Would You Pull Over for the Police on a Dark Road?

Black College Student Charged with “Fleeing” Police After Driving to a Well Let Area to Pull Over

So according to this article in the Huffington Post, the police officer in question here saw a similar car to that of the students driving on the sidewalk on campus (by the way this is also a campus officer) and when he saw the students car he tried to pull it over.  So it’s dark out, the student is from Detroit, has heard stories about fake cops pulling people over, and when he saw the flashing lights he drove at a moderate speed to the parking lot of a Sam’s Club before stopping.  From when the cop put on his lights to the Sam’s Club is about a mile and a half.  Wouldn’t it be just logical, cop or not, that you’re going to go to a place like this for someone trying to stop you?

There is no way that if I was getting pulled over I am stopping in an area where I can’t see the cops car.  There are too many stories I’ve read myself about fake cops pulling people over and trying to give them tickets, or worse trying to rob them.  How about the “Criminal Minds” episode where the fake cop actually KILLS a couple!  That is not happening to me, damn it!

Now this student faces a felony charge with a 2-year jail sentence if he is convicted.  Logic and safety are going to cost this kid two years?  Are you freaking joking??  Now if the cop had turned on his lights and the student stomped on the pedal to get away, that would be fleeing for sure.  But how can you even consider it fleeing if you’re driving at the same speed or less and the cop is only trying to pull you over because your car looks similar?  If it is nighttime, the cops these days have to take that into consideration for how long it takes someone to finally pull over.

How about the cops own safety?  If the student would have stopped, the officer is then going to walk up to the car.  I don’t know about your area, but the officers around here typically wear a dark uniform.  Some driver may not see him and accidentally strike him. How many YouTube videos of cops dash cams show a pretty dang near close call?  If I was the cop pulling the kid over, I’Dfeel safer if he drove down a side street, or into a parking lot instead of stopping on the main road.

And I’m not even going to bring ethnicity into it.  Sure the student was black, and it was probably a white cop.  I’m as white as they can get, and I’m pulling into the parking lot as well.  Asian, Indian, Latino, what ever.  This is NOT about race.  This is just plainly about safety.  Cops are supposed to protect the public, and insure safety.  I think this goes along with that.

Now if the student had driven five miles or more, yea, now I would call that into question unless I’m out on some really dark lonely road out in the middle of nowhere, and even there you have an option.  This actually happened to Nick and I late last summer.  We were driving back to the city, at night, from Lake Elsinore and going to Dana Point and then up.  It was maybe 11 or close to midnight and I saw the flashing lights.  So instead of just pulling over, I quick called 911 and asked if there was a cop trying to pull me over on the 74.  After a few minutes they came back and said yes.  So I pulled over and the officer gave me a “fix it” ticket because one of my tail lights were out.  But I wasn’t pulling over until I knew for sure this guy was a cop.

I hope for the sake of the student that some lawyer or judge sides with caution and lets the kid go.  You are just making the world a more dangerous place if you dont.

Love to you all!

~Ryan

Protect the Creators – #55

This Rant is directed mostly at the users of Tumblr, but is true for any blog out that that uses reposts and comments.  

OK, so this subject has been going around the blog here the last few days, so I guess you knew I was going to throw my two cents in here sooner or later, right?

First off, I am totally for making sure that the source of the content is credited whenever I can.  I think it totally sucks that someone would reblog a source content that has notes and then that person removes the notes.  Sometimes the source will put the name of the picture, or the name of the model, or the location, and it really sucks when in the hundreds or thousands of reblogs before I see the picture that someone has removed that information.  To those that do that, you really suck!

I do a lot of note removal before I repost pics, but that is mainly for self promotion.  You do know that in the Terms and Conditions of Tumblr it says that this is against the rules and you could get your blog nuked for that?  I have never reported a blog for that.  But I’ve been tempted.  The best way to promote your blog is just to have a good blog.  Though I follow blogs that do self promotion, I have never followed one because of that.  And I vow NEVER to put a stupid self promotion in the notes.

