As soon as the guy said, “And the bottom line is, if it isn’t, it’s coming out of your tip,” I figured I wasn’t getting much of a tip.

Which is a wonderful way to make sure the pizza guy doesn’t stalk off with your food which, to be honest, was my first reaction.

The problem originated with a coupon - buy a large at regular price, get a medium for a couple bucks. Turns out whoever the customer had spoken to on the phone didn’t recognize the coupon, so marked him down for full price. I don’t quite know which of my coworkers took the order, but I’m not surprised at the situation — Gary’s been printing new coupons every time he has to re-up on his menus, so there are a whole ton floating around.

(Here’s a secret: most pizza-shop coupons aren’t ever redeemed).

And when the guy not-so-indiscreetly threatened my tip, I was in the process of resolving the problem. This involved calling the store to find the regular price for the large speciality pie he’d gotten (I’d love to be able to say I know this stuff by heart, but Euripedes has started pushing that information out of my head), then added the price of the coupon and the mileage charge, and the new total was $19 (down from $25).

And I got a six-buck tip atop it - hurrah!

Of the people who drive SUVs in the world, there are roughly three catagories. The first catagory is the working truck drivers — people who drive trucks because they need the large storage or towing capacity of such a vehicle for work. Landscapers, package delivery companies, construction workers and so on and so forth are faced with certain requirements that can’t be met by a Honda Civic.

The second category generally fits folks who need the capacity of a larger vehicle for transporting a large family, or perhaps live (or have lived) in an area where for parts of the year, a vehicle without 4-wheel drive is a neccessity of life.

The third category is one that gives SUV and truck drivers bad names. They’re the folks who are so totally inept at operating a motor vehicle that they should never have been issued a driver’s license. They don’t drive an SUV because they need the space, or they need it for work, they drive the thing because they recognize that they are horribly atrocious drivers and want to increase the odds of their surviving a crash that they cause, and damn the other guy, because, hey, that’s what insurance is for, right?

It’s this last type that came damn fucking close to killing me today. I was driving south on York Road and entered the middle lane to turn into a car dealership which, coincidentally, sells really big trucks to inept drivers. They’re also staffed by - for the record - a complete bunch of stuck up, lying, cheap-asses who look pissed when they have to shell out a buck-fifty on a twenty-eight dollar order.

Anyway, so I pull into the middle lane and wait for traffic to clear to make a left. I’d noticed a big Toyota Land Cruiser waiting to turn out of the lot, but didn’t think anything of it. The next thing I know, the cars heading north are slamming on their brakes, and I look to my left to see the Land Cruiser pulling out of the lot and heading straight … for me.

And of course, I wasn’t in gear.

Thankfully, the Dumb Fucking Bitch saw me and slammed on her brakes probably about a quarter second before she knocked me into traffic. So the problem now is that her big ass truck is blocking north bound traffic, which is coming to a complete stop. She can’t move until I do, but I’m blocked from making my turn by her retardedness, and I can’t get to the next entrance because there’s a car twenty yards up waiting to turn across south-bound traffic.

Well fuck me.

Thankfully my window was rolled down and I made sure she got a nice look at my hand with middle finger extended before I shifted into gear and pulled forward so that she could drive her oversized tank through. I hope she realizes what a Dumb Fucking Bitch she is and that she very nearly caused a massive traffic accident (either from causing north-bound cars to hit her, or from knocking me into north-bound cars, either way, she’s a Dumb Fucking Bitch).

This was just one memorable incident from the day which really deserves the title “Hell” more than Wednesday night. Mark called out sick so Gary was inside with two newbies, both of whom aren’t quite up to the level they were expected to rise to today. The newbie on the phone did an okay job taking orders — she just didn’t get business names or extension numbers or suite numbers, half the time she didn’t write up a total, and a few times on credit-card orders, she added the tip into the store’s total and wrote that number for the grand total. All in all, it made for a hellacious few hours.

all ther cool kids are doing it

… via USA Today’s digital pages.

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could “take out” Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

The congressman later said he was “just throwing out some ideas” and that an “ultimate threat” might have to be met with an “ultimate response.”

