Larry Thursby, who is apparently Nationwide’s vice president of Personal Auto,  is an asshole. During one of their radio commercials, he’s talking about accident forgiveness and specifically teenagers when he says it’s not a question of if but when they get in an accident (paraphrased because I couldn’t find the commercial online anywhere). This is how insurance people think. I, for one, was never in an accident as a teenager. My brother was never in an accident as a teenager.

As far as he’s concerned rampaging teenagers are out there running around crashing into things and fucking up his bonuses. But they’re such great people that they’re willing to let the first one go. That’s how Nationwide is on your side.

I don’t think I’ll be giving them any of my money.

This is maybe the coolest thing ever (probably not more than the second coolest though). It’s a polar exploration exploration lab designed by Matthiew Tarrit. It’s currently only a concept which means, like all extra-cool things, that it’s unlikely to ever see production but he gets props anyway.

Core 77 via Gizmodo

So yesterday I wrote about cops speeding without their lights & sirens on and what do you think I saw today? Just to prove I’m right some State Trooper sgt in an unmarked car with license plate SHP-142 blew past me doing at least 70 in a 55 at 4:00 this afternoon on US-421S right by the Old Liberty Rd. Exit. So there.

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of cops driving in ways that are not exactly legal without having their lights on. I was under the impression that when they were exceeding the speed limit by, say, 20 mph they were supposed to be running with their lights on. But maybe that doesn’t apply when they’re racing to get to Krispy Kreme for a fresh batch of donuts.  Of course, since we all know that they’re superior drivers to the rest of us mere mortals maybe that makes it ok. I mean,seriously, isn’t it about time we stopped letting them get away with whatever the hell they want to do because they have “dangerous jobs”. Fuck, I have a dangerous job too. I’ve always kind of felt that cops and other officials that are in charge of the justice system who break the law should have their penalties doubled. What that would mean is we’d have to get rid of the whole “you wash my back, I’ll wash yours”. I’m just sayin’.

[Photo by detritus]

Jalopnik has a story about a guy that did an 8 bit flame job on his Toyota Prius with colored magnet strips. The idea is so weird and geeky on so many different levels that you’ve got to love it.

Photo by saeru

[Jalopnik via Gizmodo]

Sorry it’s been a while. Nothing much has been going on then I saw this:

Note for the squeamish: Contains graphic images.

These people just never learn, do they? They’ve been making movies like this since, at least, I got my license and probably had live action versions before that or something. What the makers of these sort of horror flick PSAs don’t apparently remember is that teenagers (in particular) believe they are invincible and that nothing like this can happen to them. Passing retarded laws about texting while driving (as NC recently did) won’t help either because they are unenforceable. How does a cop know that you’re texting as opposed to dialing the phone? I’m not sure about the particulars of the NC law but my phone does a lot of things: is looking something up on google maps illegal? What about picking a new song? And is that also illegal on an iPod? If it is: how’s that different than changing the station on the radio?

The problem is that driving is inherently dangerous. If you can’t handle that, take public transport. Of course that’s dangerous too, so maybe you’d better just stay at home. IMO, the basic problem in the US is that they’ll give anybody that can fog a mirror a license but then want the roads to be safe and there’s a dichotomy there that can’t be resolved. You can have one or the other but not both. I happen to come down on the side of letting everybody drive who can pass a fairly rigorous exam that includes accident avoidance techniques  instead of letting somebody have a license after spending a few hours behind the wheel with a gym coach.  The time to learn how to control a skid is not while your car is about to start spinning out of control on the highway.

For instance, in the above, the girl that was doing the texting is a classic example of bad driving. What the producers apparently didn’t understand is that the driver she ran into also exhibited poor driving skills and as far as I’m concerned the third driver was the worst of the bunch. Both should have seen what was going on, anticipated,  and corrected to avoid.

(BBC News via Gizmodo)

Joseph Carnevale, the traffic barrel monster creator who was arrested in June after Raleigh’s crack police force solved the case, had his day in court. The end result is 50 hours of community service and then the charges will go away. The president of Hamlett Associates plans on erecting the sculpture outside the corporate headquarters and taking Carnevale to lunch. Carnevale plans on doing his community service working with Habitat for Humanity. No word yet on what RPD plans on doing with all the time they’ve got to waste now. Hang out at Snoopy’s, perhaps?