There are some pics that I do comment on, and that is a legit way to promote you blog if you want to.  But if you do, make sure that your notes are PG.  There are a lot of younger folks on here, and some of them are friends of mine.  It turns me off so much when I look at my activity and see where pictures have been rebloged and then either R rated, or even X rated comments have been added.  That in itself is just childish.  This is NOT a porn blog.  Keep those types of comments to the X rated blogs that are out there.  And there are plenty of them.  I have used the ignore button three times.  If you reblog from me and add X rated comments, you will most likely end up on the ignore list.  It wont stop you from posting from my blog, but it will keep me off your dash.

If I can tell that the note was added by the original source, I will leave it there.  If it is a self promotion, I will take it off.  If it identifies the model, or the source content is added later on, I will leave that as well.  But please, take a moment and realize what you’re doing when you remove the source of the picture, you are basically stealing that person’s work. If I were to start posting my own original content I would want to make sure that everyone knows it’s from me.  And if your reblogging from another site, say like Blogger, or Pinterest, or WordPress, or really just anywhere, take the time to put the source in the proper field.  It only takes a few seconds.  If I can do it, so can you.

I’m not going to start reporting those that remove it, because I am not that petty.  But I would just hope that in the future, if you remove notes from the post you’re putting up, be sure they are not the source content.

Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 6/2/15]

The Google Waze – #47

Rant #46 was mostly directed toward my followers on the Tumblr blog, so I just left it there.

HERE is an article from CNN about the Google Waze application that is in such controversy about it telling the users of the application where police are.  But according to the web site it is much more that just for locating the police.  It gives you real time traffic and road info, if you’re approaching accidents, or traffic jams, and give you route alternatives.

But the application is being said to help people who don’t like the police so much, to find out where they are sitting and to ambush attack them.  But you know what?  Being a police officer is a danger right in itself, and anyone who becomes one, knows that.  There is no guarantee that a cop isn’t going to be in a shoot out, a high speed chase, or some other element that is going to get him killed in the line of duty.

Personally, I think it’s a good thing to know where the police are.  What if YOU need one.  Sure, you have your phone where you could just as easily call 911, but what if you are running away from someone.  What if you have info on a crime?  Or something else.  Bad people are going to do bad things.  But I think that most bad people tend to avoid the police, rather than go hunting them down.  But yea, I’ll admit there are the crazy ones that do.

But here is something to think about.  There are programs, apps, and lists all over the place that will tell you where a person on the sex crimes registry lives.  Aren’t we just giving the entire population their address so they can be attacked as well?  To me the sex list is totally unethical.  The person did their time, and yet will still brand them.  We don’t do that with murderer’s.  Wouldn’t you like to know if you have a cat burguler who steals high end jewels in the neighborhood?  Or how about the guy that’s been arrested for stealing cars a few times?  Yea, I know that all crimes have the potential for the person to do it again.  They get a rush from it.  How many movies have you watched that the criminal does the crime not for the money he makes, but from the rush of the act itself.  Yet the only one that gets penalized the most is the sex crimes.

OK, got a little off topic there.  I guess my point on the Waze application is that it has huge potential to be a good thing.  Yet we focus on the FEW people that make it a bad thing.  And there are always going to be those few with any application.  So lets looks at apps that should be shut down because of a few bad apples:  Kik Messenger; lots of young boys and girls using it to sext.  Snapchat; same thing as Kik except for the messages self destruct until you screen capture them.  Tumblr; how many blogs have you seen nuked for inappropriate content?  Grindr; I’m sure more than a few of those people I see wanting hookups are underage.  And those are just the ones that I have on MY OWN phone.

But you tell me that cops aren’t getting ambushed on those apps.  No, I’m not.  And not every app is being used as the the programmers envisioned.  I’m sure the programmers of Kik and Snapchat didn’t say “lets put out a platform that will allow underage users to share nude pics with each other”.  And I’m sure the programmers of Waze didn’t set out for speeders to avoid speed traps.  But if knowing there is speed trap makes a driver slow down and obey the laws, isn’t that a good thing?

If we let the people  who do bad things with technology dictate what we are going to do with technology, then we would have no computers, no smart phones, no electronic banking, and we would be back to the way it was it the 1800′s when people still ambushed police to get away with their crimes.

