Terrible Analogies

I’ve railed against bad drivers in the past, and even when I’m actively berating the behavior of my fellow cagers I find the whole activity of pointing out bad driving habits clichéd and redundant. But…two things happened to me on the road today that I’m at a loss to understand.

Incident #1: Driving into work this morning I’m coasting down the road going 45 when a car pulls out in front of me from a side street and guns it, his straining engine spitting grey smoke from its trembling tailpipe.  Okay, whatever.  No big deal.  I tap the brakes a bit to avoid getting too close, and proceed to follow him for several miles, never getting within two seconds of him.  He eventually pulls over into a right turning lane, then sticks his arm out of his open window and flips me off.  I’m still trying to understand why he did this.  Did I offend him in another life or something?

Incident #2: I’m backing out of my parking stall at work, and am two-thirds out when a car squeezes past me from behind, narrowly missing hitting my car by inches, then honks his horn at me.  WTF?  I’m inching my way out in my S2000, trying to see around the Ford F150 that’s blocking my view, and this brain stem decides to blow past me?  How could he have not seen that I was slowly inching out from a blind spot?  I wasn’t moving like a bunny, and couldn’t have possibly have surprised him with my creeping speed.

Now, I know that this is a blanket statement, but I still have to ask, “What the frak is wrong with drivers nowadays?“  Why the lack of basic courtesy?  The give and take and the Share The Road mentality?  Are people so mentally removed and insulated from others while driving in their cars that they fail to understand the simple fact that there are other human beings on the road with them?  Where’s the common sense?  Where’s the humanity?

Lets take these situations and place them into different circumstances;  would you flip someone off at the “10 Items Or Less” checkout line at the grocery store if they had 11 items?  Would you scream at a blind man for crossing your path, even though you saw him slowly inch his way down the sidewalk from 100 feet away?

I’m at a loss to describe this sort of behavior, and wonder if these people replay these fleeting moments in time in their heads and ask themselves, “Why did I do that?”

Music, Rant, Some People Are Jerks, cars cars, Rant, Some People Are Jerks

…to stop myself from putting on a squid suit and breaking into improvised dance outside an anonymous train station.  With the worries of the world on my shoulders, deadlines to meet, workplace priorities that constantly need to be re-prioritized (I swear I’m going to get on that Sharepoint issue!), a pregnant wife at home, the upcoming holidays and all that it entails, and a myriad other trials and trifles that dog me throughout my daily existence, I sometimes find myself wishing I was nothing more than a dancing cephalopod, bereft of concern, save for an insufferable desire for music I can shake my tentacles to…

Yes sir, that’s how simple I wish life could be.

video video

This video immediately caught my eye with the opening scene which was pulled from the movie Freaks.  If you haven’t seen Freaks before then you’re doing yourself a serious disservice.  It’s well worth a rental, and the visuals (especially the scene with “the living torso” slowly wriggling through rain and mud with knife in mouth) will stick with you for the rest of your life.

+1 for the inclusion of Gover, and for the extended scenes from the movie The Car.  What’s that?  You haven’t seen the movie The Car either?  Jeezy Creezy…what are you doing wasting time reading my blog?  Get thee to the video store, stat!

Music, video Music, video

Having Monday off from work I decided to hit up Ellie Lane for a quick run up, over, and around the mountain.  Feeling a bit “off” today, I found it to be a bit of a struggle to keep my form up and over the third mountain.  On the run down the far side and roughly three miles from the car my mind began to wander, and I started to ask myself, “why do I run?”  When sitting at home, surfing the ‘net, reading a book, or working on my next blog post would me so much more fun, why do I continue to torture myself on these trail runs?

I guess that’s akin to asking a smoker why s/he smokes.  It’s just something that I do.  I find it a source of entertainment to see how much pain I can endure and keep on going, and accept with a sense of pride that I’m part of a minority that enjoys pushing themselves just to discover what the body is capable of.  I also get a kick passing struggling hikers as they stumble up narrow trails, and even waving at them with a smile and returning their “hellos”.  After all, we share a sort of brotherhood out there on those desolate trails, each making his way in his own time.

And I love the natural rhythm the body falls into when everything is grooving along without effort or strain.  When running without making a sound I often sneak up on wildlife, and have seen my share of hawks, mountain lions, snakes, and deer.  My favorite moment was when running though Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve when, crashing though the thick brush emerged a large deer, and he paced along with me for a good 200 feet before disappearing back into the foliage.  There I was, running at a decent clip on the trail with a deer along alongside me, studying me before apparently having his fill and vanishing as quickly as he appeared.

Oh, and I can’t forget the most enjoyable aspect of trail running;  I get to run though and interact with amazing scenery such as this:

And so, to make a long story stuffy, that’s why I enjoy trail running.  It’s the solitude, the environment, the wildlife, and pushing myself until I can’t see straight that I find oddly engrossing.  Strange?  Perhaps, but no more strange than wasting away hours on a gaming console, shooting up dope, cosplay, or collecting electrical insulators.  But then again, everyone has a habit…

Running Running

I’ll go on record as stating that I believe that this is indeed the world’s greatest Batman spoof…evar:

“Max, what do you want for dinner?”
“Justice!”

Heh…there’s genius, and then there’s genius.  This falls firmly in the latter category, performs a flawless triple lutz, and absolutely sticks the landing.

Funny, video Funny, video