Stay out of the left lane. I mean it.
If you're reading this and saying to yourself, "gosh, I have a right to be in the left lane like everybody else!", then you need start taking the bus.
Here's a simple rule:
If you're driving in the left lane and you're not going faster than the people in the lane immediately to your right, you need to get out of the left lane.
Here's another one:
If there's someone behind you, and you're in the left lane, and they're tailgating you while making gestures and possibly waving a gun around, you need to get out of the left lane.
Why is this so hard to understand? There are even signs to this effect all over America's highways:
"Slow Traffic Keep Right",
"Faster Vehicles Use Left Lane",
"Self Centered Fascist Idiot Slow Drivers On The Phone In the Left Lane DIE".
You know it's you. And don't try to pawn it off on the unlicensed drivers. Somebody said that to me once. "It's those unlicensed drivers in the left lane holding everything up!" Well, it's not. It's you.
Here's my reasoning...
A recent study found that across the USA, the range of unlicensed drivers on the road ranges somewhere between 6% - 23%, depending on what state you live in. (don't ask for a citation, just go google "percentage of unlicensed drivers" yourself, chucklehead) In my state it runs somewhere around 10%. Even if I assume that 100% of the unlicensed drivers on the roads in my state are illiterate, not receiving the training provided by the booklet they want you to read at the DMV before you take your driver's test, and therefore couldn't read the "Slower Traffic Keep Right" admonition, then how come 85% of the drivers on the road manage to find their way in front of me in the left lane going 5 MPH below the speed limit?? They're usually on the phone, too. The best part about these retards is the finger you get from them when you get to pass them on the right just after they finish telling their mom about this asshole on their bumper and why can't people just get along.
The conclusion is simple. It's you. You're in the left lane going slower than a flotilla of dead squirrels drifting across a city water reclamation pool. From the perspective of the people behind you the squirrels have more of a right to exist than you do. If the collective Hate Energy of those trapped in the left lane behind you could be harnessed, America's dependence on foreign oil would be over in about a nanosecond. You can drive just as slowly in the right lane. Or on your couch. Either way you'll be able to console yourself with the fact that you've probably lowered the blood pressure of about six thousand people a day, improving the overall health of the general driving population.
Oh, and then there's the Truckers. Being raised on five teeth and a banjo seems to preselect an individual to a long career of caffeine and hemorrhoids. I get the fact that truckers have a job to do, but in no way does this give them the right to form a crawling roadblock 5 trucks wide going up a mountain pass. At what point is it OK to think that going 32 MPH gives you the right to hold up the entire driving world so that you can go around the tanker in front of you that's going 31 MPH? This will never seem reasonable to the other people on the road no matter how many Kurt Russel movies you've seen. Do us all a favor and put your next load on a train and go to night school. Who knows, maybe you'll invent the flying car, and that'll for sure open the left lane....
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Starbucks
Yeah, ok, been away awhile. Nobody's reading anyway.
Fine.
So, it looks like Starbucks has saturated. Shame, really. I'm good with the Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks. I go the store. I get a coffee. I come home. I get a coffee. I don't have to make a left turn. Cool.
People think that you should have to work harder for your coffee. I'm not in agreement. I'm not saying that we need more Starbucks. We need less customers.
The problem is basically this:
The line at the Starbucks counter is not the place or the time to impose your personal re-affirmation techniques. I understand that you think you have rights and you think that it's ok to hold up the 15 or 20 raging caffine junkies in line behind you, with more being added at a rate of 5 to 10 per second, and who, in all likelyhood, would press a button, if it were available, dumping you into a mixture of battery acid and angry pirrahnas without a nanosecond's moment of remorse, just to get you the hell out of the way so that they can get to their Joe. The Starbucks line, especially in the morning, is no place for ammetuers. You don't wait until you get to the counter to figure out what you want to order. If you don't know what you want by the time you get to the Starbucks, go to Peaberry's and practice. Here's how it works: Get in line, order, pay -> WITH CASH OR A GIFT CARD, and get the hell out of the way! DO NOT:
1) Argue over the price.
