Historical Post: This is why people get road rage!

This was originally posted on my old Xanga last October. Since it's mine, I'm stealing it for this blog  :)

This was one particularly ugly morning on 84 in Waterbury

With my new job, my daily commute has pretty much quadrupled each way from what it was before. Thus, I am obviously spending more time on the road, and subsequently experiencing more of people's idiocy...especially on the death trap that is Interstate 84 (and sadly I go the span of about four exits, which is not far at all). I have written before about motorists in Connecticut and the state of the stretch of highway I now travel on a daily basis before. [In spite of the fact that I swore up and down that I categorically refused to use it]. I pretty much have to take my life into my own hands during my commute in the morning and afternoon [I've yet to decide which one is worse.] and I am convinced that some corrupt DMV employee [and in this state, they sure as hell aren't too hard to find] is putting licenses in gumball machines and selling them for 50 cents. Otherwise, I don't see how half the people on the road could even have a license, because if they exhibited such stupidity during license testing they sure as shit would have failed.

Anyway...

Here is a brief refresher course for people who have forgotten common courtesy and common sense rules of the road:
1. On-Ramps: On ramps are designed for you to try to get up to highway speed. I understand that you can't instantly accelerate from 30 miles an hour to 65 or 70, but that's what the ramp is for. It is not there for you to mosey on up at 35 miles an hour with a stream of cars behind you all pissed off because you won't step on the damn gas. Of course people insist upon doing this when there's a heavy flow of cars already pouring down the highway, thus making it a pain in MY ass to merge because I'm not up to the correct speed to match the flow of traffic because Little Miss Featherfoot in front of me can't be bothered to use the on ramp properly. People are notorious for this on my way home in the afternoon coming off of 84 west on to Route 8 north, where you've got traffic from 84 east and and Route 8 north to worry about, and because of the state of Connecticut's "brilliant" design of the mixmaster, the traffic you are merging into is coming at you from both sides.
2. The purpose of the left hand lane on ANY highway: In most circles this is known as the fast lane or the passing lane. As such, it is beyond me why people insist on traveling in that lane when they are doing 5 under the speed limit. That's what the right lane is for dumbass.
3. Weaving Lanes in a traffic jam: Why even waste your time? Eventually you will get to whatever is causing the traffic issue [in my case, three lanes diverging into two], and have to sit there, thus negating whatever time you think you have saved. Plus people who do this tend not to use their signal lights which brings me to my next point...
4. Signal lights: Unlike DVD navigation, THESE ARE NOT AN OPTIONAL FEATURE ON YOUR CAR. USE THEM! I do not pride myself on my psychic skills. I am not a mind reader, and I would appreciate a little forewarning if you plan on weasling your ginormous SUV into a space the size of my little Hyundai. This does not mean you put it on for a half a blink either, because that's just as useless as completely ignoring the fact that you need to be using it. I swear the horn on my car has gotten more use in the last three weeks than it has in the nearly 7 months I've had it.
5. Lane Changes: Has nobody heard of a safety cushion? When you decide that your lane is going too slow and you decide to cut me off, for the love of God, do it with more than 6 inches to spare between your back bumper and my front bumper...because I swear to god...if you make me fuck up my pretty little Hyundai, I will get out of my car and push you into oncoming traffic...after you give me your insurance information of course. Also, if you're going to merge behind me, leave more than 6 inches between me and you, because you know damn well people are stupid and eventually I'm going to have to abruptly step on my brakes...likely because some asshole decided to merge into the fast lane 6 inches in front of me when they're going slower than I am. Tailgaters suck, hardcore. If I didn't have a brand new car pretty much, I would be more than willing to brake check these assholes.

Most people need a remedial driving course. Bottom line.

In closing, though, truckers, you are not god of the highway, so stop acting like it. I know you have blind spots the size of Russia, but that does not give you permission to drive like an asshole...because you could pretty much obliterate me AND my car.

Dear Me, at 16

If you didn't notice, I subscribe to the site Plinky, which provides blogging prompts, if you will. I haven't done one of their prompts in a while because I've been able to conjure up my own material lately without using them as a kick in the ass...plus some of the prompts lately haven't really inspired me to write either. Today's did, and asks you to write what you would tell your 16 year old self. Unfortunately I can't complete the prompt on my phone (Maybe when I get a sexy Froyo-running Evo in the near future since it supports flash/javascript and all that nonsense...but anyhoo) so I'm going to Mail2Blogger this post, then copy/paste it to Plinky when I get home.

Me, Circa 2005-2006ish

I've always wondered what it would be like to go back to age 16 knowing what I know now, 5 years later at the age of 21.

