Oh, what, you think because you can see the road pretty well you don’t need to turn them on? If it’s a bright sunny day, sure. Oh, but you think that even though it’s dawn or dusk and it’s not very light out, you can still see the road alright? Maybe so. Oh, you can still see the road alright even though it’s overcast? Perhaps you can.

Just one problem. Headlights exist for two reasons. Sure, you may figure you don’t have to be bothered to turn them on if magnificent you can see the road. But you still need them on, because, what you fail to comprehend… nobody else can see YOU!

So don’t bitch if someone from the other direction making a left turn in front of you may do it without leaving you ample room. Because, chances are, that driver did not even see you approaching! You’re lucky it was only a close-call, dumbass. And the myriad of other situations on the road where it’s helpful for the preservation of one’s life to be able to, you know, see the other cars. If I get into an accident because I can’t see one of you assholes trying to preserve your headlights or whatever, I’m going to punch you in the face. And, hey, I just might find a blunt object and break your precious headlights!

So turn on the headlights, jerkass!

January: Fort Belvoir

-Me to fye: You can’t ban unaccompanied under-15s from the store.
-Cedric?! Why… why aren’t you moving? And lying on the bottom of the tank…?
-LOL my boss set the dumpster on fire with his cigarette
-Holy shit, it’s Vicky!
-The Youngest Candidate viewing at GWU = win!
-Whoa! Slumdog Millionaire is… whoa!
-Vicky, Alexandria is a big place. Where exactly do you need to go?
-Okay, it’s “Fort Belvoir” not “Fort Belvick”. And Fort Belvoir is not in Alexandria.
-Obama! Obama! Obama!
-Screw work, let’s all just watch the inauguration.
-Uh, oh, acetonitrile shortage! If we run out, we’re screwed!
-ZOMG! Case Closed on Funimation channel!!!
-Yeah, great, ski lift, try to rip my arm off!

February: Cookies ‘n’ Cream

-I need to right a two-year-old wrong…
-WHO WANTS COOKIES???
-I just can’t come away from Alex’s Superbowl party without a new meme!
-#24: Mr. Brightside!!!
-WHO WANTS COOKIES???
-For my polyamorist friends.
-With some Cool Whip for the cookies.
-Oh my! I got Cool Whip on my lip. This like totally looks wrong!… *crickets* Meh.
-I want marzipan!
-Maybe this year for Lent, instead of giving something up, I’ll commit to doing something inspiring or worthwhile.
-Wow, the county sure has a lot of parks!
-Good, I have lots of choices for Lent walks.
-I’ll start with Lake Needwood.
-OMG! We got more acetonitrile! We’re saved!!!
-Yay, Baltimore Aquarium! And adorable stuffed seal!

March: Pane

-Brookside Gardens in ice: winter wonderland!
-Moar marzipan!
-Following wintry icy weekend is a 70 degree weekend.
-Smithsonian Museum of Natural History = epic win
-Bah! Closed right as I was entering room with rocks.
-Smithsonian National Gallery of Art = epic win
-Whoa, winding maze of identical Renaissance paintings is winding!
-These painters seemed to really enjoy painting naked children.
-So us board members are supposed to pool our money for Facebook ads done by Alex and Jason, who seem to not know a damn thing about running ads? Hell no.
-Meadowside: OMG! It’s a tree that is four trees!
-Smithsonian Museum of American History: LOL there’s an exhibit for the Pill! Win!
-Natural History Museum giant amethysts demand a lower drinking age!
-Seneca Greenway: Uh, this big dog seems to be following me… is now racing toward me… and the second he got to me, turned around and ran the other direction! Whoa!
-Cross has had its run. Think I want something else around my neck.
-Perfect! A little fluorite kitty from the Natural History Museum, with a little smile as if to say “Yes, I just stole a fish off your plate, what of it?”
-Okay, Jason, enough badgering, I’ll get on Twitter.
-I wonder if Alex and/or Jason are ever planning on saying what became of those Facebook ads we pooled money for… or if any board members will say anything at all for that matter.
-I’m thinking Secular Humanism is more up my alley.
-Mmmm, seafood buffet at Phillips Flagship

April: Hit It with a Big Rock

-Annoying silent board needs to look at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air!
-A conspicuously absent from my Lenten activities God is tired of me ignoring him and finally reveals the meaning of life during my walk at Blue Mash.
-Holy week walks seem to agree.
-Weird activity for Holy Saturday/my Palestinian mom’s birthday: Visiting the US Holocaust Museum!
-Eh, I’m not going to church on Easter Sunday. I think a blooming spring time visit to Brookside Gardens will represent the day much better!
-Doesn’t it make more sense and perhaps one truly more godly to enjoy the pleasurable fruits of life instead of inflicting shame about them?
-Drastically lower donations = NYRA doesn’t have long to live?

May: In Vain

-Ugh, why is my birthday Teen Pregnancy Prevention Day?
-Yay, my birthday is a day for wishing I, having been born to a 19-year-old mother, did not exist!
-Alright, I’m 26, why the hell haven’t I been to Europe yet?
-Paris looks nice! Not sure my French is good enough for the language barrier.
-Okay, I’ll do London then. London looks nice too!
-I’d better get a passport at some point.
-Game Day: WTF?! They hit their son?!
-Not sure I can go back.
-Justin proposes NYRA take position against corporal punishment in school, but fails because Alex abstains and too many others are absent.
-Canoeing: LOL, some other people capsized.
-Gettysburg: Historically relevant rocks are historically relevant!
-Mmmm, yummy delicious dumplings.

June: Woyaya

-Youth Blog Tuesday!
-Up!!!
-Smile! It’s a passport photo!
-WTF?! A tiny bunny keeps jumping at my sliding glass door and bumping his little head!
-Think I’ll visit the Washington Ethical Society… neat!
-Justin proposes corporal punishment amendment again: Alex still abstains like a douche, and we wait several hours for Chip to show up and vote, thus at long last approving it.
-Eric and Jacqueline? Fuck them. Let’s vote them out for attendance violation.
-Jeff and Steve >>>> Eric and Jacqueline
-I think I’ll go to WES again.
-Stefan: “We’ve decided to hire a development director. Need lots of money to do it but would save NYRA.”
-Okay, this WES thing seems to be shaking NYRA up!
-NYRA-SEFL vs. West Palm Beach: It’s ON!
-Savana Redding wins!!!
-ZOMG, Mission to Marzipan!!!

July: The Allergy Test

-Alex’s birthday present: A fuckload of donations for the new dev director.
-I got my passport!
-Kickball!!!
-Damn it, dentist, stop bugging me about the wisdom teeth!
-Mmmm, sushi with brown rice.
-Ow, that fucking dog bit me!
-Oh, shit, do I need a rabies shot?
-Nah, there he is again, still alive and thus not rabid.
-w00t, Half Blood Prince
-STP!!!
-Tubing on the river with WES… owww, sunburn!!!
-Salad.