It's the price. You pay it. They give you the coffee. Then, the guy behind you gets to order. The guy at the cash register is a pro, or he'd be working at the Walmart. Starbucks HAS benefits. That's why they have good people at the cash register who know what the price is. Douche bag.
2) Talk to the coffee person.
They don't want to talk to you. They have to say "Hello, how are you doing?" It's part of their job. They secretly hate you and that's the truth. If you order, hit them with a false smile, get your drink and get out of the way, you might earn grudging respect from the people behind you. The coffee person is just the delivery agent, man. Don't pretend they're your friends. We all know better.
3) Pick out anything else to buy.
You're just buying the swag to try to impress everybody behind you in line, or the coffee person. We know you can't afford it, and that coffee cup you're buying that comes with the Dave Matthews stamp of Eco approval doesn't really save the environment either.
4) Pay with a check(!)
God, if you have to be told, you need to go play in traffic. We all know that sucker's gonna bounce anyway. Check writers at Starbucks are usually floating a couple of house payments. If you need to write a check for a cup of coffee, instead consider switching to Tea, the kind you make yourself, and will be forced to drink at the shelter once all that debt comes crashing down.
5) Discuss your order.
Don't. Just don't. They're not interested. We're not interested. It's a drink. If you want the coffee person's phone number, ask for their phone number. Discussing your order makes you look like a stalker, which you probably are.
6) Change your order.
If you didn't want the double half-caff retardo-latte with Cinnamon sprinkles, deal with it. You ordered it. Something in you really wanted it. You're denying your inner self. Changing your order holds up the line and might get your car keyed. Those door dings are NOT accidental.
7) Read the menu at the counter.
For God's sake, if you're reading the menu when you get to the counter, everybody behind you wants you to die. We're not fooling around here. We can see what some of you human pustules are thinking when you get up there. "I have a right to be here and talk to the coffee person and discuss what I think I'm going to order and I have a right to question every detail and the numbers come up so fast and the coffee's really expensive here, do you really think it should cost that much? And, did I order one Latte or two, and is it OK if I write a check?" FAH!
Remember, we have a legal addiction. Sometimes that gets you off the hook for antisocial behavior....
Amen.
Fine.
So, it looks like Starbucks has saturated. Shame, really. I'm good with the Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks. I go the store. I get a coffee. I come home. I get a coffee. I don't have to make a left turn. Cool.
People think that you should have to work harder for your coffee. I'm not in agreement. I'm not saying that we need more Starbucks. We need less customers.
The problem is basically this:
The line at the Starbucks counter is not the place or the time to impose your personal re-affirmation techniques. I understand that you think you have rights and you think that it's ok to hold up the 15 or 20 raging caffine junkies in line behind you, with more being added at a rate of 5 to 10 per second, and who, in all likelyhood, would press a button, if it were available, dumping you into a mixture of battery acid and angry pirrahnas without a nanosecond's moment of remorse, just to get you the hell out of the way so that they can get to their Joe. The Starbucks line, especially in the morning, is no place for ammetuers. You don't wait until you get to the counter to figure out what you want to order. If you don't know what you want by the time you get to the Starbucks, go to Peaberry's and practice. Here's how it works: Get in line, order, pay -> WITH CASH OR A GIFT CARD, and get the hell out of the way! DO NOT:
1) Argue over the price.
It's the price. You pay it. They give you the coffee. Then, the guy behind you gets to order. The guy at the cash register is a pro, or he'd be working at the Walmart. Starbucks HAS benefits. That's why they have good people at the cash register who know what the price is. Douche bag.
2) Talk to the coffee person.
They don't want to talk to you. They have to say "Hello, how are you doing?" It's part of their job. They secretly hate you and that's the truth. If you order, hit them with a false smile, get your drink and get out of the way, you might earn grudging respect from the people behind you. The coffee person is just the delivery agent, man. Don't pretend they're your friends. We all know better.
3) Pick out anything else to buy.
