For a number of non-band related reasons, I have been absent for a few months. Now I’m back, and have stored a lot of rants inside; ‘tis time to vent…stand back.

Red lights. At what point did the rules of driving change, and a red traffic light is no longer synonymous with ‘stop’? Apparently now a red stop light is discretionary – stop if you wish. Perhaps in my temporary absence, car manufacturers have developed shielding which permits cars to zip through red lights without harm. If so, where do I get this magical shielding? Maybe red lights have been deemed a street decoration. Or is it only certain drivers who are required to stop? If this is the case, please tell me where the exemption list is, so that I can brush up on the new rules before I become a death statistic (and BTW, I’m a pedestrian who takes my life in my hands walking to/from work daily. I have dodged more than one car that has sped through a red light and either come close to hitting me, or causing traffic in the cross direction to swerve onto the sidewalk close to me).

Indicators. Here is a little known fact. On the steering column of most cars is a little lever or stick. This is used to indicate a change in direction of your vehicle and is manipulated up/down for right/left. This can be used to tell other drivers that you are going to change the lane in which you are driving (handy on a multiple lane highway), AND it can be used to advise other drivers that you are going to be turning right or left onto another road, or driveway or even pulling off on to the side of the road. To be truly effective, it is to be used BEFORE you attempt your maneuver. You will not wear out the indicator; there is no pay-for-use penalty for using it, and is simple to learn and with practice will become second nature. Next lesson – rear-view mirrors are not for makeup application!

Grow up! I work in a profession that mandates certification before an individual who has successfully completed their university course of study can ‘practice’. Each year after the exam, there is a flurry of calls to my office from those candidates who were unsuccessful and I never cease to be amazed/annoyed by the parents calling on behalf of their children. I hold my temper (oh but the temptation…)! Here is my open letter to those :

Dear irate/demanding/obnoxious Parent: Your ‘child’ has completed a minimum of 4 years of university study plus post graduate training yet apparently they are unable to master a telephone or deal with failure. This raises some significant concerns for your child’s ability to live independently as an adult. Their exam failure pales by comparison to this significant limitation of being a world citizen and begs the question: what was your role as a parent? Instead of pondering this question, you phone and yell at me because apparently of the many hundreds of candidates that write the exam (marked by computer), I personally have selected your child to fail because I am prejudiced against whites/blacks/females/males/ city/rural/ young/old/religious/humanist or any other variable that you imagine. Yes indeed, that’s what this nation needs, professionals dealing with the public after their mommy (more often) has berated, badgered, harassed, and insulted the licensing body to force them to grant a license to a ‘professional’ who can’t pass the exam! Ain’t gonna happen on my watch!!

Rant over. You may now resume normal operations.

but i want to rant about a band related topic!!!!!

As long as you are ranting about drivers and you walk to work, heres one closely related.

A PERSON ON A BICYCLE DESERVES TO BE ON THE ROAD TOO!!! GIVE THEM SOME ROOM AND DON'T KILL THEM BECAUSE YOU ARE A STUPID IDIOT THAT HAS NO BRAIN!!

I feel for you walking to work, if the sidewalk is not safe, then I realize why I am being nearly killed everytime I put my bike on the road....or the bike lane...because apparently, cars are suppose to "take out" anything in there way that does NOT resemble a car...

.because apparently, cars are suppose to "take out" anything in there way that does NOT resemble a car...

Don't you just hate it when a subliminal message is transmitted and understood by one group of people (in this case, drivers) and yet those of us who will be impacted by this (pedestrians, cyclists) are not informed?

