You should write it up and practice it in front of your bathroom mirror, so you'll be ready when the time comes.
toodling? Is that something the young people say?
As in Remix to ignition :
"Now baby give me that toot-toot.
And let me give you that beep-beep"
I was more taken with "fuck a duck."
There are times I've been too astonished to curse, let alone honk the horn. For instance, when someone passed me on the left, on a two-lane road, into oncoming traffic, as I was attempting a left turn. Was it an SUV? Let me think—yes. Racing home to throw knives at his children, I guess.
Or her children. One musn't assume.
There's an intersection near my house with a green arrow. Nearly every time I walk by there, there is someone honking because the person at the head of the line isn't responding to the (admittedly somewhat short) green arrow quickly enough. Yesterday I saw the victim of said honking mouth very clearly the words "fuck you" -- but with complete calm. It brought me pleasure.
Yesterday I said to myself, "So this is how my children are going to learn about 'dickwad'."
A few weeks back I had someone drive up behind me when I was in the right-hand lane of a dual carriageway, approaching a roundabout where I was about to turn right.
They then tailgated me (at most 2ft from my rear bumper) flashing their lights and beeping their horn as I clearly wasn't going fast enough for them. The irony was that I was already doing at least 10 - 20 mph over the speed limit myself.
When the person undertook me on the inside flashing their lights and shouting abuse I could really see why road rage happens. I'm a really mild-mannered driver but the temptation to chase them down, drag them out of the car and beat them to a bloody pulp was quite strong.*
* at last until I realized the offender was a young woman ...
When I get people like that behind me, I slow down. The more they tailgate me, and the more aggro they get, the more I slow down. They usually pass, after nearly having a coronary right there in their cars. I try to give them a biiiig smile and wave as they flip me off and turn purple at me while accelerating past me at a hojillion miles per hour.
And yeah, I'm usually 10-20 mph over the speed limit when that happens, too.
Once I was driving really aggressively and wouldn't let this guy pass me on a two-lane expressway. He eventually managed to pass me nonetheless, then put himself parallel to a semi and maintained that position for about half an hour, effectively causing a huge traffic jam behind him. All because of me.
This was one of those times when I was driving back from Michigan to Kankakee and had a passenger, too, so that was especially embarrassing.
10: "Ass-napkin!" used to be my road rage curse, then recently it switched to "shit-dog!"
11: Your road rage is sexist.
6: A nigh-perfect merging of earthy vernacular and classical allusion. Common in my family.
I love 9. Several times a week as I cross the intersection near PK's school, some asshole who's a couple cars back in line honks at the person in front for waiting for me to cross the street. On a walk sign. I'm always tempted to flip them off myself, but I'm afraid of getting run over.
People who honk for any reason other than an emergency are assholes.
10 - one day in the car, my son (he was probably 5) asked me if "wanker" was a swear word, because he didn't think it was a 'real' word. My kids now think it is reasonably ok to insult people in cars because that's not real life.
I've stopped doing wanker *signals* at people though, after twice having people stop in front of me and act aggressively after doing it.
OTOH, as someone who is not unfrequently running way late for things, the "slowing down because someone is in a hurry" thing is annoying.
Not that I haven't done it myself.
16-2: That seems excessive. What about communicating "hey, the light's been green for ten seconds"?
Drivers just need to relax and slow down. All of 'em.
19: Okay, a little beep. But really, using the horn just as a way of yelling at people is, I think, dangerous--at least, when I hear a horn my instinct is to react, and the last thing you want is people reacting for no reason.
Driving isn't the time to get all pissy with people or punish them for misbehaving.
This message brought to you by the California DMV.
Last week, driving in slower traffic than usual (since I don't normally drive much) on the 101 near San Jose, I saw what I felt was one of the ruder driving maneuvers I've seen in a while. In stop-and-go traffic, as a entrance ramp approached, a SUV (of course) pulled out of the right lane, crossed over to the entrance ramp, and zipped forward six cars or so to merge back in. I was really kind of stunned at the absolute me-firstness of it, particularly since the gain from a move like that is really small.
Now that I think about it, I have engaged in..pursuit a couple of times when someone pissed me off. Once I followed the person until (she, as it turned out) parked and I got to yell at her, and another time some young dude almost hit me so I pulled a U-turn and chased him for a good five minutes before I realized that what I was doing was completely insane. There really is something about driving.
20: Slow, legal drivers just need to be deputized to blow away fast drivers.
