For this post.

It is rare when I get to have an excellent, meaningful conversation with someone about television dramas. Tonight was one of those nights, and while we’d all had some drinks, there was quite a discussion — revolving around Homicide, The Wire, and HBO Dramas — that left me satisfied. Why did it leave me satisfied? Because it involved more than, “Hey, that hot chick? Needs to wear less clothes” or “Yeah, the dead body just wasn’t gory enough on last night’s CSI.”

Sayeth I to that talk: Bah! Humbug!

In any case, I was well prepared for the conversation, as I have been working on a post on my thoughts of Homicide: Life on the Street. Saddly, my thoughts tend to be negative: a show with a great concept and great cast was consistently thrown off course by the network, with the result that, with some exception, great characters were replaced with mediocre characters with no direction or overall story line. Plot lines began to mimic “event” cop-shows and abandon what I felt was the basic premise of the show. Anyway, this is all a topic for another post.

Long story short, it was awesome getting to have a conversation with this couple who clearly know their television shows, and hopefully by the time we meet again, they will have watched Battlestar Galactica and discussions may again ensue.

(Regarding Homicide … great show n’ all, but Hill Street Blues still has my vote as best ‘cop show’ ever.)

I have acquired a Hasbro Titanium-series Viper Mark II from an eBay auction. I’m a little steamed — I bought two from the guy and he forgot to package the 2nd. Hopefully he’ll respond to my e-mail and get this out to me. It’s a neat little toy. I’ve been swishing it around making “wooshing” noises for the last few minutes.

Or, “How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Asstastic Retard Driving Stupidly In Front of Me.”

So after a long night at work where Zebulon pouted, and few deliveries came in, and I spent twenty-bucks on gasoline and nearly got eaten by a raccoon, I drove home via Cranbrook and a left hand turn on Padonia. And as I approached the right-hand turn entry into my apartment complex, I noticed something odd.

Why, a strange sedan, parked on the side of the road. One might wonder why a strange sedan was parked on the side of the road. In fact, I did wonder. But he wasn’t just parked on the side of the road. No, the strange sedan was parked in front of the entry to the apartment complex where I live!

Why, the operator of this strange sedan was blocking me from getting home!

So I did what any tired hardworking red blooded American would do. I pulled up behind him, grabbed my maglite, smashed out his driver’s side window, and proceeded to beat the living piss out of his skull.

I mean, er, I pulled up behind him, and when he didn’t move, I put on my brights. Much to my everlasting delight he began to move. He made a right hand turn, in fact, into the complex.

Where he stopped.

I dunno, maybe he thought I was trying to continue on Padonia Road. If you’re not familiar with Padonia Road east of Cranbrook, let me tell you that it is one lane in each direction. However, each lane is wide enough that two cars can and often do drive abreast of one another. This is a frustrating skull-exploding demonstration of the stupidness of drivers in the greater retard zone of Lutherville/Timonium/Cockeysville/Hunt Valley.

Where were we?

Oh yes. Sedan moves because I pull up behind him. Sedan turns into the apartment complex, then stops again. This is bad, because I need, from Padonia Road, to make a right hand turn into the complex, then a left hand turn onto the side street from which is located the building in which my apartment is located.

Anyway, dipshit in the Sedan — who I’m quite clearly believing is lost — is first inconsiderate enough to stop his car in front of entry to apartment complex. Then he moves into the apartment complex only to stop. Once again I pull up behind him, he seems to get the picture that he needs to do something and so he …

… wait for it …

… makes a left hand turn.

The same left hand turn I need to take to get to my motherfucking apartment building so I can get into my motherfucking apartment so I can go to sleep in my no-one is ever getting fucked on it ever because I’m going to bash someone’s skull in and go to jail bed, and this motherfucking piece of sedan driving turdness does not seem to fucking understand that he needs to stop parking his car randomly in my path and either pull over to the side of the road where he’s not blocking traffic or better yet go drive his car really fast over a really short pier preferably with him inside of it all the way to the fucking bottom of the fucking body of water he’s chosen to commit suicide in.

Finally, turdfuck pulled over, I got to my building, I ache all over, I can’t wait to go to bed, but I couldn’t help but think that I may indeed be in need of Zenchick’s intervention. Or at the very least, a night where I can drink drink drink and not have to worry about driving home. Or whatever.