Spokesman Will Adams said Sunday the four-term congressman doesn’t support threatening holy Islamic sites but that Tancredo was grappling with the hypothetical situation of a terrorist strike deadlier than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“We have an enemy with no uniform, no state, who looks like you and me and only emerges right before an attack. How do we go after someone like that?” Adams said.

Apparently, the answer to Adams’ question is “mass genocide.”

Here’s a simple rule I think Tancredo should adapt — would he suggest doing it if the terrorist responsible was, say, Tim McVeigh? If he can honestly say “I support nuking Christian holy sites if the terrorists responsible are Christian,” then hey, run your big mouth. Otherwise, sit down and shut up. This country is trying to convince the Muslim world that it isn’t out to destroy Islam — just terrorism. And Tancredo running his flap without bothering to check his brain well, buddy, y’ just ain’t helping.

Driving around in a car all day, I tend to listen to the radio a lot. In the late afternoons I try to listen to the “Don & Mike Show” syndicated in Baltimore on WHFS 105.7. Yesterday, I tuned in a bit late but learned quickly that Freda Wright-Source, the wife of Don Geronimo died early Monday morning of injuries resulting from a car crash the night before.

Wright-Sorce, 50, of Great Falls, was driving on Route 90 at 2 p.m. in Berlin, Md., when her vehicle was struck head-on by another vehicle that crossed a median to avoid a pile-up, according to a Maryland State Police spokesman.

In other words, because some jackass didn’t want to wait for the cars to get cleared, he (or she) killed a person. And, yeah, I might not be blogging about this if she didn’t happen to be on the radio almost every day as a quasi-celebrity. It’s a senseless death and there was no good reason for it — it’s not like a kid ran into the street and she swerved into a tree to avoid him.

This was absolutely pointless and could have easily been avoided, but some people are super impatient, and as a result her husband and her son have a big gaping hole in their lives.

What a fuckin’ dickweed.

UPDATE:

What a difference a word makes. Epiphany is right when he says, “Just a bit of difference in the wording, but enough to make the guy/girl seem less culpable.”

Maryland State Police said the 2005 Lexus that Wright-Sorce was driving was struck head-on Sunday afternoon by a 1997 Ford Explorer. Authorities said the Explorer’s driver crossed the median on Route 90 in Worcester County to avoid crashing into the last car of a 10-car pileup that police described as a series of fender-benders.

This is what I get for ranting without all of the story.

UPDATE: 7/29 Comments Closed

… must come down.

Doctors are trying to save the life of an Albuquerque baby shot in the head by a bullet that fell from the sky Monday night. The bullet was likely fired into the air during a July 4th celebration.

Just because its the fourth of July doesn’t give people a license to behave recklessly.

HT: Epistolary.

Tron writes:

I walked down to my mailbox at 4pm to check for netflicks. (I’m waiting for Babylon 5 season 1 discs 4-5!!) I looked to the right, and went “whoa”.

He went “whoa” because his moron neighbor started a big effin’ fire. Tron, I sure as hell hope you’ve got insurance, ‘cuz I think that guy’ll be declaring bankruptcy!

Remember Maureen Faibish? She’s the woman who left her twelve-year-old son alone in a home with two pit bulls she thought were violent. Not surprisingly, when she came home, her kid was dead (and you can bet it wasn’t a pleasant death). Yesterday she was arrested on charges of child endangerment.

I don’t understand - why didn’t they arrest her eleven days ago?

Running errands today, I came across not one, not two, not even three, but four dipshits who apparently were incapable of recognizing that the middle lane on York Road is for turning. Instead, these asshole driver-ed rejects were trying to make their turn from the left-most south or north bound lane, forcing traffic coming behind them to merge into the right-most lane. Only once (coming home) was one of these brain-dead idiots blocking my path, and I decided to make the most of it … I pulled into the middle lane, blocked him from turning, and as he screamed and waved his arms at me and honked his horn in anger, I gave him the middle finger, found an opening in oncoming traffic, and took the long(er) way home.

It was so worth it.

I call this an example of: “I’m incapable of parking my vehicle in one spot so I will take two and inconvenience everyone else seeking to use this parking lot.” It’s funny, because usually the guilty drivers in these cases are behind the wheel of a … y’know … tank.

via usa today:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is apologizing for a newspaper ad featuring a photo of a book-burning in Nazi-era Germany. The ad was published in a northern Arizona newspaper by a political action committee the company helped fund.

