Indiana BMV 1 - Me 0

Once again I have been bested by Indiana’s own version of Michigan’s Secretary of State, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

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After a bit of a hiatus, I still have nothing really new to chime in about. The horse from this past weekend has been beaten. There hasn’t really been any news items to comment on, and my miscellaneous web browsing in general has been cut down due to a major project at work. On that note, September 19 won’t come soon enough!
Really, all I have right now the latest is an intense hatred for Comcast, that I can explain while it is still boiling over:

Last night (I don’t remember it happening on Monday) there was an ad image on the channel guide that comes with Comcast Digital Cable. A fucking ad - like the banner ads you see on web pages. But there’s no AdBlock extension for Comcast, and it takes up a huge chunk of the screen at the bottom. It seems to only be there until you change the channel - subsequent uses of the Guide don’t have it there. But the very fact that it’s there in the first place is unacceptable. I’m paying for the damn service! I already have to sit through normal TV commercials - 50% of those being ads for COMCAST SELLING THEIR SERVICE. If I’m already subscribed to you - WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU ADVERTISING TO ME THE SAME SERVICE I ALREADY HAVE?!? Gahhhhhhhh….it pisses me off so much. I already sent a fiery email to customer support has been sent letting them know how I feel.

On a somewhat related note, commercials on Comcast have volumes that fluctuate A LOT. We’ll be going along, minding our own business, and a commercial for Jim Bob’s Used RV and Carpet Center will come on at at least twice the volume level as the other commercials. Probably louder than that. Like, hurting your ears can’t talk to other people hear the TV when you’re upstairs loud. It seems to be only limited to local area businesses with crappy production and no resources, too. I’ve read that sometimes that happens if a certain station doesn’t normalize the audio feeds or something, but it’s not limited to just one station. It’s across the board. It’s like “HEY, I’M A LOCAL BUSINESS, BUY FROM ME! DO YOU HEAR ME? HELLOOOOO! HEY! HEY! LISTEN TO ME! YEAHHHHH!”. I’ve already left feedback at one advertiser (IN-MI.biz or something?) letting them know that just because of their ads on Comcast I will never do business with anyone related to them again. And that holds true for all of the places that do that. Again, gahhhhhhhhh.

Why do I stay with them? On top of ALL THAT, we’ve had multiple times now where the internet has dogged down, or the digital cable has had a bad signal and pixellates every so often…some channels have even stopped responding and will take 5 minutes to come in. It’s been OK recently, but it’s had it’s problems. For the internet, I’d drop them in a heartbeat for DSL, but we’d have to go with getting a landline for that, plus probably combo that with a Dish setup or something. And I’d hate having a Dish even more than putting up with crappy Comcast. What I really want, is Verizon’s FIOS service. Fiber optic internet and TV - 5Mb down/2Mb up, or 15Mb down/2Mb up for the same price as cable internet, and pure digital TV to boot. That’d be sweet. They just gotta roll that bitch out.

A fucking Crunchwrap Supreme. That’s all I want. It’s 3am on July 4th Eve, and there’s no freaking food place open after midnight in South Bend, short of Steak N’ Shake. Say you’re hungry, and it’s pushing 1am on a Monday. But this isn’t any ordinary Monday. This is Monday, July 3rd. The day before America celebrates her 230th birthday. A night where I don’t have to go in to work the next day. And I’m still hungry. Mmmmm….some pizza would be killer. But fucking Pizza Hut won’t deliver, it’s closed. Papa Johns is closed, too. Same for Dominos. Where in the blue hell do people get late night food around here?!? Where is Gumby’s? So then, after awhile striking out, on to Taco Bell. 2:45am. Two cars ahead in line at the drive-thru. They pull through, I pull up, and wait 5-10 minutes for someone to take my order. After multiple curse words and being pissed off, I say to hell with it and pull up to the window. The bastards close at 2am! What the hell?!? Sure, it’s Monday…but it’s a holiday Monday. Doesn’t that mean anything?

So Steak N’ Shake, my mistress, I eventually end up with you, like always. You’re there, 24/7, with your greasy steakburgers and mediocre fries. Do you hit the spot?

Get the fuck out of my parking spot.

Why bother Xzibit when you can Pimp Your Own Ride?
Step 1: Find a busted ass old car - rust is preferable, and it must be at least 25-30 years old. Add on “bling” rims worth 3 times the value of the car. 24 inches minimum. Straight pipe exhaust, tied, and held on with baler twine. Except you’ve never seen a “baler”, so it’s just “nylon twine”.

Step 2: ???*

Step 3: Profit!

Ghettolingus automobilius - the new rice.

