Yeh, I know. I was kind of a terror. Not proud of it, either.
EddyTeddyFreddy: Kudos to you for making so much progress.
Thank you!
**EddyTeddyFreddy: How about taking another step forward, though, and trying my approach? Random acts of kindness can be an amazing tonic for the soul. **
Yes, I like that. But I can’t let anybody who knows me know I’m doing that stuff. I’ve actually done that kinda thing in the form of some volunteer work I’ve been trying in the last year or so. But I don’t let on. Hey, if people knew I was actually mellowing, I’d lose my reputation and they’d walk all over me!
Wise words indeed. My mom has often said the same thing, but in kind of a different way: in polite company, manners put people at ease, but etiquette puts people in their place. So I’m working on using etiquette for strangers.
i live in a town grown from a teeny weeny little village, which is real old, and everything is miniature there. i mean i’m 5"4 and i have to duck to get into some of the front doors. anyway my friends and i were driving from school to our pub in our lunch break. the pub has the smallest car parking spaces you have ever seen, but i have a mini so i got into a space fine, and me and my friends went in for lunch and a few pints.
when we got outside again, we discovered the car parked next to me on the drivers side had been replaced by some giant range rover SUV thingumy. now there is no way you can get an SUV into one of these spaces, everyone accepts this, and anyway there is a normal sized car park 2 minutes walk down the street, in the normal sized part of town. the guy had pushed in my wing mirror and apparently removed his to get into the space, and he still must have had to climb out the sun roof or something because there was about an inch between our cars. no way in. plus my passenger doors are broken and can only be opened from the inside, so i was screwed.
i went back inside, and asked to barman to ask whos car it was, so that he could move it, so that i could get into mine, so that i could go to biology class. and the owner refused! he said it was the pubs fault for having such small spaces, and he was eating. eventually i called the police, but it was only after being threatened with barring by the barman that he got off his arse.
gah. stupid people. on the plus side, he is not allowed back in the pub if he brings his car again.
Whenever people pull this kind of shit on me, I slow down as much as I safely can (or stop if possible) and wait for them to give up and leave. They ALWAYS do, because not a single one has enough self-confidence to fit on the head of a pin.
At my college, which is to sensible and timely parking what blackface was to show business and racial tolerance, there’s an unwritten Parking Lot Code of Conduct. If you’re looking for a space and see another student walk into the parking lot, you give them the Please Please Tell Me You’re Leaving And I Can Have Your Space look, and they nod yes or shake no, and if they nod yes you follow to their car and take the space.
But if you haven’t done this ritual, and you just come up on a space where someone’s backing out, they definitely take longer to get out. I don’t understand it, myself.
I had a long vitriol-laden missive for you, until I read your post about the vodka martinis and the Internet shopping and the throwing things. Have you ever heard of a videogame called Grand Theft Auto? There are (I think) 5 or 6 installations of it by now, all available for Windows, and although there are missions you can do, you can forgo any sense of linear play and just spend hours fucking with people on the road; stealing peoples’ cars and ramming into cars you don’t think are going fast enough, running people over if they piss you off, fucking with the police and then stealing their cars, etc. You might find it to be another great therapeutic tool after a bad day.
I just might. I’ve heard of that game, but didn’t know you could just go apeshit and not really play it but play with it. I have to go my art lesson today (good therapy) and then to a party (better therapy), so maybe I’ll pick it up on the way home. Can I get it at Best Buy? Which version do you recommend?
A traffic light with two lanes. The one on the left is Left Turn Only. The one on the right is Straight Only. Most people get it, and since the Straight is more in demand than the Left Turn, there’s typically a difference in the lengths of the lines. You see where this is going.
