Merry F*cking Christmas.

I got a card from Rob last night that said "Hope your holiday season, um, gets better." I'm sort of chuckling about that as I'm trying to open the door. Hmm, it's stuck. Try it again. Still stuck. Almost as if the security latch has been enganged from the inside... oh hell.

Yup. We got robbed again. That's the fourth time, for those of you keeping score. (I didn't mention the third time in the blog as I didn't want to freak out my parents and hey, we'd just put in a bunch of security improvements. So we were safe after that, right? Well.....) They actually bent the lock on the back car gate (because the side gate was chained too securely), brought a ladder in and climbed up to a second story window.

The good news is, the security improvements we'd put in -- new locks, security latches that only open from the inside, etc. -- worked. They tried to force open the door and it didn't work. Hah! Bastards. Alas, they found another way. I have (had) a window into my pantry that was boarded up and nailed shut. They ripped the boards off and broke through the window, making off with most of my consumer electronics. Bastards, again.

So I'm furious. I'm livid. I'm damn near foaming at the mouth. I've called about 3 different brands of cops (the community policing representative, the assigning detective, the beat officers) and shared my information. Right now I'm waiting for the police to come over here again and take the ladder away. Because the theives left the ladder. Hmm. Think they're going to come back? I know, it's a l ong shot, as they've already robbed us four times, but I'm thinking it's a possibility that they mean to come back.

Wendy thought we should make a bonfire of the ladder in the middle of the street. My dad suggested sawing halfway through all the rungs. I'm trying to figure out how to get a bear trap that the cats won't trigger but the assholes will. All very tempting propostions.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for more cops to come before I visit the police beat office and my alderman, then go on a tour of neighborhood pawnshops to see if I recognize anything. Oh, and the alarm guy is coming to take a look at things before they install tomorrow. Joy!

So no, Rob, thus far, my holiday still sucks. Thanks for asking, though.

In other sucky news, Newton, who runs The Portadown News in his spare time, has been sacked because of the intimidation of a shmucklike columnist from the Andersontwon News, a West Belfast, sectarian paper. He basically outted Newton as the editor, dropped a gentle suggestion to his kneecapping-prone readers that perhaps they should pay a visit to Newton at his place of employment, and basically worked on a public campaign of intimidation. See, when The Onion pissed someone off, all they can really do is say "Damn them!" and hope everyone forgets about it. When the Portadown News pissed someone off in Northern Ireland, apparently calling for the editor's head on a platter is neither metaphorical nor below the belt.

So, if you're at all involved in Northern Ireland politics, supporting the folks back in the old country, whatever, please be so kind as to express your displeasure to The Andersontown News at their site. To read Squinter's column on the site, you need to register, and I wouldn't ask anyone to do that there. You can read the text of the column Squinter wrote on the PDN's message board here -- it's the 10th post down. It's a masterpiece of a hatchet job: Quotes taken out of context, words twisted, false accusations made (i.e., Squinter said Newton revealed his Squinter's identiy -- well, yes, after Squinter went on the board and told everyone who Newton was in a really bad code, in a sort of "We know who you are and can break your kneecaps" gesture.), the whole lot. It makes me very angry.

Like I didn't already have enough to be angry about.