Yesterday I wrote about winston-salem-crime.com, a free web service that "mashes up" Google Maps with crime data from the Winston-Salem police.  Today I found this handy little service called RottenNeighbor.com.  It’s not really a "mash up" since they simply want people like you and me to add rotten neighbors to their own Google Map database. 

I put in my zip code and the closest neighbor was one town over in Clemmons, NC.  Here’s what someone wrote about their neighbor:

Mr. — (name redacted) gets stoned and rides his ATV through other peoples property
spinning donuts and tearing things up at 2 a.m. What a loser.

This leaves me wondering what recourse someone might have against a person posting such information about them on a website.  While I can’t imagine anyone using his own name when posting a comment I do wonder if it would be possible to get the IP address of the poster if someone were to sue the site’s owner to get it.  Oh, wait…I just found one where a girl signed her own name.  Sheesh.

The site does have the usual disclaimer page, but that basically indemnifies them and not the user.  I’m thinking you’re taking a pretty big risk if you post something nasty, whether or not it’s true.  However, it does make interesting reading. Check out this one from someone in another part of North Carolina:

This man has 2 children( his own) and 2 step children. I had to go
through the courts to get him to pay his Child support as agreed. He
pays 350.00 a month for one child, one is grown. He pays the 350.00 and
that’s it. He doesn’t want nor does he feel the need to give anything
over that 350.00. Even when his child goes to him and begs him to help
him out with school activities that require alot of money. When he
found out how much he was suppose to pay each month he told me and his
son he’d quit his job before he’d pay me that. What does that say about
the love and concern he has for his own flesh and blood. He is a piss
poor excuse for a dad. He doesn’t spend quality time with his son and
now he’s almost grown. It’s too late now the damage has been done and
he reaps what he has sown. His son has a job now and doesn’t want to
have much of anything to do with his dad. I wonder why.

And then there’s this beauty, which I found when I put in our old zip code in Northern Virginia:

I GET BEATEN BY MY WIFE HARSHLY. SHE ONCE THREW ME DOWN THE STEPS AND I
LANDED ON THE PITBULL WHICH CAUSED HIM TO BITE THE BACK OF MY THIGH AND
I COULDNT EXPLAIN THE LIMP TO MY CO-WORKERS DUE TO EMBARRASSMENT, I
COULD SIT AT MY OFFICE. HELP!!!!

Rex Hammock loves Google Earth.  In his post about how cool the newest version of what he calls the "Best Program Ever" he writes this:

Not quite so significant, but really cool, the new version has a hidden feature, not publicized by Google: An F16 flight simulator, as described by a student in South Africa.
It was discovered by someone who — and hats off to you people who do
such things — held down the keys, Ctrl+Alt+A (or, if you’re running OS
X it’s Command+Option+A). I’m sure, if you’ve grown up playing
videogames or coding software, or whatever, you may think to click
Ctrl+Alt+A when you’re trying out software, but I’m always impressed
when I hear about the games developers play and the users who ask
themselves, “I wonder what will happen if I do this…?”

I think anyone who has a kid that plays video games has experienced a similar phenomenon.  On the rare occassion that I sit in with my kids to play X-Box they’ll invariably point their avatar towards some inanimate object, say a big rock, then press the A, B and Z buttons simultaneously which causes their avatar to do a flip while busting a massive fart that causes the rock to melt and reveal a hidden passage.  I ask them how they figured this out and they always say something like, "Well there’s no other way off this level so I figured there must be some way to get to the other level.  On my other game, ButtBlaster 5.0, if you hit A, B and Z you get a nuclear fart that kills the Super High Priest of Poop and those same guys made this game so I figured I could try the same thing on the rock."  This is said in about two nano-seconds as they can’t afford to be distracted from their conquest by actually engaging in thoughtful conversation (I’m convinced that commas aren’t used in communication by anyone under the age of 25) and after my brain has caught up with what they’ve said I decide that:

1. My kids are destined to be much more successful than me.
2. I need to leave the room immediately, grab a beer and do what any self-respecting American male over the age of 40 would do: watch football on that totally retro TV.