Walking Oddities

One of the perks of walking to work (aside from my apparently lower risk of being hit by a moving car) is some of the occasional odd or funny things I see. I'm trying to remember to use my cell phone cam to actually get pictures of these from time to time.

Here's one I enjoyed today, parked in an apartment parking lot.


It's the South end of a North-bound Dodge Intrepid. Aside from the owner's poor choice in cars, the things I want to point out are the placards hanging from the rear window. On the left, is the ubiquitous and obnoxious "Baby on Board" sign that tells us we should be extra careful to not rear-end this car. On the right, however, is a somewhat less common placard, advising us "Wife in Trunk".

A Plaything of Murphy's Law

Some days, it's good not to be wound too tightly, and to have a well tuned ability to laugh at yourself.

Today was one of those days for me.

It started out well enough. Sure, it took The Boy all of thirty seconds to defeat the refrigerator lock I'd installed the night before when he got up an hour and a half before we wanted him to, but he went to sleep when we put him in the playpen, and at least the eggnog carton had its lid on tightly and didn't leak on the floor during the time it lay on its side, unnoticed.

I even got to eat breakfast at home today, rather than having to microwave some oatmeal at work and eat at my desk. I had time to peel a couple of kiwis and put them in my lunch pail, make a cup of coffee to go (so that I could enjoy a hot cup of my current starbucks blend brewed with my Toddy once I got to work) and since I was driving instead of walking, I got to use my big lunch pail which meant the kiwis would still be in their normal shape when I went to eat them later.

Even the rain, which had been pouring almost nonstop for the past couple of days, stopped an hour before I left, leaving me with patches of blue skies overhead.

I probably should have recognized this as a sign.

So off I went on my merry way. Light traffic on the surface streets, no flooding along my route, psychologist and insane caller on the AM talk radio. Hey, there's one of my co-workers walking. I'll stop at this crosswalk and see if he wants to ride the rest of the way. It's nice now, but it could start pouring any second, and this way he can be dry.

There's no traffic, so I come to a leisurely stop, roll down the window, and ask him if he wants a ride. He turns toward me, says something, and then I'm staring at a blurry, fuzzy version of my crossover SUV's roof trying to figure out what the crunching noise somewhere behind me was.

Things I learned today:

• The rear crumple zone of a Saturn Vue can pwn the front crumple zone of a Honda Accord.
• Wearing a C-Spine collar and being strapped to a backboard for an hour and a half is not comfortable.
• Seatbelts are good things. So are normal CT Scan results.
  
• When being rear-ended, it is possible for your glasses to launch off your face, bounce off the windshield, and land somewhere behind your seat.
• You can run into fans of games you've worked on in the oddest places.
• I'm glad I read AmbulanceDriver, MedicMarch, and BabsRN. Somehow, having read a fair number of EMT horror stories made me a little more comfortable with my first (and hopefully only) trip in the back.
  
• It's difficult to keep track of where you are when all you can see is the sky or ceiling.
• Going to the hospital is more fun when you're there for a childbirth and the wristband is merely for identification as the father.
• And finally, my walking commute is apparently safer than my driving commute.
  

I Expect

That all of my brothers who take this quiz will get the same result I did.

You Are Destined to Rule the World

You have the makings of a very evil dictator... Which is both kind of cool and kind of scary! Will you rule the world? Maybe. Maybe not. But at least you know that you could.

Are You Destined For World Domination?

Seriously, I won't be terribly surprised if one of the se years, probably around Christmas time, we're all gathered together, enjoying a nice Merlot, when one of us says "Let's take over a small third-world country." Ahab will respond "You know, I think I know a guy who knows a guy who can get us some extra firepower." I chip in "Network sabotage isn't all that difficult if you know what you're doing..." Birdy mentions something about killer robots being pretty easy to make if you duct tape a few Xbox 360s together for processors, a few other comments fly by, vacation time is taken, and all of a sudden, the government of the Republic of Suriname or some other tiny country gets overthrown.

The Real Truth About Lindsay Lohan's Latest Scrape

Apologies for the lack of recent posts, however, as you'll see, there was good reason. I was deep undercover to uncover the truth about what could become one of the greatest scandals of this decade, if not the century.

Lindsay Lohan was framed.

No, really, it's the truth. All she wanted was to be a hero. The real culprit behind her high-speed chase and DUI/drug bust afterwards, was none other than that arch-criminal mastermind, Sumdood! It was her claim that the pants she was wearing at the time of her arrest, which contained cocaine in one of the pockets, weren't hers that tipped me off. I had to investigate. And so, after a week long search that took me to the dark, seedy underground of Rodeo Drive, I can finally give the true story of what really happened to Miss Lohan that fateful evening in July.

It had started off so well. Miss Lohan was on her way to an AA meeting that met in the basement of a local church, after which she was scheduled to practice the hymn she would be singing at that same church on Sunday morning. Pre-occupied with her choice of hymns (Amazing Grace, The Old Rugged Cross, or Beaulah Land?), her good judgment failed her when she stopped to render aid to a stranded motorist. Tragically for Miss Lohan, that motorist had been waiting for her.

As AD and Lawdog have shown, Sumdood is a master, both of disguise and deception. It took mere moments for him to place his drug-laden pants on Lindsay's body, and offer her a Jack Daniels flavored breath mint as thanks when his car started running again. Then he was off, and Miss Lohan none the wiser. Save that a few minutes later, she realized what had happened. It's likely she reached into her pants pocket to touch her pocket Gideon New Testament, only to revile in shock and horror when she found not the Word of God, but drugs, the Devil's Sugar. From someone, she must have learned of Sumdood, and surmised his involvement in her predicament. But what to do? The police wouldn't believe her, they'd just assume that she had fallen bak to her wicked ways. Her only recourse was to apprehend Sumdood herself.

She must have thought she'd spotted him in the back of the car she began chasing. Poor Lindsay. All she wanted was to be a heroine. By capturing Sumdood, she would have done what law enforcement has never been able to accomplish, and would lhave instantly put her name in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a Lifetime Achievement Award Oscar. Countless of her Hollywood starlet sisters would have been saved from the ravages of Sumdood, for he is as much a predator in the mansions of Hollywood as he is in the trailer parks of Louisiana.

Alas, it was not to be. Like an ethereal spirit, Sumdood slipped away from the pursued car, leaving only a frazzled former assistant, her mother, and Lindsay Lohan to await the police.

And that, Gentle Readers, is the truth of what really happened to Lindsay Lohan.

Squirrel Wounds Three.

Okay, this is why we need more people keeping the local squirrel pest population in line with .22 caliber justice. Sure they're just in Germany now, but how soon will the Squirrel Commandos arrive on our shores? No park will be safe! Dogs will cower in terror! Be prepared. Buy a varmint gun today, or suffer the wrath of our Para-squirrel commando overlords tomorrow.