And yeah, ttaM: you have to be equally angry at cute chicks, because it's subtly demeaning if you aren't. "Oh, look at that cute widdow thing, driving all macho. She's so adorable." Flip'em off and punch'em out just to show respect.
23: There really is something about being a dick, you mean.
Save it for the internets.
It's true, the behavior described in 23 is stupid. There's the risk of crashing and of getting shot. That said, it took an act of will not to chase down the old dude yesterday, but it's ok to discriminate against old people by not beating them up.
9- The light right near our house has a right turn green arrow, but the right lane is not right turn only- so if the person at the front of the line isn't turning right, anyone behind who is starts honking as if the front driver should change their travel plans to accomodate those who don't want to wait 30 seconds.
What does piss me off, however, is people who ignore another feature of the intersection, which is no left turn 7-9am and 4-7pm. It is the duty of the person behind a violator to honk enough to make them read and obey the fucking sign- it usually works, people are shamed into going straight. (If you don't obey it traffic backs up for a mile)
people are shamed into going straight
ATM.
I was really kind of stunned at the absolute me-firstness of it
I've seen this too, and been similarly flabbergasted. Some people really aren't properly socialized.
I think you meaning 'tooling around in your car.' We must respect your Persian heritage, after all.
A few months back I was in a traffic jam on the oxford ring road (a cement truck had overturned on top of another car and the road was completely blocked). The police cleared a lane in between the two lanes of traffic so that ambulances and fire engines could get down to the site of the accident.
Within about 20 minutes people were turning their cars round and driving the wrong way up the centre of the dual carriageway through the lane cleared by the emergency services. It was an exhibition of monumental wankery the like of which I've rarely seen. Inevitably, it meant that an ambulance couldn't get through because of it. These people were (no hyperbole) literally prepared to condemn someone to possible death rather than wait half an hour.*
The guy next to me was an off duty ambulance driver and he was going apoplectic.
* I believe no-one was in fact seriously injured
22- The proper response, which they should teach in driving school because it requires cooperation by everyone to enfore, is to never let the driver back into the travel lanes. They'll be forced to keep driving in the breakdown lane, until a cop notices and issues them a ticket.
Some people really aren't properly socialized.
Pot, kettle.
I don't think that's such a great solution, SP, because it requires that all of the other drivers have to practice active resentment for it to function. When I drive, which admittedly is rare these days, I try to be in the traffic but not of it.
Deputizing JM would obviously be futile. What we need is slow, safe drivers whose main goal every time they hit the road is to blow some aggressive asshole away. A Dirty Harry of safe driving and respect for law.
It's funny that car-dependent America is so radically individualist; you'd think that learning how to drive and view yourself as part of the overall traffic flow (i.e., driving well) would help us learn to think of ourselves in social and collective terms.
This is my theory about why so many people drive badly; because they refuse to do that, and instead see the car as their own personal fiefdom.
I try to be in the traffic but not of it.
Awesome.
@37: There's a lot to this. I think there are significant parallels to blogging/messageboard use: both when in traffic and online we are in a situation where we are in public, interacting with others, but also simultaneously insultated in a space that is personal and private. This lowers the threshold for acting like an asshole, because (a) most of the constraints that stop people going off or being jerks in everyday life depend on direct co-presence, and yet (b) we viscerally respond to real and perceived slights as though others were in our private space -- as if they were physically in our homes insulting us or whatever.
Or, for the internet case, the same more succinctly.
There's a line in The Movigoer about driving and anonymity, but I don't have a copy of the book with me.
I should re-read The Moviegoer. Oh displeasure, sadness.
23: I never reached that level, but feeling constantly angry was one thing that motivated me to use public transit whenever practicable, even when I had a car.
37: I've always thought that rugged individualism and car-dependency went hand-in-hand with utterly no contradiction whatsoever. I analyzed this once by means of the concept of the car as a parcel of private space.
39 makes a lot of sense: I'm aware of the lack of social constraints argument, but hadn't thought about the perceived slights side of it. Thanks--I may be writing an essay on blogs and criticism, and that may come in very useful!
9: Is that Lincoln Ave. onto northbound Western, Adam?
