Remembering in an instant how a certain friend fell and her shoes stayed clipped, I twisted my legs as the pavement approached to release my shoes. It almost seemed over before it had begun. Next thing I knew I jumped to my feet and pulled my bike onto the curb. My knees were scraped. That was all. I was pretty certain. I exchanged information with the driver and got back on my merry way to Silver Spring with blood dripping down my shin.

My wound, a couple of days later. I shaved around it so that I didn't rip out my leg hair when I changed bandages.

Looking back, I’m pretty certain that the driver thought I was moving much slower than I actually was. She likely thought she could blast past me and turn before I got there. Instead, she just turned directly into me.

Lesson for drivers: cyclists are likely moving much faster than you think, not pedestrian speed. Typically they are moving 18 to 25 miles per hour. Occasionally faster.

Lesson for cyclists: drivers don’t realize how fast you’re moving.

“Nice badunkadunk!”

I’m not quite certain how these teenaged girls could have ascertained this information having only seeing me from the anterior.

Months ago, the Subway got robbed. At 11 on a Sunday morning.  There are three churches directly across the street, so I’m sure there were plenty of people around. Then, a few weeks later, the Subway was robbed again.  A Sunday morning again if I remember correctly.Recently the Subway installed what I can only assume is bullet-proof glass. However, the glass only protects the area behind the food. It stops several feet from the cash register. If the bullet proof glass is meant to protect the employees, it is probably actually doing the opposite. If an armed robber comes in, and the employees run behind the glassed-in area to hide, it is likely going to piss off the robber. If he is prone to violence, a single pane of bullet-proof glass is not going to stop him.  Using the simple laws of physics, all he has to do is reach his gun around the side of the glass near the register.

Besides the stupid idea that it might stop a robbery, the glass also makes it nearly impossible for the employees to understand the customers’ orders. Customers have to yell, and the more customers there are, the more yelling there is.  It doesn’t help that most of the employees seem to have a difficult time with English to begin with.

“What can I get for you?”

“Just a minute, I’m thinking.”

“Did you say chicken teriyaki?”

“No, I said just a minute, I’m thinking“

“Chicken teriyaki?”

“No, I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m still trying to decide what I want.” A moment later, “OK, I’ll have a footlong chicken teriyaki on honey oat.”

“No, we have no more honey oat.”

“Ummm… OK, I’ll have it on whole wheat.

“She starts to put American cheese on, without asking.

“No, no American cheese. I want Provolone.”

“No cheese?”

“Yes, cheese. Provolone cheese. Take off the American cheese.”

“Do you want it toasted?”

“No.”

“Toasted?”

“Not toasted.”

“Toasted?”

“No, I do not want my sandwich toasted.”

“Okay, what do you want on it?”

“Lettuce.”

She puts lettuce on it.

“Tomato.” I point to the sliced tomatoes. She reaches for the second bin of lettuce.

“Lettuce?”

“Tomato. Olives. Green peppers.”

“Pepperoni?”

“No, I said Green peppers. Red pepper relish.”

“Red pepper relish? I don’t know what that is.”

I point to the red pepper relish. “Oh, you mean red pepper sauce!”

Uuuuaaaaggghh!!!

That is all trash, right up to the ceiling. Papers, shopping bags, McDonalds bags… And yes, it’s driving down Colesville Road. But hey, at least they support our troops.

I think the only person to beat this is Ann Biglan, who earlier this year had an accident after trash spilled from her passenger seat into the driver’s area, blocking the brake pedal. And if that’s not enough, take a look at what happened to her home.

1. If you are classy enough to buy 7 For All Mankind jeans, please make sure you didn’t spend all your class, leaving you with a class deficit causing you to convert your 7s into cut-offs. Really, I did see this. And it was less glamorous than it sounds.
2. The right kind of scar on the right kind of person has the potential to be sexy.  However, if you have a horrible disfiguring scar that has protrusions and obvious skin grafting, please have the decency to not wear a half-unbuttoned shirt.

Fun Family Game: Hitler or Falwell – Read a quote, guess who said it. Definitely read the first comment after the quiz.

Falwell’s Stupidest Quotes, Direct From Hell – No need to explain.

Jerry Falwell Talks About His First Time – In 1983 Hustler Magazine published an advertisement which was a parody interview.  Falwell sued Hustler for libel, but this case set a precedent in the Supreme Court for free speech rights and parody.