Some of this pertains to my sophomore year when I turned 16 and some my junior year, until I turned 17 obvs.

Dear Me (Circa 2005),
Peel yourself from MySpace and your music and read this.

1. 5 years from now, Fall Out Boy will be on hiatus. Its not a horrific tragedy. Really.

2. Price Rite is not the worst job in the world. Minus that dick of a manager.

3. That creepy freshman on the bus your junior year? He's gonna become your first boyfriend a week after graduation. He's also going to be a completely socially inept reject who you want to dump every three weeks, and after 5 and a half months of dealing with his stupidity, you will. He'll call you a whore and a slut because you didn't give it up to him...but he'll get the fuck over it eventually after you're out with friends and one of them grabs your phone when he calls and tells him that his face will be ground into the pavement if he calls you again. However, dealing with his shit will make you realize when you're 19 and find the most amazing guy ever...well, he'll find you...that he's your knight in shining armor and you'd do well to hang on to him.

4. That said, you are not a piteous freak, as you like to call yourself on your blog.

5. Don't waste your money on Academy of Driving. They sucked and you won't get your license until you're 18 bee tee dubs.

6. That kid you're pining over in math class? About 4 years from now he's gonna tell you he has feelings for you and its going to be super awkward because you've got a boyfriend who's amazing and you have no intention of leaving. You will end up not talking after becoming decent friends, which sucks. You will be there when he's puking his brains out on his 21st birthday and end up sitting on a gross ass bar bathroom floor with him because nobody else will. You'll also step in his puke and not really care either.

7. You will not be blogging on ebloggy anymore.

8. You will still be in contact with Brian Birdi via Twitter and Badmonkey via Facebook.

9. Going back to #6, based on conversations had with said individual you'd do best to grow a pair and do something about your infatuation.

10. Your dad is full of shit, you won't be going to WestConn because your parents aren't going to give you a dime for college, in fact they're going to up and leave CT for SC in December 2007.

11. You will kick ass on the SAT's even though that means nothing because you won't have enough money to go to college.

12. Your parents aren't the assholes you think they are...even if they are a bit ridiculous.

13. Tonay WHOAmack will still be a relevant part of your life in 2010.

14. Mike Mussina will retire the year before the Yankees win the World Series again.

15. When you're 19 and some kid from Harwinton messages you on Facebook, agree to go out with him sooner than like 2 weeks after initial contact...you will not regret this

16. When you're going to lose your V-Card, don't contemplate it for so long...the guy is not an asshole, trust :)

17. You're not going to miss your plane when you go see your parents in June 2008.

18. Cherish the bullshittery in Bishop's class junior year....senior year it will double in size and you won't be able to get away with shit!

19. The OC will end. You will not feel shattered.

20. You will get a boyfriend in due time.

21. Don't talk to the Incest Whore, she will jepardize one of your best friendships...if you do, it will survive...but it will suck monkey balls in the meantime.

22. Stop embracing your antisocialness so much.

23. That other kid you liked...yeah...he doesn't like you. Get over it.

24. Don't introduce Jess to Will. Your life will have so much less drama.

25. Kayci and Doug will break up for good.

26. Mariza will never get the stick out of her ass.

27. Tell Jamie to go fuck himself when being an asshole to you.

28. You won't go to the senior England, Ireland, and Wales trip: fixate on something else.

29. You won't be shunned by half the people you hang around with now for speaking the truth with Liz.

30. April will stop pining over the good guys, and date a string of douchebags, ending with her being knocked up

31. Prom will still be fun, even though you didn't have a date.

And finally...

32. Whatever seems like a tragedy now, won't be in 5 years

Love <3
Yourself (Circa 2010) 

Yes, that is the same hat as the picture at the top of the post.

