So during the Christmas/Saturnalia/Solstice holiday the twin nieces were asking me what the AD meant as in 2015 AD. I explained it stood for Anno Domini or roughly translated as “Year of our lord”. And how modern reference is CE and BCE for Common Era and Before Common Era.
Month: December 2014
The worst drivers out there
Are usually behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz. I’ve now witnessed more than a few incidents in which owners of those cars have done some bone headed, assholis things. And geography doesn’t seem to have any effect. Mercedes drivers are assholes wherever you might go.
An example happened in the Boston area. The Mercedes is in the right lane, we’re in the left lane to make a left turn. Mercedes then proceeds to fake right, go left, cutting us off.
Then driving home through Connecticut another Mercedes owner recently just came out in front of me at speed and jacked on the brakes for no reason other than the Mercedes owner was an asshole.
It’s so bad I can almost read the mind of Mercedes owners now. I told the SO that when I get him the SLK if he starts behaving like that I’m going to have to take it way. I got the sincere promise that it won’t down like that.
Now on to my other worst driver nomination. It is women driving sport utility vehicles. Either they’re acting as speed cop doing 45MPH in the left lane of a highway with posted 70MPH speed limits, or they’re weaving in and out jockeying to speed. It’s kind of funny. Whenever I see that behavior I’m always “I wonder if the driver is female?” and getting near and observing that it’s true – well.
Cars and Bluetooth
So I’ve driven cars by lots of manufacturers from all over the world.
So here’s a list of manufacturers that tend to include Bluetooth connectivity:
Ford: Yes – Sync connects to my Android phone
Mazda: Yes – no issues connecting
Toyota: All the vehicles I’v driven have full bluetooth
Honda: I’ve driven one Honda vehicle and no bluetooth.
Dodge: The Avenger has NO bluetooth
GM: No bluetooth
Volkswagen: No bluetooth
BMW: No bluetooth
Wherein the bigots make the biggest sin
It finally struck me today. I’m not religious but the first quarter or so of my life I was educated in the church, went to masses etc. but was just going through the motions because I’d learned much earlier that all of religion – right down to the foundation was based on fiction and nothing more.
But a lot of the knowledge of Catholicism stuck with me. Today is a perfect example. I finally after years of listening to bigots trying to deny me my rights, etc. in hearings and youtube and TV it’s finally occurred to me:
The bigots – be they the racists, homophobe, misogynists that all proclaim their belief in the Christian God, they’re also guilty of a grave sin. They violate one of the Ten Commandments – these are the biggies in the Old Testament. In essence, they constantly bear false witness against their neighbors. Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, and all the idiots of the AFA and the like – they violate this one regularly.
So if there were in fact a hell which I can assure you there isn’t, but if there were then the company we’d keep would be all the bigots. Isn’t that a lovely thought.
But it comes down to this – I can make these logical connections because I had the experience. Christians on the other hand are lead by the nose by charlatans trying to make a dollar. And those charlatans know that they can whip the followers into a frenzy or at least they used to be able to do so, over gay rights, women’s rights, equal rights, and so on.
In essence priests, pastors and their assorted ilk are all in it for their own greater good. All based on bearing false witness.
Coming soon: Inanities One Hears on Public Transport
So I’ve noticed on trains, subways, buses and walking I hear all sorts of conversations. Some of them are really informative, some of them people should be embarrassed to talk about in public.
I’ll give a teaser:
The MBTA Commuter from Boston to South Station and ultimately Wickford Junction. A woman is talking about her son, how she hopes her son get his father’s build and his mother’s brains. So my first thought was “Oh, mama likes em’ big and dumb!”
The idiocy of car pricing
So I’ve said before I’d love to find a BMW X3 for the cheap but they seem to be hard to come by so I expanded my horizon a bit.
I’m looking at either a Toyota RAV4 or a Honda CRV. But I noticed something – I searched on Craigslist and an curious thing happened.
An new Toyota RAV4 will run you about $21K. But a 2006 RAV4 has an ask of close to $10K, for a car that’s 8 years old. Insane.
Why do I say it’s insane – a Honda CRV is about $5K to $6K for a 2006. So why the $5K premium for a Toyota?
The Holiday Shopping is done!
So for the past 3 to 5 years I’ve been using Amazon to do holiday shopping. I mean I abhor malls – hate going near them especially around the holiday season.
And I must say I exercised much restraint in the purchasing this year, exactly $506 spread among four people. On average $126.50 per person. But just one gift for one person was $366 so $506 minus $366 equals $140 which divided by the remaining three people comes out to $46.67 per person.
The MIL got a new TV to replace the old cathode ray tv that had a bad red electron gun so everything had a green tinge. That was the big ticket purchase.
Then the nephew got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Michelangelo Elf and Splinter. Plus a new winter coat and we had previously purchased a TMNT turtle backpack for him too.
The twin nieces got a Franklin Webster’s Spelling Corrector.
And the total time to spend all that money – less than 20 minutes. Most of that was spent looking for the things we wanted to get. All from the comfort of my easy chair aka recliner. Life doesn’t get any better.
At last – Christians in Ohio are shown the door at a gay owned bakery
This is priceless. Why? Because the so called Christian couple is saying exactly what we say when Christians discriminate against we LGBT people because of their so called ‘sincerely held’ religious beliefs.
I’ve awaited this happening. I’d always said if I owned a business I’d discriminate against anyone who proclaimed their beliefs. Apparently I’m not the only one. That’s good to know.
But the best part of the article:
“What did we ever do to them?” asked Johnson. “We feel like we’re being persecuted. This is discrimination, pure and simple, and I don’t think they should be allowed to refuse service based on their personal beliefs.”
Yeah – Christians are saying exactly what we say. Just change a couple of terms – yet the Christians don’t see the irony of that.
Ruminations on Driving Part VI
Today just before lunch time I found myself on I-95 Northbound coming out of the exit 7 area of Coventry, RI and heading toward Bald HIll Road in Warwick, RI.
To get there you have to be in the extreme left lane because the ramp for I-295 North is on the left hand side.
Now the left speed in my opinion is for ludicrous speed – minimum 75MPH and higher. So I’m clipping along at about 80MPH when I see brake lights ahead of me. I slam on mine. We went from 80MPH down to 40MPH in the space of a few seconds.
The reason – some asshole decided to jack up on the brakes of their card and fuck everything up.
A pox upon that person who decided it’d be fun to drop the speed in half. But to add insult to injury then they decided to speed up again.
We got to our destination and did what we had to do. The next episode happened when we were close to home.
To come home I take I-95 North again and then merge onto RI Route 10. RI-10 is a big bypass road that loops around I-95 and from there I take the Olneyville/Westminster St. exit, go east on Westminster St. to go north on Barton St. and then it’s a right off Barton onto Broadway and I’m almost home.
But the next major intersection up is Tobey St. There’s a traffic light there. I have the green light but some ass in a blue SUV decides to run the light. And of course said asshole just blocks the eastbound side of Broadway because now traffic is flowing. I lay on the horn, he throws the finger. I’m like “Hey asshole – you ran the light, not me. ”
Driving isn’t fun anymore.
Spewing Truth in the face of Lies 