Since that is a temporary splash screen, I’ll copy the text:

WBC will preach at the memorial service of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like “God loves everyone”.

There is little doubt that Falwell split Hell wide open the instant he died. The evidence is compelling, overwhelming, and irrefragable. To wit:

1. Falwell was a true Calvinistic Baptist when he was a young preacher in Springfield, Missouri, and sold his soul to Free-Willism (Arminianism) for lucre.
2. Falwell bitterly and viciously attacked WBC because of WBC’s faithful Bible preaching — therebycommitting the unpardonable sin — otherwise known as the sin against the Holy Ghost.
3. Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc. All for lucre — making him guilty of their sins.

[youtube WGOTUG16REE Jerry Falwell]

[youtube 4xv05FK69KU Anne Coulter]

[youtube z0Z4Ep7VxWU Fred Phelps]

“What? I thought it was,” as she took a step back to look at the sign. “Oh.”

The fact is that massacres have occurred in public places for a very long time; massacres are not a new phenomenon (the Bath School Disaster of 1927 was the deadliest school massacre in American history). Mankind’s history is full of genocide. People in today’s democracies and republics have more individual rights than our ancestors could have imagined 300 years ago. The violent crime rate in the US has dropped by more than one half since the early 1990′s. Property crimes (burglary, automobile theft, etc.) have dropped by more than two thirds since the mid 1970′s.

Something must be going right.

When reports start coming out about the history of the VA Tech shooter, it is likely that people will discuss that he watched horror movies, or that he listened to Marilyn Manson, or that he played Grand Theft Auto. But I have a very difficult time believing that any of those things can cause something like that to happen. Nearly every person I know (and the people I know are pretty good people) does at least two of those three things, and none of them have murdered before. My generation and the one following me watch violent movies and play violent video games, but we are quite possibly the most docile generation yet. Just look at our asses.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, many people seemed to think that it was a sign of the end of the world, as it caused what is likely, apart from the tsunami in 2004, the most widespread devastation that most people have ever seen. Seen. That’s the problem. People have only witnessed the time period of their own lifetime, which maxes out around 100 years or so. On average, any given person’s experience is much less time than that. Also, Television has only been in common use since the 1950s. CNN and other 24 hour news stations have only existed since 1980. Cable television and satellite started coming into most homes in the late eighties. In short, this “see everything” phenomenon is something that is very very new. Our frame of reference is really only the past twenty years.

Yes, Katrina was a terrible disaster, although with a death toll of under 2,000 people, it barely made the list of the 50 most deadly cyclones of all time, and was certainly not the most deadly hurricane on American soil. And that’s just cyclones, other natural disasters dwarf Katrina to a historically insignificant event.

Considering our modern concept of civil rights, modern medicine, sanitation, low crime rates, scientific and cultural enlightenment, etc. I don’t think I would rather have lived in any other period in Earth’s history.

I vote you off the road, Mr. Goes-40-In-A-55.

Reminds me of a clip from the Family Guy movie, set in the future:

While we’re on the topic of this particular chemically imbalanced celebrity, a classic piece of YouTube footage for your eager consumption:

I think I came to this conclusion so late in the game because I don’t watch American Idol. It’s not that I have anything against a television show that turns out talented but untrained cookie-cutter mega stars, it’s just that I only have time for a few select television shows.

I’m sure many of you have seen Paula’s drunken news interviews. In case you haven’t, here they are. Her publicist blames ‘technical difficulties’. Yes, I suppose getting sloshed is a technical difficulty: it makes everything technically difficult. Even if you think you’ve seen these before, at least take a look at the first one again. Most of the videos circulating the internet don’t include the first part.

I use that phrase perhaps once or twice a day. I don’t know if they actually do have a do-not-call list, but it always gets them off the phone in a hurry. This time however, my demand was returned with a very short “Why you gotta be like that? I’m just trying to save you money.” He continued with his sales pitch. I interrupted him agin. “No. Don’t call back again!” to which he responded, “You know what I’m going to do for you? I’m going to put you on everyone’s call list! Hahaha!” Click.

Hmmm… I didn’t want to buy toner from him before, but since he puts it that way…

I wish I had caught the company name, but I didn’t. I tried *69, but I don’t think I got the right line.