I was sent this email at work today. It was written by a woman who my colleague's friend knows personally.

From my email (I edited and removed all identifying names.):

Ladies--

I had the very unfortunate experience of an "encounter" with the young punk assaulting women in the city (with the box cutter, in Gates Circle, Chapin, etc). I AM UNHURT AND OK. I was at Colter Bay on Sunday night & was leaving at about 10:30. I was parked across the street from Tempo. As you know, this is a very well lit area, and there was vehicle traffic, other people around & a lot of people at Colter Bay.

As I was crossing the street in front of Colter Bay, I noticed a young male turning the corner onto Delaware from Allen. I turned right onto the sidewalk & continued toward my car. There was a younger couple walking toward me. Although all of my friends were watching me from the windows to make sure I got to my car, thank goodness one of the guys I was with, recognized the young male based upon the descriptions from the victims & also from the photos published over the weekend. Not to mention that apparently, this kid was closing the distance behind me pretty fast!!

I made it to my car & got inside, & when I closed the door & looked up, this kid was right in front of my car looking at me, smiling & signaling me to get out of my car. I of course had already locked the doors. Anyway, my friend (who recognized the young male) confronted the kid & the kid ran off. We called the police & I gave a description to the P.O. & detectives.

This kid is exactly that, a KID. He has such a baby face. I estimated him to be about 19 years old. He was about 5'8" & 125-140 pounds. He is African American with a lighter complexion-very nice skin. Kind of a pug nose & very full lips. I didn't talk to him, but my friend described him as having a rather effeminate voice.

I thought he was wearing a white t-shirt, but my friend who accosted him, told me that he was in a white hoodie (My friend was behind the kid) under a black leather jacket. He also had a bit of a curly afro under a baseball hat (white front panel & red on the sides). He had baggy dark pants on (I couldn't tell if jeans or not). He was also carrying an over-the-shoulder bag, like those new ones the kids started carrying a few years ago instead of the back packs. He also had a dark plastic bag he was carrying.

We also noticed that there was another older male on the street at the same time that this happened who seemed to disappear when my friend confronted the kid. Also, while we were waiting for police, a metallic brown/champagne colored Ford Taurus pulled alongside Delaware a little farther down & sat for a few minutes before taking off. I don't know if these things mean anything, but I wanted to include them.

In talking to 1 of the ladies in my apartment building, there was also apparently another potential victim over the weekend on Virginia, near Mother's.

I'm sending this around to ask you all to PLEASE be careful--apparently we can't even walk alone across the street to our car at this point. I was stupid enough to refuse a walk but I was fortunate enough to have someone watching & paying attention & who followed his gut instincts. Please pass this information on as you see fit. Check the e-mail messages since I don't think I have updated addresses for a lot of people.

Thanks & be safe,

...

Elmwood not just became a "top-hoo-haa-village", it also became a mugging paradise, very unsafe for women. Try and gloat over that.

Hey there, Recycle Bin Robber!

For your kind information, recycle bins are FREELY AVAILABLE to all Buffalo denizens at each one of these very convenient locations:

C.P.C. International Marketplace; 283 Grant Street; 884-7812
C.P.C. Gloria Parks; 3242 Main Street; 851-4112
Community Action Info Center; 103 Wohlers Street; 885-5925
Parkside Community Association; 2318 Main Street; 851-4324
F.L.A.R.E.; 307 Leroy Avenue; 838-6740
Ken-Bailey Neighborhood Housing Service; 995 Kensington Avenue; 836-3600
Hispanics United of Buffalo; 254 Virginia Street; 856-7110
A.B.L.E.Y. Center; 24 Ludington Street; 895-4074
Northwest Buffalo Community Center; 155 Lawn Avenue; 876-8108
N.H.S. of South Buffalo; 1937 South Park Avenue; 823-3630
Matt Urban Center; 1081 Broadway; 893-7222
City Hall; Niagara Square-Room 218; 851-4890
HomeFront; 560 Delaware Avenue; 856-2952

Source:

The point of giving you this copious information is that I need you to reform your reprobate ways, return my recycle bin and get one of your own! Don't you understand my anguish?? I took a day off work to go to the city hall to get this recycle bin! Well... okay, that's a lie. But you stole my recycle bin; lying is less reproachable. However, to redeem myself, I must clarify that I did take the day off; going to the city hall was a priority on my agenda for that day.