You're just buying the swag to try to impress everybody behind you in line, or the coffee person. We know you can't afford it, and that coffee cup you're buying that comes with the Dave Matthews stamp of Eco approval doesn't really save the environment either.
4) Pay with a check(!)
God, if you have to be told, you need to go play in traffic. We all know that sucker's gonna bounce anyway. Check writers at Starbucks are usually floating a couple of house payments. If you need to write a check for a cup of coffee, instead consider switching to Tea, the kind you make yourself, and will be forced to drink at the shelter once all that debt comes crashing down.
5) Discuss your order.
Don't. Just don't. They're not interested. We're not interested. It's a drink. If you want the coffee person's phone number, ask for their phone number. Discussing your order makes you look like a stalker, which you probably are.
6) Change your order.
If you didn't want the double half-caff retardo-latte with Cinnamon sprinkles, deal with it. You ordered it. Something in you really wanted it. You're denying your inner self. Changing your order holds up the line and might get your car keyed. Those door dings are NOT accidental.
7) Read the menu at the counter.
For God's sake, if you're reading the menu when you get to the counter, everybody behind you wants you to die. We're not fooling around here. We can see what some of you human pustules are thinking when you get up there. "I have a right to be here and talk to the coffee person and discuss what I think I'm going to order and I have a right to question every detail and the numbers come up so fast and the coffee's really expensive here, do you really think it should cost that much? And, did I order one Latte or two, and is it OK if I write a check?" FAH!
Remember, we have a legal addiction. Sometimes that gets you off the hook for antisocial behavior....
Amen.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Air Travel
Air Travel.
This is a rant. Just in case you're not getting it, I wanted to make that clear.
I travel a bit. Most of the traveling I do is work related and a fair bit of it involves trips overseas. I've been some places that I wouldn't have considered going unless I had to be there for work, such as Suzhou, China, or Houston. Nobody should have to go to Houston, unless you live there, in which case the actual going to Houston should only involve the trip that it takes to get your stuff and go somewhere else. I digress. We'll deal with Houston some other time.
Now, the "being there" part of travel has always been great. I've never had an unpleasant experience at my destination, whether it was touring factories in the worst parts of Lima, setting up a trade show booth in Fort Worth or having all night business negotiations in Seoul, the latter which consisted of trying to get the other guy to agree to a three percent break on the product cost before I had to do a shot of something that might have consisted of fermented snake poop.
However, one must consider the "getting there" part of air travel. As was eloquently described by a software manager I used to work with, "there's something off about being sealed into an aluminum tube and shot through the air at 500mph."
It's not about the food. Everybody always expects that any airline rant involves some kind of discussion about how bad the food is. Well, I guess the airlines were listening, because now, there isn't any food, unless you consider the xxxx-bag full of pretzels that comes at you at about 9 kuh-billion miles an hour just after you catch an elbow in the ribs from the guy sitting next to you five seconds after you nod off. The "flight-attendants" are obligated to deliver this little present to you with the utmost contempt since they can't spread it out over the serving of reconstituted bean and jellied-fish paste they used to pass off as Salisbury steak. Remember how they used to smirk? "Here's your fish-pas... uh, steak. Heh heh...."
The galling part of air travel is the contrast between the extraordinary technology involved and the utter, rank incompetence of every other aspect of the process. This contrast lurks just below the surface, a landscape of every missing bag, fake smile and onion-breathed "Buh-Bye" you get as you de-plane, the mountain range resulting from two prom-night drunk continents of incompetence and NASA bred technology crashing into each other with almost Himalayan abandon. On the one hand, you have an engine capable of producing horsepower that can put a schoolbus in orbit hanging off of an airframe that will last easily through fifty thousand hours of operation. (That doesn't seem like much? Consider that your best Honda will disintegrate after about five thousand hours of operation.) On the other hand, you have to watch a lucrative trip hit the fan because some idiot drove a luggage cart into an airplane between your gate and the runway. ("Gorg not see big aluminum thing in way. Gorg just here to eat luggage.") The best part is watching them work out how they're going to route you to your destination following this tragedy, the new route which will consist of a connecting flight that won't connect, no matter how hard you try to fit the gates together. Putting over seven hundred thousand pounds of aluminum and disgruntled human cattle into the air three thousand times a day with less than one accident every couple of years while not being able to plan ahead far enough to get more than seven sandwiches on board prior to takeoff deserves some kind of award in Idiot Savantry.