August: Skeleton in the Closet

-ZOMG!!! Annual meeting!
-I have to feed everybody!
-LOL flip cams
-I has another summer cold!
-LOL I’m NYRA Secretary again.
-I… reserved it.
-Am I really seeing the Turtles live performing “Happy Together”? Why, yes I do believe that is what I’m seeing here.
-NYRA-DC revival!
-Yay, Collective Soul concert for the 4th time!
-And now the Killers!

September: Cockfosters

-Middle Eastern Bazaar is a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord-orgasbord.
-Ugh, nasty NYRA chats are nasty
-OMG, almost time!
-LONDON!!!!
-I’m in the Western Hemisphere and the Eastern Hemisphere at the same time!!!
-Customs is rather painless actually.
-#25: Speed of Sound!!!
-No, Redskins, you’d better fucking NOT lose to the Lions!
-Okay, Redskins, you are so dead to me now. -_-
-Yet another concert: U2!!!
-Mom: “YOU WENT TO LONDON?! No, no, you did NOT go to London!”
-Me: “I totally went to London!”

October: The Alchemist

-To fix the nasty algae problem in my fish tank… got me a little algae eater named Stripe!
-Drinking age fails so let’s try student rights for the Giving Challenge.
-Alex: “Or, fuck you, I’m the executive director and I want to do drinking age, and if you complain, I’ll remove you from the board.”
-NYRA-DC meeting: Alex to Scott: “Why is Katrina not talking to me?”
-Go CAFETY!
-Invited to a play? Sure, okay.
-ZOMG! Cute trick-or-treaters!

November: Pure Potato Pleasure

-Heather: “Fuck the school adminstrators! I’m having a student party at my house anyway.”
-CROATAN
-If the spotlight beam is within my reach, I’ll stick my hand into it for teh lulz.
-I don’t care if you are Don Henley, I’m still screwing with your spotlight beam!
-Met with awesome new NYRA dev director. Holy crap, our org has a future!
-Another meeting at Heather’s house. I brought pizza!
-Ordered NYRA holiday cards finally! Five hundred of them!
-Think I’ll stuff myself with Indian food day before Thanksgiving.
-Bad idea was bad. I threw up on myself in the car.
-After having it 11 months, finally started playing Kingdom Hearts.
-And don’t seem to be stopping any time soon!

December: 1000 #9 Envelopes

-I really need to start sending holiday cards.
-Ooh, we have to work on winning the Chase contest.
-Yet I’m more interested in Kingdom Hearts.
-Okay, put that way, send out first bunch of cards and wait for rest of addresses from board.
-Did I really just have to ship two empty boxes to Canada?
-Jeffrey Nadel = extremely awesome, since even with working very hard for us to win Chase contest, still found time to supply me with card recipients!
-Sent first 300 cards.
-Oh no! Out of envelopes!
-Send me more, printer! I’m missing 200.
-Okay, the email says they’re sending 500.
-Okay, I opened the box, and there’s actually 1000!
-Weezer got in car accident so I don’t get to see them as last concert of the year.
-It’s okay. That night I went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra instead!
-Alright, Chase contest is over. Now we wait…
-NYRA WON $25,000!!!
-Except they screwed over SSDP. Still, though…
-NYRA WON $25,000!!!
-Finishing off last bit of holiday cards.
-Done with holiday cards!
-Alex, you gave me addresses too late! Sorry!
-Holy shit, two feet of snow!
-I totally wrote another Christmas NYRA Tale.
-Yay, got Christmas Eve off!
-Christmas Day chat!
-Fucking hell, I forgot to pay my car insurance.
-Okay, seems even though it was late, they accepted it as if on time. Lucky?
-Finished Kingdom Hearts… WTF?
-Ah, Rule 34.
-I have an old story I have to restart.
-WTF? My coworker’s wife died?!
-Go for New Year’s Eve skiing again even though it’s raining?
-Yeah, I totally did.
-Got totally wet.
-And with 12 minutes to spare, recapped the year, making it yet another December in which I posted every day!

So farewell, 2009! You gave the lulz that was expected, and killed a fuckton of celebrities in the process. Best of all, you brought not just the lulz but potential for lulz to be created. Lulz and win we made ourselves!

Alright, 2010, I see you sitting up there in Times Square. On TV. Bring it on!

So on November 7 I drove south, stopping briefly in Aquia, VA to get gas and visit Grandma in the cemetery, and on further south until the 4 hour and 40 minute trip brought me to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It’s like the most popular vacation spot for anyone who lives within 2 hours from Washington, DC, though I hadn’t been there. It was a lovely autumn day, and first Saturday for several weeks that it wasn’t raining, so I went, since I wanted to see something.

Across the Wright Memorial Bridge, south about 16 miles on Croatan Highway, through Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and Nags Head, and across the Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge onto Roanoke Island and into Manteo, and to the northern end of the island. I finally arrived at the site, or at least what they’ve decided is the site since all they know is it was somewhere in that general area. Fort Raleigh, the “site” (see previous sentence) of the infamous Lost Colony of Roanoke, a story that kind of creeped me out when I first learned about it in fifth grade and inspired a creepy-pasta I wrote a few years ago.

Which is why I went. Creepy historical story calls for a Halloween-time excursion to the (approximate) scene, even if 400 years later. What happened, you ask? Sigh, you fail at colonial US history. Well, around 1590, Sir Walter Raleigh and John White and a bunch of other people from England who saw that big land mass on the other side of the ocean and wanted to start calling dibs on it headed that direction, wanting to found Virginia. Well, as the first part of their bad luck, they wound up in North Carolina instead. Okay, so they figured they’d go ahead and settle there, on Roanoke Island. They brought in a few more people. Then they ran out of supplies and sent John White back to England to get more stuff, only for him to get there and get drafted because England had some dumb spat with Spain so they were at war. After three years, what with the war and other issues, John White finally got back to Roanoke Island, only to find… no one. The fort was dismantled and in ruins and everyone had just vanished. Except for a palisade around where the fort was. And etched into one post of the palisade… CROATOAN.

Looking for the lost colonists was difficult since it was hurricane season and the Outer Banks have always been a veritable hurricane magnet (which is obvious looking at a map of the area, all the spread out islands, signs of frequent storms taking a bat to the region). So John White and others had to leave again to avoid the oncoming storm. He and Sir Walter Raleigh spent the following 12 years or so searching the area to find out what the hell happened to everyone, but never found them or any trace, and 400 years later it is still unknown, though there are a buttload of theories.

