Just Whatever

By Joe Hildebrand on News.com.au.

I WAS delighted to learn yesterday that the State Government has launched a website allowing teenagers to register their parties with the NSW Police.

This is long overdue. If there’s one thing adolescents have been demanding it’s more cops at their parties.

Kids can now register their parties at mynite.com.au and rest easy in the knowledge that police will be monitoring their celebrations throughout the evening.

The mynite website “is targeted at internet savvy teenagers”, in the sense - one can only presume - that the website appears on the internet.

Interestingly, the Government has proven its own internet savvy by providing a quicklink in the media release that redirects the reader to a US-based domain name auction site that offers the opportunity to buy the domain name mynite.com.

Obviously the Government has gone to great lengths to make the site appealing to teenagers, most notably by filling it with grammatical errors.

The site also helps kids organise parties by providing a handy, easy to remember 45-point checklist and six-page form to complete before registering. Old timers may remember John Belushi filling out similar paperwork in Animal House.

The site requires party organisers to give at least 72 hours notice of their partying intentions, indicating the Government has obviously taken note of teenagers’ natural inclination to plan ahead.

Of course, should there be a flood of interest in the party sparked by MySpace or Facebook, the internet savvy teenager can still notify police simply by printing out the six-page form, filling it in and carrying it to the local police station, which is no doubt a regular hangout anyway.

If this isn’t possible, the internet savvy teenager simply need purchase a stamp and an envelope and post the form or send it via his or her fax machine.

Once this is completed, the teenager returns home and logs on to the site again, being sure not to make any accidental bids for mynite.com in the process.

The teenager is then ready to view the consequences of misbehaviour by clicking on the section entitled “Busted”.

This comprises only the words “Coming soon” which one presumes is a reference to police response times.

After that it’s a matter of simply having the party, which is sure to be completely trouble-free - largely on account of the fact that no one will show up.