In my mailbox today?
Cool! It came back to me!
This does suck for another reason — wanting to have Six Feet Under to watch this weekend, I put Disc 3 back on my queue, and it’s currently in the mail to me as we speak. So now I’ll have two disc 3s and one disc four. Eh, I won’t get that far into it this weekend anyway.
I don’t mind sharing the road with bicyclists, walkers, horses, and farm equipment.
Working at the Franchise, in mile after mile of farm land and McMansion developments, an area larger than Baltimore City with three gas stations, six traffic lights, and a dozen one-lane bridges, where every road is one lane in each direction and every other truck is either a pool-refill tanker or a sceptic cleaner, one quickly learns that when the weather turns to warmness, the road will be used by more than just automobiles.
It isn’t uncommon to get stuck behind a farm tractor, or behind some giant farm machine that looks like it belongs at the LaFarge Quary in Cockeysville. There’s one farm vehicle that’s like a tractor with four long legs holding it high enough off the ground someone could drive a fucking lifted SUV under it with plenty of road clearance. In to the crazy farm vehicles, this time of year brings out the bikers — and not just the ones on motorbikes, but the ones on actual bicycles — dozens of them, often in brightly colored jackets and helmets, some of ‘em fat slobs trying to lose weight, moving slow and breathing hard up curving hills. On some of the more remote roads, a mother and daughter, in pink riding helmets, atop massive brown steeds who they manuever onto fields as I come up to pass. Last week, I even saw a couple on a two-seat bicycle.
I’m very concientous when passing any of these road-sharers. The delivery area’s geography leaves it with a large number of roads where straight-aways with long lines of sight are few and far between. Unlike many other of my fellow drivers, I find it irresponsible in the extreme to pass anyone when I can’t see oncoming traffic, yet nearly every day I witness someone doing exactly this.
The folks on horses make me the most nervous. Unlike operating a vehicle — motorized or otherwise — the horse is, to my mind, completely unpredictable. I slow, and try to get as far from the animal as possible. I don’t want to spook the horse, and thankfully most riders I’ve encountered are aware of approaching traffic and move the animal away from or off the road altogether.
It really sucks when you’re coming around a turn and you find a vehicle in your lane coming right at you. You’re forced to slam on your brakes, because the only other option is for the other vehicle to swerve back over into its own lane and quite probably smear the bicyclist into the trees.
I do have one basic expectation about anyone I’m sharing the road with, be they driving an automobile, riding a horse, or driving a tractor. That expectation is that they obey the rules of the road. Y’know. Stop at stop signs. Signal their intentions.
My apartment complex is located across Padonia Road from a small block of townhomes. Yesterday afternoon, on my way to work, I made a left hand turn out of my apartment complex, and as I approached the western entrance to this complex, some yahoo in a bicycle shot out of the residential “u” shaped street and onto Padonia Road. I slammed on my brakes as he made a turn and began heading east in the westbound lane. He gave me a dirty look as he had to manuever over to the far (from his perspective) left side of the street to pass me.
Okay, here’s some basic “share the street” courtesies he decided he doesn’t need to respect: He didn’t stop at his stop sign, nor did he bother to look for oncoming traffic before entering Padonia Road. In addition, he’s bicycling on the wrong side of the street, and failing to at least offer a “whoops! my bad!” wave for his reckless bicycling.
Thankfully, most of the folks who share the streets that I encounter (and who aren’t automobiling) are much more concientious of traffic and generally haven’t — to my knowledge — ever made such a boneheaded move. I can understand some dick in a truck running a stop. I hit him, oh boo, I drive a Celica, and his insurance’ll cover any damage. But bonehead on a bicycle? Heck, my tiny little Japanese car would put him into the hospital for a few months (and he’d probably sue me for being unable to mind-read his complete lack of a working brain).
As built by Jim Garrett.
(At 253 bricks tall, the David Stott Building is over 20% taller than my Hogwarts model).
Seen Thursday evening, approximately 6:10pm, at the intersection of Hess Road and Park Road, roughly halfway between Jarrettsville Pike and Fallston Road.
I was heading east, to make a right hand turn on Park. Westbound on Hess, a small coupe was waiting to make a left hand turn onto Park.
The assclown in the black SUV coming up behind the coupe decided he couldn’t wait the ten seconds for the coup to make its turn.
So, he jumped the curve and drove over someone’s lawn to get around.
Seriously, and people say I have an anger problem? How can I not when I see something like this? Wish I’d had the presence of mind to get the dipfuck’s license plate number. I’d've called the police and maybe he’d've gotten a citation for destruction of property or something.