Now after all that, this is one of the few times where my final vote is going to come down to actually agreeing with the article.  Waze has some great features it looks like.  But I think the removal of the police locator would be a good thing.  Leave the indicator that they are responding to an actual incident, since anyone with a police scanner can get that info as well.  But if the police are not responding to anything, and are just sitting somewhere monitoring the traffic, or on break having a donut, we may not need to have that out there.  But at the same time, just think about the person who may just NEED to know where a cop is.  It’s a lot to think about.  It’s going to come down to does the bad outweigh the good.  Only time will tell I guess.

Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 4/27/15]

Today’s Lesson – Money in the Bank

Ever thought about what happens to that money you put in the bank? – 

So I’m a little bored today, and not feeling well.  So I’m watching TV on Couchtuner.eu.com and trying to think of things to write about.  So today is mostly going to be more about news and stuff than it is about boys and pictures. And one of my favorite subjects is money.  Not so much the earning of money by working a job, but by behind the scenes stuff about money.  And one of my favorite subjects about money is how money creates more money by actually not putting any more money in the system.

This is the thing that I think is the most stupid thing about money, though it does help people in the long run if all were to work the way it is supposed to.  So here is how it works:  Let’s say you get $1000 from someone for doing something and you go put that $1000 in your bank savings account.  Did you know they don’t actually keep that $1000 on hand in the safe?  Your money allows the bank to make more money by loaning your money out because they only have to keep 20% of your deposit as a reserve.

So you put $1000 in the bank, they keep $200 on reserve, and then loan out the remaining $800.  That person deposits the $800 to their bank, the bank keeps $160 on reserve, and loans out the remaining $640, and so on down the line until there is no money left.  Now just for giggles lets say that everyone borrows the money for one year at a 6% Annual Interest Rate.  So for your initial $1000 deposit, the banks are able to loan out $3990.25, and at my really low example, the banks are able to make $163.66 in interest.  All this while you have your $1000 in a simple savings account earning 0.01%, and you only early less that $12.  Can you see how wickedly the banks are able to earn money by repeatedly loaning out the same money.  Just think of what would happen if all the people that that deposited the loaned money went to the bank on the same day to withdraw their money?  Can you say run on the bank?

But the most important thing that I actually learned from one of my clients when I was “working” was the need to put money aside for each job or paycheck.  Right now I’m making $13 per hour and working 40 hours a week.  I put aside 15% of my paycheck into an account that averages about 6%.  By the time I am 25 and get to inherit my parents accounts, I would have saved on my own over $40,000.  And if I were to never increase the amount I put in monthy I’d have a $1 Million by the time I’m 63. I used THIS site to calculate it.

Most of the guys that I know that work legitimate jobs have no idea about this.  So I don’t care if you are 16 with a lawn mowing job, a job at McDonald’s, or have a decently earning job, it is important to make sure some of that gets into a savings account.  Being broke and living on the street was not fun.  I think I got lucky.  Though I had to work starting young I was able to put a lot away and am mostly able to pay for our rent just by the interest earned.  This is how I think everyone should live, with no money worries.  But to took a lot of hard work, and some great guidance from people to get there.

If you don’t know anything about money, I’d start learning.  It’s a fascinating subject.  And I think the more you know, the less likely you’ll be part of another 2008 crash.  Just food for thought.  And I hope you learned something.  I learn something different every day.

Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 4/6/15]

Cell Phones at the Checkout – #30

So this is one of those pet peeves that drives me crazy.  And boy did I piss off a couple people at the store this week.  How rude do you think it is to go up to a cash register at our store, or a fast food place, or just about anywhere and be on your cell phone while you are trying to check out? If you are not ready to deal with the store clerk, then finish your call and then approach the register.

So the first person I pissed off was a woman about 40’s.  I was helping the person that was in front of her while she was taking a call and there were two people behind her.  When I finished with the first person, and it was cell phone’s turn, as she approached I asked her to step aside until she finished her call, and then motioned for the person behind her to come forward.  As I started to check out the next person omg did she through a tantrum.  I’m talking about a five year olds tantrum.

The funny thing was when she started to through it she said to the person on the phone “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back,” then when on to say how dare I remove her from line that she was talking to her husband and I had no right do to that to her.  I tried to explain that if she wasn’t ready to check out that she had to step aside and that we do have a sign at the register, though it is in small print, that we do not allow cell phones at the register.