40 Things About Me.

The purpose of this post is to amuse myself and enlighten you.
"Who is this crazy bitch? Why is she the way she is?" Uhhh, because I'm me, but that's besides the point.
Anyhoo, learn something about me:
1. I'm 21. Born and bred in the northwestern corner of Connecticut
2. I've only had 2 legitimate boyfriends...and I intend for the 2nd one to be my last. We've been together just over 2 years as of July 2nd and he is my Prince Charming :)
3. Justin only just met my parents last week because they live in South Carolina.
4. I drive a 2009 Hyundai Accent GS hatchback. Its black, its ridiculously cute, and I love it to bits.
5. I was a certified nurses aide for three years. Sometimes I miss it.
6. Now I work at a big pharmacy (not like Walgreens/CVS/ect), and data enter medical records. Its kind of boring, but it pays more than being beaten on by old people.
7. My favorite colors are purple (hmmm not a difficult call to make) and blue.
8. I'm a good girl: I've never smoked anything, nor do I plan on doing so.
9. However, I do enjoy my flavored vodka concoctions.
10. I hate rap. Jay-Z and Kanye West (when Kanye isn't being an asshole to Taylor Swift) are the only rappers I can stand.
11. I hate really hardcore screaming metal. I used to hate metal period, but Justin's influence has changed that.
12. I love Sushi.
13. I am a huge subway nerd, and to a lesser extent trains. New York City is my favorite place to be.
14. I am a Blackberry addict...who will be making the jump to Android in the near future via the HTC Evo 4G.
15. Fall Out Boy and Motion City Soundtrack are my 2 favorite modern bands. I've seen FOB once in concert and MCS 3 times...and met each band once.
16. I've also met Paramore.
17. Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are my favorite classic bands. "Tangerine" is my favorite Zeppelin song. "Norwegian Wood" is my favorite Beatles song.
18. I've worn glasses since I was 6 months old
19. I'm a complete ditz...what else do you want from a natural-born blonde?
20. I love love love playing World of Warcraft, every character of mine but 1 is Horde, and soon my Alliance character will become Horde-I think. I haven't been raiding seriously since I've been back (I took a 4 month break last fall until February) but that's because working during the day isn't conducive to raiding hours.
21. I'm convinced Justin sucked me into playing WoW so when he plays I don't get pissed off at him -- it kind of worked.
22. I don't read as much as I used to, a fact of which I'm ashamed and need to fix
23. I graduated in the top 10% of my high school class
24. But because my parents left the state I had to find a place to live and forgo college
25. I want to be either a labor and delivery nurse or an OR scrub nurse
26. Grey's Anatomy is my favorite show
27. Real Housewives of New Jersey is a close second
28. I am a night owl...that works 8am to 4pm...everyone knows to leave me alone until 10am.
29. My little sister is 10 and a half years younger than me
30. I look like my mom
31. My dad can be a cruel piece of shit but I still love him
32. When I'm PMSing I don't crave chocolate, I crave kettle chips.
33. I've never been out of the country. I've been to every state on the East coast except Vermont, and the farthest west I've ever been is Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The farthest north I've been is Portland, Maine, and the farthest south I've been is Orlando, Florida.
34. My first car was a 2001 Dodge Stratus-that I crashed after a month.
35. One of the most depressing things I have ever experienced was walking onto the oncology floor at the UConn Health Center to visit one of my best friends who is my age and had ovarian cancer.
36. My favorite movies are "Ferris Bueller's" day off and, what I like to call the John Hughes/Molly Ringwald trifecta: "Sixteen Candles", "The Breakfast Club", and "Pretty in Pink"
37. Of every Star Wars movie ever made, I have only seen a total of 15 minutes...and I plan on going to the grave that way.
38. I use Twitter way too much
39. My iPod is my 3rd hand
40. I'm sick of writing this list so this is the end :)

Attention Whores and Social Networking

I love Twitter. I spend an almost inhumane amount of time on it on a daily basis. I've tried about every (free) app available for the Blackberry and a fair handful for my Windows PCs. (My drugs of choice: UberTwitter hands down on the BB, though Socialscope's beta has fab integration with Facebook and Foursquare, it lacks some UT features and does some irritating thngs, so it's a distant second, and on the desktop I like Twihrl because of its simplicity and sound notifications upon DMs and @replys and even new tweets. Blu has a gorgeous UI, but I haven't figured out how to turn on notification sounds) I've made quite a few friends on the site, and have as such added them to Facebook as well.

However, there is one person on my Twitter and Facebook shitlist as of late, and is about 3 whiny, unnecessarily self-pitying status updates and tweets away from being defriended and unfollowed. Now I realize everyone on Twitter and to a lesser degree, Facebook has some degree of self-importance and suffers from attention whore syndrome. I myself am guilty. However, the particular individual I'm about to describe takes it to a whole other level.
 
I first discovered him in UberTwitter's "Everyone Near You" menu. He basically monopolized it, which irritated me. I ended up retweeting something one of the people I follow retweeted that he originally posted, so he began to follow me and I returned the favor. He seemed engaging enough and we had a fairly interesting conversation at the beginning and I felt bad about being irritated about monopolizing the "Everyone Near You" thing with all his crap. However my tolerance of his overshare is going down the crapper again.
One of my followers decided to follow him after I gave him a shoutout in a follow friday. Said follower then commenced to complaining about him and unfollowed him shortly thereafter because they found him to be annoying and almost bot-like. Now I sort of agree.

I am also willing to admit that I have twitter diarrhea sometimes (lovely mental image, yes?) and tweet stupid pointless shit, but I tend to send a shitton more @replies than public tweets, which unless you're following the person I'm talking to, you don't see unless you look directly at my profile...thus keeping a majority of bullshit out of other people's timelines.

