Hitting the Nail on the Head (So to Speak)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Take a nation of do-it-yourselfers, add a ready supply of cheap nailguns and what do you get? About 37,000 nailgun injuries a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 1991, nailgun injuries have risen about 200 percent, the CDC said in its weekly report on death and disease.

"This increase likely corresponds to an increase in availability during the 1990s of inexpensive pneumatic nail guns and air compressors (to power the nail guns) in home hardware stores; however, no sales data are available for confirmation," the CDC reported.

But when the CDC looked at who was getting injured, it became clear that the number of work-related nailgun injuries had stayed stable since 1998. It was consumer-related injuries that had soared.
~from CNN.com (here).

Really? No kidding. Of course the people getting hurt are the do-it-yourselfers. People who use pneumatic nailguns for a living have experience. DIYers don't. But, I really don't blame the rising in injuries on more people buying nail guns.

I blame it on those home-improvement shows on television. They make it look like any idiot with a hammer, a flannel shirt, and a tool-belt (you have to have the tool-belt) can completely remake their home in a weekend.

No. You can't. You don't know what the fuck you're doing.

And doing damage to yourself or house with a nailgun is bad enough, but these DIYers are also messing with things like their electrical and plumbing. A few words of advice for any of you thinking on taking on an electrical or plumbing project: IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE DOING, CALL A PROFESSIONAL! Putting a nail in the wrong place - like your hand - may be a pain (bad pun, I know, but I couldn't help it), but messing up with your electrical or your plumbing can be REALLY bad. A mistake with either of these can cost you thousands to repair - if your lucky. And a mistake with an electrical project can easily kill you.

I worked at Home "Despot" for a while before getting into grad school. Part of that time was spent in the Electrical Department, because I had had some training from having worked as a theater tech for much of high school and my undergrad years. One day, we had a guy come in with a problem. He been trying to install a steam room in his house like he had seen on some DIY show (for a while, this was a really popular thing to do in our area). He got it all built fine, had read up on what he needed to do with the electrical, and gotten all the wiring installed just fine. He had reached the step where you put the pull-out breaker in the subpanel. He inserted the pull-out and got a big arch, lots of yellowish smoke, and that great ozone smell. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen one of these pull-outs, but their basically a black plastic handle with two large, flat copper plates. The idea is that you can pull this out and instantly break the circuit it there's a problem, instead of having to run all the way to your main breaker-box. Sounds simple enough.

Well, this guy brought in the pull-out he had used and it looked something like this. He wanted to know what had gone wrong. Our first question to him was "Did you turn off the power from your main breaker-box to the subpanel?"

Answer: "No. I thought that's what this was for." Well, yes, in the end it kind of serves that purpose, but you still have to turn off the power BEFORE you try to shove two pieces of copper in place to complete the circuit. We told him he was lucky to only end up having to replace the pull-out. He very easily could have been seriously injured or even killed. He just got this kind of dazed look on his face and said that maybe he would call an electrician to come out and finish things up. Good idea, buddy.

So, when I hear that people are putting nails through themselves, I don't blame the the store for selling them the nail-gun. I blame these "This Old House" knock-off shows and their Bob-Villa-wannabes for convincing people they can so this shit on their own.

Comments and Rants on Various Sports Topics

HOCKEY:
Well, the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin today. And unfortunately, the Colorado Avalanche are out of it. We made a good run at the end of the season, but Saturday's game against Nashville ended our hopes of going to the playoffs for the 12th straight year. On the plus side, however, the Avalanche have already signed captain Joe Sakic to a new one-year contract. Not much else to say on the Avs right now, so on to other hockey news . . .

"This is the time of year the Red Wings need Todd Bertuzzi. But, they could be starting the playoffs Thursday against the Flames without the power forward. Bertuzzi, who suffered a concussion last Thursday, missed a second day of practice Tuesday. And coach Mike Babcock didn't sound encouraged." - from SI.com.

