It’s seven in the morning, Sunday. I have an hour left of being on call. I’m far too awake for this time of day, but there I am. Weekend morning appointments are semi-criminal.

Missing the days of Woolworth’s snack bars and three comics for a buck. I have an urge to go to a half-empty 70s-style mall with orange walls, globe lights, and formica covered tables with random lines and speckled glitter designs on top.

Calle Ocho today, so no field trip to Miami. Crowded mobs. (at least Southwest Eighth Street between Fourth and 27th avenues.) Good food, fun music, pretty girls… well, maybe I will go. We’ll see what the afternoon brings. Not too dear a haul from Fort Lauderdale.

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Moment of Lyric:

Even a man who is pure at heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright

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I got a ton of writing done yesterday, because I was on a slow dial up connection and chained to the indoors. Nothing on the kid’s book, but a healthy chunk on the bar fight story. Bellsouth is sending out a technician to replace the modem this morning between 8-11am, and my productivity will return to an appropriately slack rate.

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Random Scotto factoid: There are times that I wouldn’t mind a pot brownie, but I can’t have one due to the nature of my job. (Random Tests, even if I’m not on duty).

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I think tulips look really fake.

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The mummified head of famous spy Mata Hari is missing from its home at the Museum of Anatomy in Paris. A recent inventory of the museum’s holdings revealed that the head was missing.

Hari, convicted of spying for Germany in 1917, was executed that year. She faced a firing squad, refusing a blindfold. She also was said to have blown a kiss to the squad members before they fired. Sometime afterward, her head was removed from her body and taken to the Paris museum which houses the heads and brains of many other known criminals, among other items. The head is said to be mummified and has her trademark bright red hair.

Roger Saban, the museum’s curator, believes that an admirer or collector somehow walked off with the famous head. via

She’s my favorite mummified exotic dancer/ spy from WWI.

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Face-character resources: Idaho mugshots Smiling drunks disturb and amuse me.

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Girl Scout cookies remind me of Katt and her niece Wendy (who is now undoubtedly 20ish?) visiting my tiny little place in Boca… I wasn’t expecting anyone, but I was having a moment of insanity, listening to the Carl Stalling Project cranked up and doing some sort of crazy computer thing on my Atari ST. Probably playing Starglider or messing around, drawing outer space taxicabs with Spectrum512.

I was incredibly broke right around that time… I think a month or two later, my phone was disconnected, and I spent a month calling Graypumpkin from the payphone at the post office across the street to remind him when Quantum Leap was coming on.

I think I might’ve been moderately insane at that point in my life, too. At least unbalanced.

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I still can’t believe that the term “MILF” has made it into common usage.

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http://www.jesus-action-figure.com/ – via GrayPumpkin. (This is something he and I would have done in a heartbeat)

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Monkey hot or not

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More free fonts!

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cool tools – A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. Chiefly interested in stuff that is extraordinary, better than similar products, little-known, and reliably useful for an individual or small group.

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Mother blames game in suicide of 11-year-old son

Lorenzo Diaz was an upbeat, well-liked student who proudly took on the role of big brother.

But the 11-year-old also had a fascination with animation-based card games, particularly Yu-Gi-Oh! Family members say his interest in the game, which also can include dice, started about two years ago but turned obsessive in recent months.

Local Yu-Gi-Oh! enthusiasts say the game is harmless fun. But Lorenzo’s mother says his involvement in the game led to his death.

On the evening of Nov. 10, Lorenzo was found dead at a North Hill park, hanging from a sagging, chain-link fence. A blue, cloth dog leash was wrapped around his neck, with the leash’s metal clasp hooked to the fence.

Earlier, he had been playing with dice that came with a Yu-Gi-Oh! card deck. His mother, Rosita Jackson, thinks his death came down to a dice roll.

Lorenzo was baby-sitting his two younger brothers that evening. Their mother had gone to Salineville in Columbiana County to tend to a cancer-stricken aunt. Stepfather Marlo Jackson was returning home from a job in North Carolina.

“Lorenzo was a very mature, responsible 11-year-old,” his mother said. “He had helped me with his brothers before…. He was happy that he was helping. He was very proud of that.”

According to Akron police records, Lorenzo’s brothers, 6 and 8, said he had gotten mad because Brutus, the family dog, had torn through trash in the family’s Oxford Avenue home. In the aftermath of the trash incident, Lorenzo told his 8-year-old brother, Mervin, that he would kill himself if he rolled a “6” on the Yu-Gi-Oh! dice.

Rosita Jackson said Mervin told her the same story as well.

“The dog tore the trash up, and then Lorenzo got mad because they had to clean the trash up,” she said.

Lorenzo and Mervin headed into the basement and grabbed Lorenzo’s purple and gold Yu-Gi-Oh! dice.

“Mervin rolled the dice and got a 4, ” the mother said. “Lorenzo said `You live!’ Then Lorenzo rolled a 6…. Lorenzo tells Mervin, `I die!’ and he leaves.”

