The state of Texas no longer allows “red light cameras.” They were initially put in by a private company who was definitely being used as “cash cows”. They’ve been gone since I think 2019 and I have not noticed that speeders are any more (or less) common now. OMG, did Gov. Abbot do something right? Naah.
Accidents happen.
I wrote that post back in 2007 and I would say that I would not use the term these days. It implies that sucking cock is wrong or shameful, which it is not.
Here they’re mostly used for red light violators, although I’ve also seen them in school zones.
They lowered the speed limits in my city in 2020 from 30 to 25 mpg on most streets (higher on some larger arterials), due to the likelihood of surviving getting run down at 25 mph vs at 30 mph. I hated it at first, but once I adjusted, it became the new normal. It’s much easier to pull out into traffic when cars aren’t racing past at 35 - 40 mph in streets with parking and bicycles. The transition took place during the pandemic, when fewer people were driving around.
I got the shingles vaccine yesterday, My arm hurts nearly to my elbow and I’m feeling very run down. This thing better be worth it.
It will be worth it. The day after can be unpleasant, but it will pass and even at its peak of unpleasantness is so vastly more bearable than even an hour of shingles pain and disfigurement.
My doctor kid always advises taking some acetaminophen just before you get the vaccine and for about 24 hours following. Of course, also keep hydrated, eat decently and plan an undemanding day or two for yourself when you get the two Shingrix injections.
Getting the second Shingrix is hard when you know what is coming, ignorance can no longer bring bliss, but do the 2nd one anyway, it is worth it. Plan an undemanding couple of days, pre-empt most of the yucky fever and or discomfort with Tylenol, hydrate, rest and eat simply but nourishingly afterwards.
Yeah, the board has tried to be more inclusive of late, and has made an effort to push against things like homophobia, transphobia, and particularly misogyny. Appealing to the past when the board didn’t have the same mindset is not particularly useful.
A lot of the time, people simply didn’t think of these words and phrases as belonging to such categories–they were just “naughty words” or whatever used to express strong emotions. But we can all evolve in our understanding over time.
I cringe to think of what I was like in my teens/early 20s.
Surely since 2007 the prices have gone up though…
Well, this is a post I didn’t expect to type here.
While looking through my front door I saw a section of rope, the ends neatly taped in orange tape, on my porch.
It looks like a crude noose.
I’m not sure who to blame for this, probably congress, but here’s a big deal rant: MSHDA is no longer giving out housing choice vouchers, effective July 1st, indefinitely. Which means an untold number of homeless people in Michigan, including survivors fleeing domestic violence, have no option for Section 8 housing. Up until this point, domestic violence survivors were able to apply as Category 4 fleeing under the homeless preference, and we helped them with the initial and continuation paperwork to get them on the wait list, but that’s over now.
I’m on the local Continuum of Care board (I’m new; the housing stuff is all new to me) and I will be interested to hear their take on this. What can we even do? We have a whole community-wide system set up including agencies that administer and manage all these wait lists - is that just gone now? At a time when shelters are overflowing, wait lists are years long, rent is beyond affordable, it’s just… hard to think of all the people this will affect.
Absofuckinglutely worth it. But I hope any discomfort from the vax is fleeting and minor and don’t forget the booster.
Just reading the shingles thread should convince anybody who is able to get vacxed.
Shit, I’m 41 and I wish I could get it now, just based on what I’ve read. 
I got a buddy who was supposed to get the vax that year, got shingles instead, on his balls. He was miserable.
Nobody likes dingle shingles.
A similar thing happened here in Ontario, not in relation to red light cameras but to photo radar speed traps. A columnist for a local newspaper once wrote an article about observing a dangerous and possibly drunk driver weaving between lanes and driving past one of those photo radar police vans parked on the roadside. The reporter stopped behind the police van and asked the cop if he’d seen the dangerous driver and why didn’t he pursue him. The cop basically told him to fuck off. One imagines that the good officer was either having a nice nap or maybe playing a video game on his phone.
The moral of the story is that anything involving automated cameras is usually just a cash grab, especially because the driver can’t be charged nor demerit points applied because the driver hasn’t been identified. All that happens is that the registered vehicle owner has to fork out cash.
Anyway, the thing that eventually happened here was that a conservative government abolished the photo radar system. They did it for the wrong reasons – namely that conservatives are allergic to rules and regulations – but it was nevertheless the right thing to do.
OMG!! I blew by this post because I initially didn’t understand what it referred to. OMG!! I actually committed one of the most grievous transgressions that I’m always accusing others of (or I should say, “of which I am always accusing others”!) – that of a misplaced homophone. I can’t even excuse it as a typo. It was obviously a brain fart. I’m getting old!
Back to the original rant, I just logged in to the online town tax account. The fuckers don’t explicitly acknowledge my massive generous payment, but they do show the balance owing as now something substantially over $1K, which according to my tax statement is due at the end of September. The bloodsucking never stops.
Years ago, back when life was good, a friend and I decided to move into a luxurious townhouse. It was expensive, but hey, you only live once. We paid the incredible sum of $300 a month for a three-bedroom townhouse with utility costs included. Today my property tax alone is way more than that. Do I want to travel back in time? Why, yes, now that you ask, I do!
Yeah. The Alberta government took a look at what photo radar was good for, and basically concluded that it was a way for municipalities to make money. It didn’t increase safety, necessarily, except perhaps on two-lane residential roads in school zones. But not on multi-lane expressways or arterial roads.
Photo radar still exists here, but it is not deployed nearly as much as it was. I haven’t seen a photo radar machine in a notorious location on a local expressway in ages (I know where it always was, and I always look even today). That’s still no reason to go screaming down the Westside Hill at 120 km/h, which road is posted at 90, but that hill was a cash cow for the city, and a lot of drivers got tagged at 100-110 km/h. Simply because they were going downhill, and gravity had a say in the matter.
Oh the joyful sounds of summer, leaf blowers, lawnmowers, child voices at play, but there’s this one kid in the neighborhood who whenever I hear his voice it’s like nails on a chalkboard. It’s so brittle and annoying that voice it’s a combination of Arnold Horshack and Cyndi Lauper in tight shorts together.
My gf was driving on a back-back road on Sunday when she saw two dogs that looked lost. She stopped and called to them and they ran up to see her. They had tags, so she was trying to get a look when one of them jumped right into her car, the other dog following. They were very cute and friendly, eager to take a drive with their new friend.
She tried calling the number on “Jill’s” tag but couldn’t keep a connection. She drove a bit and tried texting the number, “Hey I found your two dogs”. She got an immediate reply, “OMG, Thank you! We’ve been worried sick”. My gf explained that they were in her car and if she could get directions she’d bring them home.
The woman gave her address and said GPS would bring her right to the house, although it was in the middle of nowhere. Then she said, “The dogs freaked out this morning over the zombies”. Yes, zombies. WTF? My gf assumed autocorrect changed something to zombies.
So, she finds the house/estate. A beautiful home high on a hill with multiple outbuildings. There are dozens of cars parked near a barn, so she parked there. The woman came running over, so relieved, and the dogs were ecstatic.
So…zombies. Yes, inside the barn was a table where a caterer had set up all sorts of food for lunch and a bunch of zombies were eating. Turns out there was a movie being made and they shot a zombie scene right around sunrise. A second scene was going to be shot after lunch. Zombies.