Illustration #1 is “Two in the Pink, One in the Stink.” You will notice that despite the similarities, it does not look anything like Illustration #2, “The Vulcan Hand Salute.” Please keep in mind that while one means “Live Long and Prosper”, the other is a gesture representing a sexual activity, and that you should recognize the difference so the next time a group of underage children flash you with the first, you do not respond with the 2nd, which as you are more than well aware now, leads to big headaches on the part of everyone involved, particularly when the children in question claim you responded with the first gesture.

Illustration #1

Illustration #2

(Note? I’d totally two-pink-and-a-stink that girl. She’s cute).

The entire A-Team inspired gallery, here.

For the few non-Baltimore local readers I have (and for Baltimore readers who haven’t read Epiph’s lately), If you’ve got a few bucks floating around that you don’t need, Epiphany in Baltimore, an inner-city high school teacher, needs your help. Read about it here.

Three deliveries.

Three dollars in mileage reimbursement.

Two ninety-five in total tips earned.

The dumb cow at WalMart got all offended when I “forgot” to thank her for the tip she gave me. It was a quarter. I apologized for forgetting to thank her, and apparently she never noticed that I never actually thanked her.

I knew it was going to be like this when I drove into work and noticed two lanes of traffic shut down.

Also shut down was the right-hand eastbound lane on Schilling Circle. There was a rather stupid fella trying to make a left hand turn, which outside of 2am Sunday morning, is an impossibility. There were ten cars — all with their right-hand turn signals on — already lined up behind him. When I drove past a few minutes later, he was still trying to make the turn, and I couldn’t see the end of the line.

I’m glad I wasn’t on Schilling. I think my head would’ve exploded into gooey fragments across my dashboard.

I think when I buy a house, I’m going to buy one in the country. Deep in the country. Where there are no traffic lights, and endless curving roads to speed down without having to worry about some dumb fuck [insert from list A] in their [insert from list B] while [insert from list C]. Who’s with me?

List A:
running a red light/stop sign
entering the street from a driveway without checking for oncoming traffic
attempting to make a turn from a road and blocking incoming traffic
failing to signal
driving too slow for the conditions
driving too fast for the conditions
driving while stupid
other

List B:
I-Have-A-Tiny-Weiner American-made Muscle Car
This-is-really-a-minivan SUV
My vehicle is larger than your house Tank
A Bradley Fighting Vehicle Gets Better Gas Economy Than My Truck
I’m-Comfortable-With-My-Parenthood Minivan
Dodge Neon as wanna-be Ricer
Ricer
other

List C:
not paying attention
talking on cell phone
reading newspaper/book/magazine
masturbating to open porno magazine
masturbating to Celine Dion on radio
masturbating to “that” scene from Parenthood
eating
drinking
looking at the radio console
looking anywhere that isn’t the road, the mirrors, or the control gauges
any combination of the above

When working at the Franchise, one of the trickiest aspects of driving can be getting oneself northbound on Jarrettsville Pike. Although not a road that sees traffic to the extent of York Road just a few miles to the west, a fairly considerably amount of traffic does make Jarrettsville Pike a not-to-be-underestimated hazzard when making a left-hand turn across. Many drivers choose to attempt that turn from the southern-most entrance facing east. I prefer to drive north to the Klein’s Market entrance. While there’s less line-of-sight for oncoming southbound traffic, I find I have an easier time observing northbound traffic. As well, I don’t have to worry about southbound traffic stopping for the light and preventing me from making my turn.

Last night, one of my last runs before it got dark was northbound. I drove into Klein’s lot and positioned myself to make a left-hand turn. As many of you know, I work just north of the Exxon station which through sloppy management and maintenance and record-keeping, managed to spill 25,000 gallons of gasoline into the soil, contaminating wells in the area. Numerous contracting companies have been brought in to assist in cleaning up the spill. Some of these guys aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs — ever seen a bunch of construction guys run into the road to direct traffic, and as they’re running out in front of moving vehicles, turn towards each other and make karate motions?

