular blog websites to do some investigating. Her research proved useful when she found online photos of the acquaintance wearing other articles of clothing that had been missing.

Using the evidence collected by the victim, deputies contacted the subject in question. In a tearful confession, the 20-year-old university student explained the reason behind her actions.

“I work three jobs and I don’t have any money … I didn’t think she cared if I took a couple of her things,” the Isla Vista resident tried to reason.

After returning a number of belongings stolen from the victim, including a Chanel purse and Juicy Couture jeans, the suspect was arrested for grand theft.

Crime doesn’t pay, kids, but it does give me a small fragment of the twenty or so hits this humble weblog receives on a daily basis. I wonder if the victim of this particularly vicious crime ran across yours truly in the search for her missing Juicy Couture jeans. The world is shrinking. In other crime-related news,

Unfamiliar with his surroundings on a recent visit to Isla Vista, a 22-year-old Fresno resident was arrested for public intoxication. It was just after 2 a.m. when authorities found the man urinating outside the Isla Vista Foot Patrol entrance on Pardall Road.

During his arrest, the man admitted, “I’m not going to lie and say I’m sober.

Who lets these Central Valley yahoos into our little corner of paradise? The Isla Vista Foot Patrol building is the proper territory of UCSB drunks, not Cletus from Fresno. Why, I hear that just a few years ago a man from Turlock was eaten alive by angry Gauchos for trying that exact same stunt. Will they ever learn? 

The Fate of a Neglected Weblog

I have no plans to kill this weblog off like I did with the Typepad account and I really don’t want to delete all the content and start over. WordPress doesn’t even give me access to the spam I used to enjoy. That being said, I am considering starting up another weblog with a more coherent theme. I’m not sure what to write about, though possible subjects include violent video games and literature/theory. Among the Barbarians just isn’t working anymore and the beauty of being a nobody is that I can just pack the thing up and move elsewhere. This is why it’s great being small-time. No delusions of grandeur.

The Beginning of the Term

All is apparently quiet in college land, probably at least until Thursday when the Barbarians get back to their job of getting drunk and entertaining me. All is somber at the sheriff’s blotter this week, just a few drunk drivers and speed freaks landing in the pen, but here’s an odd one:

A renter on Modoc Road called authorities claiming somebody entered her home and placed a new splitter in her television cable. The woman said nobody had permission to enter her studio apartment.

The incident was filed as a suspicious circumstance.

I never saw The Cable Guy. Was it anything like this?

My Complicated Relationship with the Sheriff’s Blotter

It was only a little over a month ago when I bewailed the failure of the local police blotter to give any interesting or funny stories about Halloween related incidents. Then, all the way in December they decide to post the stuff. These people have their holidays way ass backwards. The way things work they should have started posting stories about crimes that were going to happen around Christmastime back in early November. I know that’s impossible, but work with me. Oh, well, better late than never I suppose. Here’s my long belated entertainment:

Swaying side to side dressed in a monastic habit, or monk’s robe, a Halloween participant was detained in Isla Vista with little effort — the pseudo-minister was in a drunken state of mind and unsteady on his feet. After his arrest for public intoxication, the 19-year-old was transported to a higher place — the Santa Barbara County Jail.

What? Not good enough? Fine then, take this:

Unable to spell her name and wearing an angel costume, a winged 18-year-old coed was making her transport difficult as she flailed in the arms of her escort. Deputies concerned for her well-being stopped the university student­ — and her escort — as they staggered down an Isla Vista street.

For her own safety, and the safety of others, the woman clueless of her surroundings was arrested for public intoxication.

Still not satisfied? Okay. I saved the best for last:

After he was contacted mid-stream by authorities for urinating in public, the startled man continued to relieve himself on his pant leg. After urinating on himself during initial contact, the intoxicated subject was asked to sit down. Before looking where he was sitting, the young man, 18, sat in his own urine.

Had these stories been published back in November, as they should have been, my hopes would not have been so instantly shattered. I should be mad. However, I have already forgiven the blotter and must accept this late apology.

Thursday Again

You know the  drill. The Faster Than the World column is up. I’ll be in my black hole until Moday.

Acoustic Dylan and Site News

GP is tackling serious stuff. The kind that I won’t touch for fear of making too many enemies.