How fucking inconsiderate.
I wish I’d been the owner of that property and gotten his license plate number and found a greedy lawyer and sued him for the damage. That’d be awesome!
Tippy’s been doing a serious number on the frame of my bathroom door. Y’know. She’s got claws. She needs to claw shit, and since I rent (and I put down a $100 security deposit on my last apartment that they let me carry over to this one, suckers!), I’d much rather she destroy the apartment than any of the apartment’s contents. Here’s what her destructive Claws of Steel have done:
Anyway, I noticed that Jamaila at Ancestral Pile has been posting a lot of good DIY tips, so I thought I’d pose the question to her … and damn did she ever answer!
Thank you, Jamaila!
Trying to clear the wax out of my ears earlier this afternoon with Q-tips, I inadvertently jammed the wax deep into my left ear. The last few hours haven’t been fun — with only my right ear functioning, I’ve almost felt like I’ve been interacting in the world from behind a glass wall.
I stopped by the grocery store after work hoping to find a product I’ve used before — it’s an ear drop that works to unclog wax. Unfortunatly, the medicine aisle had been rearranged and all I could find were ear plugs and “swimmer’s ear” relief — darnit, where’d the Wax-Be-Gone go? (I don’t know that it was actually called Wax-Be-Gone).
Guess we’re back to square one — tilting my head into the shower’s stream and hoping the hot water does a number on the wax.
(Or that the wax chunk falls out on its own).
Isn’t it part of the FBI’s job to investigate corruption in public officials? I don’t get how siezing materials from Lousianna Democrat William Jefferson’s office is a “[violation of the] Constitution’s separation of powers principles”, unless the FBI acted at the bequest of the White House?
I so ripped that title off from the article. Anyway, a couple in Alaska decided they wanted to do everything they could to “ensure their son’s future.” So they named him …
“We decided to name him James Tiberius Kirk Weldy,” said Rebecca in regard to the newest family member who, according to the Captain’s Log, was added to the family fleet at 4:31 a.m. on Friday, April 21, 2006.
For those not in the know, James T. Kirk — played by William Shatner — was the commander of the starship Enterprise in the 1960s science fiction series “Star Trek.”
Wow.
Finishing my complete series overview of Homicide: Life on the Street, I’ve begun Netflixing HBO’s Six Feet Under. I saw the first few episodes when it first aired, but that was, what, six years ago? I’d forgotten most of what happened.
Anyway, I just finished the second disc of the first season. I’m really digging the show. I was hoping to watch the first episode of the third disc tonight before bed when I made a horrifying discovery. The sealed return envelope with the first disc was still on my table.
So. Uh. What’d I drop in the mailbox outside of work this morning?
The unsealed return envelope with the third disc.
Whooooops.
Generally, my Netflix returns show up at the Netflix facility in Gaithersburg “the next day”, so if I don’t have an e-mail early tomorrow (this?) morning, I’ll get worried. I should be worried. I doubt the postal picker-upper would bother to seal the envelope, even assuming he or she noticed it open.
Damn.
First I write this, about how my car can clear a groundhog’s corpse, then what do I go and do tonight on a delivery? Run over a rabbit and drag the damn thing along behind me for like ten yards.
It’s not my fault. It’s not like I saw the rabbit, gunned the engine, then painted a rabbit head on my door as proof of a kill. Rather, I saw the rabbit run across the residential street, I slowed, then as I turned my head to look at the house numbers on the mailbox, the rabbit apparently turned around (because it had gotten across the street) and ran under my front driver’s side tire.
You’ve heard of “suicide by cop”? Apparently, the rabbit version is “Suicide by Pizza Delivery Guy.”
Here’s what I heard: bump.
I looked up, noticed the rabbit was nowhere to be found, figured I’d hit a large twig …
Then I felt another bump from the back tire, reinforcing my belief that I’d hit a twig, although it was weird because I was certain that in the time I’d felt the first bump, I’d gone from house #3 to house #5, which means I should’ve hit the twig with the back tire sooner … Whatever. I pulled into the driveway, took the delivery, and as I drove out, what’d I see? A rabbit smeared across the fucking pavement, like the shikh in Temple of Doom who goes under the rock crusher, y’know?
Stupid rabbit. Roads are for cars. (And bikes, and horses, and farm equipment, but that’s another post).
Garden-level (read: basement) apartments have a nice advantage during the fall and spring. $34.12 is the cost of my BGE bill for the period between April 17th and May 16th. Even with this threatened 72% increase coming next month, I’ll manage. It’ll be tight, particularly during the sweltering months of summer and the freezing months of winter, but this bill won’t be enough to flood my boat and cause me to scream “Abandon ship! Abandon ship!”
