Brief updates
- 10:30 Amused that Facebook thinks I may know random people that also work for NASA, somewhere. #
- 10:57 Lots of Wachovia phishing spam in the last 48 hours. No click from me, impaired-grammar scammer. #
- 11:44 I *heart* dailycostume.com for all the masquerades I don’t get to attend! #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Tunnel drive
In general, I like living in Hampton Roads, I honestly do. Last night did not provide a good example…
There are three bridges in my Metro area that can take me from work to home. Assuming no heavy traffic, the Monitor-Merrimac bridge-tunnel does so in about 40-45 minutes; the James River bridge adds about 20-25 minutes to that; and the Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel adds about 20 minutes to the MMBT. (I have a bad tendency to refer to them as the Mimbit, the Jerb, and the Herbit.)
Unless it’s 1am, though, there’s probably going to be an additional 10-30 minutes of heavy traffic on the Herbit, and the Mimbit is a crapshoot: sometimes I fly straight through, and sometimes I sit waiting an extra 15-20 minutes. We have handy electronic signs alerting us to congestion on the Mimbit and Herbit, but because of geography, by the time I see one, the Jerb is already out of the question.
Yesterday, the signs warned me that the Mimbit was blocked by an accident – based on reports I’ve heard, an idiot trying to cut off a fellow driver. I had a quick decision to make – wait in blocked traffic there, and hope the accident is cleared within an hour (it usually is) or join all the additional traffic to the Herbit, probably incurring a 90-minute delay. I joined the queue of blocked traffic.
I took 2 hours to reach the tunnel entrance for the Mimbit, only to find that the tunnel remained blocked and that traffic was being forcibly rerouted back to the other two bridges. I don’t know the Jerb route well enough to ensure I wouldn’t get lost, so I joined the crowded line for the Herbit. 90 minutes later, I was finally home. 3.5 hours to make a 45-minute commute. (Turns out that the Jerb was just as bad.)
Starr, aware of the situation thanks to cell phones, had pizza and chocolate waiting. I love this woman.
Becalmed
In a perfect world, I would have an e-book or three loaded on the Newton right now, or have an iPhone with web access. Instead, I am sitting on Rt. 664, as I have for the last hour, waiting for them to clear a major accident from the Monitor-Merrimac tunnel. The good news is that I’ve got a nice calming trance podcast on the iPod.
I tried first to write some notes for fiction projects, but while a thought or two leaked through, I’m generally blocked; so I am journaling on this Apple notepad instead. I need to scrawl less sloppily; the handwriting recognition on the final OS rev was pretty good, but there’s only so much of my bad penmanship it can take. Lowercase ‘f’s keep coming out capital, for some reason. I’m adding more curve to the tops.
Car behind me just stalled out, guy asked for a jump start. No problem. Asked three times which terminals he had the jumper clamps on… after impressive display of sparks from my battery terminal, went and checked myself. Reversed them. Thank goodness that didn’t kill the Hyundai.
Just remembered I could send email from my work Blackberry; updated everyone there on my status. It seems I’m not the only NASA employee trapped here. I wonder if the accident was mechanical failure, or one or more people being idiots? I’ve been cut off twice in the last 24 hours by rude drivers trying for a single-car position advantage; Hampton Roads drivers can be brutal. On the other hand, I certainly hope no one was seriously hurt… as the cliche goes, “been there, done that”.
Whoops. We’re moving. Will post this from work.
Too much realism, thanks
Insurance companies: if you don’t stop showing me commercials where a car accident is re-enacted in first-person perspective, I may just go all PTSD on you, and none of us want that.
Perhaps I’m whining and should just suck it up, but every time someone does that on TV or in a movie, I have to restrain the urge to freak out. Been there. Did that. Did NOT enjoy it.
Succumbing to the Shakespeare meme
If you see this on your friends list, add a Shakespeare quote to your own journal.
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
–From Macbeth (V, v, 19)
Harry Potter and the World of Dysfunctional Cylons
From the wonderful mollyringwraith, who brought us the condensed versions of the Lord of the Rings movies, comes Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (condensed) Parts One and Two. If you are a Potter fan, read these. You may even wish to if you aren’t a fan 🙂
This weekend while playing WoW, I got into my first 4-person party, and I admit that this was probably the most fun I’ve yet had with the game. But the Schwartz has an up side and a down side.
“What? The Outfit’s Not Enough?”
I glanced through a magazine article this morning that discussed the poor box-office performance of Catwoman and Elektra. “Looks like audiences aren’t ready for female superheroes,” commented a studio exec.
Right. We’re not ready. Or, maybe, they were weak movies to begin with? Idiot.
I bet the guy who did Batman: Dead End and World’s Finest could make a kick-ass Catwoman or Wonder Woman flick. Maybe someone should suggest it to him.
If game materials are dangerous, what does that make me?
NYC Ferry guard tries to confiscate role-playing book as “inappropriate”.
I’m not even going to be sarcastic about this. This just makes me angry, and sad. Are we really going to have to give up all our freedoms one at a time in the interest of “public safety”?
Edit: According to Greg Costikyan’s weblog, the New York Waterway folks are very red-faced about this and are attempting to get more details in order to take corrective action. Urge to kill falling… falling…
