jwgh: (TILT)
I estimate that little traffic tie-up about doubled the time driving back from Narragansett. Oh well.

I only indulged in one bit of New Jersey Merging Chicken. I won, which is not difficult if you know the trick, but it was an empty victory, because five minutes later the truck who lost zipped into the left lane and skipped ahead a fair ways.

Despite this, an enjoyable evening.
jwgh: (Default)
Check it out: )
jwgh: (Default)
This evening me and a few of my friends were at the corner of Westminster Street and Memorial Boulevard (across the street from the river) waiting for a couple of other friends to join us. The light was red and there were a few cars waiting for it to change. The car in front didn't seem to have its signals on, and the car behind it had its right blinker on.

After a short while, the second car (apparently assuming that the car in front was waiting to turn right) honked its horn. This produced no action (I think because the car in front was actually waiting to turn left), so it honked again. And again. And again.

The car in front started trying to maneuver to let the other car by, but there wasn't much room for such things, so the other car continued to honk.

My friends and I made some sarcastic comments about the situation, and I started to walk over to try to intervene in some ill-advised way, although I'm not quite sure what I was going to do -- possibly try to explain that I thought the car in front was waiting to turn left and not right. But it didn't come to that, for as I stepped into the street a policeman on a horse galloped up and had a little shouted conversation with the honker.

Policeman: "Why are you honking your horn?"

Driver: [something I didn't hear distinctly]

Policeman: "Why are you in such a hurry, then?"

Driver: [something else I didn't catch]

Policeman: "There's no call to be honking your horn like that. That's a $75 ticket. You shouldn't be doing that."

At around this point, the light changed, the car in front drove away, and the policeman rode away also. The guy who had been honking drove off and took his right turn also, taking the opportunity to give the policeman a little piece of his mind, such as it was:

Driver: "Motherfucking horse cop pussy!"

Shortly after that we were joined by our friends and went on our way.
jwgh: (Default)
Perhaps I should give the sandals I bought yesterday another few days before I try to go on another extended walk wearing them again. ow ow ow

Right now I'm trying to decide between having some pie, doing some knitting in front of the television, or going to bed. I will probably opt for plan D, which is mucking around pointlessly on the Internet until it's far too late.

A story or two while I'm thinking of them:

Last month I had my first physical in a long time. As it happens this was also around the time for me to give blood again. Now, I have been giving blood regularly for a few years now, and there is no really rational reason for me to put it off now, but, still, I felt like I might as well put it off until all my tests and stuff came back so that if it turned out there was something horribly wrong with me I would know not to bother going in to the blood center.

So I went in for my physical like a month ago, but what with one thing and another I've been putting off getting my blood work done. Finally, yesterday morning I went in and got it done, so now I'm just waiting for the results.

But for a couple of months now the blood center has been calling me every couple of weeks to try to get me to come in, and each time I've asked them to call me back later as I wasn't sure &c &c, and it's gotten a little annoying. Most recently they called me Sunday afternoon (when I was expecting another call), and when I told them to leave me alone the woman I talked to seemed to be a little annoyed (it may have been my imagination), so I hung up a bit annoyed myself, and I thought to myself, "Jeez, why won't they just leave me alone? They're such bloodsuckers!"

And then I realized what I had just thought and had to laugh at myself a little.

So that's story #1. Story #2 is related but is more Rhode Island-y.

Monday Morning I finally went in to get my blood work done, which involved driving to Cranston through a construction zone. As has been known to happen in this state from time to time, I got into a minor traffic altercation (not an accident); I was turning left into a parking lot, but I think I didn't make it very clear as to whether I was turning into that lot or into the next one, so a woman behind me decided to try to scoot past me on the left and turn into the parking lot herself, and when she realized that I was actually changing lanes she honked at me, resulting in me giving her my patented 'What the hell?' look. (Perhaps I will get someone to take a picture of me giving this look sometime.)

So then I went in to get the blood test and, lo and behold, the woman who had honked at me was the one assigned to draw the blood.

She was quite apologetic about our little run-in and she didn't take it out on me when she was poking me with needles (it was quite painless, whereas I was picturing fifteen minutes of 'Whoops! I missed the vein again! Sorry! Let's try that again, shall we?').

And that's story #2.
jwgh: (accordion santa)
Yesterday evening, around 9 pm, I was driving from New Hampshire to Rhode Island on Route 95.

Just when I crossed the border from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, traffic suddenly slowed down and I was stuck in stop-and-go traffic for quite a while. After a long period of inching along, I discovered the reason for this: construction.

This point of 95 South is three lanes wide normally. What they had done, of course, was put out orange cones to gradually constrict the width to a single lane. This of course causes a lot of congestion, but that clearly wasn't enough, because they also placed it so that shortly after the highway went down to one lane an onramp came in from the right, adding even more merging delightfulness.

ASCII art representation of the thing )

Then, a little ways further, they took away the restriction -- coincidentally right when the off-ramp that corresponded to the earlier on-ramp showed up -- and we were back to normal speeds.

Well, this was annoying and all, but of course it's absurd to think that they did this purposefully to annoy motorists, right? Although I was interested to note that maybe a mile or two later they did the exact same thing.

A new game!

Dec. 7th, 2003 10:59 pm
jwgh: (Default)
Before I forget:

As I was going out to shovel snow for the second time today, I met one of the women who lives in the apartment upstairs, She was clad in full winter regalia (sweater, coat, scarf, gloves, hat, etc.) and was pretty much covered in snow, which was a little odd, because by that point it had largely stopped snowing and wasn't really that cold out.

"Hi Jake! I just learned a new game. It's really fun!"

She described it as follows: Find a long, straight street that doesn't get much traffic and has been plowed so it's safe to ride your bicycle down it. Then, ride your bike down the street really fast. After you've reached maximum speed, start edging over to the side of the road, and, at the key moment, fall over into the snow bank at your side. It's like getting into a horrible accident, except with snow, so it's fun!

I don't have a bike, so I won't be trying this out, but if anyone wants to give it a whirl and report back, feel free! Also, don't sue me, please!
jwgh: (Default)
I was walking west on Angell Street on the East Side of Providence when a car pulled up next to me. The driver asked me, Does this street take us to Providence?

I was a bit puzzled. You're in Providence right now, I responded.

Yes, the driver said, but does this street take us right into the city?
jwgh: (Default)
Some people treat driving like a zero-sum game.

(I thought of this yesterday but forgot to post it. This disclaimer is included so that Matt won't think I'm talking about him.)

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Jacob Haller

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