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Roads are mostly fine today, but it seems it’s time to finally discuss… all that freakin’ water on Highway 18, a couple of hundred yards downhill from the Crestline Bridge! What is up with that? Right now, all it does is dirty-up any once-clean cars that drive through there, but (A) the volume of water seems to increase every single day, and (B) once we start getting a little colder, that is going to turn into the iciest ice-skating ice rink ice that mine ice have ever seen! When the weather is colder, the water will not evaporate as quickly, and copious amounts will freeze, spreading out in a sheet that’ll make traction nothing but a wistful memory of a time when cars did NOT crash into each other there. I don’t know the source of the water, but this sure seems like a thing that needs to be addressed by CalTrans.
Oh, and while I haven’t given this a LOT of time to confirm, the past few days, much of which have been spent idling away at 40th Street, have seemed to indicate that the signal there is, yet again, not operating properly. Why don’t you greenies holler about malfunctioning traffic signals? I see this as a perfect torch for you to carry… Consider ONE intersection with a faulty signal. Let’s say that due to its malfunction, each hour, an additional 300 cars spend an additional one minute each (oh, I’m being VERY conservative) idling away, putting exhaust gasses and filth into the air, while getting ZERO MPG. Over 24 hours, that’s 7,200 minutes of useless pollution (and wasted time)… the same as one car idling, puffing toxins into the air, for FIVE days straight! That’s for ONE intersection, with only a minor timing problem. Consider all of the eleventy-jillion signal-controlled intersections in SoCal alone, with a HUGE percentage of them malfunctioning at any given time. Come on, take up the cause… Point out that just a few minutes of corrective programming, a minimal effort performing quality work, and some sort of accountability for those responsible for traffic signal operation, could save massive amounts of needless pollution (and did I mention, a lot of needlessly lost time?).
Plus, the Starbucks Scenic Byway would not be used as often by people like me who need to get to work on the same day that they left the house.
Today is National V-J day. Now, being a Gen Xer, when I saw that today is V-J day, I sort of rolled my eyes, thinking that this was some sort of bizarre commemoration of MTV hosts, known as VJs (video jockeys).
It also sort of sounds dirty, too. I won’t even try to offer a why, and I can’t totally put my finger on it anyhow… it just sounds like some sort of secret code talk for something of a feminine variety. Sort of like how the old guy got all bent out of shape when the doctor told him that his wife had acute angina.
Alas, I was pleased to learn that V-J day has a more historically significant meaning: it signifies the Victory over Japan in World War II. On August 14, 1945, the Imperial Government of Japan surrendered, bringing the war to an end.
I was pleased last weekend to meet a reader of the column, a Ms. Brandy. She said that she enjoys the column (Score!) and said that she finds it to be sometimes rather inappropriate… but quickly added that this was meant as a POSITIVE statement, not a negative one. Indeed, this column sometimes IS inappropriate, but as my kid says, “Dark humor is like food… not everyone gets it.”
I recently heard a motivational speaker making various suggestions about how to enrich your life. He suggested joining a movement, so I’ve looked into and selected one… I have decided to join the bowel movement.
Promoters were trying to organize a music festival recently… They got Chubby Checker, The Fat Boys, and even Fat Boy Slim… but when they asked Meatloaf to participate, he declined, saying that is sounded far too dangerous. Taco, Cake, Bread, Korn, and Vanilla Ice also declined. Guns N’ Roses is a likely performer… those guys have a healthy appetite for destruction.
Alex Rodriguez—“A-Rod” —was recently in San Francisco. It has been reported that his car was robbed (not to split hairs here, but unless the car had a gun pointed at it, was ordered to hand over its stuff, and maybe even got hogtied or pistol-whipped, it probably wasn’t robbed. Burgled, sure… but robbed, no. Whatever). Reports are that $500,000 worth of stuff was taken from the car. You know, if somebody robbed me of ALL of my stuff—my valuables, my cars, my house, my cat, the shirt off my back, my boxers and my freakin’ socks, it still wouldn’t total $500,000. A-Rod has more than my net worth in his change cup and in the seat cushions of his car. Or, well, at least he DID. Until he got burgled.
Have you ever really considered how likely it is that many—most? —middle-class Americans are likely to be far poorer than say, an Aborigine bushman, or a member of a lost tribe in the jungles of Borneo? The American has a two-story house with a pool, has a Ford and a Lexus in the driveway, and takes a vacation to Europe with his wife every coupl’a years. However… he has $350,000 in mortgage debt, he’s upside-down on his cars, owes another $150,000 in tuition for his kids, and has $40,000 in credit card debt. His net worth is WAYYYYYY negative… which is less money than the guy in the jungle has, who, while he owns little of traditional value, also has little debt. Plus, creditors NEVER come after those guys, and their credit rating never declines.
Oh, how I’d like to be as wealthy as that dude who lives off of the lizards he is able to spear…
That’s all for Wednesday’s weird wonderings. I’ve got a loincloth to don and a bone to put through my nose. I just want to FEEL riiiiiiich.