Lorenzo’s brothers waited for him to return, but he never did. A short time later, a neighbor out walking her dog found Lorenzo at Sammis Park, across the street from the boy’s home.

The Summit County medical examiner has ruled the death a suicide.

Medical investigators say it would have only taken a couple of minutes for him to be unconscious. With his 110-pound frame weighing down the strap that he was hanging from, he may have lacked the strength to lift himself up once he started, they said.

“I know he didn’t do it intentionally, because that just wasn’t Lorenzo,” Jackson said.

Detectives ruled out homicide. Lorenzo had no defensive wounds or bruises, nothing to indicate another person was involved.

“When you find someone under strange circumstances, you look for trauma or signs there was force used or there was any kind of a struggle,” said Akron Police Maj. Michael Madden. “There were no signs.”

Effects of Yu-Gi-Oh!

Police looked into Lorenzo’s fascination with the Yu-Gi-Oh! game but didn’t find any solid link.

The boy’s mother is adamant about the game playing a role in her son’s death.

“It’s like Dungeons and Dragons where a young kid gets so involved in a game it totally takes over their mind,” Rosita Jackson said. “I believe that’s what happened to my son. This game took over his mind.”

About a month before Lorenzo died, she took his Yu-Gi-Oh! cards because she found out he had stolen money from one of his brothers to buy more cards. She let him go back to playing the game after two weeks.

Jackson said she doesn’t want to see Yu-Gi-Oh! taken from shelves, but she thinks the game’s maker should do more to inform parents about the content.

“It’s really not appropriate for young people,” she said.

The mother has since destroyed her son’s Yu-Gi-Oh! possessions. She doesn’t allow her other sons to play the game anymore. Besides Lorenzo and his two younger brothers, Jackson has two older sons, ages 14 and 18.

“I just want to have peace, and I want my son to have peace,” Jackson said. “I want to get the word out about these cards so parents think and are more aware of what they buy for their children.”

Officials with Konami, which markets some of the Yu-Gi-Oh! games, declined comment.

Local Yu-Gi-Oh! enthusiasts say the game helps youngsters build their math, reading and strategy skills.

At 5th Ave. Flea Market on South Arlington Road in Green, where Lorenzo often went to participate in Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, youths and adults fill tables most weekends for “duels.” They battle with cards to try and take each other’s “life points” away.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! cards feature monsters and other characters that have special powers.

“It teaches you a lot of strategy, where you’re trying to plan ahead and think more,” said Mike Diocedo, 16, of Canal Fulton. “It’s not evil.”

John Chance, who oversees the more advanced Yu-Gi-Oh! matches, said he understands some parents’ concerns.

“But if they really looked at the game for what it is, they would understand that it has nothing to do with evil,” Chance said. “These kids who play this game are all good kids.”

Helping Lorenzo’s family

Those who knew and loved Lorenzo say he was too stable to end his life.

Lorenzo’s mother and biological father, Gilbert Diaz, divorced when Lorenzo was a toddler. But the parents remained friends and made sure Lorenzo and his siblings maintained a close relationship to their father, who lives in Columbus.

A sixth-grader at Jennings Middle School, Lorenzo liked cooking. He had dreams of opening a restaurant that served rice and beans and his other favorite foods. The boy also had a passion for art.

Despite having just moved to Akron from Salineville in May, Lorenzo was quick to make an impression at school. After he died, students, faculty and parents raised $1,300 for the family, who had no life insurance.

Neighbors in North Hill collected about $700. An anonymous hairstylist who didn’t even know the family contributed another $300.

“In that little bit of time, he touched people’s hearts,” Jackson said of Lorenzo. “And a lot of people were touched by this when this happened.”

On a recent day, the mother admired a memorial to her son at the fence where he died. Friends left flowers, white teddy bears and a white cross. The flowers are now wilted, and a candle in a glass holder has burned out.

“We’re leaving Akron,” Jackson said, adding that the family is moving back to Salineville. “I can’t take it no longer. I walk out of my front door, and this (fence) is what I see.”

Inside her home, moving boxes mix with reminders of Lorenzo — the most prominent being his artwork and school photos on a poster board.

“Our lives will never be the same,” Jackson said. “I once had five boys and now I have four. You can’t explain the hurt.”

Lorenzo is buried in Columbiana County’s Kensington next to his great-grandmother. He would have turned 12 next week.

Ugh… I was wondering how long it would be before someone pulled the “D&D lunacy” gambit with CCGs.

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1 year ago – CoH, Batroc, Bro, uncles, crazy yarn, comic styles, DP reboot (dang Byrne), dance cyclopedia, people as mexican food (metaphor)

2 years ago – Nordis = el sucko, LAN setup, Bellsouth, Lovely gifits from Dani, palm update

3 years ago – Applelard’s BDAY!, the moon, cadbury craving, dead website linkies, bil hicks, hairball poll, skijump, silly supers, network names

4 years ago – sweet dreams, evil news, why blowing up buddha isn’t so bad