Preventing people from passing you is dumb. I used to see this all the time when I rode up and down 101 every day; most people would see me coming on the bike between the #1 and #2 lanes and either hold their position or move a bit out of the way, I'd go by and give them a wave, and everyone would be happy. Maybe one person per trip would take offense and try to move over and block me. It was never really clear to what end; either they wouldn't move over enough (you'd be amazed at how small a gap a motorcycle can fit through, especially if your handlebars and their mirrors don't line up) so I'd go by anyway, or in the worst case I'd just move over to between the #2 and #3 lanes, go by them on the right, and then resume my normal riding. If someone came up behind me and wanted to split faster, I'd pull over and let them go by, then continue. What are you going to gain by blocking someone? You'll get there later than you otherwise would, they get there later then they otherwise would, and occasionally someone has a burst of stupidity and deliberately rams someone else.
Lawrence and Western is the one I was thinking of. At Western and Lincoln (either intersection), people don't tend to honk their horns very much. In my experience, at least.
I dream of a day when all drivers can practice active resentment together as one.
On a more theoretical social interaction note, I think that there are something like three or four different psychological ways to interact with other people on the road, it's hard to tell what mode someone else is in, and the same move will constitute grievous offence in one and deference in another - even the difference between moving over to let someone by vs. passing them on the right vs. holding what you percieve to be a safe distance and waiting for them to move over vs. speeding up to the speed they seem to want to drive at. We need stronger conventions, but this is America and we don't believe in them.
Road rage is part of a vast conspiracy on the part of the ruling class, so that we'll direct our energy against each other rather than them.
Another thing that makes driving feel more frustrating is that it's so easy to envision what it would be like in its perfect form: me, the road, no speed limits, no one else on it, and then it's so easy to see all the ways it's going wrong. It always feels broken, so always frustrating.
In the same way that it's easy to find a cheap quiet bar that serves good food in Portland OR, it's easy to find open highways practically everywhere expect the places where people live. It's one of those Buddhist paradoxes.
Montana used to have no speed limit, though as I recall they started looking at you somewhere around 90 mph.
With the exception of Chicago, I've driven on mostly empty roads my whole life. And in fact, I normally travel during odd times and to odd places (such as the south side) in Chicago, so my driving on the whole is pretty unconstrained. I only drove through rush hour traffic from Kankakee a couple times before I realized that Metra was necessary to my well-being.
Another thing that makes driving feel more frustrating is that it's so easy to envision what it would be like in its perfect form: me, the road, no speed limits, no one else on it
Orlando Patterson has done some survey work asking people open-ended questions about what comes to mind when they think of the idea of freedom. If I remember right, in the U.S., driving on an open road is one of the top two things people say.
Ogged didn't mention the loud metal band on the CD player and the half-rack of Hamms on the passenger-side seat, so we know that he doesn't really understand freedom.
59: The other thing they say is, "shopping."
Btw, it doesn't follow that driving to the shops -- or buying a car -- is therefore doubly ideal.
Interesting. I've been trying to disclaim parts of my Iranianness by avoiding shopping, and now I find out I should have been doing it as part of my assimilation.
I understand the equation of driving with freedom. If you don't believe me, give up your car and move to an area with no reliable public transportation and try to do something horribly unusual, like purchase furniture or really radical, like buy underwear.
But shopping??
Well, I'm being a bit glib. Put it another way: Patterson (I'm remembering here and may be wrong) argues that there are two conceptions of freedom in American life. One, the traditional liberal conception, is about political freedom -- civil liberties and all that, but also civic life and even social justice (as in the civil rights movement). This conception is thus connected with the idea of a common political community.
The other strain, though, is much more privatized. It's mostly about one's personal autonomy relative to other individuals (hence the open road), and also about one's personal success and influence relative to other individuals (hence the shopping). Rather than shopping it's more accurate to say, upward mobility and the freedom to buy stuff that goes along with it.
The problem with 51 is that we genuinely hate each other a lot more than we hate the members of the ruling class.
65 - If the ruling class cut us off at a freeway exit, though, all bets are off.
Montana used to have no speed limit
No there was a speed limit. It was prose rather than numerical. Until the Supreme Court struck it down because people are too immature for prose.
So it wasn't until the Supreme Court decision that Montanans realised they'd being driving in prose their whole lives?
Another thing that makes driving feel more frustrating is that it's so easy to envision what it would be like in its perfect form: me, the road, no speed limits, no one else on it, and then it's so easy to see all the ways it's going wrong. It always feels broken, so always frustrating.
Yes, but: all those endless indignities one endures on the road make the few and far between satisfying moments so perfect. Like when you find that perfect highway partner—the road buddy, the rabbit—weaving through traffic, a stranger who shares some length of your journey and measure of humanity, in an ageless dance. It is only in our exile that we may appreciate grace!
When Ogged is tooling along listen to the Scorpions and knocking back the Hamms, "reasonable and prudent" has no meaning.