And don't get me started on the TSA.
The real reason you have to take your shoes off is so that you don't inadvertently pull them off your feet and use them to kill everybody wearing a white uniform as you go through the security check point in an honest attempt to improve the human race by re-instituting natural selection. No joke, working for the TSA is a clear signal to the laws of nature that you have been selected against. There is no pride in this. If you're considering working for the TSA, instead finish that GED, go to night school and get back into the game. The TSA or "Thousands Standing Around" make the kids from Tard Blog look like the next graduating class from MIT. Being told to take off my shoes and explain why I chose to include my toothbrush in the baggy with my shaving cream to an illiterate, vastly overweight, toothless troglodyte in a white shirt while I'm trying to make a flight that was somehow rescheduled to leave a half hour early without notice is one extreme hassle that should only be reserved for Microsoft employees. To make matters worse, whenever one of those re-routing incidents occurs, you get the super secret probulator special treatment where Trog-Boy paws through your stuff, getting distracted for at least ten minutes on some shiny bits of paper in the bottom of your suitcase, and then sticks a metal detector wand up your how-do-you-do. The result being that you will now miss that connecting flight that you thought you had a shot at making.
And you have a wand up your how-do-you-do.
In all likelihood, you will spend a night in Houston.
This is a rant. Just in case you're not getting it, I wanted to make that clear.
I travel a bit. Most of the traveling I do is work related and a fair bit of it involves trips overseas. I've been some places that I wouldn't have considered going unless I had to be there for work, such as Suzhou, China, or Houston. Nobody should have to go to Houston, unless you live there, in which case the actual going to Houston should only involve the trip that it takes to get your stuff and go somewhere else. I digress. We'll deal with Houston some other time.
Now, the "being there" part of travel has always been great. I've never had an unpleasant experience at my destination, whether it was touring factories in the worst parts of Lima, setting up a trade show booth in Fort Worth or having all night business negotiations in Seoul, the latter which consisted of trying to get the other guy to agree to a three percent break on the product cost before I had to do a shot of something that might have consisted of fermented snake poop.
However, one must consider the "getting there" part of air travel. As was eloquently described by a software manager I used to work with, "there's something off about being sealed into an aluminum tube and shot through the air at 500mph."
It's not about the food. Everybody always expects that any airline rant involves some kind of discussion about how bad the food is. Well, I guess the airlines were listening, because now, there isn't any food, unless you consider the xxxx-bag full of pretzels that comes at you at about 9 kuh-billion miles an hour just after you catch an elbow in the ribs from the guy sitting next to you five seconds after you nod off. The "flight-attendants" are obligated to deliver this little present to you with the utmost contempt since they can't spread it out over the serving of reconstituted bean and jellied-fish paste they used to pass off as Salisbury steak. Remember how they used to smirk? "Here's your fish-pas... uh, steak. Heh heh...."
The galling part of air travel is the contrast between the extraordinary technology involved and the utter, rank incompetence of every other aspect of the process. This contrast lurks just below the surface, a landscape of every missing bag, fake smile and onion-breathed "Buh-Bye" you get as you de-plane, the mountain range resulting from two prom-night drunk continents of incompetence and NASA bred technology crashing into each other with almost Himalayan abandon. On the one hand, you have an engine capable of producing horsepower that can put a schoolbus in orbit hanging off of an airframe that will last easily through fifty thousand hours of operation. (That doesn't seem like much? Consider that your best Honda will disintegrate after about five thousand hours of operation.) On the other hand, you have to watch a lucrative trip hit the fan because some idiot drove a luggage cart into an airplane between your gate and the runway. ("Gorg not see big aluminum thing in way. Gorg just here to eat luggage.") The best part is watching them work out how they're going to route you to your destination following this tragedy, the new route which will consist of a connecting flight that won't connect, no matter how hard you try to fit the gates together. Putting over seven hundred thousand pounds of aluminum and disgruntled human cattle into the air three thousand times a day with less than one accident every couple of years while not being able to plan ahead far enough to get more than seven sandwiches on board prior to takeoff deserves some kind of award in Idiot Savantry.