One day, I end up at the front of the Straight lane, having to go straight. After about five cars pull up behind me, I see one guy in my rearview mirror change lanes to the Left Turn lane, which has no cars. He gets up to the line (actually, about two feet in front of the line, because that’s the kind of winner he is), and puts on his left turn signal, indicating for all intents and purposes that he is doing the legal thing, and making the Left Turn. The light turns green and I begin to go straight at my normal speed, which since red lights bore me and I like to test my reaction time, is pretty much immediately after the light turning. Mr Left Turn tries to bolt ahead of me in line, with left turn signal still blinking. Because I’m quick, I end up denying him his illegal merge. As does the guy behind me, who saw through Mr Left Turn’s deception and was ready for it. Mr Left Turn ends up having to turn left after all, which he does at reckless high speed, and he circles a few blocks at least twice the speed limit, in order to meet me at the next intersection. He then proceeds to tail me home, and once I am out of my car, berates me for my assholish behavior and threatening damage to my person and vehicle for the act.
I suppose that depends on your level of connection to reality. I’d happily run down an old lady in a video game, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to even graze her when she crosses the street in front of me in real life.
Last I knew (haven’t been involved in the gaming world for a couple of years) there were five. 1 and 2 were totally 2D, and fun in their own right (mind-blowingly so at the time!) but really only worth it by comparison if you don’t want to spend any money. (The first one is free online, or was last I checked. Google the company, Rockstar, and see if you’re interested. It’s way different from the later ones, though!)
I’ve never played the third, Liberty City (based in faux New York). The fifth, San Andreas (LA/SF/Vegas), came out in 2004 and around that time I bought the fourth, Vice City (Miami) at Target for $15 or $20. I lurved Vice City to death, and it even has an unofficial multiplayer add-on (Google it, I don’t have the URL anymore) which was buggy but still very fun. One of the really cool things about Vice City was that there were two malls that you could basically take over and terrorize for hours if you had the skills and knew the weapons cheat. And there’s lots of room to drive around and find people to commit heinous offenses of all kinds against. San Andreas is GINORMOUS, and it’s lots of fun, but more geared towards linear play IMO. Plus if you’re not careful you can spend a lot of time on a two-lane freeway with not much around you and all you can do is drive one way or the other or mess with freeway traffic. You can swim, though, and I think you can even kick fish and stuff (don’t quite remember), and you can have loads of fun with it. You can also customize your character and join gangs and wage gang warfare and stuff. I’m not sure if San Andreas has a PC version out.
I would recommend Vice City for you, even though it’s older by a couple of years, because IMO it was less linear. GTA2 and (from what I hear) Liberty City let you join rival gangs and play them off against each other, which was fun in its own right. Really, you’ll have fun with any of them, but I would say get Vice City and/or San Andreas, as they’re newer and better. You should be able to get any one of them at Best Buy. I’m sure you’ll find an employee there who can go on about the differences between each one for hours.
Are you being serious? Next time you want to steal a car, bring your keyboard and press the E key. See how well it works.
In my state, we have these things next to the roads, connecting you to houses buildings and parking lots and such. They are known as driveways, and you might have them in your state too. I think it’s a law, but even if it’s not, it’s just common courtesy to stop behind them so that people can get out and back into traffic. especially when there are big white letters painted in the street: “KEEP CLEAR” Often, if you do this, there will be enough room for one car, MAYBE two, to get out in front of you - not enough to make a noticeable difference to anyone. And if no one happens to leave that driveway, no one loses any time. At all. Really. So don’t go around me.
My DP is a big girl and it is amazing how many strangers feel a pressing need to remind her of this fact. A driver who felt that DP had stolen his parking space on campus followed her in his car while she was walking, screaming horrible “fat bitch” category insults. She walked right up to his window and punched him in the nose. He shut up and took off very quickly.
While this isn’t a recommended solution, it was very satisfying to witness.
I once had a driver who felt I wasn’t going fast enough on the freeway (70mph in SoCal) chase me off the exit ramp and all through my neighborhood for 20 minutes. It was pre-cellular phone era and I couldn’t call for help. I finally screeched up to a 7-11 and ran inside before he could get out of his car. He took off when he saw the clerk calling the cops. This happened 12 years ago and is still very immediate and terrifying.