*this comes from the “Underpants Gnomes” episode of South Park:
“The Underpants Gnomes have a three-phase business plan, consisting of:

1. Collect underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!

None of the gnomes actually know what the second phase is, and all of them assume that someone else within the organization does. The gnomes specifically satirize dot-com businesses with poorly devised business models, although the satire lends itself to any ill-conceived business plan. The three-step business plan has become a recurring joke on websites like Slashdot, Fark, MetaFilter, with various things substituted for the first step.”

Two days and two big events, well, big in the sense that they are out of the ordinary day of getting up, going to work, coming home, eating, wash, rinse, repeat.

First, we have yesterday’s experience with an immigration march through downtown South Bend. At around 11:30am thousands of people marched by my building, protesting something, or for some reason. Heh, apparently there is some immigration legislation going on :-P….yeah, I’m up on what the heck is going on the world, huh. Mostly, it happened right when I normally go to lunch, and was blocking traffic and forcing me to go through a sea of people to get to my car. “I don’t have anything against you or your ideals, but if you make my life more difficult, especially when going to lunch, you’ve pissed me off.”

Perhaps one of the best parts was after waiting for the crowd to die down and make my way through the stragglers, the people protesting the march: men and women with signs yelling “Don’t take our jobs! USA!”. Damn straight. It’s my God-given right to have a fair shake at picking fruit from the orchards and crops from the field. Seriously, did that woman really want to be a migrant worker? On the other hand, I don’t really see what the whole deal is - aren’t there already channels for people to go through to gain citizenship if they want? Ah hell, just tax them all and be done with it.

Today, we had a gas leak that caused most of the downtown to be evacuated. The day started with a natural gas smell, and thoughts of a day off danced in my head. Instead, we relocated to the hospital from downtown, hung out there until about noon, and then were able to go back to the office. Yay. I think the highlight was the news update mid-morning that said a “moving cloud of mystery gas” was downtown, and they couldn’t identify it.

What will tomorrow bring? How many days until the weekend, right?

Just a PSA for all of our peeps - we are now on the same time zone as our Michigan cohorts.

[editor's note: I originally wrote the beginning of this a few weeks back, in a rather angry state. I hesitated posting, as I thought it was probably rather petty, and maybe I should sit on it awhile. Now, some time later, I am still angry, every time I drive to and from anyplace I am reminded of my anger, and I put the time in in the first place to make these very pretty graphics, and I wouldn't want to waste them. It's still probably petty and blown out of proportion, but oh well.]

Is there anything better than heading to work on a Monday morning, only to find out that you have to take a 15-20 minute detour because the entrance to the main road that is 3 minutes away is blocked off? Thank you, City of South Bend. Thank you for that unexpected, but welcome, gift. May I present some images:

US23 is a main road, 3 minutes from our place, that goes almost directly to my work. Driving is still a living hell, but it’s a straight shot, and due to the lack of side streets that connect anything useful, it’s pretty much my only choice. Imagine my joy when I found out that the end of Douglas Rd. was blocked off, and that I was not able to get to US23. It wasn’t just “closed to thru traffic”. It is completely barricaded off, with a wall across the entire road, and a friggin’ bulldozer in front of that. Happy Monday!

This is the way that I am taking to work now.

This is the “suggested” detour that the City of South Bend recommends using. Now, like I mentioned above, I absolutely hate the drivers in this area. I’m a huge fan of short left-turn-only lights where the person at the front of the line takes 30 seconds to get around the corner. I love being behind slow drivers.

I’ve modified the route above for driving back home - but instead of going all the way up to Cleveland/23, I cut through the mall parking lot. It, too, is annoying with it’s speed bump and stop sign in the far corner of the lot that I respectfully ignore, but I do manage to avoid a few lights for the most part.
The road work is supposed to be done by tomorrow, but as of last night, there was still a 30 yard stretch of a hole where the road used to be.

Today I found news that there will be a Bob Ross video game! For those that don’t remember, Bob Ross is everyone’s favorite fro’ed painter from PBS: It says the PC and Nintendo systems will get the new game. Can anyone wait??
And in local news, I heard on the radio this weekend about a brawl breaking out at a swap meet. This morning I found a news article stating it was a biker gang fight that shut down a motorcyle show and swap meet.

“It was horrible. They were using bats, forks, hammers on each other and no regard to anyone around them including children,” said Dan Hardman who witnessed the brawl.

“You never have two groups together that don’t get along,” said Deb Frens, who was just one of the many vendors at the bike show.

Let me be the first to say it is good to know that in 2006 we can still have rival biker gang wars that are alive and well. Woohoo for Indiana!