And don't get me started on the TSA.
The real reason you have to take your shoes off is so that you don't inadvertently pull them off your feet and use them to kill everybody wearing a white uniform as you go through the security check point in an honest attempt to improve the human race by re-instituting natural selection. No joke, working for the TSA is a clear signal to the laws of nature that you have been selected against. There is no pride in this. If you're considering working for the TSA, instead finish that GED, go to night school and get back into the game. The TSA or "Thousands Standing Around" make the kids from Tard Blog look like the next graduating class from MIT. Being told to take off my shoes and explain why I chose to include my toothbrush in the baggy with my shaving cream to an illiterate, vastly overweight, toothless troglodyte in a white shirt while I'm trying to make a flight that was somehow rescheduled to leave a half hour early without notice is one extreme hassle that should only be reserved for Microsoft employees. To make matters worse, whenever one of those re-routing incidents occurs, you get the super secret probulator special treatment where Trog-Boy paws through your stuff, getting distracted for at least ten minutes on some shiny bits of paper in the bottom of your suitcase, and then sticks a metal detector wand up your how-do-you-do. The result being that you will now miss that connecting flight that you thought you had a shot at making.
And you have a wand up your how-do-you-do.
In all likelihood, you will spend a night in Houston.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Candy Canes Are Evil
Candy Canes.
Today, I conducted an experiment. I thought maybe it was time to try eating one of those damned things. I have been avoiding them since I was a kid. One year, I tried to eat one and got stuck to the cat for the duration of the Christmas Holidays. My parents are still laughing.
As a result, I figured out why everybody hangs candy canes on their Christmas trees instead of eating them, which I thought was the idea.
Wrong.
Basically you can't eat the XXXing things. You start at the skinny end and it sharpens to a point that WILL drive itself through the back of your head the moment you pass out from diabetic shock after absorbing all that sugar and peppermint. If that doesn't happen, you get to the hooked end that basically just takes your drool and does a 180 with it back onto your chin. In order to handle the bastard, you get a sticky, minty, pink coating all over your fingers that magically transfers itself to every article of clothing and every object within five feet of you. You might think you're being smart, and leave some of the wrapper on there, but NO, the wrapper just stores the tacky drool in sufficient quantity to guarantee a major drool cluster forms as soon as you remove it all the way.Finally, you're left with only the hook in your mouth, which prevents you from speaking or containing drool from running down your chin, threatening to glue your chin to your neck. The alternative is to just leave the stupid things on the tree year after year in order to temp your kids into the folly of actually trying to eat one. Either way, I think Candy Canes should be banned or officially replaced with painted plastic hooks. In the meantime, I'll be trying to get my chin unstuck from my neck.
Merry Christmas.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Car
Well, it happened. I got a new car. It's been over 10 years since I bought a car, so quit looking at me like that. It's not like I'm one of those lease it and leave it hipsters that swaps out his Hummer after it gets hit with a single sparrow turd while running over baby fur seals on his drive home from a game of super-tanker bumper tag in the ocean sanctuary where Jacques Cousteau had his ashes scattered.
I was driving a perfectly good but aging '97 Maxima that I had purchased new, but it just didn't have that "I'm so ready for my mid-life crisis now" appeal. In a nod to practicality, I tried to put myself in a nice little Jetta or possibly a used Civic. It just wasn't going to happen. Long story short, I ended up buying a Mazadaspeed 6 after having it recommended to me by my good friend Tom.