At any case, last night found me attempting to make a left-hand turn onto Jarrettsville Pike. A construction pick-up truck with the logo of one of the contracting companies (Sunrise, I think) was northbound in the left-hand most lane. He made an unsignalled turn into the Market, but instead of driving into the lot, he positioned his truck so that when I moved my car, he’d be able to put himself into the southbound lane.

Here’s the problem. He moved his truck knowing where my car was, and presumeably able to see that my left-hand turn signal was on. He moved his truck so that he couldn’t move again without either my having moved first, or him backing up into oncoming southbound traffic. Do you see where we have a problem? Yeah, he also positioned his truck so that I couldn’t fucking see around him. Well, without pulling into oncoming traffic myself.

So I sat there, and traffic trying to turn into the Market couldn’t, because of course our braindead dickfucking retarded shitbrain driving the pickup truck decided to be “cool” and put us both in a fucking situation. I was pretty steamed. I was steamed as soon as I saw what he was doing. I get sick and tired of these inconsiderate assholes, particularly ones in company trucks and SUVs. For example, earlier that day, trying to go southbound from the southern most entrance (east facing), some dumb jackass in a station wagon (trying to go left), positioned his vehicle half in the turn-left lane, half in the turn-right lane!

So here I am, essentially stuck. I’ve got four braindeads in the pickup truck looking at me, and I can imagine them saying to themselves, “Why doesn’t he just gun it across oncoming southbound traffic and hope he makes it?” Meanwhile, there are now three cars from the northbound lanes trying to make a left-hand turn into the Market. They can’t do that because the construction fucktards are blocking their lane. They construction truck can’t move because I’m blocking their path. Meanwhile, I’m refusing to move because a) I need to go north, and I’m not going to go south just so these braindead yellow-helmet wearing shitfucks can be spared driving into the parking lot to turn around and b) I’m really fucking pissed at the lack of manners on the part of these yellow-helmeted shitfucking fucktards for knowingly putting their vehicle to block my line of sight.

I mean, if I gun my car across oncoming traffic and hit someone, guess what? It ain’t the fault of these construction monkeys, it’d be my fault!

What I would’ve liked to do, and what I will do if these assfucks put me in the position again, is to get out of my car, walk over to them, explain that I’m not moving my car until they move their truck, then go back to my car, call the police, and wait for a cruiser to pull up, wherein the construction dickheads will explain that they don’t understand what ‘courtesy’ means and I’ll get yelled at for refusing to move my car.

In any case, after waiting at least a minute, all the while looking to my left as if I could see “through” the truck’s bumper, I finally pulled forward — gingerly — into the right-hand southbound lane. Thankfully, the cars waiting to turn into the Market weren’t moving. You never know — up here, it’s kind of surprising some brain dead housewife or raging hubbie hadn’t made to turn into the parking lot and wound up blocking the southbound lanes. Able to ascertain for myself that southbound traffic was vacant, I went.

Unfortunatly, my rage at the complete lack of basic social/driving courtesies on behalf of the truck driver was something that I was unable to outrun. I can say that as I write this just after midnight, Thursday very early in the fucking morning, I am as angry about this situation as I was when it happened. It was completely irresponsible behavior on the part of the truck driver, and I can’t escape my giving him this incredulous look in which my features clearly showed a message of, “Holy Crap! How fucking braindead can a braindead assfuck monkey-turd shitbag like you be?”, while his features back conveyed to me, “You. Move. You. Move” and not, as I would’ve hoped, “Whoops! My bad!”, perhaps coupled with an apologetic wave.

Sunrise Truck Driver: I hope a cop sees you pull one of your braindead moves and writes you tickets for reckless endangerment, improper operation of a motor vehicle, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, and most importantly, driving while stupid.

If I thought it would do any good, I’d use Google to track down the company, pretend to be a high-level executive of a business looking to use the company for construction needs, then explain the situation, then clarify that as a result of the “clearly reckless behavior exhibited by your employees on numerous occasions in this area, which speaks to the lack of concern shared by your company over these reckless operations”, my fictional company would be awarding a multi-million construction contract elsewhere.

(Sigh).

