Help him escape from Hello Kitty hell!

I've posted links to the Hello Kitty Hell blog a couple of times. Basically it's the ongong story of a man whose wife is addicted to Hello Kitty, and of all the hideous and soul-sucking wonderful items she finds and that people send him images of.

Well, now the hilarity has some real-world stakes. So warm up your keyboards, folks...

Help Me Get Rid of 200 Hello Kitty Items: Comment!

One of the activities I undertake each year is collect toys for a local orphanage in Japan. While the orphanages here are pretty well run compared to other places in the world, there isn’t a whole lot of extra money for toys for the kids. So every year I go around and collect small toys such as bottle cap figures, key chains, phone straps and plush (stuffed animals) for the boys and girls.

In one of our recent discussions about this blog (my wife has learned to ignore it to a great extent, but when she does visit, I usually get an earful…) this past weekend, my wife commented that it’s always the same people who comment on this blog which means it’s only the same people who read this blog all the time. I argued that while there are a core group that tend to comment quite a bit, there are a lot of readers that just read and never comment (I should have added, “because everything is so ridiculous that it makes them speechless” but I was already treading on this ice of being sent to the couch in the Hello Kitty sleeping bag).

She gave me one of those laughs like “nice try, but I won’t believe it till I see it.” So I challenged that if I can get 1000 different people to comment on a post, would she be willing to donate some of her Hello Kitty stuff to the orphans? She agreed, but also stipulated that if I fail to reach 1000, I have to take her on a Hello Kitty trip this August and I’m not allowed to complain at all (that certainly would be nothing short of Hello Kitty Hell…)

So here’s the deal. For every 5 new people that comment (if it’s to say something bad about Hello Kitty, all the better, but even if it is something positive, I will forgive you since it’s for a good cause) my wife said that she will donate a Hello Kitty toy to the toy drive (even if if the total doesn’t reach 1000). 100 comments means 20 toys, 500 comments means 100 toys and 1000 comments means 200 toys. With your help, I have the opportunity to rid our house of 200 Hello Kitty items that will go to a good cause and my wife won’t even be able to complain about it. How great would that be?

If you're so inclined, lend the guy a hand and post a comment. If you'd like to spread the word further, repost the above in your own blog. Help save a hard-working blogger from a Hello Kitty hell vacation, and get those kids some toys! :-)

A tale of Yahoo! Answers

Once upon a time, over in the Yahoo! Answers Religion & Spirituality section, there was a user who went by the handle of Debra M, a Catholic lady who always asked and answered questions with grace, honesty, and humor. And she was widely liked, and even loved by some.

A week ago, she died after a long illness. And many people were greatly saddened.

Today some wanker decided to clone her and impersonate her on the R&S board. You know, just for the LULZ.

Great was the outrage, but apparently the wanker has some friends, since those friends went through thumbs-downing every answer that was critical of the wanker's actions.

The appropriateness of standing up for a dead person was questioned, and some people actually got the point of said question.

And then, in response to another question, the probably identity of the wanker was revealed. And when people track him down, yea verily, mighty will be the fallout.

Me, I'm making popcorn. This promises to be entertaining.

(And nope, I can't show you any of the clone's activity. The account was reported on every single post and question under the "illegal" catagory for impersonating another member, albeit a dead one, since Debra M's real account still exists on Yahoo!. The clone ended up getting suspended, but I suspect The Rev. Kip's troubles on Y!A have just begun. You reap what you sow, karma's a bitch, and capering around wearing the ripped-off mask of a recently departed and well-respected board member just isn't done.)

EDITED TO ADD: You can get some idea of what kind of person Debra M was here.