Now, most people have no idea what this is. Everybody knows how to react when they find out your car is a BMW 335xi or an Audi S4 as if it should be assumed that your daily commute consists of a ride into orbit. Telling these same people that you drive a Mazda, let alone a Mazdaspeed 6 gets you one of those, "That's nice. Now take off the silly hat and go eat the paste" patronizing smiles.
At one point I came pretty close to pulling the trigger on an Infiniti G35x. Great car, except that you can't get the AWD version with a stick and that the dealer I was working with felt that there was either some kind of quality lacking in my portfolio or that my dress casual clothing wasn't of sufficient grade to warrant the major investment involved in calling me back with model information following a test drive. Plus, the car looks like a shoe. However, I had a hard time getting myself to believe that Mazda had anything in a sedan that could be considered a standout alongside of a Beemer and its ilk.
As if.
The Mazdaspeed 6 is a freaking monster. It was built at the same factory that spawned Christine, except that all the nice assembly demons were on strike that day. They installed an intercooled, turbocharged motor putting out the kind of horsepower that you'd normally only find in a Vin Diesel movie. 0-60 times are in the Oh My God's. They added extra steel to the body to increase rigidity enabling lane changes that happen telepathically. It also has an all wheel drive system that moves the power around to all four wheels allowing the 6 to hold on in the corners so well that it gives you the high G-force giggles for the rest of the day. The more gas you give it in a corner, the more you want to turn into the corner until you run out of "right" (or "left" if you live in the UK). Also, it's as smooth at 140 as it is at 60. You can't tell the difference unless you look at the speedo or measure the frequency at which the telephone poles are going by.
And, it only comes with a stick.
That particular feature pretty much sold the car to me on its own; no triptronics or slush-boxes here. I know I'm a bit of a throwback, but I'm into that. There are just not that many people out there that will voluntarily drive a stick anymore. However, all of the guys I know give me that conspiratorial raised eyebrow expression and nod knowingly when I point out the stick-only feature to them, as if they've spent years on the circuit with Michael Schumacher. What is it about the male of the species that requires us to assume that driving a manual transmission is an innate skill on par with grilling meat? Take notice, Medium Rare is RED in the middle, not pink, and I'm going to need a down payment for synchro repair before you get to drive.
One of the best parts is that you have no idea what it's all about by looking at it. It is a good looking car. With German body design and great paint options, it looks like a small, sporty sedan set up for comfortable commuting. By avoiding the silly hood scoops, spoiler wings and bolted on plastic "ground effects" that are standard in comparable Japanese sedans such as the WRX, Mazda created a total sleeper that surprises would-be highway assassins with gobs of instant on acceleration. Gas mileage suffers as your right foot gets heavier. In a giving gesture to my inner Civic driver, I promise myself every morning in the bathroom mirror that I will stay off the turbo.
Yeah, right. My thinning hair, enlarging waistline and increasing dissatisfaction with my direction in life will see YOU on the highway.
I was driving a perfectly good but aging '97 Maxima that I had purchased new, but it just didn't have that "I'm so ready for my mid-life crisis now" appeal. In a nod to practicality, I tried to put myself in a nice little Jetta or possibly a used Civic. It just wasn't going to happen. Long story short, I ended up buying a Mazadaspeed 6 after having it recommended to me by my good friend Tom.
Now, most people have no idea what this is. Everybody knows how to react when they find out your car is a BMW 335xi or an Audi S4 as if it should be assumed that your daily commute consists of a ride into orbit. Telling these same people that you drive a Mazda, let alone a Mazdaspeed 6 gets you one of those, "That's nice. Now take off the silly hat and go eat the paste" patronizing smiles.
At one point I came pretty close to pulling the trigger on an Infiniti G35x. Great car, except that you can't get the AWD version with a stick and that the dealer I was working with felt that there was either some kind of quality lacking in my portfolio or that my dress casual clothing wasn't of sufficient grade to warrant the major investment involved in calling me back with model information following a test drive. Plus, the car looks like a shoe. However, I had a hard time getting myself to believe that Mazda had anything in a sedan that could be considered a standout alongside of a Beemer and its ilk.
As if.