With the TV and radios off, my apartment is a quiet place. But it isn’t until it’s absolutely quiet that I realize how noisy that “quiet” usually is. When there are no sounds of phones and electronics and voices from the surrounding apartments. When the sounds of cars driving past on Padonia Road or in the parking lot are absent. When no one talking on the steps invades the living room, and the sound of doors opening and slamming and mailboxes being opened with jingling keys. When the dishwasher and refrigerator aren’t humming. When there isn’t the sound of water rushing through pipes, or a dull chatter from some distant a/c. When there are no distant sirens. When the cats aren’t pawing away in the litter box, and the upstairs neighbors aren’t causing the floor to creak as they walk overhead.

I got home from work yesterday afternoon, watched an episode of “Homicide” (yeah, good move throwing your keys in the harbor, Kellerman), turned off the tv and lay down on the couch. It’s a small wood-frame couch. Everything south of my knees hangs off the end when I lie down on it. It’s uncomfortable, even when I take a cushion from the companion chair for a pillow. But it’s nice enough that in the bask of the afternoon sun, oriented now to come through the living room window, that I can take a nice, peaceful nap.

And the apartment building, or at least, my corner of it, was very quiet while I rested. I don’t know that I could say I actually “napped” — I was aware of my headache, I was aware that I was drooling moderately, I was even aware that Guy came over, put his paws on the sofa, and lifted himself up when his questioning meows went un-answered in his quest for a pet.

I think I’ll go hunt him down now and give him a belly rub. I’m good at those.

MacGuyver Returns!

Priceless.

(Apparently this might’ve aired during the Superbowl. I was working, didn’t see it, so bite me and shut the hell up, eh?)

UPDATE:

der! Link corrected.

Quite often lately, the Ed Norris Show will have a segment where the rising costs of gasoline and heating energy is discussed. Today, a woman called in who claimed to work in healthcare, as a home-care nurse. She said she drove on a regular basis all over the county and was having trouble affording gasoline. She said her mileage compensation had been .31 cents per mile and had not increased to meet her need for now much more expensive gasoline.

First, I am very much of the belief that something if fishy with the increase in gasoline prices. It just don’t jive, y’know what I’m saying? I said something very intelligent on another blog tonight, so I’m going to reword it for this section here: “If the increase in the cost of gasoline is due entirely to an increase in the cost of production, why have the profits grown to record highs?” Clearly, there’s more being added to the price of gasoline than taxes and increased production.

Second, let me say that I am completely sympathetic to individuals who need to use their own personal transportation for work. This makes sense, as I am an individual who uses his own privately owned vehicle for work. I am reimbursed at both shops at a flate rate — one dollar per delivery, regardless of miles traveled. If I take a delivery to the bank across the street, I get a buck. If I deliver to a McMansion nine miles up Jarrettsville Pike, I get a buck.

Today, I took sixteen deliveries combined at both shops. I had filled up before work so I can tell you that my car now, having returned home, has a total of just over one hundred and thirty miles on it. Using this as an average of how many deliveries I took versus how many miles I drove taking them*, I put roughly ten miles on my car per delivery. My car gets an average of thirty-two miles per gallon. Hence, I am reimbursed at a rate of ten cents per mile. Although I did not fill my car up tonight after work as I usually do, the highest price that I saw tonight was $2.959, which means that if I’d filled up my car (4.06 gallons to fill it up, at 32 miles per gallon) at that, I would’ve spent $12.02 to bring my tank back up to full. What this demonstrates is that at a reimbursement rate of ten cents per mile, I use .75 cents to pay for gas and the rest (that entire quarter) goes into my pocket.

If I were reimbursed for gasoline at a rate of .31 cents per mile, as this woman is, my mileage compensation for today would’ve been forty-dollars and thirty-cents. I could have used less than one-third of my mileage compensation to fill my tank, and pocketed the rest of the money.

True, this assumes that the woman in question drives a car with reasonable gas economy. Also true, even if she’s driving a truck and it only gets ten miles to the gallon at a reimbursement rate of .31 cents per gallon, she’s still not paying for any gasoline out of her own pocket. It’s nice when gas prices are lower because than I get to use a bigger chunk of my mileage compensation to supliment my income. But as long as my mileage compensation covers my gas expenses, I’m not going to get too fritzy about it.