So there I was in November of 2009, stepping out of my car and wandering around the woods at the site. Okay, little visitor’s center with a small exhibit about the colony, the disappearance, and the local Indians. Wandered back outside to their little paths through the woods, with little signs here and there about what was going on with the colonists up until John White left. There was even an earthen fort created, in the shape that the original fort would have been, with the flag of England in the very middle. And there was the auditorium and set of some Lost Colony play they have there in the summer. All neat, and they certainly don’t have a whole lot built up since they’re trying to preserve the land for more archaeological research to find out what happened there. Which is kind of dumb considering outside the site are neighborhoods and crap, and, again, they’re only guessing as to the exact site.

But… something was missing. Something that you would think would be an obvious thing for the park service to have there, and would disturb nothing and cost very little to construct. Hell, had I found a proper rock or other instrument and been willing to spend the time and risk getting in trouble, I’d have done it myself. What was missing was… a post or tree with the word CROATOAN etched into it. -_-

I wandered the site for a while to see if one had been constructed, because you’d think it’d make sense for the site, which is particularly notorious because of that being found there sans settlers, to have had one. I finally went back to the visitor’s center to just ask if there was one around (which I probably should have done to begin with to save time). The woman there said no, there wasn’t one, but she agreed with me that it would be a good thing to have. Then she told me that there have been a lot of visitors to the site over time who had marked trees or posts with the word CROATOAN, “to be silly” as she put it.

*headdesk*

Historically relevant graffiti is historically relevant!

So the park neglects to put up a reproduction of the palisade post with CROATOAN etched onto it, which is even stupider still since there were a few wooden posts next to the earthen fort, so they really only need a chisel and someone with a functional arm at that point. And when a historically conscious visitor decides to take matters into his or her own hands and carve or write it onto something there, it is just treated as silly graffiti and removed, evident since even though someone had done this, I saw no trace (unless it was small and really out of the way or something).

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day driving around the area, to Cape Hatteras briefly, and to the Wright Brothers memorial where the first flights took place (two important yet unrelated historical sites right near each other!). It was getting dark so I eventually found one of the seafood restaurants, had me a bunch of yummy clams and oysters, and finally headed on back north through Virginia and got home around 11:30pm.

So what the hell are Croatan and Croatoan and what happened to those damn colonists? Croatan was a local Indian tribe. Croatoan was another island just south of Cape Hatteras. Which leads to yet another bit of stupidity in this whole thing. If the colonists had vanished, and all they found was a post with the name of another local island etched into it, maybe, just maybe, that other island is where the colonists went? That’s what Cracked.com is saying anyway (#5). I should assume that in the following 12 years when John White and Walter Raleigh were looking for them, they would have checked at Croatoan, but with the trend of past and present stupidity being displayed so far in all this, I wouldn’t put all that much stock in that! Or the other theory is that the Indians killed them all. Or at least most of them and the ones leftover went to Croatoan and possibly later somewhere else before Raleigh and White could find them. Or maybe they were killed in a hurricane. Or they were abducted by aliens. Or they never were actually there and White and Raleigh just made it all up. Or the etching was a misspelling and they actually were in Croatia. Or Chuck Norris showed up and kicked their faces. Shit, I don’t know.

(Times are local.)

September 18, 2009
5:50pm
-Arrived at Dulles parking lot: Nervous!
-Parked in Green lot, 9C, Shuttle stop #18

7:45pm
-Long security line was long!
-Also, I didn’t get a window seat: FAIL!
-Now at Gate B38 waiting to board. One hour to go.
-OMFG! There’s a place here called City Wok!

9:45pm
-Yay, this flight has a map just like JetBlue.
-We’re flying over Cape Cod right now.
-Also, making great time as it’s predicting we’ll arrive around 8:30am!
-Have to fill out this landing card for the UK Border Patrol.
-Just had Coke from adorable little British Coke can.
-Smells like dinner is coming! So hungry, I don’t care that it’s airline food!

September 19, 2009
7:15am
-Still airborne, about an hour to go, outside it’s morning, about to fly over southern Ireland.

8:45am
-Landed at 8:45ish. Long line at Border Patrol but otherwise painless.
-Border guard: “Have you ever left the US before?”
Me: “Yeah, I’ve been to Canada, if that counts.”
-Picked up suitcase, and braced myself for UK customs.
-Had nothing to declare so walked the green hallway, awaiting whatever the customs process would be.
-Encountered absolutely nothing, just led me straight on out. I LOL’d.

10:15am
-I has Oyster card.
-London Underground!
-”This is a Piccadilly line service to Cockfosters.” LOL

11:00am
-Came out at Covent Garden: “Well, Grandma, I made it.”
-Down to the Strand, hotel should be around here somewhere… I’m standing right next to it!
-Yay! Found hotel easily and, yay, I could check in right then!

12:00pm
-St Martin-in-the-Fields Cafe in the Crypt seems cool but food is pricy… I’ll just go to Pret a Manger.
-Alright, debit card seems to be working just fine here. That’s one fear out of the way!
-So… London seems to be basically New York with British accents.
-Wow, Trafalgar Square lions are big!

2:00pm
-WTF?! What’s up with the US Capitol? And why is it in London?… Oh, right. St Paul’s Cathedral. Doppelganger.
-Okay, Museum of London should be interesting, and it is, but it’s putting me to sleep. Fail lack of sleep is fail.

4:50pm
-St Paul’s Cathedral: giving off energy of being a holy site for over a millennium. And I’m at one of those services that have occurred here for over a millennium!
-Climbed zillions of steps up to St Paul’s dome. Was like go up into the Statue of Liberty all over again!

6:30pm
-Tate Modern: Lots of paintings, photographs, and films of penis mutilations. Yay?!

7:00pm
-Tate Modern: The Untitled painting by Art & Literature: The description says viewers are confronted by themselves. Reality: it’s a fucking mirror!

10:00pm
-Discovered water doesn’t come free at Wagamama.
-Hotel room sink isn’t draining. Plugged and doesn’t seem to have a way to unplug it. WTF?!

September 20, 2009
10:00am
-Ah! Overslept!
-It’s the BBC in its natural habitat!

11:00am
-Mmmm, Caffe Mocha and muffin from Caffe Nero.
-Okay, I should be close to it, but when I get up to this intersection, I’ll check the map… oh, there it is! The British Museum!

5:30pm
-Spent SIX HOURS at British Museum.
-Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound” has been stuck in my head all day.
-Took 95 pictures at the British Museum!
-OMFG! Peter Rabbit in hieroglyphics!

6:30pm
-Walking down Oxford Street. Crowded street is crowded.
-Wow! I found the US Embassy! Wow, the guard sure has a big gun. And there’s some small protest demonstration in front. I don’t know, something about Iraq.
-Ooh, Hyde Park is pretty!
-Haha, there’s some socialist speaking at Speaker’s Corner, and some others but I can’t hear what they’re saying.

7:30pm
-Bah! Harrod’s is closed. I knew that. Still, though.
-Crowded Leicester Square is crowded.
-Mmmm, London Indian food.