I thought freedom means that everyone in the world has to have sex with me if I want them to. Doesn't Rousseau say that?
Freedom's just another word for, nothing left to give to John Emerson.
When Montana switched to numeric speed limits, the death toll went up. They declined afterwards as Montanans gradually learned the numerals.
Traffic Laws Kill
Probably the open bottle law increased road deaths too.
Memphis is hell bent on turning this into a game.
Which kind? An open-bottle game or no-speed-limit game?
Isn't there a rule saying one kind or the other?
69: Like when you find that perfect highway partner
Yes! Like the kid with the Trans-Am or Mustang you can infuriate convince con into doing three digits of mph as an indicator of his alphaness, thus clearing the road of the troopers ahead. It also works with Suits but not as often.
Driving isn't the time to get all pissy with people or punish them for misbehaving.
This is a good item to keep in mind.
27 -- a turn arrow without a dedicated turning lane is one of the stupider bits of design in traffic engineering.
52: This is because you do not think of driving as primarily a psychological endeavor, as seen in 79. Once you begin to think of other drivers as pawns in your Machiavellian campaign to get where you're going, and start using other drivers' quirks and character flaws to achieve that twisted end, driving in traffic becomes very entertaining indeed.
I always try to goad somebody in the "pack" I'm rolling with on the freeway into driving faster than they otherwise would, so I can consistently be the second-faster driver on any given stretch of road. Who's going to get pulled over?
Another fun pastime is envisioning traffic patterns as flowing, turbulent liquid, and driving accordingly. Makes it more like kayaking.
Median U-Turns are awesome.
traffic patterns as flowing, turbulent liquid, and driving accordingly.
Again, yes. It take a little while and some careful observation to analyze the patterns prevalent in any particular area but you can move much faster once those are learned. The mechanics of driving are easy, the fun is in the prediction and positioning.
I don't really enjoy driving, but I find the idea of having a "license to kill" intoxicating. How many guys my age have what it takes to play chicken at 60 mph? People's faces really look funny when they go into the ditch.
83- Holy shit, I think I've got an example of almost all of those within a half hour of where I live. Massachusetts, of course.
87: The BU Bridge/Memorial Drive intersection must fit one of those categories, but that green color was starting to make me queasy so I gave up.
If you go to "Locations Found" for the "Jughandle," you'll find that they are "very prominent statewide in Jew Jersey."
Uh.
Ah jughandles, One of the first things I learned how to navigate when I moved to Jersey.
Some parts of the state also have a few roundabouts --- almost unheard of in America --- where the right of way is officially determined by "local custom."
Here in Lake Wobegon people are so polite that sometimes you end up with four cars stuck at a four-way stop. Cars stop for you if you seem like you might want to jaywalk.
"The BU Bridge/Memorial Drive intersection must fit one of those categories"
I'm not sure they have a section for automotive supercolliders.
Also, 92, in Boston it's called a "Rotary."
Fuck you, rest of the world! We're from BOSTON!
"Another thing that makes driving feel more frustrating is that it's so easy to envision what it would be like in its perfect form: me, the road, no speed limits, no one else on it, and then it's so easy to see all the ways it's going wrong. It always feels broken, so always frustrating."
Now I understand those car commercials. I never got it, I though where are the other cars? Is this some road nobody else likes? Did everyone else get vapourized? I'm up here in Canada, so it's not like I fantasize about empty stretches of road.
63: I had a friend who got an acting job in Niagara on the Lake at the GB Shaw festival there. Classy gig, good money, but like a lot of urbanites, he had no car. Begged his friends to buy underwear and bring it to him.
Roundabouts are common in Boston
Hey, it's a big country.
Has someone mentioned this article yet? I'd love to see something like that tried here in Boston.
Also, incidentally, in a weird combination of 22+23: I had a friend who (a couple of years ago) had a case of road rage on the 101 which ended in a fist-fight. He and the other guy cut each other off a few times, then pulled off into a parking lot. They got out of their cars, my friend asked "should we fight?" and when the answer was "yes," they took off their watches and ... fought. My friend was a big guy, but he got the worst of it and was knocked down. Game over -- so the other guy gives him a hand up, they hug (??), and then get back in their cars and leave.
My friend had cuts on his face and fists to prove he was telling the truth. I think the spontaneous hug at the end was the weirdest part, though.
I got thrown off just today by a fucking jughandle! (I live in Jew Jersey.) Look I'm going to be turning left, so I'm in the left lane. Why would I be in the right lane when I'm planning to turn left?
