Back in June I had this wonderful experience involving a road vigilante, keeping drivers from cheating the merging system. Well, trying to at least. Today I met his evil twin, who probably had a goatee van dyke (know your facial hair) a lá a Star Trek villain. I didn’t actually look cause I don’t acknowledge crazy drivers. I find it gives them a lack of fulfillment if I don’t acknowledge that they are cursing at me.

My route home has been a traffic mess for about a week now. Due to road construction, the left lane closes and merges to the right. A few hundred feet up from that spot, the right lane naturally ends and merges into the left. To avoid the craptastic jam, it makes more sense to stay in the right lane until out of the construction zone and then swoop into the left shortly out of it. However, tonight the right lane wasn’t moving as smoothly as it usually does, even with all the other traffic merging over. I peered up three cars ahead of me and noticed an SUV straddling both lanes. This was quite a bit before any lane merge so I have no idea what his issue was. He was in the left lane originally but clearly did not like to see cars in the right lane passing him up. We must be cheaters of the system, and not road weary drivers who have been following this same routine for a week. As we approached the point of the lane ending, I saw there was just enough room for everyone to squeeze by this chump if they had the guts to do it. I yelled encouragement from my vehicle : “Hell yeah! Do it! DO EEEEET!” I am a poetic rabble rouser, you see. Finally car #1 had enough and maneuvered around him. Then car #2 followed suit. Car #3 paused during the coup to give the driver of the other vehicle a few choice words, no doubt. I was next. I squeezed my vehicle around the SUV and stopped right in front of him. Since I am a wonderfully considerate driver, I let all the cars that were in front of this jackass to merge over peacefully while he had no choice but to wait. Then we headed about our separate ways, the jackass no doubt feeling the sting of his failed attempt to be the boss of traffic. Take note, jackass drivers: you are not the boss of the traffic!

See that white car back there? Do not eff with them. This person was single-handedly taking on ALL the traffic! The lane was merging up ahead of us, as it has been for months now, and the line was waaaay back behind us. As is typical, someone gets impatient and attempts to cut the line by pulling over to the right and merging back over to the left closer to the merge point. I guess this saves 5 minutes or so, but it’s a totally dick move. I usually protest by not letting those particular offenders back over. But anonymous in the white car was not going to stand by idly and protest so quietly. He or she pulled over so their car was over the white divider. When I first noticed I thought “surely they aren’t attempting to block traffic”, but as another driver maneuvered around the white car, the vigilante of the traffic raised not one but two middle fingers to show their distaste. The white car pulled further into the right lane and soon had two lanes of traffic behind it. Other drivers were getting fed up with this one lonely citizen policing the traffic and soon one car after another were swerving around the white car. Each were treated to hands being thrown up in exasperation and duo middle finger salutes. I chuckled watching the whole ordeal. It was traffic anarchy; a revolt against a tyrannical police state of one car. Viva la revolution! And no, I am not letting you over. Turds.
Oh, dear Vigilante. While I appreciate your motivation here, a dick move does not null out another dick move. It’s not your job to parent all the other drivers, and if you’re going to insist on doing it anyway you need a much wider vehicle, m’kay?

I had gotten sucked into the whole DrawSomething crowd. I thought I was a fairly decent “artist”, but even so, the game gets monotonous. “Ignore Hitler” is genius. It would make the game worth picking up again if people did this stuff.

One of my favs:

If you’re a non-craft-type person like myself, I highly recommend a look at the “before & after” section on Design*Sponge to really let it sink in that you have no skills to do awesome craft projects. Seriously though, there’s some really amazing, non-genital-related projects featured on the site. The latest is all win for me, plus it doesn’t look too far out of the realm of what I’m capable of doing..except I neither own nor really know what a frisket is. Who doesn’t want an octopus end table, really? It reminds me of those old sea illustrations with sea monsters and the like. The artist posted a simple step-by-step here. I feel inspired to do something like this, but as I mentioned before, my craft skills are undeveloped. (It’s the phrase “craft” – reminds me too much of old ladies and Martha Stewart. Ew!) Maybe I’ll get over the aversion if I call it “woodworking”.

A few weeks ago, I made yet another excursion to Indy for HorrorHound Weekend. This time, however, I refrained from dancing around tables like a schoolgirl and running away from Tom Savini. (I still didn’t approach Tom Savini, but the man had a whip and was not ashamed to crack it about. Scary.) I tried to get a peek at “Eskalofrio” (“Shiver”), but watching a subtitled flick in non-stadium seating is..well…difficult to say the least. My three years of high school Spanish only gets me so far.
So other than “famous” folks and movie screenings, the big draw to the HorrorHound Convention is the vendors. The vendors vary from collectible items to bootlegs to art work. As Takashi Miike said in “Hostel”- “you could spend all your money in there”. Both of my trips to Horrorhound have resulted in my spending way more than I budgeted. But hey, got some cool swagger out of it. Which brings me to my first highlight of the trip. I enjoy art that has a sort of oddity to it, which is why I found Dirk Strangely’s art quite fascinating. I had passed his table several times and decided I was going to get a print, but didn’t know which one. My husband decided on his “Hillside Cannibal” print. As we went to purchase the print, Dirk was working on a watercolor which he gave to us after he finished. Plus, he signed and personalized the Cannibal print. Very cool, indeed.
Check out his site : http://www.dirkstrangely.com/

Stumbled upon this site (literally, but I’ll explain that in another post)- FutureMe.org
You can type up an email to send to yourself at any date in the future. Maybe advice, or some inspirational prose, or a few jokes. Me? I sent myself a threatening email so I would take the message seriously. Hey, I know what works and what doesn’t.