I finished the sixth disc of the seventh season of Homicide last night. Tonight, I looked forward to watching Homicide: The Movie, the effective end of the series (they could’ve done a few more reunion movies, I think). Imagine my disappointment when the DVD player wouldn’t read the disc — there’s a huge scratch, effectively destroying it.

Fuck!

Netflix is sending out a replacement disc tomorrow. Dammit, I want it tonight.

Tonight!

I know I’ve described the franchise’s delivery area before, so since you’ve most likely read this often, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. The delivery area is slightly larger than Baltimore City, and is located in northern Baltimore County (Phoenix) and into the western areas of Harford County (Fallston). There are six traffic lights, three gas stations (there used to be five, but both Exxon stations leaked shit into the ground and closed), and more horse farms than you can throw a bull at. The area is largely upper-upper-upper middle class, with some trailers and rednecks scattered about for good measure.

As a very rural area — there are no townhomes or apartment buildings — many intersections must be navigated cautiously, as they often suffer from low visibility as to oncoming traffic. While Sunday’s business was steady, I noticed that traffic seemed to be very light even for the area. Surprisingly, traffic can back up quite quickly, particularly at rush hour — many folks in the area commuting home from the city or Hunt Valley into Jacksonville, or up into Fallston or Bel Air, get hung up at the bottleneck that is not only the Four Corners intersection, but the fact that no roads in the area are wider than one lane in each direction (some offering brief turning lanes).

Considering how light traffic I was, I was surprised to see not one, but two traffic accidents. The first was relatively minor — a minivan and a town car impacted at Jarrettsville Pike and Manor Road. Both vehicles were pulled off to the side of Manor and the occupants were mingling, speaking on cell phones. Were I to guess, I would say that a car attempting to cross Jarrettsville Pike northwest bound on Manor was struck by a northbound vehicle, but since I didn’t see the accident, that’s just a guess. Heading straight on Manor (or making a left) can be one of the trickier intersections to navigate. While you’ve got a good view of northbound traffic, southbound traffic can come up over that hill faster than you can react. When you’ve decided you’re good to go, you’ve gotta foot off the clutch, on the gas, and don’t stop until you’re doing at least forty (if you’re southbound), or across the intersection.

I also didn’t see the accident at Blenheim and Sweet Air Road, but the cop blew past me with his lights and sirens on as I was on my way to a delivery just above that intersection. The problem with Blenheim — turning off of it, anyway — is that there’s low visibility to see eastbound traffic. It’s another one of those where if you don’t give your car everything its got, a speeding vehicle can t-bone you before you clear the intersection, and from what I gather, that’s what happened today, except no one was milling about — ambulances came down as I was stuck in stalled traffic, and an hour later, police officers were directing traffic past an SUV with its side caved in, and a big sedan with its front bashed in, sitting dead and shattered in the middle of the road, presumeably awaiting tows to their final resting places. Hopefully, their owners and occupants aren’t also off to their final resting places, but from the positions of the car, it was easy to come to a guess as to what happened: the sedan, eastbound, colided with the SUV’s driver side.

I’m reminded of a near accident Chewbacca almost got into a few months ago. I was sitting at the light to turn onto Sweet Air, and Chewbacca had a run south. I was watching as he entered the intersection, but my focus was on the woman trying to make a left out of the Exxon station, back before MDE shut it down. She was looking for an opening among northbound traffic, and as soon as she saw it, she gunned forward (without bothering to make sure there was no southbound traffic) … and had Chewbacca not slammed on his brakes and his horn, she would’ve gone right into him.

It’s the simple things about driving, y’know?

E.G. brought in his parents’ portable DVD player and the box-set of Battlestar Galactica’s first season that Zebulon lent him. We set the thing up on some boxes and watched the first four episodes back-to-back (33, Water, Bastille Day, Act of Contrition). At least, he did — unlike last week, there was actually a steady amount of delivery business and I was on the road a not un-decent amount.

E.G. couldn’t tell the difference between Lee “Apollo” Adama, Chief of the Deck Tyrol, or stranded ECO Karl “Helo” Agathon. He also had trouble telling Boomers Mk. I and II apart. Many times this conversation was had:

“Wait, I thought Boomer liked the other guy?”

“Yeah, Boomer Mk. 1 loves the chief. This Boomer is just playing to what Helo wants to hear.”

“Wow. Boomer’s a slut.”

“Dude. They look alike, but they’re different characters.”

“But, no, she’s saying they served together.”

“No, Helo flew with Boomer Mk. I. This is Boomer Mk. II pretending to be Boomer Mk. I.”

“Why doesn’t he know that?”

“…”

Also troubling was anytime a Number Six model appeared in an episode as a seperate character from the Number Six in Baltar’s head. When E.G. kept wondering why Baltar seemed to be in his lakeside home that’d been nuked, I was forced to explain to him, “Dude … the doctor is out …”

“– yeah, I get that –”

“… of his mind!”

“Oooooh …”

As of today, there are no longer any American survivors of the RMSTitanic, which sunk ninety-four years ago.

Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died, a funeral home said Sunday. She was 99.

Asplund, who was just 5 years old, lost her father and three brothers — including a fraternal twin — when the “practically unsinkable” ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

Asplund was the last Titanic survivor with actual memories of the sinking, but she shunned publicity and rarely spoke about the events.

But I bet she always wished she had sex with Leonardi DiCaprio in a steamy car in the hold, right?