Because you have to turn right if you want to make a left. It's intuitively obvious.
Because you have to turn right if you want to make a left.
Like dogsledding. Although it's more of a lean.
Jersey's jughandles also annoy by sometimes coming before the intersection and sometimes coming after the intersection. Not to mention the times when there's no jug handle at all.
The freakiest traffic pattern I have ever seen (and I'm from Boston) was in Melbourne, VIC. They have Hook Turns. After watching for 5 or 6 cycles I decided they are virtual jughandles. Combined with people driving on the seemingly wrong side of the road, the hook turn was mind-boggling.
The link in 96 is fascinating. Really, a lot of this anti-social, stereotypically SUV behavior must have something to do with the sense of automobile isolation that says, "I am in my vehicle doing my thing. You are doing your own thing, and it should not interfere with my thing." How else do you get drivers to see other drivers, bikers, and pedestrians as people all getting somewhere than by putting them into situations where they must collaborate to get through?
I am always shocked by how few accidents I see in Manhattan. People drive, bike, and walk as if there are no rules at all, but I've noticed that everyone seems to be making eye contact all the time. I'm sure people get hit, and I know bicyclers die frighteningly often, but it seems to be more in the confusing traffic areas near the bridges than on Manhattan's straightaways.
Nothing tops two-way access roads for sheer stupidity in road design. On-ramps and off-ramps to the highway cross oncoming traffic. And it can be as scary as you think. You just trust that they're yielding.
There are some pretty astonishing solutions to traffic issues in southeast asia. The Cambodian method for making a left turn against traffic is to begin driving the wrong way down the opposite shoulder and gradually weave through the oncoming rush of cars and scooters until you reach the right side of the road. I would say "it seems to work for them," but really, it didn't seem like that.
Honk. Just stopping by to say hello, y'all.
It's a slow night, swampcracker. Apparently some people go out on Saturdays or something.
I love the italics in the first paragraph of the wikipedia page linked to in 100. "Across all lanes of traffic," as if the writer can hardly believe it him/herself.
105 - We're not all being exciting. Some of us are exhausted from being good and running errands all day. I'm going to collapse in a heap on my bed now.
I like to fantasize that whenever anyone is not commenting here, they're off getting busy. I'd hope you think the same of me.
16: People who honk for any reason other than an emergency are assholes.
I used to be an extremely aggressive driver, especially when I was in the bay area, but a couple wrecks and several years in New Hampshire took it right out of me. Now that I'm in New York and don't drive at all (which is wonderful!), the one driver behavior that irritates the shit out of me is prophylactic honking. Taxi drivers are especially bad about this; you're crossing the street without a walk sign, say, and there's a taxi half a block away, and they'll honk just to make sure you know they're coming, so you'll get out the way. God dammit, I hate that.
Living in New Hampshire really cured my road rage, I must say. You're just never in that kind of a hurry, and if you get all aggro, it's always so obvious that YOU'RE the assole.
Not only do they not comment the night before, but they're useless the morning after too. The fuckers.
Alameida has an excuse, she's gone off to hospital.
From reading the other blog, she had two posts up about her asthma and then Husband X posted to say that he and the girls are back home after taking her to the hospital. I hope she recovers soon. She wrote in one of the posts that she doesn't have health insurance so I really hope this gets resolved quickly.
I have to say that reading most of the comments above is like reading one big apologia for being an asshole...
I travelled in SE Asia a couple years ago and it totally cured me of driving like an asshole (all the while instilling in me patience for asshole drivers around me). The most interesting distinction hit me in the first few minutes I was on a motorbike - being constantly bombarded with horn toots by other drivers...in typical North American fashion, I was ready to turn around and give one big finger to everyone (after all, in North America, the only reason to hit the horn is as an assertion of assholeness or as an accusation of it).
Then it dawned on me - Asians use the horn constantly as a tool - as a real signal, in an attempt to be helpful or to instill vigilance. Anyway, after a few months of driving in the chaos of Asia (and seeing the serenity of Asian drivers in the midst of that chaos), I returned to Canada a changed man...which helped immensely, as I moved from a smaller city - where traffic was not a concern - to Toronto, where there is constant gridlock. Without my Asian experience, I would have had an aneurysm by now driving here; instead, I accept the traffic as a reality, and marvel in peace and bemusement at the constant acts of selfishness and aggression of other drivers...
Alameida has pleurisy, ack. On the bright side, henceforth I'm only referring to her as Blue Roses.