There are very few bike lanes where I live, and many of them are part of the sidewalk, not the road - do you suppose that was a design characteristic by a cycling survivor or a selfish driver???:thumbup:

Dear irate/demanding/obnoxious Parent: Your ‘child’ has completed a minimum of 4 years of university study plus post graduate training yet apparently they are unable to master a telephone or deal with failure. This raises some significant concerns for your child’s ability to live independently as an adult. Their exam failure pales by comparison to this significant limitation of being a world citizen and begs the question: what was your role as a parent? Instead of pondering this question, you phone and yell at me because apparently of the many hundreds of candidates that write the exam (marked by computer), I personally have selected your child to fail because I am prejudiced against whites/blacks/females/males/ city/rural/ young/old/religious/humanist or any other variable that you imagine. Yes indeed, that’s what this nation needs, professionals dealing with the public after their mommy (more often) has berated, badgered, harassed, and insulted the licensing body to force them to grant a license to a ‘professional’ who can’t pass the exam! Ain’t gonna happen on my watch!! :wink2:

Tapshoes, you rule. Plain and simple. Let's say hypothetically that I work in an allied health profession where one needs to licensed by the state before they can be employed. Hypothetically, I might have been stunned to learn that a new graduate had neglected to get a state license because he "didn't know I needed one". People always / never fail to amaze me.

Edited August 12, 200817 yr by plain
I's a po speller

Lol, some good ones here.

One thing that pisses me off is myself! Why, when I know the limited time I have, when I know how much stress being disorganised causes me, do I persist in stuffing round on the computer all day or wandering round the shops window shopping and having coffee. It is 4 weeks into semester 2, I've barely even opened a textbook and am getting stressed about getting behind. So why havent I done it? I dont know, I just dont want to. Why are the Breakfast dishes still all over the kitchen when its 4.pm? Why do I only suddenly get a burst of motivation at about 5pm? Then I've got to clean the entire house, get dinner on the table and get a run in all in a 2 hour window when I've had ALL day!

I really piss myself off sometimes.

To the person(s) who tried to break into my truck, in the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight, in the Home Depot parking lot, where there are lots of people coming and going:

What was the point? There was nothing in there unless you were going to break the entire dash apart in order to get the stereo. Did you really think that prying on the casing around the door handle would open it? Or was that just to provide enough damage that we aren't going to go through insurance and now have to pay out of pocket to fix the body panel that you bent and the metal handle casing that now needs to be replaced? Or did you just REALLY like my truck and decide you needed a new one? I like my truck too. LEAVE IT THE HELL ALONE!!!!! My husband and I have worked hard for the things we have, we LIKE the things we have. We have JOBS in order to PAY for the things that we have. We don't STEAL them from others!

Signed: Really PISSED off that you didn't keep your grubby hands to yourself!!

Okay rant over. Thanks, that happened Friday and I feel better now.

BTW, anyone know of any good car alarms out there that won't cost us a bloody fortune to buy and have installed? In our area they are now cutting catalytic converters off of vehicles, mainly lifted trucks (like MINE) and SUVs b/c they're easier to get under. So after this little episode, along with the vehicle break-in in our own drive-way, while we were home, in the middle of the night back in May, and the converter thefts, we're thinking we need an alarm. That PISSES me off too! :whatchutalkingabout

In our area they are now cutting catalytic converters off of vehicles, mainly lifted trucks (like MINE) and SUVs b/c they're easier to get under.

That's been happening in my area for almost 2 years now. It's stupid and ridiculous what people will do to make a few dollars.

I'd like to send a big pppffffft to the person who hit my car two weeks ago at the traffic lights, gave me his details and they turn out to be FALSE. I have the registration number you prick, so expect a visit from the police.

A cheque for the $550 it will cost to respray my bumper will be fine thanks.

that happened to me in 2006 some dumbass rear ended me had a fake insurance card and my bumper never got fixed.

Dunno what happened to him

some dumbass rear ended me had a fake insurance card

So what kind of person has planned far enough ahead (to recognize they can't drive and will inevitably have an accident) that they have fake insurance made?:crying:

Call me Pollyanna - with the exception of the parents who call to badger me and red-light jumpers (see initial rant), I assume people are nice honest law abiding world citizens...well, with the exception of the person who stole my kitchen sink from the driveway when I was doing kitchen renovations last year, but I excused that as a mental health issue - I mean really, who steals a used kitchen sink????

