The Philly Story
In January, I became noticed for a story that started out of Philadelphia. It seems that a soldier in the US Army lost his digital camera at an Eagles football game over the Christmas holiday. I e-mailed a reporter from WCAU, the NBC television station, in response to a story they did on his plight on their website. I was interviewed via telephone, and my comments were aired on that night's 11:00pm newscast. I informed the reporter that I felt $1,000 would be a fair price to pay for the safe return for the camera. It was there that I came up with the priceless gem of a quote that adorns this website, and serves as my motto...in response to why I wouldn't return the camera simply out of kindness, I said, "I don't really do things out of kindness, because, you know, it is all about the money."
The story got so much attention that I got an e-mail message from a detective with the Philadelphia Police who "requested" that I contact him immediately. I did, and settled the matter on a legal level. If they really wanted me, though, they simply could have contacted the reporter, Vince DiMentri, who had my phone number at the time.
Despite that, boy did the backlash start. When I woke up the next morning, I had several hundred e-mail messages from people that guessed the name of my website. It was never mentioned on the air, although some screenshots were shown. The hate mail leveled off, and things were calm until January 10th, when the ABC affiliate in the town I lived in at the time, Syracuse, (WIXT) did a story on it, which as of the writing of this page may be viewed here, complete with my photo and the fact that I ran a website called Citizens Against the Troops. That website has since been renamed to Forsake The Troops, and remains online to this day, despite pathetic and unsuccessful rallies, calls-to-arms, and attempts to get the website taken offline. People like that want free speech, until something comes along that they disagree with, and then the rules change, and change to suit their perverted agenda. Needless to say, the attempts of these drunken rednecks were to no avail, and these worthless losers are of no consequence whatsoever.
Almost immediately after the story aired, the hits began on my website. I went from a couple hundred hits a day to close to 30,000 hits the day after the story aired. People seemed to take the story quite personally, and I, along with my website, became a topic of conversation on weblogs, and radio shows nationwide. People e-mailed me with their worthless, pathetic opinions...it was really quite amusing at times how passionate people were over a story they knew nothing about. It's typical of Americans who have no lives.
I don't understand some people.