The Mazdaspeed 6 is a freaking monster. It was built at the same factory that spawned Christine, except that all the nice assembly demons were on strike that day. They installed an intercooled, turbocharged motor putting out the kind of horsepower that you'd normally only find in a Vin Diesel movie. 0-60 times are in the Oh My God's. They added extra steel to the body to increase rigidity enabling lane changes that happen telepathically. It also has an all wheel drive system that moves the power around to all four wheels allowing the 6 to hold on in the corners so well that it gives you the high G-force giggles for the rest of the day. The more gas you give it in a corner, the more you want to turn into the corner until you run out of "right" (or "left" if you live in the UK). Also, it's as smooth at 140 as it is at 60. You can't tell the difference unless you look at the speedo or measure the frequency at which the telephone poles are going by.
And, it only comes with a stick.
That particular feature pretty much sold the car to me on its own; no triptronics or slush-boxes here. I know I'm a bit of a throwback, but I'm into that. There are just not that many people out there that will voluntarily drive a stick anymore. However, all of the guys I know give me that conspiratorial raised eyebrow expression and nod knowingly when I point out the stick-only feature to them, as if they've spent years on the circuit with Michael Schumacher. What is it about the male of the species that requires us to assume that driving a manual transmission is an innate skill on par with grilling meat? Take notice, Medium Rare is RED in the middle, not pink, and I'm going to need a down payment for synchro repair before you get to drive.
One of the best parts is that you have no idea what it's all about by looking at it. It is a good looking car. With German body design and great paint options, it looks like a small, sporty sedan set up for comfortable commuting. By avoiding the silly hood scoops, spoiler wings and bolted on plastic "ground effects" that are standard in comparable Japanese sedans such as the WRX, Mazda created a total sleeper that surprises would-be highway assassins with gobs of instant on acceleration. Gas mileage suffers as your right foot gets heavier. In a giving gesture to my inner Civic driver, I promise myself every morning in the bathroom mirror that I will stay off the turbo.
Yeah, right. My thinning hair, enlarging waistline and increasing dissatisfaction with my direction in life will see YOU on the highway.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The Gallbladder
The Gallbladder.
Ok, here are the facts from wikipedia on your gallbladder, as paraphrased by me:
Ok, here are the facts from wikipedia on your gallbladder, as paraphrased by me:
- It's 10-12 cm long,
- It's green due to it's bile content,
- It's located near your liver,
- It has a "duct",
- It injects the bile into your duodenum when you eat something fatty,
- The bile helps digest the fat.
Here's what wikipedia _doesn't_ tell you about the gallbladder: IT WILL KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS.
Not kidding. I know this first hand. I had a bit of Gastroenteritis going. Which, in my case, means that my colon had decided to do an impression of a tributary flowing out of Newark, NJ after a 20" downpour in the middle of August. The entire cast of the Sopranos came flying out. At least we know what happened to them following the blackout at the end of the series finale.
As a result of my illness, I hadn't eaten for a few days. Feeling a little better for the moment, I tried to get a few bites of chicken noodle soup down in order to prevent myself from looking like one of the Olsen twins, slouching around in an anorexic haze in a made for TV after school schlock flick.
That's when it attacked me. I wasn't aware that the gallbladder could attack. Like a small green rotting prune with rabies, it came for me after my third bite, foamy bile spraying out of its duct. In the next minute, I was on floor in a fetal position trying to pull out the six foot long glowing hot iron spear that some mystery person had just shoved through me.
I'm not sure what part of me it was attacking, but it hurt like hell. The little bastard probably got right through the duodenum, chewed up a bit of liver and then went sick-house on my pancreas. This went on for the better part on an hour which ended up getting me a ride to the emergency room. As quickly as it started, it stopped. I don't know if it passed something, or if it ran out of steam or just got tired of being angry at the soup. Either way, it was the best not-feeling I've ever had.