GOOD! Bertuzzi is a thug and I'm happy anytime he gets hurt and has to sit out. Normally, I'm not one to wish harm on others. And I don't actually wish harm on Bertuzzi - I'm just not sorry when it happens. Personally, I still think that Bertuzzi should have been permanently banned from hockey and jailed for his March 8, 2004, attack on Avalanche center Steve Moore. So, I'm sorry, but I have pretty much no sympathy for Bertuzzi having a concussion. Think of it as a little bit of karmic payback, you fuck.

Here are my predictions for the first round of the playoffs:
* Buffalo Sabres over NY Islanders in 5 games
* NJ Devils over Tampa Bay Lightening in 4 games
* Atlanta Thrashers over NY Rangers in 6 games
* Pittsburgh Penguins over Ottawa Senators in 7 games
* Detroit Red Wings over Calgary Flames in 4 games
* Anaheim Ducks over Minnesota Wild in 5 games
* Dallas Stars over Vancouver Canucks in 6 games
* San Jose Sharks over Nashville Predators in 7 games

FOOTBALL:
I like the suspensions handed down by Roger Goodell yesterday. Both "Pacman" Jones and Chris Henry have a long string of problems off the field and repeated run-ins with the cops. I'm glad that someone in the NFL is finally standing up and saying that players simply cannot act like the rules don't apply to them. Now to clarify things here, Jones and Henry are under the old personal conduct policy, which is (partially) why they have been allowed to continue to have so many problems without major punishment from the NFL. Goodell and the NFL have instituted a new personal conduct policy, which will apply to players coming into the league beginning this year.

The schedule for the coming season is supposed to released sometime later today.

BASEBALL:
Things in baseball I really don't care about which almost everyone else around here seemingly does:
* The D-backs winning six straight - whoopee-fucking-do.
* Barry Bonds. Took steroids (probably), and lied about it (probably). Put an asterisks next to his name when he breaks Hank Aaron's career home-run record.
* Daisuke Matsuzaka's "gyro-ball".
* A-rod.

NASCAR:
Things in NASCAR I really don't care about which almost everyone else around here seemingly does: the whole damn "sport".

Sometimes Things Just Suck

Sorry for the rather prolonged delay between posts. I've spent most of the last week having a shit-load of fun . . . yeah, right.

Last Wednesday (March 28) night my truck was broken into. They got away with my laptop, my portable hard-drive, my palm pilot, and one of my digital cameras. Somewhere between $1,800 and $2,000 worth of stuff. Yeah, there were many, many, MANY of those words your mother always told you not to say. (Of course, my grandmother always just to say that you didn't want to say those words too often, because sometimes there's nothing else left to say, so you have to save them up for those times.)

So, I have have been spending the last week or so alternately dealing with the insurance company (who replaced the window, but said I was out of luck on the stuff inside the truck!) and trying to get caught up on my work. On the latter, things could have been worse. I have a CD back-up of all my files from the beginning of last month, so I have all the old stuff. The more recent stuff, however, is another matter. Usually, I would just carry around the portable hard-drive, backing up that information onto my laptop at home on a very regular basis. On this particular Wednesday, however, I was at a workshop and had decided at the last minute to take my laptop along - my note taking is faster and more efficient when I type them than when I hand write - so both pieces were in the same location at the same time. Fortunately, my professors were cool and gave me some time to get caught up. I was supposed to turn in a rough draft of a research paper that Thursday - but since it went away with the rest of my stuff, that wasn't going to happen. Luckily, I had printed out a hard copy of the paper on Friday (March 23), so I didn't have to recreate the whole thing, but all the work I had done over the weekend and during the first half of the week was gone. FUCK! In many ways, this pissed me off the most. This fucker has cost me time and work, in addition to the material loss. But the material loss is just that, material. Things can be replaced. The time and work? No so much!

