A Hearty Shout Out & Mad Props to All You Rat Bastards on the 5 South This Morning...and I'm sure you know who you are!
Pardon my language, but I had one awful morning. And all because some MO-ron chose to discard a (pipe? lug wrench?) very hard, metal something in the middle of the FREAKIN' freeway in Mission Viejo! You're a peach, whoever you are.
On my way to a doctor's appointment before work this morning, I managed to drive over this innocent-looking thing (I should mention that at 70mph it looked completely unlike whatever it truly was; it appeared to be some foam or similar). Suddenly my car was driving erratically and pulling to the left. When I got safely to the shoulder -- no thanks to the idiot honking at me from the merge lane; hello, HAZARD lights on, not careening wildly for the fun of it! -- I got out and saw that my front driver's-side tire looked a whole lot like it had exploded. Greeeeeeeeat.
I called AAA and they came out and dealt with it just fine. That was the highlight of the morning. When I saw the tire after it was removed from the car (by a very burly woman named Bianca, by the way), it looked a whole lot like Figure A on this page. A right old blowout; no simple flat tires for me, no siree! Nice, huh?
This is the same damn tire I JUST replaced because I drove over a nail at work. I didn't know I'd driven over it, of course, until my neighbor pointed out that I had a slow leak. Heaven knows how long I'd been driving around on that, and how narrowly I avoided a blowout then! I'm pretty certain it's going to be hard to get the tire place to believe that this is covered under their warranty as 'natural wear and tear' -- contrary to The Boy's assertions otherwise. Grrrr.
By far the best part, though, was driving at 50mph with my hazards on for-freaking-ever while people gave me dirty looks, honked at me, yelled names, and no doubt showed me creative phalange manipulation (but if that was the case, I guess I managed to miss it while I cringed and slunk down in my seat).
Yes, people, I just LOOOOOOOVE to piss you off; THAT is why I'm driving this slowly. There couldn't possibly be any reason except my desire to outrage you, right?
I could have taken side streets the whole way to the doctor and back to work, of course, but I was in an unfamiliar area and didn't want to risk getting lost. 'Cause with my fantastic directional skills that would have just made the day even more special!
No, I got to ride for a few miles to San Clemente and several miles back to Irvine pretending that I couldn't see or hear other drivers. After all, this is my idea of a great day.
Happy f-ing Friday, people.
GROWL
Oh, Jon Cusack! Is There Anything You Can't Do?
Go read this now!
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And a similarly good post from Ninja Poodles. I'm copying a lot of what she wrote, so I hope if she finds out she sees this as the compliment that it is meant to be!
She writes:
"In April of 1946, during a break (observing Easter) in the Nuremberg trials, psychologist and intelligence officer Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking Jew, had occasion to interview, at length, Hermann Goering in his prison cell. Goering, in case you slept through every history class you ever attended, or were homeschooled by white supremacists your whole life, was Hitler's Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief during the horrors of the Holocaust. At one point in the interviews, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders."
We [Gilbert and Goering] got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
'Why, of course, the people don't want war,' Goering shrugged. 'Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.'
'There is one difference,' I pointed out. 'In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.'
'Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.'
Pretty scary, huh?? The neocon playbook looks frighteningly familiar now, doesn't it?
An Open Letter to Sports Photographers, Videographers, Analysts, et. al.
Dear Press-Type People,
Please stop showing Matt Leinart spitting while he's on the sidelines during a game. It really spoils an otherwise quite nice image.
Thank you,
Stephanie
Bummer
My countdown-to-wedding clock stopped working (thanks for pointing it out, mom). And when I went to the site where I got it/it was hosted, it's gone. I think they have vanished from the web. Which means no more nifty countdown clock for me. Boohoo!
