December 25, 2004

• Who knows? Maybe some pitying buyer will just mail the gifts right back.
• He mentioned donating some auction money to his church. Why not send the kids there as punishment instead (or in addition to the current punishment)?
• The eBay auction in question. "Our church is small and really needs a new heater. That's why I'm only giving my kids a bicycle, a fish tank and a karaoke machine."
• "On our past auction this page was copied and duplicated by someone with bad intentions," the Pasadena information technology specialist wrote in this morning's ad. "We posted their name to our auction and brought it to everyone's attention. Because our actions were good and honorable — Ebay cancelled the auction." Yeah, because if you wrote it, it must be true. Sheesh. Just report the offending auction and it'll be removed, just as quickly and easily as yours was when you failed to understand the relatively simple Terms of Service. Oh, and didn't this happen last year?
• Next year it'll just be an aluminum pole and the Airing Of Grievences. I'm with this guy (excpet for the part about humiliating his kids coast to coast). Too many kids make the "good" list without being good. It's a creative way to bring about accountability, and as far as punishments go, this is very mild indeed. But then, as a grumpy old man, it's very hard for me to condone giving such an expensive video game system in the first place. When I was a child all I got were wooden blocks, and even then they were made out of dirt.
• Sounds like an urban legend.
• Bicycle, Karaoke machine, aquarium. These are all expensive gifts (over $100). Seems like the kid got really nice stuff anyways. A Nintendo DS system is rather lavish a present, no matter what your lifestyle.
• Does anyone know what the approximate market value on these items is?
• He should save the eBay proceeds to pay for the legal bills from his kids suing him ten years from now.
• The commentary includes this gem: "In a Thursday interview with the Chronicle, the man and his 34-year-old wife said they were fed up with their three sons' misbehaviour. The boys
• I acted as these kids did in my day, just not around my parents who wouldn't have been cool enough to handle it.
• Perhaps they are trying to get involved in their children's lives and monitor their behavior - i.e. the dad's refusal to give his children their presents is operant conditioning. It might be a small punishment (well, when compared to corporal punishment, of course) but it's the first step in molding their behavior into what is desired.
• five thousand dollars? what the fuck
• He should've put them up for adoption. That'd really teach them a lesson. The lesson learned by these kids is that when you say something stupid, you should never, ever back down from it.
• Unless you have a bad nanny or live on a kibbutz, start taking responsibilty for your children's behaviour. What do you think they're doing? Punishing kids of misbehavior is step one, no?
• If the kids have any sense, they'll go online with Dad's credit card and bid, bid, bid....
• No, step one would have come long ago (unless the kids were suddenly afflicted with some strange disease which made them misbehave now): they are 15, 11 and 9 years old, after all. Perhaps he and his wife should have become more involved parents years ago. In any event, anyone buying a karaoke machine is a complete and utter idiot.
• Kill them. Kill them hard.