9:30pm
-Oooh, I see. I was supposed to push down on the drain plug to make it tip up. Maid must have noticed by the pool of water in the sink that I was having trouble, and took pity on me by leaving it open.
-I keep seeing Coldplay stuff everywhere, and now there’s a Coldplay special on one of the very few channels on this TV. I think the special played every one of their singles except “Speed of Sound”!
-I see British TV does not censor bare asses or the word “fuck”. Nice.
-As a foreigner, that Cops-like show they just advertised about the UK Border Patrol scares the hell out of me!
-Oh, House is on. It’s the second to last episode of last season… and judging by the promo message after it, I think this was the UK’s first showing of the episode. I knew they run behind us, but shit!

September 21, 2009
9:45am
-Eh, up later than I wanted to be again.
-Off to Greenwich, via District line to Tower Hill, then via DLR from Tower Gateway to Cutty Sark.
-Okay, having some Oyster card trouble with DLR, card didn’t swipe right, got caught almost accidentally taking a free ride!

11:30am
-At last, reached Greenwich.
-Long walk through park to observatory is long.
-OMFG, THE PRIME MERIDIAN!!!
-Eastern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere, Eastern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere…
-WTF?! Camera battery died!
-I require a picture of me on the Meridian, so now all the way back to the Strand to charge camera. Sigh. I’m so behind schedule now.

1:00pm
-Hopefully, the 240V will make the camera charge up extra quick!

2:00pm
-Made it all the way back to Greenwich and got the picture of me standing on the Prime Meridian.

-Worth it.
-OMG! This place controls TIME!!!

3:00pm
-Hurrying back to Tower Hill.
-Hey, it’s okay to eat on London transit. That saves time.
-Got to Tower of London and traded in my Expedia voucher for ticket. Yay!
-Aw, crap! Right after getting into the Tower, when the guards wanted to check my bag, my ticket blew away in the wind. Guards made some crack about “Gone With the Wind” and asked if I’d seen the film, and I was tempted to come back with some remark about the film being from and involving an event back in MY country!

5:30pm
-LOL, Beefeaters
-ZOMG! It’s one of those guards in the red coats and tall fuzzy black hats!
-Although, his job must seriously suck, all these dumb tourists (i.e. me) staring him, pointing at him, giggling, taking pictures.
-Jewel Tower: haha, some guy got caught taking a picture in there when it’s not allowed, and a staff person there chased him down and made him delete it!
-That’s good, even with just under two hours, still about to see pretty much all of the Tower.
-Wow, the White Tower has been standing here since 1080!
-One exhibit is going through history of the Tower since 1066.
-Included in history is 1776 when the United States declared independence.
-That’s right, bitches, don’t you forget it!
-If these ravens fly away from the Tower, England will fall.
-Although, they clipped the ravens’ wings, and I think that may be cheating.

6:00pm
-WTF?! Why is the Tower Bridge closed already? It’s supposed to be open until 6:30… ooh, stupid last admission time is 5:30. Who the hell would stay up there for a full hour?
-I guess I’ll just go to Harrod’s.

7:00pm
-Huge store is huge.
-Oooh, marzipan fruit!
-Oooh, Christmas World!

8:30pm
-London sushi!
-At a place called Yo! Sushi, where sushi comes by on a conveyor belt, at £2.20 per plate. I guess that means each plate costs a kilogram? *dodges tomatoes*

11:00pm
-Hell’s Kitchen is uncut! I’ve got to tell Galen!
-Ah, BBC plays Family Guy.

September 22, 2009
9:30am
-Tube: Charing Cross to Baker Street
-Baker Street station tiles all have Sherlock Holmes silhouette!
-Hurry through little Sherlock Holmes museum, bought some stuff, and back down the Bakerloo line to Charing Cross.

11:00am
-Walking the Mall to Buckingham Palace.
-LOL, here come the guards in their tall fuzzy black hats.
-Yes, Grandma, I’m watching the Changing of the Guard.
-Aw, I don’t have a great view. Can’t see what’s happening inside the gate.

12:00pm
-Alright, Thistle Grosvenor Victoria should be around here somewhere.
-Yay! I finally found some Five Alive!

1:00pm
-Found 101 Buckingham Palace Road, the Thistle Grosvenor Victoria. Now to wait for the tour bus.
-Whoa! Sweet Five Alive is sweet! No wonder. Along with sugar, it also contains acesulfame K, aspartame, and saccharin!

3:00pm
-We’ve gone west of London, for about an hour and a half now, into Wiltshire.
-Pretty English countryside is pretty.
-OMG! There it is!!! We’re here…
-STONEHENGE!!!
-It’s chilly and windy and humid… but it’s Stonehenge on the autumnal equinox!!!

5:00pm
-Back on the bus and back to London.
-Ooh, I should be way early for the London Eye!

6:30pm
-Argh! Stuck in assload of traffic going into London and I REALLY have to go to the bathroom!

7:00pm
-Finally arrived back at Thistle Grosvenor Victoria and raced into bathroom. Ahh!
-Now to the London Eye!

8:00pm
-Okay, 4D show is kinda cute.
-What not to bring on the London Eye: Children under 16 unless accompanied by someone 18 or older. EPIC FAIL!
-Oooh, shiny sparkly colorful nighttime city is shiny.
-o snap, a couple riding in the same capsule got engaged during the ride!

9:00pm
-Last night! Went to Wagamama again and had a big ass noodle bowl.
-LOL, I’ve eaten Asian food every night here.

September 23, 2009
9:00am
-Last day! Off to Westminster Abbey!
-Protesters outside the Houses of Parliament! Something about Sri Lanka or Iraq or Palestine or gay pride.

9:30am
-Okay, Abbey should be open by now. Instead, we’re waiting in a line. Come on! I don’t have much time.
-Meh, at least gift shop is open. Go there first.
-After gift shop, Abbey has opened. Yay!

10:30am
-Abbey = awesome
-There’s the burial spot of the man himself… Charles Darwin.

11:30am
-Checked out of hotel… Off to Heathrow!
-Some middle aged couple is also going to Heathrow, sound American. Woman kept worrying about whether they’d have to change trains or get off earlier, before I took pity on her and told her to stay on this train if they’re going to Heathrow. Sigh. Tube n00b.

12:00pm
-Why doesn’t this stupid terminal have a trash can anywhere?
-Lame. I again wasn’t able to get a window seat. So snagged an aisle seat just like the one I had on the other flight.
-It seems Heathrow security doesn’t make you take your shoes off.
-They don’t know the gate yet? What the hell?

2:00pm
-Okay, got the obligatory duty free Toblerones!
-Alright, my gate is A8. Don’t have far to go.