-c has added a blogroll and writes about football.

The Ambassador hasn’t done anything since our lurker in South Carolina freaked her out.

Yours truly has his second column up at Faster Than the World (hint) and is waiting for Michele to get sick of him.

I just realized that over a week has passed without a police blotter post. That must be remedied. Oh, wait, it can’t. There is no blotter up on the local paper’s website. Well, I am certainly not going to actually go out and buy a freaking newspaper. Not even the Daily Nexus has a blotter report on their page. It isn’t like I’d go get one of those either, considering that I can only procrastinate so much before flunking out of school. Go, click links. It’s what the Internet was made for. Here’s some Dylan.

More Electric Dylan

Five days in LA with the family was enough to remind me how nice life is, and coming back home was icing on the cake. I have, as of today, finished all four presentations in my very first quarter as a graduate student and still without a nervous breakdown. Two weeks to go and two papers to write, then I can officially feel like part of the new community. So here’s some Dylan from 1976 because I’m in a pretty good mood. Let’s see how long it stays up.

Pre-Thanksgiving Police Blotter Post

I found myself so swamped with homework a few days ago that I told everyone to not bother looking for new content here and directed you all to Faster Than the World. Well, it looks like I might now be a regular contributor over there. Can’t very well turn down an offer to write among those who I admire, now can I? So, I guess this means a new deadline and no more drinking on weeknights. If everything goes as planned my first entry should be up on Turkey Day. As the wise ones say, no good deed goes unpunished.

This post was going to be a public domain image, but either WordPress or my computer is acting funny so it’s a blotter post instead. The blotter isn’t too interesting today, but this item is kind of amusing:

A handful of females fighting in Isla Vista, including an 18-year-old cosmetology student wearing “platform shoes,” were quickly subdued with a blast from a can of pepper spray.
The brawlers were arrested for unlawful fighting and challenging others to fight.

I’m not sure what exactly constitutes “unlawful” versus “lawful” fighting. I can say, though, that I hope someone captured that on video and is currently plastering it all over YouTube.

Placeholder Post

Blogging will be very light for at least a week. I suddenly realized how much homework I have to do and so all writing energy will be concentrated elsewhere. (GP: I’ll try to pick up the conversation where we left off.)

In the meantime, check out Faster Than the World if you haven’t already. They’re in the sidebar as well. It’s an excellent site and I have wasted entirely too much time over there. Not only that, but I discovered The Dresden Dolls there, also highly recommended if you don’t know them.

Go, my five or so loyal minions! I command you!

The out-of-Towners Can’t Hold Their Liquor

It’s Tuesday again, and that brings out the crime blotter. Suddenly the blotter and I are back on good terms after my disappointment with the lack of post-Halloween horror stories. Police blotter, allow me to formally apologize and offer my mended heart back to you.

Normally I’m a stubborn kind of fellow and wouldn’t dream of taking back a wayward lover, but the blotter has brought me not one but two fine gifts this week:

An ill 18-year-old found passed-out in an Isla Vista park tried to blame his nausea on a peanut allergy. However, when law enforcement attempted to get emergency medical crews to the scene, the vomiting man changed his story.

“No, I didn’t really eat peanuts,” he confessed. “I had too many shots (of alcohol) in a row.”
No longer needing paramedic assistance, the 18-year-old student from the University of Southern California, unable to care for himself, was arrested for public intoxication.

I knew the damn Trojans were a bunch of wimps. Don’t let the football fool you. One too many shots and they’re faking allergies to the police. Man up, boy! You’re drunk. If you are going to get yourself arrested for public intoxication at least act like a complete asshole. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Second item on the agenda:

After scaling a wall to a second-story balcony, the unknown male entered an upstairs apartment through a set of French doors, alarming the only resident home at the time. The victim told deputies she was sitting at her desk in her Isla Vista bedroom when the young man described as “cute,” poked his head around the corner.

Stating he was looking for a friend, the well-dressed slender man “with spiked hair,” quickly left the scene the same way he’d entered.

Funny, I did something similar earlier this year. But I was sober, I swear, and I only knocked on the wrong person’s door. It was dark. No Spiderman attempts here. The drunkards in this area are lucky that there is a fairly low redneck count. Otherwise I suspect there would be far more shootings.