It's Monday again, dammit. I have nearly posted several different things, but pulled them all back. And ironically I have nothing specific to say, so who knows where this post is going?
I have spent a great deal of my limited free time the past few weekends trying to put together a video for a contest I want to win. This past weekend I tried to put all my footage into one final, coherent file to submit, only to come to the inescapable conclusion that the whole thing is shit. And then the computer crashed and LOST IT. I was screaming "FUUUUUUCK" at 4 a.m. on Sunday. I'm not joking.
The deadline for this thing is this coming Sunday and I haven't got anything worthwhile. My time is super limited and I only have access to my tools for video editing on weekends. Oh hell.
A year ago I paid $1000 to have new air-conditioning installed in my big-assed 4x4. I live in The South, which is America's equivalent of Melbourne, Australia, with its tennis-pro-melting, forest-killing, record-setting heat-wave. Except that we also have horrific humidity to go with the heat, so that not only do you feel like you are in a microwave oven in summer, but it also feels like you're standing in a bowl of soup. In short, it gets nasty when it's hot here. Air-conditioning is not optional.
So, $1000 one year ago for air and as of last night my compressor was roaring like an angry lion, which is a sure sign of early death. I'm pretty sure they won't repack the bearings and send me on my way. These days everything is made in China and Mexico and when it fails, which is often because, well, its from China or Mexico, no one knows how to fix it anymore. So they just chuck it and force you to pay for a new one. I don't much feel like paying for another $1000 air-conditioning compressor. I want the one I paid for to fucking WORK. Actually, it currently DOES work, but it's also currently winter here in the States, so I don't need it. What I need it to do is to stop roaring because I know it is going to die altogether long before summer gets here and then, when I do need it, it won't be there. Also, when it finally locks up completely I'll be stranded, because it'll break the belt on the front of my engine when it goes. Bastard piece of shit!
Last night, as I was driving from Memphrica back to North Alabama to prepare for my week of working, I encountered the usual weaving drunks. Sunday is ironically a day in which liquor sales are not allowed in most Southern states. Yet it is also the day in which I encounter the most drunk drivers. None of the weaving drunks crashed into anyone last night, so I didn't worry about them too much. But this morning something unusual happened.
I was driving north on the parkway, heading into work, surrounded by a sea of Alabama hammerhead traffic sharks, the sort of animal that circles you and then gets in front of you in order to drive as slowly as possible. Their goal is to kill you by causing you to become angry and either crash as you attempt to get past them, or perhaps have a stroke and die of heart failure. It's a passive/aggressive attack. Anyway, this morning I came upon a black Corvette hammerhead shark in the left-hand lane, going 45 mph. He had someone stuck behind him and was enjoying playing with his victim when he noticed me passing on the right in my roaring, soon-to-be-lacking-air-conditioning truck. He of course instantly sped up to 65 mph in an attempt to block me and prevent me from passing. But I ignored him and passed him anyway.
This made him very angry. So he began to tailgate me.
Tailgating a full-sized 4-wheel-drive truck in a Corvette is a bit like a possum trying to push a horse. The horse isn't likely to notice and may accidentally step on the possum. But in the meantime, the possum feels powerful, as if he's really accomplishing something.
Like most hammerheads in traffic, the Corvette quickly lost interest in chasing me from behind and went back to blocking the poor sucker still trapped behind him. Also, we passed a cop who had someone pulled over and was writing them a ticket, and the driver of the Corvette, as I soon observed, had reason to fear being pulled over himself. So he quickly slowed down and forgot about me.
As he fell further and further back behind me I noticed that he was weaving. I had noticed it before, but not paid much attention. He hadn't been weaving as badly before, but now he was weaving badly enough that he nearly hit a car next to him. And he was clearly unaware that he was doing it.
He was drunk.
This was a first. I've always encountered more than the normal amount of passive/aggressive bitches in traffic here in Rocketown, but this was the first time I had ever encountered a drunken one at 8 o'clock in the morning, driving in rush hour traffic.
Ah, wait a minute! Today is 'Presidents Day', a meaningless holiday created by merging Washington's birthday with Lincoln's birthday. Both days used to be a federal holiday for all government employees, but then the communists took over and demanded that we create a new holiday for Martin Luther King Jr instead. So they merged the birthdays of our Founding Fathers in order to make room for MiLK Day.
So, today all government employees, which are about half the people in the Rocket City, are off work. And this guy, cruising aimlessly in his black Corvette, drunk off his ass, must be a government employee. He must be enjoying the day by driving around stoned and screwing with people who have to get to work. That explains it!
So, mystery solved. Yay me. I'm Adrian Monk.
Meanwhile, my compressor is still roaring and I'm pissed about it.
Speaking of pissed, that reminds me, the New Government has begun a program to fuck with ammunition for guns, trying to track buyers, which has already been ruled unconstitutional, force manufacturers to mix taggets into the gunpowder of every bullet, which has already been tried and found to screw with the firing of it, and also to invent primers which expire and fail after 6 months, leaving homeowners to be killed when attempting to defend their families with non-firing weapons because of faulty ammunition. Most importantly of all, though, individual citizens will be unable to fight against a corrupt regime in any sort of American Revolution against tyranny because our ammo will turn to junk while the now-all-powerful government's won't. My Wife heard about this and asked me to go buy ammunition. This is the first time she has ever asked me to go buy anything related to guns, so you know funky things are happening here. It didn't take long, did it? I have a feeling, though, that there isn't going to be a single box of bullets left anywhere in this city because I am late in hearing about this and all the other citizens who are paying attention will have already gone out and bought it all up. Also probably already bought up will be really expensive military-style rifles that I would never buy under normal circumstances (because they cost so fucking much) and don't much care to go pursuing now.
Oh well, I plan on moving to beautiful Australia anyway at some point. What do I care? My biggest concern right now is the embarrassing fact that I'm not certified for scuba diving and I can't surf. Oh, what a lousy Australian I'm going to be!
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