3:00pm
-Oww! My knee finally gave out on me! Five days of walking a big city does that.
-Going through the tunnel to the plane is painful.
-Oh, yes, please, randomly select me when my legs are about to fall off. Sure, go through my bag. Sure is a lot of crap in there!
-Lovely. Now flight is delayed because they’re having issues loading luggage. Meh.
-Alright, finally took off around 3:45pm.

7:00pm EDT
-And after eight airborne hours, we have landed.
-Out of the plane, again at Gate B38, and down to one of Dulles’s mobile lounges.
-Turned on cell phone for first time in five days to find four new messages: one from Hyundai about my car maintenance the previous week, one from my uncle, and two from my mom, who was all freaked that she couldn’t get a hold me (nothing had happened, she’s just clingy).
-Being new to US Customs, figured I had to fill out the form with all the souvenirs I bought.
-Yeah, they didn’t give a shit about the souvenirs. They just wanted to make sure I wasn’t bringing in any food. Other than the duty free Toblerones, which they didn’t give a shit about.
-US Border Protection: “What was the purpose of your visit to London?… What did you do there?… What kind of work do you do?” Lulz.
-I’m back in my country!
-Okay, there are like two other Heathrow flights that also just landed, how the hell am I going to find my suitcase? It’s not even saying which carousel we’re supposed to be at.
-Oh, there it is. *shrug*
-Uh oh, time to go through customs.
-Okay, again, all they care about is whether I have any food, and even then, they don’t give a shit about the duty free Toblerones.
-Okay, I’m through.
-Wow, I always heard coming through customs was like majorly invasive. That was… very painless.
-Now back to my car!
-Now I have to face stupid reality again.

Epic win.

If I’m trying to make a left turn and am on the median waiting for cars to go by so I can make the turn, and you’re behind me, stay behind me before you cross the first part of the road until I move, and then you can come to the median!

Did that make any sense?

Seriously, I’m trying to make a left turn, and the car behind me wants to make a left turn as well. When the cars heading to my right have gone by, I drive forward to the little break in the median and wait there so I can make my left turn.

But some impatient assholes like to follow me to the median right then, even though I cannot yet go anywhere. I’m waiting there for the cars to go by. The impatient asshole pulls up next to me also waiting.

Are these people so stupid? They are blocking the median pretty badly when they do that when I haven’t left yet. And what sometimes also happens? They’re driving some big ass SUV and they pull up next to me and BLOCK my view of the on-coming cars! And they have the nerve to wonder why I haven’t gone yet. Gee, I don’t know, maybe you’re blocking my view and I can’t see if there are any cars coming, asshole! You can see just fine. I can’t. You’re in my way because you’re a fucking idiot.

Next person who does that, I’m following them to wherever they go so I can yell at them. That’d be badass.

Except I did get caught by one earlier this year because it was hidden in a parked car. So I received a lovely photo of the back of my car and was out $40. Meh.

Anyway, the other day, saw this article come over NYRA’s youth rights news wire.

Why speed cameras hit over-60s hardest

Older drivers are six times more likely to be fined for speeding than a decade ago, according to a study which also reveals that young motorists have adapted far better to the increased use of speed cameras.

The number of older offenders may be higher partly because, unlike a police officer, a speed camera has no discretion, the study author says. Most speed enforcement a decade ago was carried out by traffic police, who often gave older drivers a verbal warning rather than a ticket.

The Department for Transport commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to analyse the age of offenders in two three-year periods: 1997-99 and 2003-05.

It found that the number of men aged 60 and over receiving penalty points for speeding increased by 540 per cent between those periods. Among women aged 60 and over, there was a 1,200 per cent rise, though starting from a very low base.

By contrast the number of drivers under 25 being caught for speeding grew by only 18 per cent.

The study, based on an analysis of the records of 300,000 motorists, also showed that in 2003-05 there were almost three times as many drivers aged 60 and over with speeding convictions as drivers aged under 25. In the 1997-99 period, young offenders outnumbered older ones by more than two to one.

The age group most likely to have a speeding conviction changed from 24-34 in the earlier period to 45-59 in the later period.

The number of speed cameras increased from fewer than 500 in 1997 to about 5,000 in 2005. The increase was partly due to changes in funding rules in 2000 that allowed police to keep a proportion of fines to pay for the cameras. That system, known as “cash for cameras”, was abolished last year.

Speeding convictions from cameras grew from 337,000 in 1997 to a peak of 1.91 million in 2004, before declining to 1.74 million in 2006.

Jeremy Broughton, author of the study, said that the low number of older drivers being prosecuted for speeding in the 1990s might be explained in part by police showing more leniency to them than to young drivers. “Police would have a mental image of the sort of person they were expecting to stop and if it was an elderly lady they wouldn’t look at her in the same way as a young male,” he said.

Rob Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said that older drivers had been accustomed to driving on roads without cameras and would have found it harder to adapt when they spread across the country.

“Police may have given elderly drivers a telling-off rather than a fine whereas cameras are blind to the age of the driver,” he said. “It was wrong to be lenient with older drivers because they were posing a danger on the roads by ignoring the limit. Since the growth in cameras, the proportion of vehicles breaking the 30mph limit has fallen from 75 per cent to 30 per cent and deaths have fallen sharply.”

Mr Gifford said that the rise in older speeding offenders helped to explain the emergence of a vociferous anticamera campaign dominated by drivers in their fifties and sixties.

Paul Watters, head of roads policy at the AA Motoring Trust, said that older drivers had grown up with a different attitude to speed. “They were more used to driving at a speed they judged to be safe according to the conditions rather than sticking to the legal speed limit,” he added. “Older drivers have also had to cope with the introduction on many roads of lower speed limits imposed for environmental purposes.”

o snap

Ah, speed cameras, the great equalizer. Ever wonder if this is the reason everyone says young drivers are such menaces on the road? The stats get skewed against them because cops are more likely to issue them tickets, thus the speeding incident being recorded, than older people. Cop has no problem ticketing a driver young enough to be his daughter but will cringe at ticketing at one old enough to be his mother.

Do the stats lie? What a dumb question. But what we do have here is a rather big self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s the idea that young people are bad and old people are to be respected. And when put into practice by traffic cops such as in this case, we are left with stats seemingly supporting such a premise. Imagine that.

Stats don’t lie. But they don’t exactly tell the truth either.

YOU SUCK!!!!

These people who walk into the street and just seem to be completely unaware that they are, you know, in a street. They know, but they seem to think it’s just an extension of the sidewalk or something.

I especially saw this crap a lot when I was riding the bus. People would just walk out into traffic and act like the cars screeching to a halt to keep from cutting short their stupid lives aren’t really there. They wouldn’t walk a little faster to get across before the light changes or more cars come. They’d stroll along as if they were walking the mall or something.

Move your asses, you stupid jerkoffs! There’s lots of these 1-ton machines on wheels zooming around, and it’s not exactly a good idea just to amble along in front of them as if you were picking flowers like the gay ass retard you are.