In the ER, Doctor "I'm not sure what's going on here" performed an ultra-sound scan and concluded that I had a stone. This was a very expensive test that I'm sure won't be paid for by my insurance. This was immediately refuted by a technician who assured me that there was nothing in there other than an angry gallbladder, after using an even bigger and more expensive machine that won't be covered by my insurance either. Dr. Inswgoh (think about it) was, at this point, not sure if he was going to recommend, or not, to have my gallbladder removed, or maybe just left alone. I told them to think about it and left, thanking the nice emt guy on the way out who missed my vein like six times while trying to install the IV that I didn't need and will be paying for as a result of my insurance eventually not paying. The reason I brought that up is due to the fact than my veins are approximately the size of the lincoln tunnel and missing them requires the skills of an untrained, thumbless leper with cataracts. I pointed this out to emt guy and additionally thanked him for my growing hematoma.
The upside of this whole experience is, well, nothing. I still have my gallbladder. I can feel it in there, a little green green bag of bile filled hate, waiting to go for round two with my digestive tract. Waiting.
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Couch
The Couch.
Yeah, it's a fixture in every household across the entire country. Everyone has one, but I dare you to look through, or even under it. If you're not afraid of looking under the couch, then you're probably one of those freaks that has their life in perfect harmony, shops at Pottery Barn and doesn't have a closet full of unpaid bills and unopened credit card applications that are going to chew up a Saturday afternoon to shred. Or perhaps you're homeless. Sorry.
An interesting drinking game that I wish I'd come up with 20 years ago would be called "Drink or Couch". The rules would be simple. On each player's turn, they either drink a shot of Jager or they have to eat one thing found randomly from, in or under the couch. The outcome would be apocalyptic, but generally amusing for the bystanders. Plus, you'd probably find your long lost remote control, or a dead hooker. Either way, you have a story for the water cooler on Monday.
All of this came up due to my recent quest for a missing part to one of my oldest son's toys. The toy and the massive waste of time created searching for it are material for another post. All in good time. I swear to God, I could cure cancer if I only had the time back I've spent looking for toys. I'm digressing but I just can't let it go.
Anyway, back to the couch. On a hunch that the missing part might be under the couch, I moved it only to wish that I had chosen to go fishing for the mystery wad that was clogging up the upstairs bathroom sink instead. There were at least 50 different pieces of toys interspersed with all types of left over trash, food bits and, I believe, at least one cat turd. Don't believe me? Look at the picture. I swear to God, the kids are saving this stuff for the winter or some toyless time in the future that is surely going to come after I stroke out following a peek under the fridge.
Yeah, it's a fixture in every household across the entire country. Everyone has one, but I dare you to look through, or even under it. If you're not afraid of looking under the couch, then you're probably one of those freaks that has their life in perfect harmony, shops at Pottery Barn and doesn't have a closet full of unpaid bills and unopened credit card applications that are going to chew up a Saturday afternoon to shred. Or perhaps you're homeless. Sorry.
An interesting drinking game that I wish I'd come up with 20 years ago would be called "Drink or Couch". The rules would be simple. On each player's turn, they either drink a shot of Jager or they have to eat one thing found randomly from, in or under the couch. The outcome would be apocalyptic, but generally amusing for the bystanders. Plus, you'd probably find your long lost remote control, or a dead hooker. Either way, you have a story for the water cooler on Monday.
All of this came up due to my recent quest for a missing part to one of my oldest son's toys. The toy and the massive waste of time created searching for it are material for another post. All in good time. I swear to God, I could cure cancer if I only had the time back I've spent looking for toys. I'm digressing but I just can't let it go.
Anyway, back to the couch. On a hunch that the missing part might be under the couch, I moved it only to wish that I had chosen to go fishing for the mystery wad that was clogging up the upstairs bathroom sink instead. There were at least 50 different pieces of toys interspersed with all types of left over trash, food bits and, I believe, at least one cat turd. Don't believe me? Look at the picture. I swear to God, the kids are saving this stuff for the winter or some toyless time in the future that is surely going to come after I stroke out following a peek under the fridge.
I moved the couch back. All of that is still there. Wanna see it first hand? The price of admission is a sixpack.
Next: The Gallbladder.
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