Getting back to the point, I can't take any more days off work. This means I can't get another recycle bin. My recycling stuff would probably collect in a corner of my flat again, and I would soon have no place to live after being chucked out of my building for harbouring rodents in my flat. I would be homeless and roam the streets of Buffalo.

You, dear robber, would then be responsible for the atrocious crime of creating one more homeless person in your esteemed city. Are you sure you want that sort of guilt on your conscience?? Return my recycle bin and the world will be right again!

Sans Cheers,
Tinypliny

I wish I knew Spanish - it's one of most poetic languages around. Add to that some soulful poetry, it sounds like heaven. This song is one of my favourites; it's so full of life and nostalgia! The poetry is by the Don Atahualpa Yupanqui and the musical interpretation is by Paco de Lucia and Montoya. You just can't go wrong with such greatness. For full effect, shout along, in your most throaty voice!

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Noches de Tucumán,
luna la de Tafí:
¿quién pudiera volverse
para los cerros? ¡Ay, ay de mí!

Zamba para bailar:
arpa, bombo y violín;
recuerdo y esperanza
en los pañuelos. ¡Ay, ay de mí!

Suena guitarra,
fiel compañera,
repiqueteando zambas
la vida entera. ¡Ay, ay de mí!

Cerro color azul,
perfumado de azahar:
naranjales en Mayo
y en primavera los amancay.

Noches de Tucumán,
luna la de Tafí,
¿quién pudiera volverse
para los cerros? ¡Ay, ay de mí!

This is getting really serious! Ladies, have your whistles, panic alarms, and foghorns out and ready, at *ALL* times!!!!

From:

Suspect in holdups, sex attacks sought
Police cite similarities in incidents reported by half-dozen women
By T.J. Pignataro NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 09/27/07 7:52 AM

Buffalo police believe the same man may be responsible for as many as a half-dozen robberies and sexual attacks on women in the city dating back to last Thursday.

Detectives Wednesday night were piecing together what they believe were significant similarities in the attacks, which frequently have occurred around midnight.

The assailant is a black male in his 20s, about 5 feet 9 inches tall. He has short hair and often has been reported wearing a green or gray hooded sweat shirt that is usually left open. In a couple of the attacks, he appeared to be jogging. He arms himself with a box cutter.

"Women should be aware of this," said Dennis J. Richards, chief of detectives. "Women should be careful and are encouraged not to travel alone".

The first attack occurred just after midnight Thursday on Potomac Avenue near Chapin Parkway. A woman was forced to perform oral sex on the suspect.

Then, less than an hour later, another woman was attacked at Potomac and Brantford Place. The attacker jogged up behind her, displayed a box cutter or knife and said, "Give me all your money." When the victim said she didn't have any, the suspect said, "I am just playing with you," and grabbed her breasts and buttocks.

The next night, just after midnight, another woman was attacked as she left a gas station at Elmwood Avenue and Hodge Street. She was robbed of $300. The suspect asked for oral sex but fled when the woman refused.

Within a half-hour, a 30- year-old woman reported she was accosted by a man at East Delavan Avenue and Spillman Place near the Canisius College Health Science Building. He demanded she follow him to a parking lot where he pulled down his pants and demanded oral sex. She refused and he grabbed her breast and took $15 from her.

Just before midnight Sunday, a fifth woman reported being attacked in the 100 block of Richmond Avenue. The suspect ran ahead of her and then grabbed her, displaying a knife. He took her purse and wallet and then pulled his zipper down and demanded sex. The woman screamed and was punched in the side of the head by the suspect before he fled.