Whenever I have to walk around streets or parking lots, I keep one little pedestrian philosophy: Pretend the drivers can’t see you. Because, you know, sometimes they can’t. Might be dark. They might not be paying attention. Lots of reasons. In any case, when crossing the street, I always run. Even if there’s a walk light on and it will be on for a while, still not wise to dally in the middle of the street. When walking through a parking lot, I stay to the side. Sadly, I seem to be the only one with enough brains to remember this simple rule.

Happened a few times earlier today. I was at a mall driving through the parking lot on my way out, and there’s this family just walking down the little street between the parking spaces, right in the middle, as if it’s just a very wide path. I’m behind them, inching at like half a mile an hour, while they take their sweet time. When the little street corridor ends and there’s the cross street, they just make a right turn and keep strolling carelessly down the MIDDLE of that little street. Now don’t come crying to me when your children get run over someday because their idiot parents always walked in the middle of the street without looking or anything, and they thought doing so was safe. Retards.

Later I was at a shopping center with a grocery store, and sure enough there’s people leaving the store and pushing their carts or walking their bags in the MIDDLE of the parking lot street. They weren’t in the middle of crossing or anything. Just walking down the middle like they owned the place. And if a car is coming up behind them, they don’t move out of the way or anything; they ignore it.

And it’s not just parking lots. You get morons trying to cross a busy street in the middle of the night. On Rockville Pike one time, after dark, there were a bunch of people running across it. I only even saw them when they silhouetted against the light of the stores behind them. And they were about, oh, twenty feet from a damn crosswalk! I mean, not that I haven’t done that myself, but there’s one important difference… DON’T DO IT WHEN THERE ARE CARS COMING, JACKHOLE!

Do you like idea of a ton of steel slamming into you at 30mph? No? Then get off the goddamn street! I don’t want to have to deal with my car getting messed up because of having to peel your incapacitated self off the hood just because it would be too much of an inconvenience for you to look both ways before crossing. I don’t want to have to live the rest of my life with having caused the injury or death of someone with my car, regardless of whose “fault” it is according to insurance companies, just because you were too fucking mindless to get across the street a little faster and recognize that a busy street isn’t the best place to go sightseeing.

You don’t seem to be frail old lady in a walker who can’t move very fast anyway. In their case, I’d understand. You seem fairly young and mobile, so, you know, move your dumb ass, fuckwad!

Good ride up I-95. Got to around Baltimore, following my Google Maps directions. At first thought I was going the wrong way since I’ve been by Baltimore zillions of times but the road seemed different. Well, I was still on course anyway, just got caught in a small backup. Went under Fort McHenry tunnel and paid a toll. Five dollars! Grrr.

Drove and drove, almost an hour from home at this point, and soon crossed the Susquehanna River. Sweet. Almost to Delaware! Into Cecil County for a short while, and at last crossed into the First State. Took the first exit into Newark, DE. There was something I just had to see.

I pulled into Corporate Boulevard, and a short way in, there it was! The Delmar Thermo Fisher Scientific distribution center! You see, at work, my main job is ordering lab supplies, and most supplies come from the gigantic distributor of lab stuff known as Fisher. After nearly two years at this job and seeing so many orders shipped to us from the local warehouse in Newark, DE, I just had to see this place! Basically, a couple of enormous buildings. I just took a couple pictures to show my coworkers later, but I wonder what kind of strange looks I’d have gotten if I had gone inside all excited about seeing the place and asked for a tour or something. Hehe. *imagines Willy Wonka-esque adventure* Everlasting cell culture flask, ZOMG!

Er, Corning makes those actually, Fisher just sells them. Meh.

So I got back onto 95 and continued on my way, and it was about 12:30pm at this point. Went to I-295 and crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge into New Jersey. Turnpike! Got the gay little ticket. Then pretty much rocketed north at like 85 mph, hahaha. Worried about a NJ state trooper stopping me or something, but I was slow compared to everyone else. Sweet.

Oh, have I mentioned I hate trucks? So many of them and they’re so big and scary to drive near. They block your view of important signs. They drive along all like “hey, look at me, I’m a truck, I’m like big and stuff and bearing signs saying America would stop without me, I’m so cool!” Fail.

Reached Exit 13 after lots of zooming along, then got stuck in a little backup getting onto the Goethals Bridge (how the HELL is that pronounced?!). Paid expensive toll and got onto bridge and onto Staten Island and into New York City!

Although, Staten Island looks more like “New Jersey Continued” than NYC, but whatever.

Sped along that to the Verrazano Bridge, playing Collective Soul’s “The World I Know” on a loop from my CD player, and then got into Brooklyn and caught in a little construction backup on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Exit 24 came finally, I drove down some streets according to my printed directions, and at last I reached the place I visited six months ago, the home of Jason, Ana, Rob, and Pam.

Parked on a nearby street, went up to their place, and Alex arrived like a minute later (I totally bragged that I got there first, me > Alex). Watched semi-creepy Obama video and then a demonstration of 20th century wars featuring food, and then we headed out and went to Manhattan.

Went into the Whole Foods on Bowery and claimed ourselves a table and a lot of cubes to hold the meeting. For me, it kind of sucked because I had a really bad “headache” so I just wasn’t with it. Worried me since I hated to be so out of commission for the NYRA meeting! Finally, I was given an aspirin so kindly, so things became fine again slowly, heh.

And I felt stupid since everyone else was wearing a black or otherwise dark shirt while I was wearing my stupid little light blue sweater thingy, heh.

Met a few new people, like Ben and Oren, and saw some I’d seen before. We sat there for like three hours debating and chatting and eating fries. Awesome. Totally worth the long drive and taking off work.

After that, Jason, Ana, Rob, Pam, Alex, and I all walked around in the cold until we reached a Turkish restaurant where Rob works, and we ate some Turkish food. Mmmm. Sitting with five awesome NYRA people in NYC and eating Mediterranean food. I’m still puzzled as to why I wasn’t like leaping for joy!

Food was lots of stuff I’ve had before, or at least had similar versions of before. Lamb was amazing!

Got done with dinner around 11pm and returned to their place near midnight. Crap! I still had to drive home! Oy. I already knew I was going to get home late, but shit! No matter. I didn’t mind because the time was very enjoyable.

The others were playing the new Smash Bros. game on the Wii went I decided it was time to go, around 12:15am, and I hated to leave! Wanted to stay and have fun! Oh, well.

Went back out to my car, carefully got out of the parallel parking spot, and went to a nearby gas station for some gas to get me all the way home. Following the Google Map instructions again, worked my way out of Brooklyn slowly.

Misunderstood one direction which took me from some circle onto Ocean Parkway, when I was supposed to take Fort Hamilton. Okay, ended up having to turn around and go back around the circle and get on Fort Hamilton that time. Ate up some time, but whatever. Now, going down Fort Hamilton, needed like 78th street. What was I on? Like 36th or something. Sigh.