The company was writing an apology letter Friday to the Anti-Defamation League in Arizona and will run an apology ad this weekend in Flagstaff’s Arizona Daily Sun, which carried the original ad, said Daphne Moore, director of community affairs for Wal-Mart.

“It was a terrible mistake and one that we sincerely regret,” Moore said.

The ad showed a historic photo of people throwing books into a large fire. A swastika is clearly visible near the center of the photo.

The text below it reads: “Should we let government tell us what we can read?”

Moore said the ad was prepared by an outside agency but reviewed and approved by Wal-Mart. “Whoever the individual who approved it was, was not aware of the historical context of the picture,” she said.

Look, I suppose that seeing a photo of a bunch of people throwing books into a fire, the Wal-Mart exec who approved the ad might have thought, “Oh, look, they’re all enjoying Farenheit 451.” But how much of a dumbass do you have to be to not be aware of the historical context of a swastika?

And even if you really didn’t know what the swastika was, would you really want to compare your plight to the systematic extermination of the Jews of Europe — and especially for profit? I don’t think Wal-Mart’s board of directors is being pushed into the gas chamber.

And does anyone buy Wal-Mart’s excuse of, “Oh, it was a rogue and/or stupid employee?” I don’t. Publicity - even of the bad variety - is good.

Labor Blog has a good take on it, and Daily Kos has an entry from the Arizona Daily Sun that’ll just piss you off.

The intersection of York and Shawan Roads in Hunt Valley is, to put it bluntly, fucking horrible. The poorly designed Giant Food shopping center at the end of Shawan doesn’t help any, nor do the idiot drivers who don’t understand that coming east from Shawan, it isn’t a merge lane onto York — you get the whole effin’ lane, you don’t wait to merge!

See, York Road is one lane in each direction north of Shawan. That’s not true - it actually expands to two lanes around Loveton, but shrinks back to one north and south of that.

Anyway, if you’re on York Road heading south, Shawan is the boundary after which York Road is two lanes. What’s nice about York Road north of, I think, Ridgely, is that it’s two lanes both ways plus a middle turn lane. But the point I’m trying to make is that when you drive south of Shawan on York, you have to be careful not to jump right away into the right lane, because southbound York Road traffic from Shawan has right-of-way access to that right lane. It isn’t a dotted line for the first twenty meters - it’s a solid line!

DO NOT CROSS!

So when I’m trying to make my smooth turn from Shawan onto York, I get very aggravated when the idiot in front of me doesn’t realize that they don’t have to wait for a merge. They can just go. But they’re stupid, so they fucking stop their car. This happened today. I don’t get it - do they not see the big open lane in front of them? I honked repeatedly. The person didn’t move until she felt it was okay to merge … and then didn’t even bother getting in the left hand lane.

I was very frustrated, so when I sped past the person, they got a nice single-digit wave.

The other thing that bothers me is the total jackasses who need to be shot. These are usually the people on York Road who don’t take the entrance to the Giant Shopping Center at the intersection (with the lights!!!) but wait until they have to tie up the left-hand southbound lane to turn across three lanes of traffic to the shopping center.

Case in point, again today. I was stuck on York Road north of Shawan, waiting to get back to the shop. There is a left-hand turn lane into the Giant Food shopping center. A woman behind me in a big green Lincoln pulls around me, drives in the turn lane, then tries to get back into the southbound lane, because she’s too fucking lazy to wait through the traffic cycle. As fate would have it, when the light turned green, not only was she blocking someone from making their left into the shopping center, she wound up pulling back into traffic - you guessed it - right behind me (’cuz I wasn’t letting her cut in line, fuck her lazy impatient self).

Want to guess the next brilliant thing she did? She put on her turn signal and tried to make the non-stoplight-assisted turn into the Giant shopping center. This is a real problem because the middle lane is, at this point, the northbound turn lane for Shawan Road. So, essentially, she’s got to cross three lanes of traffic - the middle lane of which was already filled and impassible - to turn into a shopping center of which SHE COULD HAVE MADE A GREEN-ARROW ASSISTED TURN! But no, she had to inconvenience the people in that turn lane, and now she’s squeezing southbound traffic into one lane, which is in turn a super problem because now the already-on-York southbound traffic is going to try with the from-Shawan-southbound traffic, and everybody’s thinkin’ they’ve got the right of way and … oh, I want a job where I don’t have to drive for it, and don’t have to drive to get to it.