Things are getting back to normal at this point. I have a plan (sorta) to replace the laptop soon and I have already replaced the palm pilot. Those two are the most important to my day-to-day functioning, so they need(ed) to be replaced first. The portable hard-drive was a convenience more than anything else. I still have an older flash-stick and I can always borrow one of The Overlord's spare portable hard-drives for a bit if I need, so that one can wait a few months. The camera - it was a REALLY nice camera and is one I will definitely replace. But . . . I have another digital (it's just older and not as nice) and I still have my SLR cameras. Replacing my lost digital can wait even longer, then. The last thing this bastard got was the bag all my stuff was in. It's the cheapest piece and it's the easiest to replace, so I'll wait a pay-check or two to take care of that one.

The long and short of it all? My stuff is gone and I probably won't get it back (the Tempe Police took a report over the phone and . . . that was it), I've been busting my ass to get caught up as best I can, and am slowly replacing the material stuff.

Funny Video

Very predicable, but definitely worth watching!

The Apple iRack

Wikipedia Birthday Meme

Carried on from Sheep Days.

1. Go to Wikipedia, type in your birth month and date, but no year (ie - January 1).

2. List Events on that which interest you:

• 1040 - King Duncan I is killed in battle against his first cousin and rival Macbeth


• 1877 - Thomas Edison makes the first-ever recording


• 1914 - The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship Ancon


• 1969 - The Woodstock Music and Art Festival opens

3. List a few birthdays:

• 1769 - Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French (d. 1821)


• 1771 - Sir Walter Scott, Scottish novelist and poet (d. 1832)


• 1925 - Oscar Peterson, Canadian jazz pianist


• 1945 - Gene Upshaw, NFL player


• 1958 - Craig MacTavish, former Canadian ice hockey player/coach

4. List a death:

• 1057 - King Macbeth of Scotland (nice little bit of irony for you there!)

5. List a holiday or observance (if any):

• Egypt – Flooding of the Nile Day

6. Tag some other bloggers:

• neh - join in if you want, I'm not going to force it on anyone

I Hate Having To Do This

Today I find myself having to cheer for a team I absolutely hate - the Detroit Red Wings. I am an Avalanche fanatic. Ever since the team came to Colorado in the 1995-96 season, I have been a loyal fan and supporter. A couple of years ago, during the NHL Lock-Out, I had serious problems adjusting to a lack of hockey. Naturally, part of being such an Avs fan means that I hate the Red Wings. It's a rivalry which goes back to that first season and has never really abated (although I think much of our hatred has shifted to the Vancouver Canucks, after Bertuzzi's hit on Moore). Anyway, I'm going to be forced to root for the Wings tonight. They're playing the Calgary Flames, who are currently 4 points ahead of the Avalanche for the 8th and final playoff spot in the West. I really want the Flames to lose . . . but that means rooting for the Wings.

sigh . . . the things we have to do for our teams.

Follow Up To "Take Back Our History"

Well, House Resolution 1255, which I posted about last Friday, went to the House floor today. And it passed! Final vote was 333 for to 93 against, with 7 no votes. Want to see how your rep voted? Here's the full roll call. I want to thank those of you who took the time to contact your representative and tell them how important this kind of action is.

Ya Think?

Justice Department Says F.B.I. Misused Patriot Act, from New York Times online.

Take Back Our History

"I firmly believe that ... presidential papers, except for the most highly sensitive documents involving our national security, should be made available to the public." ~ President Gerald Ford

The Presidential Records Act (1978) stated that Presidents and former Presidents had to make their presidential records available to the public 12 years after their final term in office. There were of course certain circumstances under which records could be withheld longer (such as on-going matters of national security), but there was a process by which this happened which ensured that the people would have access to the records of their president.

On November 1, 2001, President Bush issues Executive Order 13233, which, in the words of Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), "carved enormous loopholes in the Presidential Records Act." What this executive order did was to give the President to the unchecked power to withhold any records and/or other materials indefinitely after their final term in office. Not only that, but their heirs could withhold them as well. And as a final coup de grace, the order gave this same power to the vice-president! Personally, I find this deeply disturbing - as should anyone who wants to prevent the tyranny of the state.