Finally got to the end of that and up to the Verrazano Bridge and onto the Staten Island Expressway. Yay! Moving along! Might get home before 4am! Got through Staten Island and across the Goethals Bridge and went to get another gay little ticket for the New Jersey Turnpike. And here’s where everything went horribly wrong!

Past the ticket plaza, there were two signs ahead of me, one for I-95 North and one for I-95 South. I couldn’t see much beyond the signs. Very dark. Well, the South sign was toward the right so I moved toward the right. As I drove by, I noticed an exit I was passing on my right which I didn’t see at all until I was already by it. Uh oh.

I got off the ramp onto I-95. That was Exit 13 so next, if I’m going south, should be Exit 12. Went a few miles before I saw another sign for the next exit.

Exit 14! Aw, crap! I’m going the wrong way! So I got off there so I could find some way to turn around. I was at Newark Airport. I got to the toll plaza where I had to turn in the ticket I just got and pay the toll, which was only like a dollar since it was one exit from where I got it, heh. I asked the woman in the booth how I get back to I-95 South. She pointed me to a sign ahead for South 1 9 or something, and to follow that until I got to another ticket plaza to get back onto I-95, and to take the exit for South. Okay, simple enough.

I followed the 1 9 South thing for a little bit until a fork in the dark road, neither way really indicating which continues 1 9 or gets to I-95. Well, whichever one it was, I took the other one.

Not sure WHERE the hell I was now! Looked like I was heading toward a town. Elizabeth perhaps? Meh, who knows. On the road there, I turned around and went back the way I came, whichever way that was.

I ended up going into Newark Airport. Okay, fine, I’ll drive through its roads and find the exit from there, which should surely point me back to I-95. After a lot of driving through little airport roads, it did. Sort of. A sign pointed to 95, so I went. Soon I was to another ticket plaza. Great! Now let’s try this again! Can’t even describe the frustration I was feeling. Tired and frazzled and almost in tears, and this all had taken like half hour to 45 minutes!

Got my gay little turnpike ticket, and ahead me like before were two signs for I-95. I wasn’t sure if this was the same ticket plaza as before or not. In retrospect, probably not, but it was almost 2am so everything looked the same. The two signs for I-95 in front of me? Each pointed a different direction, but with NO indication of which was for North and which was for South! Oy.

So I assumed it would be the one on the right, so I stayed to the right, watching for any exits hidden in the dark. There was one… it was closed! WTF?! So now I was following some ramp that was probably about to lead me in circles. I was so ready to stab someone in the face!

I was back on I-95 but couldn’t tell which way I was going. That late everything looks the same so couldn’t tell if it looked like earlier when I got on North by mistake to begin with. After a while, some signs for the next exit appeared.

Exit 12.

YES! I’m on I-95! Oh, thank you, God! I’m going the right way finally!

Crap, might not get home until like 5am. Going to be SO tired at work!

Forget work. I was tired now! Stupid NJ turnpike looks so austere at night, so monotonous. Just me and a lot of stupid trucks driving at like 85mph at 2:30am. In retrospect, kind of cool, but at the time was too frazzled to appreciate it. Too bad I was getting increasingly worried I’d fall asleep at the wheel! Just tried to interest myself in what I was seeing around me to keep myself alert.

At last, reached the end of the turnpike and time to pay the toll. Wow, tolls rule! The act of gathering the money and paying it is a breaking the monotony of driving on endless dark road and woke me up a bit. So the concern of whether I’d make it home without having to pull off or anything subsided. Was back in Delaware! Soon was back in Maryland!

The rest of the way was pretty uneventful. Lots of dodging around big trucks and late night construction work. Passed Baltimore and through the Fort McHenry tunnel okay, and on to the Capital Beltway. Except I was starting to get drowsy again, and it was about 4:30am at this point. Ugh.

Almost there. Capital Beltway. I-270. Win!

Pulled up to my house, left everything in the car, went in, petted my very excited dog, and went upstairs and straight into bed. It was 4:45am.

That was early this morning, and I woke up for work like three hours later. I am SO tired. Hehehe.

Here’s To You!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, my wonderful awesome car!”

*looks back through entries*

Oh, goodness, what an oversight on my part! I’ve gone six months without ever once mentioning on here that an amazing thing has happened. I have a car! Seems weird saying now as if that’s new. I got it back on February 26. Been nearly six months. Oh, what an insane day that was, too. Surprising I never wrote about it here.

Anyway, yeah, I have a car, although I’m sure anyone reading this already knows that anyway. Yeah, I guess it kind of kills the old Bus Stories category, although I could still add to it, as there are some good bus stories I haven’t told yet. Just won’t be having any more. Haven’t ridden the bus since the Ride On #46 dropped me off in front of my Hyundai dealership on the 26th of February.

That’s what I drive! A dark blue 2007 Hyundai Elantra. I was looking seriously at getting a car at the end of last year, and had narrowed it down to a Ford Focus, a Mazda 3, and the Elantra. Mazda ended up getting ruled out because it was a bit too expensive. Focus put up a good fight and I almost went with it, until I finally test drove the Elantra and was like “This one! This one! This is my car!” And as far as standard features, Elantra kicks the ass out of Focus anyway. I definitely made the right choice.

Revealed the car to NYRA the following weekend. Originally, I had tried to drive to Alex’s house and surprise him. Drive up there, run up to his door, knock, and be all like “Alex, get out here! Check it out!” Being still new at driving, I got into some wrong lanes and had some trouble getting there. Got there at last… bastard wasn’t home!

So waited until that Saturday when he came by my house to get me so we could go table at JSA. He was all like “WTF? Why didn’t you get the Focus?” Sigh. Michiganders.

Over the past six months, I’ve had lots of fun with the car. Drove to Pennsylvania to go skiing on St. Patrick’s Day. Went out for food. Just last weekend I went to Sugarloaf Mountain and climbed some rocks to the top. I’m finally able to visit my friend from college on her little game nights without having to annoy someone else for a ride. Basically, I can go where I want, when I want! Er, well, except for that leash thing I mentioned not too long ago. Sigh.

And just this past Sunday, it hit 3,000 miles. Time for maintenance! That’s what I did today. Took my little car back to the dealership during my lunch break. Got an oil change. Got everything checked out. Meanwhile, I was pacing around, outside and inside. Outside, I kept trying to peek into the maintenance area, thinking “Is my car okay? What are they doing to my car?” Went inside and paced in the hallway.

