In New York, they give out these cards when you make a donation to policemen’s organizations (or if you’re a friend or family member of a cop). You keep them in your wallet and when you get pulled over for running a red light or whatever, you show the card and then the cop then gets to decide whether to give you a ticket or not. The New York Times is reporting today that these "Policemen’s Benevolent Association" cards are now being sold on eBay.

We have something just like this in California — ever seen those "11-99 Foundation" license plate frames? Same thing. You pay money and in exchange you get a frame that says "don’t pull me over for speeding, brother."

This is totally not eBay’s fault (although a spokesdroid from one of the NY cops associations said that selling them online is "inappropriate"). Handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards in the first place is inappropriate. It’s completely corrupt. Donating to policeman’s benevolent associations is swell and all (although I can think of charities that seem more worthy to me). But giving out membership cards and license plate frames with the obvious implication that you’re going to be let off for minor traffic offenses seems utterly scummy to me.

Update: Dilbert addresses this issue today.

  Penelope 078 by eightdotthree.

Not all of whom necessarily should. I’m not saying anything here, I’m just saying.

When you use the "Add Engines" command to add new search engines to the Firefox search bar, you’re taken to a page that gives you the option to add a number of lovely search engines, including one for Wikipedia.

But then when you click to install it, it really installs something called "Wikipedia&Google" which isn’t the same as Wikipedia search at all. To demonstrate, if you type in a common phrase like "Berlin Wall" into real wikipedia search, you’re taken straight to the Wikipedia topic for the Berlin Wall. If you type the same phrase into this "Wikipedia&Google" abomination, you’re taken to a page of Google search results, which you then have to sort through.

Maybe this isn’t "evil" (who do I ask for a refund from first, Wikipedia or Firefox?) but certainly unexpected and unwelcome. This is particularly bad since it’s not easy to uninstall search engines you add to the Firefox search bar.

The floppy dried-up skin peeled off on Thursday, leaving a shiny pink scar that looks fairly horrific (although not as scary as when the finger had 12 Frankensteinesque stitches in it). The finger is still quite swollen and it’s still difficult to make a fist, although I’m trying to follow the hand surgeon’s advice by forcing my hand shut eight or ten times each day to make it more flexible. This isn’t easy; I sometimes have to use my left hand to make my right hand close all the way.

The skin at the base of the finger is really tight. When I stretch it or twist it, it feels tight and there’s some sharp pain, like the wound wants to open up again. This makes it hard to reach inside my pocket or pick certain things up with the hand (although I’m nearly back to 100% of my normal typing speed, and I did do some simple graphics work in Fireworks today, doing a new Konfabulator widget which I’m hoping to get done over the weekend).

Sorry for the ick factor, but over-sharing is one of the ways that I deal. (I ran all this down for Dave today and for a second I thought I was going to see him keel over with disgust.) After having a screwed-up hand for three weeks now, I’m looking forward to this being done with. Maybe there’ll be some improvement by the time I see the doctor again a week from Monday.

  pug vader by adampsyche.

this is WRONG.

OK, so they’re up to five blades now. That’s pretty messed up.

People of a certain age can remember when the three-blade razor was an extra-humorous Saturday Night Live fake commercial. Three blades? That’s ridiculous. Don’t you know people in third world countries would kill for a single blade? Now 3+ blades are de rigeur, apparently.

When I was a teen, I had to figure out shaving by myself because my peach fuzz came in right around the time my parents got divorced; I suffered from a lack of parental guidance in the shaving department. As a result, I never really questioned my technique or my equipment. I embarked on a search for a new razor this year after my sister mocked me for using the same cheapo disposable razor that our dad used to use. After much searching, I settled on the Gillette twin-blade, which tears through my scraggly beard like a Sherman tank. It also has this lubricant strip, which I figured was a cheesy gimmick (to get you to buy more razors) but actually seems to make a difference. It’s noticably better than the cheapo model that Dad and I used to use.

I actually did try one of the three-blade jobbies and they didn’t make a huge difference. But gentlemen, if you haven’t revisited your shaving choices in a few years, I’d urge you to spend some quality time at your local Walgreen’s and explore your options.

I’m growing my Van Dyck back, by the way. I let it go over the labor day weekend on a lark and the wife noticed it coming back and liked it, so I guess I’m keeping it.

Update: Chad scientifically predicts when to expect the six-blade shaver.

Some psycho ran his car over ten ducks and ducklings that live at a car wash in Campbell, then got out and used his bare hands to mangle the ones he couldn’t drive over.

This bummed me out since I had a personal relationship with those ducks. I used to love seeing those little guys (they live across the street from the joint where I used to work). A car wash with its duck pond is not the kind of thing you see every day but fortunately this loon didn’t bag all of them.

The car wash is collecting cash for a reward fund to help them catch the guy, they’re up to $14,000 so far. Fortunately their security camera caught it so maybe they can nail this idiot.