Well, there is presently an opportunity to tell Bush that we will not accept this kind of thing. Just yesterday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unanimously approved H.R. 1255, the "Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007." This is a bill which would revoke 13233 and set a time limit on how long Presidents can withhold this information. But we have to act NOW! This bill will coming up for debate on the House floor early next week. This link will take you the joint website for the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the National Coalition for History and the National Humanities Alliance. They have a full description of what this bill would do. There is also a prepared form letter which you can submit, as is or edited as you choose, directly to your Representative. It's quick and easy - and it's important. So I ask that you let your Reps know that we want our history back!

---

If you want to know more about the bill and what was said in the Subcommittee's hearings on it, click here.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me!

Fuck, some people aggravate me. (surprise, surprise, surprise)

As part one of the projects I work on, I monitor and maintain an online discussion forum. We recently decided that we were going to require people to register. We did this for several reasons. First, requiring registration to post is far and away the norm for these things. Second, we were getting spammed pretty bad. Not only does this look unprofessional, but there were some concerns that this might catch the attention of one of the higher-ups at the university - and this would be bad. Third, and most important from my point of view, constantly having to go check for spam and then delete it was taking time away from other things which I need to work on.

Realizing that some people were going need to have their hands held to get through the registration process, I wrote up directions. Here's how they originally read:

To Register:
1. Click on the "Register" button located under the forum logo.

2. Agree to the terms of service (requirement of the company hosting this forum service).

3. Fill out the required account information - you will have to create a username and password, enter your email address (you can select to hide this from people later), and compete the word verification form.

4. Set any other options. The "Profile" and "Preferences" sections of the form are completely optional (the time and date defaults are set to Arizona). The option to disable email display is under "Preferences." You can completely ignore the "Super Quick Reply mod" section.

5. Click submit.

Congratulations! You are now registered!
If you have any questions or problems, please email [the project's email address as a hotlink]

Now, I will admit that I'm a techie, so things like registering for a forum are no big deal to me. I could probably do it with my eyes shut. But apparently, this was too confusing for some people. They couldn't find the "register" link. They couldn't understand sections of the form (the ones I told them they could ignore). They didn't know how to log in. (Oh, for fuck's sake, you can't be this stupid, can you?)

And instead of emailing the project, like the instructions say, they emailed the director of the project! It's not so much that they emailed him as it is they did that instead of clicking on the email hotlink.

What really gets me about this whole thing is that the people who are registering for this are primarily supposed be graduate students, professors, and professionals. In other words, intelligent people! Apparently not. Am I being unreasonable in assuming that people should be able to fill out a fairly simple registration form? I would hope not, but I've been disappointed before.

Serious, these people are supposed to be trained academics. I'm sorry, if you can't understand this simple a registration process, you should have your previous diplomas revoked and you may just want to go ahead and shoot yourself.

Lest We Forget

Faces of the Dead in Iraq
From the New York Times online.

Things Which Are Annoying Me This Morning

While I am not really pissed off or anything, I have found myself at general low-level of annoyance this morning. These are the sort of things which, by themselves, probably wouldn't a big deal. But they have this nasty little tendency to build on each other. So, here are things which have already annoyed me this morning:

Car Alarms: Okay - so these tend to annoy me all the time, not just this morning. They just happen to be a focus this morning because one went off outside my window this morning about 15 minutes before my alarm. If it had been a little earlier, I might have slept through it. Or at the very least I would have had time to actually go back to sleep. At 15 minutes, however, there's not really enough time to actually go back to sleep in any sort of meaningful way. Now I realize that car alarms are part of every day life these days, but that doesn't stop them from annoying me.

