Do kids today even get what Bart is doing in this picture?

When I was a kid, writing lines on the chalkboard or foolscap was a pretty common consequence - at least at my school. The worse the offense, the more numerous the lines to be written.

I once has to write a few pages worth of, "I will not stand up on the school bus", but I still maintain that I was totally justified. Norma Oxebin took my Muppet Show lunchbox and wouldn't give it back. Anyone in my position would have done the same thing: stand up on my seat, which was coincidentally right behind the driver. A sneak attack from above would have been totally unsuspected, and would have worked, too, if Mr. Heinz had just been cool and hadn't shouted for me to sit down.

My most memorable instance of someone else writing lines was in grade six, when one of my classmates was talking while the teacher was out of the classroom. She assigned him fifty lines, and at first, we all scoffed. Fifty? Are you new here? She started to write them out on the board for him ... and his "lines" turned out to be a paragraph that took up an entire chalkboard.

However, I think my teachers were on the right track. If this isn't still being used in schools it should be, because it works. When I had my first job, I kept making a mistake in how I wrote up the hot dog orders. I assigned myself to write out the correct way 100 times and never forgot for the rest of the summer.

Not to mention: I never stood up on the school bus again.

I recently discovered a site called Dear-God.net, which is a prayer posting site that has no affiliation with any church or religion. It is a global project for people around the world to share their innermost hopes - and fears - through prayer. In my opinion, the most amazing thing about this site is the photography that compliments each prayer. Some examples are below:

Mourners can 'pay' last respects from home
Jack Knox, Victoria Times-Colonist
Published: Monday, April 07, 2008

Pay-per-view funerals will be offered live online in Britain as of Tuesday, allowing mourners who cannot attend services in person to watch via the Internet.

Friends and family will be given a password to access the webcasts, which will cost £75. Despite criticism of the scheme as macabre, the company that launched the service plans to offer it to crematoria across the country.

Big deal. We've already got pay-per-view funerals right here in B.C. They charged $12.95 for one Thursday night: The Canucks-Oilers game.

By the time it was done, Vancouver's playoff chances were deader than Eliot Spitzer's political career. More stiffs on ice than the city morgue. Knew it was a bad sign when they dropped the pre-game O Canada in favour of Chopin's funeral march.

Don't think that's what the Brits have in mind, though. No, they want to show real funerals, the ones with the hard pews, itchy suits, muffled sobs and the kindly priest smiling down at the mortified man on display at the front (just like a wedding, only without the confetti or the Chicken Dance).

The Crem Cam, as it has been dubbed, will allow mourners to pay (and they do mean pay) their last respects from the comfort of their own homes. "The service is designed very much with the distant relative or ill friend in mind," Trevor Mathieson, the manager of a Southampton crematorium, was quoted as saying. Sure, Trevor, nothing perks up an ill friend like the sight of ol' Walter boxed up for shipment to the great hereafter.

The online action isn't the only funereal fish in the revenue stream. For those who miss the live (as it were) webcast, a DVD can be purchased for £50, an audio recording for £25. Just the thing for a birthday or stocking stuffer.

The thing is, you start charging money for something, people expect a bit of a show. Paying to watch a funeral where nothing exciting happens would be like, well, paying to watch the Canucks.

People want some bang for their buck: Copious weeping, inappropriate eulogies, fainting. Fistfights, perhaps, or a mischievous pallbearer faking a "whoopsy-daisy, lost my grip" moment.

As a boy, my dad once saw a coffin fly off an open wagon when the horses spooked and bolted, right in the heart of Kamloops. It shot off the back like a torpedo launched from U-135.

When casket hit concrete, the body bounced straight up as though someone had thrown a toaster in the tub. The corpse appeared to be auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. Pandemonium ensued.

I'd pay good money to see that.

Could one of your Crem Cam events top that? Doubt it. Doesn't mean they wouldn't try, though, the guy at the microphone doing his best Don Cherry/Don-Rickles-At-The-Dean-Martin-Roast shtick, pulling out all the stops for the audience. ("Make yourself at home, Frank: Hit somebody.") This is why Canadian authorities refuse to have cameras in our courtrooms, fearing lawyers will preen for the public, turning the legal process into a circus act. (Think not? Did you see the O.J. Simpson trial?)

Bet the web cameras would open up other marketing opportunities, too: Product placement, with mourners nonchalantly slipping on Nike ball caps or "just happening" to sip from a can of Coke at the lectern. Corporate logos around the boards, just like at the rink. Advertising on the outside of the coffin. Advertising on the inside of the coffin.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. Apparently pay-per-view funerals are already available in several countries, including Canada, with none of my fears being realized. Still leery of this webcam stuff, though.

I'm not ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

Knox is a columnist with the Victoria Times-Colonist.

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008