How to drive: Part 1

Since nobody's blogging these last few days, I'll take a turn for now.

Everyday I drive 35 miles to work, most of that on northbound I-15. Pretty much everyday I see things that make me want to carry a firearm in the car, so I can murder those that don't drive the way I want them to. This seems reasonable to me, and it would cut down on traffic for everyone.

Luckily I resist the urge to mount high powered rifles to my car, and instead I fume internally, and think of the scathing blog I should write about these people. "That would teach them!" But what am I going to write about that hasn't been covered by nearly every stand-up comedian in existence? Failure to use turn signals has been overdone. Reckless merging has been overdone. And the idiot going too slow in the leftmost lane has been overdone.

So I'm going to talk about the idiot going too slow in the leftmost lane.

How do you know if you are going too slow in one of the left lanes? You can tell because other cars are consistently passing you on your right side. In this case you should change lanes to the right, until you notice that people are now passing you on the left. This is part of a more basic rule of driving that most people ignore: stay to the right, unless passing slower cars. Part of what makes the German Autobahns a success is that German drivers "drive right". This doesn't merely mean that they drive on the right side, they stay in the rightmost lane unless they have a need to use one of the left lanes. When they no longer need the left lane, they move back to the rightmost lane available.

Utah just installed carpool lanes on I-15, and it's a great relief to traffic during congested times. However, some people think that the carpool lane serves some other purpose. Some seem to think that the lane is like a big comfy couch, just for them to stretch out on, at whatever lazy speed they want to go. Others treat it like a "party lane", where all the cool cars hang out. What it actually is, is a lane that can be used by carpoolers, when the regular lanes are crowded. Sure you can use it anytime you want to, but if there's no real traffic in the normal lanes, there's really no reason to use the carpool lane. If you are in the carpool lane when the lanes to your right are not really crowded, then you are being a dork. You are also being somewhat unsafe. This goes back to the rule I mentioned earlier: stay right, unless passing slower cars.

Now I know everyone that reads this in now going to do their best to stay in the rightmost available lane when appropriate. Thank you for your time.

Star Wars Communications Disruption

One of the best choose-a-caption's ever.

Happiness returns the the valley named after it

My nephew and his family are moving back to Utah! I'm so excited to see my little pimp grand-nephew! Oh yeah, Ryan and Ashley are great too. They were just going to surprise us all by visiting on Christmas when they had previously told us that they would be visiting Washington state instead. This is huge news for us as we now have all the kids and grandkids of my parents back within driving distance of each other.

Repeatable Music

I used to be convinced that MTV caters to people of lesser intellect. Nobody with half a brain can listen to the same thing repeated as often as music on that channel repeats. I won't even get into the content, my niece has that covered more than well enough.

So now that I've established that only simpletons are able to listen to the same thing over and over, why is it that I can listen to Tegan And Sara, Pinback, Muse, or Ani DiFranco on eternal repeat? It gets to the point that I have to force myself to make a new selection in WinAmp or on my iPods. Am I just now getting to some point, musically, that these MTV kids are already at? Is their music actually good and I just don't have the ability to grasp that? Is most of my music of minimal quality? Are there multiple places where repeating music doesn't drive you crazy (crappy music with low intellect vs. incredible music with higher intellect)?

I have a lot of music, hundreds of CD's, I've been buying them since 1987. Out of my entire collection, I would say that there are only 50 or so that I could play on repeat more than twice. And probably only 10 that I could play on repeat more than 5 times.

So I guess my question is (please comment): Have I changed, or has music changed?

What WoW race and class are you?

Undead Mage Undead are the forsaken: just like you. While it's important that you don't fall apart (physically or mentally), you might find yourself salivating in an unhealthy manner when someone comes selling cookies. Get more sleep. As a mage, you like blowing things up. Your favorite bit of technology is anything that goes, 'boom'. You live for that huge front-end KAPOW - but, after the dust has settled, you'll find yourself searching for something else to explode. Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Actually, I'm a Troll Priest, but an undead mage is just about as cool.