I hate people. I especially hate people with cars. Because they’re fucking morons.

Clarence Stowers is a piece of shit, scum-sucking asshole who should face jail time for what he’s done.

Don’t recognize the name? He’s the guy who found a fingertip in his ice cream - custard? - whatever. Why the anger at him?

Because the greedy fuck refused to return the employee’s finger. And now there’s no way for doctors to reattach the digit. Because Clarence Stowers is a greedy, scum-sucking piece of shit. (Mind you, if I found a finger tip in my food, I’d sue the establishment’s ass off too, but I’d return the finger tip).

He refused to give it to the shop’s owner, and refused to give it to a doctor who was treating Fizer, who accidentally stuck his hand in a mixing machine and had his right index finger lopped off at the first knuckle…

…”The man who lost the finger has the superior claim,” said Paul Lombardo, who teaches at the University of Virginia’s law school. “It’s his finger and he might be able to use it.”

Lombardo said Stowers could have photographed the fingertip, taken a bit of flesh for DNA analysis or gotten an affidavit from the surgeon who would have reattached the digit.

“There is nothing that would prevent preserving the chain of evidence,” Lombardo said.

Fizer is dealing with his loss in private. The Carolina Beach resident’s mother, Sheri Fizer, said the family had been instructed by an attorney not to talk about the case.

“Unless he offers a better explanation for that decision, people will assume that customer Clarence Stowers cared less about another person’s loss of a body part than about his chance to squeeze some bucks out of the custard stand.”

That last paragraph seems to sum it up for me. You know what would be great? If he won a large settlement from the custard stand, and then had to give it all to Brandon Fizer when Fizer’s lawsuit came through.

Poetic fuckin’ justice. Anyway, even if that doesn’t happen, Clarence Stowers is still a jackass.

When you label people with a broad brush, you tend to miss a lot of folks in the cracks. So for a country of three-hundred million folks, seperating everyone into political groups of “liberal” and “conservative” tends to be problematic, because unless you’re a total whore to “your” party, very few folks fit comfortably into the less-than-general labels you’ve assigned for them.

My “general” label is as a liberal. But I’m one of those weird small-government, state’s rights liberals. Plus, I like guns.

There are certain folks who are very militaristic about owning weapons. They’ve usually got a bomb shelter stocked with a year’s worth of food under their home and talk about United Nation troops overruning the US military and conquoring the nation. Most folks are — a tad — less militaristic about the situation. I mean, it’s almost fair to say that a firearm is a tool, similiar in many respects to - for example - a fire extinguisher. Of course, there’s a big difference between a fire extinguisher and a firearm - one’s purpose is to put out a fire, and the other’s ultimate purpose is to end a human life.

Which isn’t for a minute to say that a firearm’s only use is to kill. Just as you could use a fire extinguisher to club an intruder with, or a maglite as a hammer, firearms can be used for hunting, decoration, reassurement, insurance, and intimidation. Of course, there’s a lot more to using a firearm than a fire extinguisher or a hammer — a firearm owner needs to be versed in the local and state laws regarding how and why he may use a firearm, particularly those concerning self-defense. The point being that if the situation ever arises where you have the need to point a firearm at a person in defense of yourself or your family, if you use the weapon inappropriately, you’re facing a heap of legal trouble.

(Plus, when the zombies come marching, what would you rather be armed with? A cricket bat or a .45?)

So, briefly, my basic opinion regarding firearm ownership is that a law-abiding citizen should be allowed to purchase and carry a firearm if they so desire.

So I was a little dismayed when I read about some comments made by rocker Ted Nugent in encouraging gun owners to disregard the law and to use their weapons to turn themselves into vigilantes: “To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want ‘em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot ‘em.”

Hey, Ted? Owning a gun doesn’t give anyone the right to circumvent the court system, and someone comitting a crime doesn’t give a gun owner a warrant to kill them. Oh, and when you shoot some dipshit for lifting a pack of gum from the corner store, don’t be surprised when you’re brought to court for it, because you seem pretty fuckin’ out of touch with, I dunno, reality?