An Extraordinary Act of Civil Obedience



A group of southern hipsters in the Atlanta area decided that, as a comment on Georgia's 55 mph highway speed limit, they would drive four-wide on a four-lane highway and film the hilarity. This is something that I would've been all over at 16, but at 27 my snap reaction is to line 'em up four abreast and stooge-slap them for passing off teenage hooliganeering as social commentary.

Video here.

I was at a liquor store the other night, and this extremely cute and friendly pacific-islanderish cashier was ringing up my gigantic plastic-bottle of cheap vodka.

It occurs to me that (in accordance with my new-year's resolutions) I should attempt to flirt with her.

Unfortunately this occurs to me on my bike, half-way back to my place.

So the conundrum- True I know where cute 'n friendly pacific-islanderish cashier works, but it's not like she's a waitress and I can drop in from time to time pretending I like the food; being a regular at a liquor store makes me an alchoholic, and my giant plastic-bottle of vodka doesn't make the greatest impression either. Should I start buying the good stuff and let my budget set the time-table?

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Look: A Babbage Difference Engine made of Legos. There's something there for everyone.

Click here.

Land sakes, I'm in class again. Dialect course this time, and it's actually a twofer because half my classmates are English so I've been picking up some British slang. Today I learned seven ways to says to say "drunk." I'll shoot some fun-facts your way:

If a Brit asks you if you're taking a piss on him, he is not asking if you are urinating on him. Nay friend, he is asking if you're joking with him.

They've taken to calling cigarettes "tabs" instead of "fags" because they are tired of being made fun of.

The British military gets a day off during the Christmas season to do their Christmas shopping. This is their "Shopping Day." Keep this in mind if you plan to invade the UK.

God bless the Japanese, they've gone and a made a
tractor with robot arms powerful enough to rip cars asunder. This is supposedly for rescue purposes, but I think we all know the real purpose: to create an unstoppable robot army that will crush all those who would rear up once the benevolent machine minds take up the reigns of humanity. We will all wear matching coveralls and live together in harmony. Oh glorious day!

"Sorry, I'm just having too much fun! God bless those crazy sons of bitches! Can't help but love them in weird sort of way, na mean?"

Na exactly what you mean. The linguist community has a bit of a reputation among the other more, ahem, mundane MOS', perhaps best illustrated by the caveat on our secured internal IRC system which warns: "This system is for official use only. Absolutely no role-playing." Which is a little ray of sunshine every time I see it. There's also that Cthulhu-fish car thingy which I saw for the first time in the parking lot at work, and of course the chick driving around in a hearse.*

But though I admire them all, I can't bring myself to join in on their reindeer games; to wit: a friend of mine asked if I wanted to join Amtgard, purportedly a more cost-effective alternative to the SCA, could I do it? No my friend, I could not.

They be high-geeks and arch-nerds, I am but a lowly loser.


I also can't believe I forgot to post this: Fear Of Girls


*Only seen in passing, but possible a cutey.

I scored an "excellent" on my last Physical Fitness Evaluation. The bright side of this is that I'm now only required to attend one PT session a week, the dark side is that I now have to run that session.

I wonder if larping could be counted as PT...

We admit we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives have become unmanageable



Bush urges end to oil 'addiction'

Personally I tend to think of it more as a car addiction, I think it's weird that people are willing to pay, say, $37,264* over a five-year period to avoid taking the bus. Throw that much money into a 401k and you'd be a millionaire by the time you retired. Or you could walk the earth in style. Or feed the hungry kittys of the world, whatever floats your boat. I think of all the money I've blown on cars over the years and, well, I'd like that shit back.

First step is to admit we have a problem.



*True Cost To Own for a base-model 2006 Toyota Prius. Purchase price not included.