The part that was awesome was that when she asked to speak to my manager, for the first time ever, I got to say that I WAS the manager.  LOL on her!!  In order to make her happy,  I did give her a manager decreation 15% off her purchase for the day, and to remember that in the future to please end your call first, or at least put it on hold.  She started off pissed and left happy.  So all was good.

The second person was a couple days later.  This guy was on the phone the whole time he was in the store.  Spent about half hour looking around picking out some jeans and shirts but not trying anything on.  He was the only one at the store at the moment so when he came up to the counter and I refused to help him until he ended the call, he was more than less than happy.  I let him know of our policy, while he was on the phone, and even pointed out the little sign that said please don’t be on the phone at the counter.

This guy was such a jerk that he said that the sign said “please” do not be on a call when approaching the counter, and not that he was required to be off the phone.  Then I said “if we ask please, then your going to refuse?”  Then he opened himself up for the kill by saying “I have every right to be on my phone.”  To which I replied “and we have the right to refuse service to anyone, and I choose you”.  Then the magic words again: “I’d like to speak to your supervisor”.  to which I replied that I was the manager on duty.  This guy, like I said, was such a dick, that he just dropped the stuff he was going to purchase on the floor and walked out.

I hope that I wont make some of my followers mad, but people these days are inconsiderate bastards on the most part.  One of the things that I like to do on my breaks and lunch is to just sit and people watch the folks that are walking through the mall.  People have their heads down on their phones hardly paying attention to each other.  I’ve seen people nearly walk into other people and hardly give it a second thought with no apology.  I’ve seen parents be disrespectful to their kids, yet the parents want the kids to be respectful of them.  I’ve seen things that would borderline on child abuse out in public.  But I’ve never seen anything that I would actually call the police on.

I don’t want say that I’m the nicest person on the planet, but if everyone was just 10% more respectful to others than they are right now, think how much better the world would be.

So I have a challenge for all my followers for 2015: be 10% nicer to those around you.  Be just a tad be more respectful to people you don’t know.  Yea, I know I’m asking for a lot.  But I know that one or two of you will, and if one does that’s a great improvement.

As always, love to you all.  And sorry for delay from the last Rant.

Hope you all are having a great start to 2015

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 1/10/15]

Drivers & Pedestrians – #26

OK, yea I’m a quirky SOB!  This has to be one of my biggest pet peves in the world though: Drivers that do NOT yield the right of way to pedestrians. I have been a pedestrian on the streets of Los Angeles since I was 13.  You don’t want to know how many times I’ve nearly been run over by cars in the last six years.  Drivers that do not slow down or cross walks or stop at stop signs really piss me off.  It reminds me of a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: that rules are more just “guidelines”.

But if you read the rules of driving, and I’m not that far out of Drivers Ed to remember that you must yield to pedestrians that are in crosswalks.  And you must come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign.  And not only that, but stop BEHIND the white line!!

We have a little store a few blocks away that we go to to get milk, sodas, and chips when we don’t want to take the car all the way to the grocery store, and to get there we have to cross a street that has a painted crosswalk.  FUCK!!  Getting cars to stop so you can cross the road I nearly have to walk out into traffic.  And kid you not that I’ve done it before.  Then the driver has the nerve to yell at ME for walking in front of HIM!  I just throw up my hands and yell “Cross walk fucker!”  And yea, it’s one of the few times you’ll hear Ryan swear.

Then what really gets some of the drivers is that when I see one car that slows down to let me cross, I will wait until he comes to a complete stop and so has the car next to him before I cross the road.  I hate it when I am barely out of the cars range and they step on the pedal again.  Is anywhere that important that you cant wait another thirty seconds to get there?

And stop signs.  OMG!  Nick and I did a little experiment the other day in one of the strip mall parking lots that has a stop sign for the east/west traffic and no stopping or yield for the north/south traffic.  The city could sure make a lot of money if they had a cop standing on the corner just issuing tickets for failure to stop.  Out of the couple hundred cars that we watched go through, probably only a half dozen came to a full stop where there was no north/south traffic that they would have had to stop for anyhow.  And only like two of them stopped before the white line.