So what kind of person has planned far enough ahead (to recognize they can't drive and will inevitably have an accident) that they have fake insurance made?

Call me Pollyanna - with the exception of the parents who call to badger me and red-light jumpers (see initial rant), I assume people are nice honest law abiding world citizens...well, with the exception of the person who stole my kitchen sink from the driveway when I was doing kitchen renovations last year, but I excused that as a mental health issue - I mean really, who steals a used kitchen sink????

We had someone steal a huge, and I mean huge old fish tank, it took two people to lift this sucker!!! When we bought our house it was outside under a tree. It was over a 100 gallon tank. Some kids came and stole it in the middle of the night and a police officer happened to drive by them as they were carrying it home....needless to say, at 3 am a knock on the door and there stood the police asking if we owned a huge fish tank!!!!! The stupid thing about it was, instead of making the kids carry it back, they made us go get it!!!!!!!:crying: They were probably thinking about what a great growing tank it would make for their weed!! If they would of just knocked on the door and asked, they could of had the dumb thing, we were gonna take it to the dump and just hadn't done it yet!!!!

My rant about drivers.....

Dear Dumbass,

Stores, restaurants, gas stations, and yes, even your home, all have garbage cans. Please quit throwing your garbage, and I mean any of the amazing things I have seen coming out of a car window, onto the roadway where it clutters up the environment. How hard is it to keep it in your car until you get near a garbage can? I'm sick and tired of seeing your beer bottles, soda cans, fast food bags, cigarette butts, condoms, furniture, etc. on the side of the road. Grow up and respect the earth. It's the only one we have!

Dear Incompetent Tech Support (from India who didnt understand what I was saying),

What part of I do NOT simply need my password reset did you not understand? Resetting my password only puts a bandaid on my problem. Fix the "user account disabled" issue that I continue to received 3-4 times a day for the past 2 weeks.

Edited August 13, 200817 yr by losingjusme
forgot a word...

If they would of just knocked on the door and asked, they could of had the dumb thing, we were gonna take it to the dump and just hadn't done it yet!!!!

During our 'summer of hell' renovations, there was a dumpster at the end of our driveway for all the debris. BUT we put potentially useful things (like single-paned windows, the old kitchen countertop, etc) in a separate pile and I put a huge sign on it that said "FREE - no need to ask, just take". Well, for about 2 months, different things would go from the pile except the windows. When all the renovations were done, and we were having the dumpster taken away, reluctantly I said, ok, put the windows in. The next day, someone stopped by the house and asked where the dumpster was because they had been 'raiding' it at night and had hoped the windows were in it. After my initial dazed and confused look, I asked why he hadn't taken them from the pile that said FREE. His response: that took the fun out of dumpster-diving.

:crying: HUH??? For more than 2 months the windows sat at the end of the driveway with a big sign (a BIG sign in flourescent paint in CAPS) saying FREE, and you prefer to ignore that but rather dive into a dumpster full of renovation debris (nails, old cat-piss covered carpets, broken glass and other fine things)?

The world is a weird place.

My rant is that I find school supply lists to be completely ridiculous sometimes. I have one going into 2nd grade and one going into kindergarten. They only "allow" certain brands of crayons (Crayola) and scissors. My kindergartner's list asked for packs of 16 crayons, which are about $2, while 24 packs are 22 cents. Hmm, I wonder which I bought. I stock the kids up in August so I'm not paying 3-4 times as much in January for the same stuff. WHY are these things so important? Doesn't a 24 pack of crayons have the same colors, plus some, as the 16 count? Yes, I'm a complete cheapskate and I LOVE getting stuff on sale.

Right now, I am sitting here labeling every individual crayon, pencil, and marker that my kindergartner needs for school because it was on the list. What the heck?! Does it matter whose blue crayon or yellow pencil it is, as long as everybody has a blue crayon and yellow pencil?