The sixth attack, which police were still trying to link to the other attacks, occurred at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday in the 100 block of Atlantic Avenue. There, the suspect peppersprayed a 30-year-old woman and ripped her purse off her shoulder. No knife was displayed and the suspect did not demand sex, police said.

"There are enough specific things done and said to believe . . . they are related and could be the same perpetrator," Richards said.

The Sex Offense Section and detectives are investigating.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact detectives at 851-4494.

Just to bring home the point, here is the Mugging crime map of Buffalo.



From a cursory analysis, I would say:
1. The attacker(s) is moving south into posher neighbourhoods.
2. The attacker(s) is attacking *earlier* in the day.
3. The attacker(s) is adding more "weapons" to his arsenal.
4. He(They) is athletic and probably stronger than your average drunken homeless guy.
5. He(They) does not care if you are young or old.
6. and YIKES. This is SO disturbing. :(

If so, where were you mugged and what was extorted out of you? Have you ever thwarted a mugging in Buffalo - either yours or someone else's? What are the ideal weapons that one should carry - would you be likely to be called into court or arrested if you stabbed a potential mugger? And lastly, where would one get the weapons of choice?

I got nearly mugged today, less than an hour back in the semi-dark sidewalk near Delaware and Summer. The creepy character was hiding behind one of the many parked cars on the south side of Summer. As I passed the car he was hiding behind, he tried to spring at me, but I dodged and ran the fastest 30 metres of my life, into my building and up 5 levels of stairs in under 2 minutes!

Though its flattering to find out that I can indeed run and that my lungs are not the mass of solid mud that I previously thought they were, its not so comforting to confront the fact that I could potentially be mugged and that it doesn't always happen to "someone else but not me".

I think its just awful that any creep can have a gun here. At least you can outrun people in countries where guns are outlawed, but unless you are one of those loopy characters in some crazy movies who can dodge bullets, how are you supposed to escape being mugged?? Talk about total unfairness!

Update: My brother just sent me this excellent article:
It has some very sound advice and I think I will just take it *and* get the loudlest little foghorn I can get, so I wake even the dead at Forest Lawn Cemetary, the next time I am mugged.

Update 2: I filed a formal police incident-report.

and any restaurant that allows these vicious chunks of loathsomeness to even come near your food.

I am sure all of you know how evil the common housefly (for the latin among you - Musca domestica) can be. But I constantly come across people who forget the filth and disease that this hideous curse among species can bring to your dining table.



While humans start and end in the earth, the housefly starts and ends in the garbage. As many as 120-200 eggs transform into these revolting harbingers of squalidness at any one time. They most often do so in a bed of warm rotting garbage - the kind that is decomposing and already infested with a variety of other microbes from similar domains of filth.

The loathesome housefly can host up to 30-40 million bacteria in its body and additionally have another billion sticking over the detestable ~12 mm of its revolting body surface - majority of which is covered in dirty sticky coarse hair.

When a fly lands on your sandwich, it first vomits some of its last meal (could be your dog's or your neighbour's excrement) on your sandwich so it could bring up some digestive enzymes to break down the surface of your sandwich and dissolve it. It then treads all over the vomit and your food thus mixing in all the bacteria and parasitic spores and eggs that it picked up from its last shuttle stop, into your sandwich. It then sucks up the semi-solid goo that it created on the surface of your sandwich. As a final touch, it defecates all over your sandwich before leaving for its next victim's tortilla wrap.

Unlike what Neumann lead us to believe, the housefly was never human to begin with and will never be human in any way, especially because it chooses to kill its victims in a most inhuman way.


There are surely better ways to spend your last minutes than lie retching in a hospital and die of complications of gastroenteritis. Do yourselves a favour and avoid restaurants with flies, like the plague. Zap and spray those disgusting minions of excrement at home. Do everything you can to spread the rumours about this nasty demonic insect because all of them are unerringly true.

A good way of getting rid of houseflies without insecticides is to spray them with hairspray -- this affects their ability to fly and thus transfer vermin. You can easily sweep the sprayed flies into garbage, where they rightly belong.