There still hasn’t been any mention in the traditional press but it certainly seems that this whole thing came about  because of a joyless thug named K.L. Everett who wears a badge. As near as I can tell (since the traditional press won’t come right out and say it), he took it upon himself to decide a crime had been committed and set to work the huge bureaucratic machine that is Piggy Central. Hope you take a bullet and it kills you in a slow and painful way. I would say that I hope it paralyzes you but then you’d be paraded around as some sort of “hero”. If you’re dead you just go away and the earth is a slightly better place.

Here’s a link to a story in the N&O.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day. That’s what it said “Don’t Postpone Joy”. It had fundamentalist Christian written all over it. There wasn’t anything to indicate that really. Just a deep feeling that I was about to be called a heathen or something because that’s the way they always start out… one positive statement followed by two hours of telling you how evil and worthless you are.

But, whatever. After I thought about it for a few minutes, the basic premise is sound. To make it less FC sounding, I’m changing it to Don’t Postpone Happiness. Happiness makes them uncomfortable because it’s almost always something they consider evil that makes us happy. But whatever.

I think if you’re putting off being happy for the sake of something else IMO you’re making a huge mistake.

****UPDATE: Maybe I was wrong about the fundy thing. Feeling a good deal less lazy than usual, I googled “don’t postpone joy” and the first things that came up were two books, one by a psychologist & one by a guy who was in the olympics but is hiv positive, and a bumpersticker that may or may not be the same one I saw by a company that sell “products for progressives since 1979″. Just thought you should know.

In this story at the N&O, Sarah Ovaska puts a slightly different spin on things. From her article it sounds like Hamlett Associates isn’t the bad guy. Apparently, some overzealous pig named K.L. Everett spotted the dangerous menace to society lurking on Hillsborough Street with his keen piggy eyes and had it dismantled and hauled away for investigation. OK, it probably didn’t happen that way since cops can’t do anything but write tickets on their own. He probably called his sargeant who called whatever fake military rank they use above that to indicate that this pig has a bigger dick than the other one. Then there was some kind of task force convened and so on until the swat team came down to take it apart.

Daniel Hall, the project manager for Hamlett Associates, claims he told Everett they weren’t interested in pressing charges and would like the monster back. So doesn’t that mean that RPD in the person of K.L. Everett really stole the barrels? Now, I’ll grant you that it’s possible that Hamlett Associates is spinning this story once word got out (Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing) but most of these projects are either Time and Materials or Cost Plus billing. Either way, it’s likely that Hamlett would have passed on the cost of the barrels to the State. I’m much more willing to believe that some joyless assholes overstepped their bounds in their quest for a world without sin or danger or variation from the norm.

This is what happens when you give people who grew up wanting to be bullies but didn’t have the balls guns and the authority of The State to back them up. One day we’ll be coming for you motherfuckers. And my smiling face will be one of the last things you see when we blindfold you in front of the ditch.

Through the diligent efforts of the fine boys in blue in Raleigh the creator of the Traffic Barrel Monster has been apprehended.  Joseph Carnevale, a junior at NC State was charged with misdemeanor damage to property and larceny. It seems thatthe authorities are claiming that there was $360 in damamge done to the 3 barrel that were cut up. Stop. Read that last sentence again (No, not the one that says ‘Stop’, the other last sentence). Three barrels were damaged and unless my calculator has gone batshit that workd out to $120 each. For little plastic barrels. Perhaps now we understand whyroad construction companies winning contracts in NC do such sub-standard work…. they’re spending all the contract money on orange barrels. Here’s a deal for the fuckwits at Hamlett Associates, I’ll personally supply you with all the orange barrels you care to purchase at $90 a piece.

Here’s another thing – NC has a budget shortfall of  something in excess of $1 billion. Wake County’s budget increased by 5.8% and included a 2.5 cent property tax increase part of which is to be used for increased law enforcement. I’d love to hammer on Raleigh too but they’ve taken the congressional tack and made their budget completely unreadable.  At any rate, I find it moderately offensive that this has wasted clearly non-infinite government dollars. Seriously, make him pay the $360 and move along. Or better yet have him replace the barrels by buying them from me for $270. As if the fucktards feeding at the public trough weren’t making enough money. What I want to know really is why none of these asswipes every get charged for anything when they milk government contracts?

The actual artist is uliveandyouburn (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) chronicles this and many other exploits at his blog NoPromiseOfSafety.com

Newer Posts »