measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- weird somewhat slacking workday Heh... I'm getting attacked by porn spam on my Diary-X guestbook. Oh wait, now it's gone. Two messages to some "teen porn" site. And the interesting thing was, when I went to delete it manually from the guestbook, there was no option for it. Now only my message commenting about said porn is still there. Perhaps it was already deleted by the guestbook server. How nice of the guys. I just dropped them an email to ask how I should go about it. I was hoping I wouldn't get a hotmail-esque "just start over" type of email. Cool. Anyway, it's day six of the "we've had measurable snowfall today" around here. While I'm sure Tan is still buried with the dumping they got last weekend, we probably have around 3-4 inches in Randolph. There is a little less than a foot here around work. Mother Nature is definitely making up for not only last year's mild winter, but the two preceeding winters with Her behavior this year. Thankfully, the snow this week has been what we referred to at home as "sugar snow." Meaning it's pretty dry stuff, albeit not quite as dry as it is in the Rockies. You can still make a snowball out of this stuff around here. But getting the car cleaned off in the morning isn't too bad-- it's not forming ice on the windshield. I just have to use the brush and brush it all off. I can deal with that. It's the scraping that I hate. I've heard rumors that the lows on my birthday are down in the single digits this weekend, and that we're supposed to get little snow squalls at least every day for the next few days. They must have heard that the weather forecasters were bored last year or something. Ah well, it's winter. It's supposed to be snowy. And I'd rather it snow a little everyday and hide that ugly brown snow to keep it looking relatively pretty than have it turn into disgusting grey-brown slush. ~~~~~~~~ I've noticed an interesting thing on the roadways this week as I drive in the morning to work-- people in Massachusetts have no clue on how to merge in traffic. And it's not the people who are physically merging onto the road. It's the jerks who are already ON the road who have this desire to block others from also getting into a lane. LGM mentioned this a while back, and how it was a difference between New York and Massachusetts drivers. I'll beg to differ with him on that, having driven around Manhattan on the interstates and expressways. Upstate New Yorkers know how to merge. The tri-state area is questionable. Massachusetts drivers just suck. It's all because they don't want to lose that one precious car-placement spot in the line of cars. Because heaven forbid they either scoot over a lane to just make it easier for all involved, or slow down a bit to allow someone in. Instead, they keep at a pace and car spacing placement that just prevents anyone from scooting their car into the lane at all. The result is that traffic gets completely gummed up as cars are trying to shove themselves into the lane, and asshole aggressive drivers just make things worse by shoving themselves right into the thick of things, and then getting all pissy that it doesn't instantly move to the side so they can pass. *sigh* This is the joy of my commute in the morning, in particular, at the junction of Route 24 and I-93 south (which becomes I-95 north about 4 miles after I get on... it's all quite mindboggling until you actually see the map). Route 24 north ends at I-93. It's a three-lane highway that literally splits in half to continue either north or south on 93. With the way the split is designed, rather than have the route 24 cars enter I-93 on the right, as with most normal highway entrances, it enters the interstate on the left lane. But instead of temporarily dropping a lane at the exit ramp onto 24 about a half-mile prior to this onramp, the left lane on I-93 continues, and the more aggressive drivers take advantage of the less crowded lane to speed for about a half-mile. Before, of course, they run into a lane and a half's worth of Route 24 traffic trying to merge, which does include large 18-wheelers who need to immediately move into the center lane, since large trucks are not allowed in the lefthand lane on the highway. The aggressive drivers don't want to let THEM in, either. And when a large truck gets gummed up, just forget it. Generally you'd think that someone will eventually realize that even a large SUV isn't going to win against a big old Mack. But for some stupid reason, these drivers try to block off these big trucks. And for what exactly?!? One precious ten-foot long spot on the highway, that was instantly removed by these jerks anyway?!? Ugh. I hate them. I really do. But I realize that unfortunately, it's a behavior that continues out of necessity for some people. There are just enough aggressive drivers to make it necessary to take a survivalist attitude on the highways. And as much as I resist it and hope that there will be some polite souls out there, they're rather few and far between on the Massachusetts roads. Driving here is ruthless. So much so that I noticed how amazingly different it was out west, and how my newly-learned (and as Erich can attest, nowhere near the normal aggressive level) Masshole skills were going to cause problems out in Montana with reckless driving risks. We won't even mention the fact that I'm currently driving the Jeep without the updated insurance policy card, will we? It expired on January 1st. My mom called me to remind me yesterday, and faxed over a temp copy of it until I get the real one with birthday gifts sometime late in the week. Eesh. I'm so screwed. At least I can unwind and let the shitty traffic go by while I enjoy dinner with Roberto and Ellen from work tonight, and hopefully have a safer, less stressful commute home. Those dijon-coated scallops at Skipjacks are calling to me... 2:41 p.m. - 08 January 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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