And if I were compensated at a whopping thirty-one cents a gallon? I’d be laughing my way to the bank.

*It’s not very accurate — I had forty-five miles on my car with seven deliveries at the Indy, versus eight-five miles on my car for nine deliveries at the Franchise. Plus, I drove home from working at the Indy, then back to work to the Franchise, then back home from work at the Franchise.

A great design from Chris Giddens …

… inspired by the Planet Express?

I think “yes.”

My bedroom window faces east, which means each morning I wake up to my bedroom flooded in bright light (even with the blinds down and closed). In the summer particularly, it makes staying asleep difficult. As a result, I begin waking up earlier and earlier. Today, I woke up at about 8:30. Because I’m waking up earlier, I get tired earlier than I would otherwise, so I’ll probably go to sleep no later than 12:30 this coming morning. Cause & Effect, don’t'cha know.

I’m not really a “morning” person versus a “night owl.” As long as I get eight hours of sleep I’m good to go. Rationalizing: I think it’s smart for me to keep to this schedule, particularly as I have some early classes at Towson next semester.

As I write this, I’ve got a toothbrush jammed in my mouth. As you might guess, I’m also using two hands to type. On occasion, I stop typing, and use one hand to brush. Then I go back to two handed typing with this brush projecting from my mouth like a plastic blue and white cigar. I’ll keep at it like this until the toothpaste starts burning my gums.

I don’t have to be at work for almost two hours. Plenty of time to be productive, and I think I’m going to clean out my car. It’s going into Ed’s Garage on Monday. For one thing, that check engine light popped back on. I really liked not having it on, even if it only lasted for a month. I’ve driven years with the light on, yet this time, I can’t quite adjust to seeing it bright and yellow on my dash again. Hopefully Ed will work his magic again and it’ll dissapear. In addition, my brakes are feeling funky, and I’m hoping he can work his mojo and save me some cash.

My car is a mess. I have clothes and jackets across the back seat, and the floor is littered with empty styrofoam cups and 20oz bottles of soda. I might even get fancy and wipe down the dash and console. Maybe, if I’m really productive, I’ll even take it to the car wash.

I have a sports car. It’s supposed to be clean and shiny. I never should’ve bought a sports car — I’m really bad at keeping it clean and shiny. I mean, y’know, it’s always been the mechanical aspects of the vehicles I’ve owned which has been paramount concern to me. Yeah, I suppose it’d be neat if I could eat off the hood of my car, but what good would that do to me when it was time to earn some bucks and the damn thing won’t start? Not very much!

If I’d thought of it earlier, I could’ve got in a load of laundry. I mean, I’ve got enough clean clothes to survive me until Saturday, but I guess this means I’ll have to do it tonight when I get out of the franchise.

Has anyone noticed Blogtimore hasn’t updated?

Need to self-motivate to get showered and get to work …

You might remember, that back in October of last year, I was involved in a traffic accident at the intersection of York Road and Schilling Circle. You might even remember that angry at the poor traffic control on that section of York Road (traffic got a lot worse with the opening of the Wegman’s on Shawan Road), I e-mailed the Baltimore County government about the possibility of installing a light at that intersection. Turns out York Road is a state — not county — responsibility.

Judith Mongan responded to me within a day, writing in part, “We are forwarding a copy of your e-mail to SHA and are asking them to respond directly to your request. ”

Ever wondered what that “directly” means? I’ll tell you.

It means a request forwarded to the State Government on October 14th, will be responded to on … April 18th. Yes, it’s correct, I recieved an e-mail from Bob S., a Transportation Team Leader, District 4 SHA, today which reads:

Thank you for the email concerning your suggestion that a signal be installed on MD 45 @ Schilling Road.

We have reviewed this intersection several times in the past and found that it did not meet signal warrants. We will update our traffic information to see if the increase in traffic makes the installation of a traffic signal the appropriate traffic control device for the existing conditions.

We will be able to give you our decision by the middle of July. In the meantime if you have any questions, please respond to this email or give me a call at 410-xxx-xxxx

Of course, I’m sure he’s a busy, hardworking, dedicated guy, and I appreciate the non-form-letter response, and I hope in July they decide to put a light in. But I mean … half a year?