Stop means STOP!  Not just in sex, but in driving as well.  The other thing that bugs the hell out of me is people who use the bike lane, when there is one, or the shoulder of the road, to come up on my right side to get by me when I am going straight across the intersection (don’t worry, I turn gay again as soon as we get to the other side) and they are making a right turn.  Well, sorry if your the guy behind me because I have learned, and have made it a habit, to drive as close to the white line as possible so you CAN’T get around me.  And boy have I had people honk at me for that.  LOL, oh well, learn to drive asshole!

So just had to get that out of my system seeing is I had a good battle with that cross walk just a few hours ago.  So if your a driver, do us pedestrians a favor: yield to us, OK? Please?

Love to you all!  Drive safe for the holiday’s.  Don’t want to loose any followers to accidents.

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 12/9/14]

The Word Like – #20

Like have you noticed like how many times people like use the word like in a sentence.  Like it’s just like fucking crazy!  How did people like come up with this?  Who like started it all?  And like why does everybody do it?

OH MY YOU PEOPLE DRIVE ME INSANE!!

I used to have a friend of mine that said the phrase “you know” about as much as people toss around the word “like” these days.  I am the only one that gets annoyed at people who say it ever other word?

This is going to be a super short Rant because I just can’t think of anything else to say about it.  But if your like one of these people that say like, like every other word, do us all a favor and STOP IT!!

I do say that with love and laughing though.  Nick used to do it a lot too, till I told him I’d bonk him on the head each time he said it.  After enough bonks on the head he slowly started to catch himself.  He hardly ever does it anymore.  He catches himself when he does and the looks he gives me when he realizes it are funnier than hell cause he knows I caught him saying it too.

That’s my challenge.  Can you stop yourself from doing it??

Love to you ALL as always

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 11/17/14]

The Way People Look – #17

How many times have you heard that someone isn’t going to get a good job, or is only going to be able to work at McDonald’s or the like because they either have too many tatoos, or they have the big stretched hoop ear rings?  I hope I’m not the only one that thinks that that is just a stupid way to think of people.

What make the people with a ton of tatoos, or stretched ear rings, any less intelligent that the ones that don’t?  Just so you know, I have neither.  But I’ve been thinking about it.  I want to get a five pointed star tatoo on my right shin, and something on my back in that “tramp stamp” location, but not  sure what to get there (open for suggestions).  Also thought about a rainbow chain on my right wrist.  Is that going to like instantly drop my IQ by 20 points?

People need to look past the outer looks of a person and look at what their qualifications are.  Think of this: Person #1 – A 40’s person in a three piece suit, professionally done haircut, looks like he has his nails manicured, and has a corner office.  Person #2 – Mid 20’s, wears jeans and a Misfits t-shirt, tatoos down both arms, two lip piercings, and one inch plug ear rings.  Both work in financial advisement, both have passed their license tests with flying colors.  Who would you most likely go see if you needed advise on where to park your hard earned money to retire on?

I think most people older than us would pick person #1.  They see experience, they see that he must be successful in the suit and the office, they see good returns.  But what do you see in person #2.  Most older folks are going to see someone who doesn’t care about their body, doesn’t care about success, lives live on the line, and wont be there next year when you need more advice.

What do I see? Person #1 – Someone who is going to take advantage of me in order to keep up his current lifestyle.  Is not going to do what is best for me, and is going to run to the next company that offers him better pay, a bigger office, and more chances to buy “stuff”.  Person #2 –  Someone I can relate to.  Someone who is more likely to look after my needs and make just enough off of me to be fair.

Now to be honest, I could be totally off about either one.  #1 could be the one I want, and #2 could be the lousy crook.  But the bottom line is, we make impressions about people by what they look like at first sight.  How may times have see seen a boy and labeled him as “fem” by the way he dresses?   Have you thought of a person as a nerd just because they have messy hair, braces, and look kinda geeky (and by the way that is Nick). I’ve been told that I look like the typical flamboyant gay boy, which cant be father from the truth.  I may dress in Hollister and Express about 95% of the time, but I consider myself pretty straight acting.  I do have my glitter flying moments, and I need a disco ball in the living room, but that is rare.