The Fill-In News Caster: So this is one of the little ones. I like to watch the local news as I'm getting ready in the morning. Yeah, I know most of the stories they're covering that time of day are complete bull-shit, fluff stories, but I like to catch things like the local weather, traffic reports, and the local sports coverage. The particular channel I watch is usually pretty good (although I'm noticing a disturbing trend toward things like make-up tips as news stories - I'm sorry, how is this considered important news?), but this morning one of the regular news casters had the day off. I in no way blame her for taking a day off - hell, I wish I could. But the woman they had filling in for her this morning was just terrible. She was one of those people who tries to hard to be a "serious" news caster, but still seem open, friendly, and personable. Didn't work. Lady, you're just filling in - get over yourself.

Ann Coulter: This is another one which annoys me on a regular basis, but has been brought to my attention this morning in particular. If you don't already know, Ann Coulter is an ultra conservative right-wing ideologue. She has made it habit to say things which many (if not most) people consider to be offensive and outlandish. She was the one a few months back who referred to some of the 9/11 widows as "harpies." Well, she's done it again (big surprise, huh?). This past Friday, she referred to Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards as a "faggot." According to a CNN.com story, at the Conservative Political Action Conference she said "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm - so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions." Nice. I must admit, I would not be all that sorry to see this woman, whom I consider the really harpy, just go away.

The DHCP: DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Without going into a bunch of techno-babble which most people wouldn't understand, I'll simply say that this program needs to be functioning properly for the computer network on campus is function properly. Without, computers cannot connect to the Internet. Well, it was down this morning. It looks like it's fixed now, but having something like this down early on a Monday morning is bad. Really bad. While there is absolutely nothing I can do about, people still come to me wanting to get it fixed. They hate the fact that only answer I can give them is "It's broken. They are working on fixing it. You'll just have to wait." Luckily, the network admins got it fixed in about half an hour and things seem to going well at this point. But all this happened before I had my coffee - not good.

Spring Training: I know people love baseball. I accept this fact. I don't care about it all that much, but if other people do, that's fine. The problem is that right now it's Spring Training, which means a number of teams are here in Arizona doing their thing. Again, fine, I don't really care. It's the people who are here to watch Spring Training who are annoying me. I have ranted about driving in Phoenix before. It's rather like playing dodge ball with cars. As crazy as it may be, however, there is some method to the madness. Most people in Phoenix understand at least some of the rules. When you toss in a bunch of outsiders, that's when you have real problems. Spring training started last week, and people's spring breaks are going to be coming up over the next couple weeks - thing are only going to get worse.

---

Post #100!

Make the Hurting Stop!

I am fucking sick of all this crap over Anna Nicole Smith! Yes, it's sad that she died and that her son died and all that. But let's face it, where she's buried really has no impact on my life. And I couldn't really care less who the baby's father is. Why is this shit still news? I'll tell you why. It's like a car accident or a train wreck. People can't help but watch. It satisfies some deep, perverse sense of humor. We want to see celebrities crash and burn. It's like watching some yuppie-fuck's expensive little sports car get demolished by a dumptruck. Admit it, you see something like that, you just sit back with a big grin, thinking "Boy, we're having some fun now!" Sure you have. This is fun shit! But when it reaches that point that your camped out, still watching as some poor guy is sweeping away the broken glass and the yuppie-fuck is crying to his insurance agent, you've become obsessed. That's where we are with the whole Anna Nicole Smith drama. We're down to sweeping up of the glass and crying on the cell phone. Not literally, of course, it's hard to physically cry into that damn little blue-tooth ear piece he just has to have, but you get my point!

Ah shit . . .

I have firmly decided that there are few things more depressing than waking up thinking it's Friday, only to realize that, no, you're wrong. I'm so ready for this week to be over and done. Nothing real bad or stressful, it's just seemed incredibly long. Well, at least I can take consolidation in that fact that, while not Friday, it is at least Thursday. I would have been in real trouble if I woke up on a Tuesday thinking it was Friday. Come to think of it, I have done that. And yes, it really really sucks!