However the following things are just fucking annoying and I don't do them:
1. Play by play, blow by blow sports tweets. I follow enough yankees fans that when there's a game, I get enough updates to know what's going on and how my boys are doing if I'm nowhere near a TV. That's fine, because these people also offer some personal insight/commentary to the game, which I like. What I do not like is seeing retweets of sports bots posting play-by-play tweets for every fucking MLB team in the national and American league. Save for the Rays/Devilrays/whatever the fuck they call themselves now, and the Red Sox I could give two shits about how the Padres/indians/royals/whoever are doing unless the Yankees are playing them, and the only reason why I give a rats ass about the Sox and Tampa Bay is because those are the 2 teams we are constantly at war with in the AL East standings. Said individual is a Sox fan so you would think the only 3 teams whose performance he cares about are those. Now I know he's amassed a ton of followers as well and maybe they like the extranneous updates that I don't give a shit about...fine. Retweet them as a reply so I don't have to see them.
2. Then there's the bot-ish tendencies. Like clockwork at noon he will post a good morning status/tweet with a slight variation between the two to fit Twitter's character constraints. On a daily basis its "Hello everyone. Hope you're having a good day" then some blurb about how he might get out of the house that afternoon, and "if I do anything interesting I'll let you know". Then between 8 and 10 he comes back and summarizes what he did (usually "took a drive" or "went to see someone I haven't seen in (amount of time), it was fun." I don't give a shit that you drove around all afternoon then came back to tell us. What you do is never interesting, keep it to yourself. If you ran over a dog, witnessed a robbery, got in a car accident, then that qualifies as interesting and feel free to regale (sp?) us with the story Then about 11:30ish its "Oh I'm signing off the computer for now, I'll be back around 2AM, Good night and for latenighters good night for now" Then at 6AM he signs off with "Good night or good morning if you're just getting up, see you all in 6 hours or so"
3. Then there's just the tweets and statuses that are a bloodcurdling scream for attention. Apparently this guy had a really good friend of his killed about 6 years ago by a drunk driver and the anniversary was Saturday. Believe me, I know that losing a close friend sucks balls and he is entitled to sympathy, and rightly so. However just the way he approached the subject pissed me off. Last Friday he posts two facebook statuses within 20 minutes of each other saying "Tomorrow is going to be really hard for me, if you want to know why leave a comment on this status, so then I can post one explaining why so I don't have to explain it individually to you all." (The second status had a slight variation in verbiage. Um hello? Just post "Tomorrow's gonna suck for me because it will be 6 years since my good friend was killed in a car accident" and then maybe put a RIP whatever the kid's name was and a birthday and death date. Then maybe post it the day of. There is no need to post multiple statuses and tweets vaguely alluding to why tomorrow is going to suck, then posting an explanation, and then more vague allusions for the people who were too busy or just didn't pay attention to the first ones. Then Saturday his timeline and Facebook were filled with self-pitying posts about he was miserable. Hello? Instead of throwing yourself a pity party, how about you celebrate the life of the person you lost in those tweets and statuses. Earlier this week this person was evidentally suffering from a sinus headache and just generally felt like crap. Now I am the first to admit if I feel like shit I'll gripe about it on Twitter of FB ("Ugh feel like crap" or something to that effect) but after the one brief mention, that's the fucking end of it. No, this idiot posts the initial one, a few hours later indicates that he still feels like complete horseshit, then apologizes for complaining, and then complains again! Then the charade continues until he decides to go to bed, varying the daily 11:30pm tweet mentioned above saying "I probably won't be on later since I'm so sick, but then again I might be". Its like he's fishing for sympathy. Then the next day he comes on with his above-mentioned noon posting and then adds "well I don't know if I'll be up to doing anything outside the house, I feel 85% better, but not 100% so we'll see. I hope I get better soon". I was thisclose to writing a comment on his facebook status saying that nobody gives a shit but I figured that was too mean.

I've been plodding at this post all day on my Blackberry and since I began writing this diatribe at 10:30 this morning, I've since unfollowed this person on twitter and defriended him on Facebook. Hashing out my irritation at his attention whoring tendencies and timeline spamming habits tipped me over the edge. Hopefully reading my timeline on Twitter and my newsfeed on Facebook should be less irritating now.

Have any of you had to deal with someone that irritating on a social networking site? 

Was it someone you met via the internet or was it someone you know personally that was being the annoying fuck?

Sunshine in the woods.

This was in the woods behind my cousin Zack's house by his enormous freakin firepit.
Camera credit: My marginally decent Blackberry Curve 8330.