Her other blog is seekrit because a complex stalking-type situation.
117 -- If you go look at the "About Alameida" page on Unfogged it ought to be a couple of minutes' work to figure out who she is in real life.
Oh...
...I'm not smart enough.
Ooh, I just got home after being tailgated up my street by an asshole on a Vespa. It's a one way, one-lane residential street, so as I'm turning left into my parking space, the idiot, who decided despite my turn signal to pass me via some empty parking spaces, goes swooping off and crashes softly (thank goodness) into another car. He jumps off his bike and starts yelling, "What the hell were you doing turning like that?"
Since Armsmasher brought up the Glass Menagerie, please allow this brief excerpt from Christopher Durang's very awesome parody, For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls. Laura, the frail Williams creation who collects glass geegaws, is replaced by Laurence, who collects swizzle sticks.
AMANDA. I know you do, honey, that's part of your charm. Some days. But, honey, what about making a living?LAWRENCE. I can't work, mama. I'm crippled. (He limps over to the couch and sits)
AMANDA. (firmly) There is nothing wrong wtih your leg, Lawrence honey, all the doctors here have told you that. This limping thing is an affectation.
LAWRENCE. (perhaps a little steely) I only know how I feel, mama.
AMANDA. Oh if only I had connections in the Mafia, I'd have someone come and break both your legs.
LAWRENCE. Don't try to make me laugh, mama. You know I have asthma.
AMANDA. Your asthma, your leg, your excema. You're just a mess, Lawrence!
LAWRENCE. I have scabs from the itching, mama.
AMANDA. That's lovely, Lawrence. You must tell us more over dinner.
LAWRENCE. Alright.
AMANDA. That was a joke, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE. Don't try to make me laugh, mama. My asthma.
AMANDA. Now, Lawrence. I don't want you talking about your ailments to the feminine caller your brother Tom is bringing home from the warehouse, honey. No nice-bred young lady likes to hear a young man discussing his excema, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE. What else can I talk about, mama?
AMANDA. Talk about the weather. Or Red China.
LAWRENCE. Or my collection of glass cocktail stirrers?
AMANDA. I suppose so, honey, if the conversation's comes to some godawful standstill. Otherwise, I'd shut up about it.
"Amanda" s/b "Alameida".
Or, "'Lawrence' s/b 'Alameida'", mebbe. Funny, when he said "my asthma" I thought he was saying "miasma".
Hmm, the advice in 120 is now less useful. The rosy-toed one's About page has become more mysterious. Cool.
126 -- Hm. So it has. Ought to have checked that out before I posted 120. Sorry, 121, you would need to be Deep Blue to figure out Alameida's identity based on her contemporary About page.
Wandering through Unfogged's blogroll, on the other hand, might tip you off to her seekrit identity.
(Alameida is Instapundit! Tremble before her!)
I can sometimes be a very aggressive driver in that I know what I'm doing and where I'm going and I just do that and get frustrated by anyone who's dawdling in my path. I was a very aggro-prone driver in that I'd get mad and fume and cuss and whatever. (I do still comment on those who turn without a signal, but that's different.) I consciously chose to modify my aggro generation by trying to remind myself that other drivers might be experiencing all the things I experience that sometimes make me drive like an asshole and as a result I live by a modification of an old maxim: everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot and everyone who drives faster than me really really needs to take a piss. I find when my temper flares that it doesn't take much imagination to come up with an explanation that makes me pity them rather than hate them.
Rah was going to post about his million-dollar idea for the "oops, my bad" light to be installed on all cars but he thought this thread was dead last night. Suffice to say, he'd make us both as rich as kings.
Stopped at a stoplight on my Honda VFR motorcycle last week, some young duck fucker stylin' along in his dope Acura while blabbing on his cell plowed into me from behind. Cringing at my sudden and aggressive appearance at his window, he too pointed out he had stopped, although only after he hit my bike. I DID let loose a stream of profanity against the young, and mortally stupid loser. I should have kicked his ass. Next time, young effing poser.
Uh, I don't know how serious you all are about keeping alameida's other blog secret, but after reading 114 and 116 I immediately figured it out. Maybe a little redaction is in order?
Not at all secret. The idea is that RL family of hers who aren't blog-savvy shouldn't be able to search on her RL name and find this, but blogreaders are perfectly welcome to know the name behind the rosy toes. So saying RL Name is Alameida would be verboten and redacted, because Google would find it. Broad hints, on the other hand, are fine.