It's Amazing

It's amazing to me sometimes how easy it is to make someone's day a lot better, simply by taking a few minutes to help them out. It could be taking 10 or 15 minutes to help a professor set up some tech so they can deliver an old lecture in a new way. They're grateful for the help, and their students may become more involved than they might be otherwise. This is not a big commitment, either in time or effort, so it does not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to them. Or it could be loaning a friend a spare set of old speakers so they can listen to music in their office as they work. It's not like you're out anything - those speakers have been sitting on a shelf, collecting dust, for months - but to them it's the difference between a long, boring day in a little, poorly lit cube in silence, and at least being able to listen to the radio or their MP3 player for a while. Or it even could be as simple as telling people they are welcome to help themselves to a cup of coffee from the pot in your office. Never mind the fact that there's only the little pink packages of fake sugar* - the fact that it's good coffee and they can get a quick caffeine fix for free (even if there is a donations cup) is enough for them.

And do you really expect anything back for doing these things? No, not really. It is simply the fact you have made their day better. And karma has a way of coming around when you least expect it.

*Personally, I won't touch that crap. Pretty much the only thing I add to coffee is either whiskey or Irish cream, and even those I don't add very often.

---

What prompted this? I really have no idea. Yes, all the things I described above happened today, but things of this nature happen on a pretty regular basis, so I don't think that's it. This was triggered by something else, I think, but I'm not sure what.

There are probably times I seem to be overly cynical and angry. This is really only partly true. True, I do get angry at times, but it rarely lasts long, and more often than not, it's less true anger and more plain annoyance. This is how you know I'm not a pessimist. If I really didn't have any faith in humanity, I would either be far more angry or simply apathetic. As far as being cynical is concerned, in general, I am. But I'm a happy cynic. I may decry the breakdown of society, but I'll have a rueful smile on my face the whole time. As the Grateful Dead said in one of their songs, "I may be going to Hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoying the ride!"

Next Time Consider Your Demographic

I was flipping through channels just now and came across a show on new video games. They were blathering on about voting for the best game of the year. I have no problem with gamers voting on which game is their favorite of the year. I have no interest, but equally a lot people have no interest in the things like the NHL All-Star game which I vote for every season. They vote their thing, I vote mine. So it was not the fact that the hosts of this particular show were trying to galvanize the vote which caught my interest. But rather it was the way they were going about it. They were trying to make jokes about fucked up voting practices in Florida and Ohio, and how people would be able to decide the best game of the year unless the Supreme Court decided to make the choice for them. Now I picked up on these references to (relatively) recent elections and all the shit that surrounded them. But my first thought was to question how many gamers would actually get them as well. Of course, I'm not saying that all gamers are idiots or anything of that sort, but I have noticed a correlation between excessive game play and a being oblivious to the outside world. Wouldn't it make more sense to pick a reference more directly related to interests of their specific demographic? Of course, I have no idea that other reference might be as I'm not a gamer myself, but I'm sure there must be something for fitting. I mean, it's kind of like trying to convince yuppie-larva to buy the latest MP3 player by talking about classical music on wax cylinders. Yeah, on some level it makes sense, but let's face it, how many yuppie-larva are going to even know that music used to come on things called "wax cylinders"?

Randomness for February 1, 2006

Random Quote: "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." ~Douglas Adams

Question of the Moment: What are all the factors which go into the crafting of a narrative?

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Steve Earl, "Copperhead Road," The Definitive Collection, 1983-1997

Muhahahaha!!!

Well, despite my previous post, I actually am in a rather good mood this morning. This is because I have discovered that the key to my office (which I had to wait so long for at the beginning of the school year) opens more than just my office.

Maybe I should explain a bit here. There is one standard key which opens most all the graduate student offices. And opens only the graduate student offices. It does not open things like the break room or the work room. And I understand and accept this. So when I finally received the key to my current office, I assumed the same thing and didn't even think about it. Well, it turns out I was wrong. My key opens both the break room and the work room! Now, I rarely have much need to get into the work room outside the hours that it should be open (about 8:00 to 5:00). Access to the break room, however, it another matter all together.