There was this old guy there also waiting for his car. He was in a wheelchair, and had only one leg and one arm. Where his other arm is supposed to be, he had a prosthetic arm with a hook on the end. He got to talking to me about some car issues he used to have, such as a Cadillac that broke down only three miles after its warranty expired. Later, after I was informed my car was almost ready, I was standing outside and this guy was out there this time. He randomly says to me “I need an ambulance.” and I’m like “Huh? Why?” and he’s like “Well, I told them that if they charge me an arm and a leg, they’ll need to take me out of here in an ambulance because I won’t be able to go anywhere!”

Oh, the conflict! Inside, I was all “ROFLMAO!!!” but on the outside, I merely grinned and snickered mildly, thinking “Should I laugh at that or not?!”

After a while, they finally brought out my car, and informed me that everything is perfectly fine. Well, damn straight, it had better be perfectly fine at ten days shy of six months! Although I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if I had destroyed this thing already with my crazy n00b driving. Hehehe.

So that’s my wonderful, awesome, perfect-in-every-way car! I may not have bus stories anymore, but car stories are looking promising. We’ll see.

This has been Day 85 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 7.

I was thinking about this today. It doesn’t make sense. How is it bus riders can be so fat now and then? Some practically need two or three whole seats just to fit their gigantic asses. It’s scary.

But, really, it doesn’t make sense. Riding the bus requires a lot of walking. Lots of crossing roads, lots of picking up the pace if you’re running late, lots of walking from roads to destination buildings which can often be a few blocks away. In spite of all this, these people remain fat. How they even get to the bus without collapsing of a heart attack is beyond me.

For this, I must say taking the bus can’t be a walk in the park for them! Or maybe it is. A walk in the park must be about as exhausting. I’m small and agile. They’re huge and flabby. Yet they somehow manage to walk whatever distances each day to catch the bus, inspite of the cetacean-grade weight. It’s a lot to carry.

Me? I just carry my light little self and my umbrella. Don’t carry my workbag anymore. Haven’t since before I went to California. It’s freeing. Bag was heavy, even after I took out half the shit I was keeping it in for some reason. No bag means greater freedom of movement. Instead, I look like a moron carrying around an umbrella on dry, cloudless summer days. Because you know as soon as I leave it at home one day, it’s going to fucking rain!

And yesterday and today, I was carrying not only the umbrella but also a Ziploc container. Made more sense in the morning when it contained my lunch, but in the afternoon, I just looked like some weird chick carrying around an umbrella and an empty food container. It was an advantage to the bag.

After all, what I carried out in my hands were the same sort of items concealed inside the bags, mine and those of other people. I was just more honest. Reminds me of those stupid old commercials for the cheap cereal that was sold in a bag. They argued that it was the same as the other cereals because those were in bags, too, but just inside their boxes. Eh, doesn’t redeem them. Those ads were mind-numbing. Idiots were scooting down the cereal aisle on their knees, because apparently these cheap, boxless cereals were on the lower shelf. Not true in any of my local grocery stores. On the bottom shelf were, you know, real cereals, by Kellogg and Post and General Mills.

Just like that time like a decade ago, my sister and I were at this 4-H event or something. My sister was sitting in a small group of other kids, where one of the moms was showing how grocery store equivalent tastes the same as or maybe even better than Cheerios, and it’s way cheaper. She had all the kids try a bit of both cereals. Then she asked which they believed was the better buy. Sure enough, all the kids piped up that the store brand was the way to go. Not my sister. Nope. She stated she’d still buy Cheerios.

Funny how the mom was so taken aback that one of these kids disagreed with the point she was trying to make. That’s one thing that has always ruled about my sister. She doesn’t just go along with the crowd. Well, she does sometimes. But times she doesn’t have been often enough to be noticeable. Unfortunately, it outcasted her so often. Like I said. Look how surprised this mom was that this one little girl didn’t fall like the others and want the store brand cereal. She knew she already liked honest-to-goodness Cheerios and chose to stay with it. This mom wouldn’t be the only one.

You know, it breaks my heart to see some people follow suit with things so readily. Growing up, I saw the creative, unique kids my age slowly shedding their independent thoughts, year by year, and becoming the programmed soulless mature adults they are today. They are more mature than I, apparently. It wasn’t long before the funny, thoughtful fourth graders grew into run-of-the-mill mature adults who looked at the funny, thoughtful fourth graders as mindless annoying baby animals.

What is the appeal with equating human children to baby animals so much anyway? So many children’s books out there are about baby animals. Not to mention some diaper commercial from a while ago that showed how a sloppy two-year-old looked like a baby elephant taking a drink from a pond, or something dumb like that. You may think it’s cute. I say it’s dehumanizing. How can you demand respect from little kids when you don’t even consider them your same species?

Did you know all breeds of dog are the same species? Yup. Canis familiaris. Makes sense. They can interbreed. Then again, so can certain different species. Look at mules. Did you know all mules are female? Major, um, what’s the opposite of sausage fest?

I don’t like sausage. Well, I do sometimes, but usually I don’t. Perhaps a growing aversion to pork products. Don’t know why. I think I used to be afraid that it wouldn’t be cooked enough and it’d be infected with Trichinella spiralis, the wormy culprit in trichinosis. But other foods have issue, too. Chicken runs the risk of salmonella. Maybe that means salmon runs the risk of chickenella. Yes, I stole that from Friends. So what? But, you know, chickenella kind of rhymes with trichinella! Neat!

I admit I watched Friends, even though I hated it. The first five or six seasons or so were good but it was just sliding way downhill after that, and even the ninth season was almost unwatchable. Tenth, the last one, was a tiny bit better. Not much. The series finale aired on my 21st birthday. Hehe. But even Friends did not get as bad as The Drew Carey Show got. I mean, that show was really funny and unique in like the first three seasons. They had Daffy Duck on there once, for crying out loud! But pretty much everything after the Emmy episode (funny episode, I might say) was pure shit. I mean, Christa Miller left the show and they were still trying to keep it going. Winfred Louder was gone and they were trying to keep it going. It’s dead, guys! Put it down already.

I suspect Winfred Louder was supposed to be Woodward & Lothrop. I miss that store. Been gone for 11 years. Oh, well. Time goes on. Which reminds me. You know that song that goes “Time is on my side”? That makes no sense. Time is NEVER on your side! Look. Time flies when you’re having fun. The clock ticks backwards when you’re miserable. Time hates our guts. It would never let itself be on your side. Shut the hell up.

Days are too damn short. I mean, there’s eight hours at work, with sixteen left otherwise. Seems fine until you remember you have to sleep at some point. Must be at least seven hours of sleep to be healthy, but some people might need nine or ten. I’m afraid I might be one of those people. So that’s eight hours at work, plus like nine hours of sleep. Only seven hours left. Then got to drop some more. An hour before work and an hour after work. The commute. My work is a ten minute drive from my house, but every morning and afternoon I have to catch two damn buses and walk a lot, and that eats up some time. Walking is tiring and takes forever.

Why do so many fat people ride the bus?

This has been Day 91 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 6.