Dead groundhog on Poplar Hill Road, a desolate two-lane strip sparsely populated with trailers and McMansions. There’s a dead groundhog on one of the winding curves as you begin to descend towards Merryman’s Mill.
I drove over the groundhog. It was dead, I couldn’t hurt it, and my tiny little Celica, as low to the ground as it is, has more than enough ground clearance to avoid dragging the dead creature along underneath as a sort of gruesome trail of bread crumbs for Hansel and Gretel. In any case, I made a particular point of driving over the dead creature because the person in front of me — driving a Mercedes SUV — actually swerved into the other lane to avoid it.
It’s not like walking under a ladder — driving over dead critters doesn’t bring you bad luck, y’know? And, my god, you were driving an SUV! You could’ve driven over a fucking deer and had enough clearance.
Dipshit.
I dunno, but not doing anything remotely productive comes to mind, which, coincidently, is what I did today, which was first day off in nearly a month. Absolutely. Nothing. Productive.
My next day off is this coming Saturday. Maybe I’ll walk the NCR Trail. It’s 11:30, and, having accomplished absolutely nothing today (with the possible exception of having gotten high off catnip), this blogger is going to bed.
I’m getting geared up to begin my first Lego project since I finished that seven-foot-tall castle in my living room (and, uh, no, the castle isn’t being demolished for pieces). Something I’ve been interested in building since even before I had an interest in building Hogwarts, I wanted to build a starship, although the details of what kind of ship were always a little vague and hazy (and still are, truthfully).
Anyway, I think it’ll probably make a nice summer project. What I’d really like to do is something I didn’t do with Hogwarts — a complete, detailed interior which is also, and here I face the most difficult aspect of the design — accessible, as well. In any case, I’ve found concept-art from here that I’m using as my “model” (it won’t be to that scale), although, like Hogwarts, I’m building from scratch — no plans, no designs, just a rough idea and a more pressing need to keep everything symmetrical (I do think it would be neat to have a shuttle “airlock” like the one on the Sulacco in Aliens).
I think I’m going to document this build more than I did with Hogwarts. Speaking of which, if you’re new to this blog and are asking yourselves, “Wait, this dude built a 7-foot-tall Lego Hogwarts?” You should just click here. And the answer is “Yes. Yes I did.”
Today, I want, in no particular order to eat, a bowl of ice-cream, an order of General Tso’s chicken with a side of pork-fried rice, a club sandwich, and an order of chicken wings.
“But … Snay … you’re on a diet!”
I know, I know, but guess what? My appetite, long absent, is back! This is good news because in addition to my throat feeling good-as-new and my mind feeling unsluggish and my nose not running, it means that I have overcome my illness — perhaps due to the best night’s sleep I can remember? — and have recovered. I feel like a new man. (I do have an occasional killer cough, though).
(And I just remembered I started a load of clothes in the wash last night and never moved ‘em to the dryer. Gonna have to get to that).
My current weight is two-hundred and twenty-two pounds, which, you’ll recall, is what I weighed last week. I’m a little disappointed — surely one side benefit of being sick and barely eating is that I should’ve lost weight.
It’s such a beautiful day out. I mean, I don’t know for sure it is, I’m typing this from my bed, looking at my bedroom blinds which aren’t doing much to hold the daylight from streaming in — don’t get me wrong, that’s very very good. I like sunlight. Sunlight is teh good. Sunlight indicates that outside it’s a beautiful day. Meanwhile, the furthest I’ve gone from the bed is to the toilet, so once I get showered and dressed I figure I’ll find out for myself.
I need to motivate myself to get out of bed. I’ve got the whole day off today. Today is, in fact, my first day off of both jobs since April 25th. Whatever I can be accused of, not working a lot isn’t one of them. (Most people take days off when they first get sick, not after they’re done being sick. Hah).
I’m house sitting for one of my ex-college professors. That’s the wrong expression. I’m going over to her house four times while she’s away to water her cats, feed her fish, and change the plants’ filter. Er. Well, those are what her instructions said to do. I suppose it makes more sense than watering the fish. (I joke). Anyway, she lives in Guilford, so that’s at least an hour, afterwards I need to swing up to work, collect my paycheck, and get it deposited. I need to do that, but thinking on it, I don’t think I will — I’ve been in the Franchise every day since April 25th and I simply don’t want to go in there today. So I won’t. Bah them.
Anyway, it’s 10:12, and I’m off to get a shower. Suck it, cubicle slaves!