And to the two ladies in the Kaminsky Park today afternoon, who swatted away the flies that landed on their food and continued to eat the entire thing - I hope you got home safe and didn't get any violent dysentery.

I finally went to the city hall today and got my recycle bin!

@@******@@@@******HuRRRRRaYY!******@@@@******@@


O my blue recycle bin
To you my hopes I pin
Over the seas of unrecycled waste
Ferry my plastic and paper with renewed haste!

On a related note, denizens of Elmwood & Around, can you point me to cardboard/plastic/paper recycle drop-off boxes that you may have spotted in and around the Elmwood/Downtown area? I have a ton of cardboard, and milk cardboard cartons that I need to drop-off before I find the right neighbour, whose recycle-box-family I can put my new recycle bin next to.

I know of a couple, but they are a bit of a hike away:
1. On Virginia, on the way to Betty's, across from the fire-station
- Cardboard/Paper drop-off box.

2. On Lafayette Ave, just before the Lafayette-Grant crossing.
- Newspaper drop-off box

Thanks so much for your input!

to hear that the first fully automated restaurant in the world has finally arrived! Goodbye obnoxious, snooty waiters/waitresses! Behave yourselves or you might just be made redundant!

Read all about it here: .

Since I addressed this post to Paul, I feel I should include some kind of food picture now.



This was my dinner tonight. Spaghetti in a bed of Italian-Thai-Chinese fusion Curry.

However, Paul may not necessarily be alive if he ate this. It had a liberal dose of raw cilantro.

I had an absolutely hideous nighmare some days back where I was the garbage bin and people were throwing their disposable cups/plates/boxes/tissues at me. I have had this nightmare recur several times since then and I have thus decided that it's time I did something about it. This is a self-reminding list of what I can do to decrease my leviathan, bloated Carbon Footprint . Some of it may sound like extreme measures, but who said bringing about a change was easy or comfortable?

Outside:

1. Stop taking plastic bags from any grocery store - yeah, including those small baggies I grab off rolls for my veggies/fruits. Alternative: Always carry a backpack. Use a thin-cloth bag for individual veggies.

2. Buy local produce as far as possible. They are way cheaper anyway.

3. INSIST on paper/cardboard take-home containers for take-home food at restaurants and *DEFINITELY* not take-home stuff in those evil styrofoam boxes. Keep a store of brown paper bags/one lunch-box in my bag/backpack if the restaurant does not have any other option.

At home:

1. Recycle and re-use all my existing plastic bags/boxes.

2. Replace all my incandescent bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent ones (I did this yesterday.)

At work:

1. Stop printing out stuff that I am not likely to read anyway or can read on-screen.

2. Stop using that hideous printer which doesn't have a duplex printing option. Instead, print on the huge printer upstairs which can print double-sided and take the effort to trek upstairs everytime I print out something.

3. Turn off my monitor before leaving work.

4. Bring my drinking cup to work and avoid all plastic/styrofoam packaging/cups.

5. Take a ceramic plate to the cafeteria (whenever I am eating there) and request that they put the sandwich/buttered toast on that plate. Avoid using any of those plastic boxes/styrofoam cups that will end up in a landfill.

6. Not grab a handful of paper tissues and end up wasting most of it. Instead, take my own cloth handkerchief/towel.

7. NEVER EVER use those plastic fork/spoon/knives - have a set of my own in my drawer at work.

8. Avoid eating anything from the vending machines - they wreck havoc on your body anyway *plus* they generate a lot of totally avoidable garbage.

9. Bring lunch from home and not buy packaged food, as many days as possible. Make that little effort to get up 5 minutes early to fix lunch in the morning - be it a salad or a sandwich.

10. Turn off the lights when they are not needed.


I think the list is endless - so I will keep adding to this list and make those changes in my carbon-smashing-foot-aggressive life slowly and steadily... even if it means sacrificing some pleasures. Because I hate nightmares - I have seen that they have a way of turning real at some point in time.