I am a big coffee drinker during the work week. It's not the caffeine, but rather the taste and smell of it which I enjoy. (And, no, I will not switch to decaf, for reasons which would take too long to explain here.) So, when I get into the office in the morning, I need to get water for my coffee pot. Often the break room has been left open from the night before and there's no problem. But sometimes, it's actually locked when I get here (which is before the secretaries start their day). This causes a problem. I can't really use the drinking fountain on the floor as it's too small and has too little water pressure to use unless I want to take 15 or 20 minutes, by which time someone would have showed up with a key to break room anyway. So I have often been forced to wait.

This was the situation in which I found myself this morning. After finding the door locked, I threw a good little four-lettered word at the ceiling, and got ready to wait. And then I though, "I wonder if one of my new keys might work?" I decided it was worth a shot, so I tried. And the key turned. I was so dumbfounded that I actually pulled the key out and retried the door handle to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or something. Nope, still locked. I re-inserted the key and turned it again. And, as if by magic, the door opened!

After I got my coffee going, the evil little part of my brain whispered "What other doors might this key open?" So I tried the work room and it worked there as well. I'm still slightly curious if it might open some of the professors's offices, but I respect other people's privacy too much to go there, so that will remain an idle curiosity.

Now this discovery presently me with some new found power. The only question is whether I use it for good or for evil (cue the maniacal chuckle). I have mentioned the professor who's so anal about noise (here). Now there is no time constraints on my messing with him. That, obviously, goes in the "evil" column. On the good side, should there be an early meeting which needs to get into a room, or if someone has forgotten their keys that day, I can get into the work room and get them the spare. Will I be faced with these sorts of things every often? No. Really, the big deal, as far as I'm concerned, is simply being able to get water for my coffee whenever I want.

"What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate"*

This falls into the category of stupid drivers in Phoenix (or the Phoenix area as the case may be). I have ranted on this before, but this particular crime of stupidity came up last night. Admittedly, this was at about 9:00 PM, after I had been on campus for 13 and a half hours, so maybe I'm just being "over-reacting-bad-karma-boy" (to use the words of Henry Rollins), but I really don't think so . . .

There are some people around here who seem completely incapable of reading road signs. As I have mentioned before, there is an insane amount of road work going on around here. In this particular case, I was riding the bus back to my truck so I could go home. The route this bus takes means that we have to go through a section of construction which narrows both directions down to one lane right at an intersection. There are a number of very clearly posted signs which say "no left turn" - you know, these ones:
They have these signs because if you try to make a left turn in a construction zone along a particularly busy street, you are going to hold up traffic rather severely. And this results in many many pissed off people behind you. Well, this happened last night, and I have seen it happen many times at this particular intersection over the last week or so. The bus driver and other drivers who were forced to wait on this idiot all began to lay on their horns. To no avail. The idiot continued to wait until they could make their turn. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this meant waiting until the light had changed. To make his infraction even more annoying, he had been the first one in line when light turned green initially - so the rest of us had to sit through the whole cycle twice.

And this not the only place or time I've witnessed this sort of behavior. It is unbelievable common around here.

I find myself forced to consider this question: "Are these people really that stupid, or are they simply so self-centered that they don't care?" In the end I'm forced to conclude that whichever is the answer, it worries and disturbs me and I really don't like it.

*And if you don't know this quote, go watch Cool Hand Luke, you uncultured shmuck!

Randomness for January 24, 2007

(Boy, been a while since I did one of these!)

Random Quote: "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." ~George Barnard Shaw

Question of the Moment: When did it become a bad thing to ask questions?

Current Mood: Tired but relaxed
Current Music: Grateful Dead, "Black Muddy River," Touch of Grey