So the next time you are about to label someone, take a really long second look at that person before you do.  That person could turn out to be your next best friend, the guy that saves you thousands on your mortgage, or gives you the best advice you could get.  And you were about to turn them away just because of how they looked, or acted.

Think about it.  I bet you could surprise yourself.

Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 11/8/14]

Sports Contracts – #10

So I was just reading CNN and came across the article about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Gerald McCoy has signed a new contact for seven years for nearly $100 Million.  Does anyone else think that sports players are paid way too much money?  And football (American) is the worst of them all.  Not counting the playoff, they only play 16 games in a season.  Baseball plays 162, Basketball plays 82, Hockey plays 82 games.  Divided out that means he will make $892,857 per game.  And worse yet, his side of the game probably averages 50% of playing time, and if you count how long they are actually playing while the clock is running is only about 35 minutes of play time out of the one hour clock.  So that means he is on the field for approximately 18 minutes.  That then equates to $49,603 a MINUTE!!  That is like twice my yearly paycheck in one minute.

MAKE ME GAG!!!

So can you say WTF?  Is that really necessary?  Are sports people just rich babies?  I get that it takes hard work and dedication to play any sport at the professional level.  But hell, we played these games for FUN when we were younger.  I remember when I was like 10 or 11 going out to play pick-up games of baseball at the school field that was near the house I was living in.  I dreamed of being a major leaguer like every other kid that played with us and making a lot of money, but this amount is SO overblown it makes me not want to watch another football game in my life.

And what about that ungodly stadium that the Dallas Cowboys built?  Seating nearly 80,000 people.  I read to attend a game there for a family of four costs nearly $600.  That is fucking insane.  I love going to the Anaheim Angles baseball games and I pay like $30 a ticket for way high up behind the plate.  Those are good seats, get to see everything, and I didn’t have to give up my first born to see it.  With how much they are paying the players it’s no wonder why it cost so much to see the games, and a hot dog cost $7.  Think of all the good community service that a team could give if they even maxed out how much they pay to just $100,000 a year?  I mean, what is he really going to do with $100 Million besides spending it on stupid stuff like expensive cars, jewelry, a house that is 100 times bigger than needed?  Please!

I know that there is going to be no way to stop it besides the teams themselves coming to their senses, which wont happen.  I just say boycott the teams in general.  No fans, no paychecks.  Just play for fun.  Give what you would have spent to a hungry kid instead.

Love to ya all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 10/25/14]

A Little About Me to Get it Started

WHAT IS RYAN’S RANTS?

Some people who may read this blog may recognize the name of the blog. I have once again revamped the blog to more focus on what I really wanted to in the beginning, but then got side tracked by looking at all the cute pictures of boys and teens that you see all over. This blog is going to focus entirely on the Rant’s and have the occasional cute picture to look at now and then.

So a little background as the title states: I am 18yo. I am an ex-hustler that lived on the streets of Los Angeles from when I was 13 to when I got my first apartment when I was 17. I met my boyfriend when I was 16, and yes, you will probably hear me talk about him a lot. He not only suggests some of the Rant’s but on occasion is the one who instigates them! LOL.

I consider myself a Liberal Republican. You could say that I go both ways! And just so you know, yes, I am gay. I try not to side with either the Democrats or the Republicans 100% of the time. I will not vote for a Democrat just because as soon as I turned 18 I registered as one. I will vote for the person who I feel will best serve my interests, the interests of my friends, and the best interests of the country.

I was born in Chicago, hence the background picture. My parents were killed in a car accident when I was eight, and lived in foster care until I was 13. I did end up running away to live in Los Angeles. I knew I was gay when I was 12, but that really didn’t play any part of running away. I started working the streets to both make money to live and at some points have a warm dry place to stay for a night.

Over the years I’ve been told that on a lot of things I have a hell of an opinion that is not always popular with my friends, the gay community, or people in general. But I believe that debate is the best way to make things better in the long run. If you don’t debate, you get the status quo. And do you want things they way they are now to continue? I don’t think so!!

So I hope you like my blog, I hope you like my Rant’s, and I hope you participate in the discussion. Please feel free to submit a suggestion to rant about. I post all Asks to the blog. So…Without further ado, Let it Begin!!

[Originally posted on 03/24/14]