Petty Tyrants With Power

Heaven protect us from petty tyrants with power. I can't think of a worse combination.

Today it took me half an hour to drive 2 miles to work. The shortest, most direct route is down Harrison to Grand River, then to Bogue to the ramp that serves the College of Law and the Broad College of Business, where I'm temping (and direct route pretty much does not equal MSU, where even the lab rats get confused).

Now, in Michigan we have two seasons - Winter and Under Construction. There's not a foot of snow yet, so it must be Under Construction. I understand that, and that adustments must be made and delays tolerated. However... why in the name of all that's unholy would they block off one of the two eastbound lanes of Grand River in East Lansing when that's one of only three ways to get into campus? I could understand it if they were actually working, but the blockage consisted of a truck with an arrow indicating the lane was closed, six blocks of orange cones sequestering the right lane, culminating in another truck and ten guys standing around. Just standing in their yellow vests and hard hats, drinking their coffee and smirking at the rush hour traffic jammed into the sole lane, creeping along.

I don't mind if they're actually working, but dang - they could have waited till after 8 am if they were just going to stand around and look at it! The cynic in me is convinced that they did it just because they could...

For the same reason that 15-minute train delays (two sets of tracks bisect campus, and you can't get anywhere north to south without crossing them) are inevitably at morning and evening rush hours. Ghaaaaa!

I feel better now.

I want my 33 points back!

I'm not going to give a lot of weight to an online IQ test, but I'll admit I'm not unhappy with the result.


With regards to the title... When I was a wee sprout in Catholic school, they didn't know about dyslexia. Or, at least, they didn't take into account the possibility of a learning disability. I had glasses, but I was having difficulty processing letters into words, especially when I was writing. The nuns decided that I must lazy or "slow". My parents, horrified, took me off to be IQ tested.

Well, according to the test, my IQ was north of 170. Of course, I had a bored older brother who'd been teaching me reading and arithmetic well ahead of my grade level, so I'm inclined to think that perhaps I was just a bit precocious. (Of course, he also taught me my first phrase in French, and nearly caused the death of an elderly nun, but that's another tale.¹) I'm grateful that my mother didn't skip me any grades. I was a social disaster till well through college - it would have been even worse if I'd been significantly younger than my classmates.

In any event, the nuns concluded that I must be lazy (and stubborn) and my strongest recollection of those years is the sharp sting of a ruler on the back of my hands. (The flat, at least, but I flinch to this day when I see an upraised ruler.) I learned to sort out words from letters (and ascenders from descenders, which still give me trouble when I'm tired). I learned to triple check everything and only move on when all three checks agreed. I'm a prodigious reader, so somewhere I overcame my reading difficulties, though I still have a lot of trouble writing cursive, substituting p's for d's for g's for b's and so on. I cope.

But I do miss those IQ points. MENSA would never have me now, with my paltry under-140 IQ. I want my points back²!

¹ With a perfectly straight face, my big brother told me to tell my French teacher (a very strict, elderly nun) that I knew a phrase in French. "Voulez-vouz coucher avec moi?" While she didn't actually keel over with a heart attack, she got very red, then very white, and my knuckles ache in remembrance. And I got extra homework. Even after I explained that I was only repeating what my brother had said. She said that she hoped it would remind me to never use words unless I knew their meaning. Upon reflection, she was probably right. That lesson has kept me from making a fool of myself a time or two.
² Yes, I know that IQ generally lowers with age, but then I don't have an opening line, do I?

Snakes on a ... well... you know...

As the "Snakes on a Plane" internet phenomenon embraces the actual release of the movie, the press is having fun with it. Can a movie with this much internet hype be any good? I have no idea, as I haven't seen it yet, but hope to before the week is out. I could have gone to an early showing Thursday evening, but decided to be a grownup and not go to a movie that would get me home after midnight. It has Samuel Jackson. And snakes. On a Plane. What's not to love? (CNN loved it.)

This article from Salon (you may have to watch an ad to read it) has an intriguing interview with an actual anaconda expert (who has, in fact, transported snakes on a plane). I'm afraid of many things (dogs, spiders, bees...) but not snakes, so I found it fascinating.

My favorite bit (linked but not shown because it contains the infamous mother line not suitable for work and children) is the Harry Potter crossover icon: Harry Potter and Snakes on a Plane!

EDIT: I got out to see this on Saturday, and it was fun. Not a great movie, by any means, but a solid homage to the disaster movies of the seventies. It was funny when it meant to be, and they covered at least some details (like different venoms having different effects) that I hadn't expected. It begs to be MST3K'd, though. The matinee audience was sparse, and for once I didn't mind people commenting on the film - I was too. It was all in good fun.

I gather that SoaP hasn't made the kind of money they were hoping, despite the massive internet buzz. I'm put in mind of another movie with a lot of fan/internet support (Serenity) that didn't do nearly as well as we all thought it would. I wonder if there's something to be learned from this, perhaps that internet buzz != ticket sales. I have no idea why, though.

Employment Update

No news is... well... no news.

I've been working as a temp since early July (back with MSU Office Services after a 7 month drought). I figure I have another week, maybe two before I work myself out of a job again. Data entry is incredibly boring, but it's money, and I was fresh out of that. I listen to podcasts all day long while updating records - it could be so much worse. Telemarketing, for example.

I get interviews periodically, even second interviews. But not the job. I don't know why, and even if I did, I have reservations about trying to change my presentation. I mean... is it doing anyone a service to pretend to be something I'm not? They're only going to find out eventually, after all, and being fired is worse to me than not being hired.

I have been working on volunteering less information, though. It still feels dishonest, but on the other hand, do they really need to know everything? Especially the things they don't ask?

One friend has suggested that I apply using my birth name instead of my nickname, because I am all over the Internet, most of it related to my roleplaying hobby. She thinks that may be a reason I'm not getting hired.

What I want to know (rhetorically) is... doesn't anyone hire imperfect people any more? I mean, ye gods and little fishies, are there so many perfect people on the job market that those of us who are old, or fat, or not quite normal can't get a job?

There is no highway to Hell...

It's all two-lane roads.

Since I wasn't otherwise employed (or employed at all at that point) my friend Lisa L and I decided to visit Hell, Michigan for their Hell Day Party on June 6, 2006. Big, clear pictures are from her camera. The smaller, poorer quality pictures are from my cell phone.

We almost drove on through - the place was packed! Who knew that so many people would be interested in spending the day (or even part of it) in a tiny, hard-to-reach town with a population of 74 souls? Fortunately my parking karma was in, and we found a parking space about half a block from the "center" of town (two shops and a restaurant/bar).

I have never seen so many bikers in one place at one time. They were, for the most part, wonderfully courteous and well-behaved. In fact, the entire crowd, whose activity consisted mostly of standing in the hot sun developing sunburns (burning in Hell), was friendly and polite. So... I guess people waiting in Hell are nice. It makes me wonder what kind of folks I'd find waiting in Heaven...

We waited in line for about two hours to buy some Devil Duckies, a couple of items for use as presents and some of the best tasting ice cream I've ever had. Actually, I'm not sure it was all that great, but after two hours in the sun with no water, it was fabulous. (I read later that they were giving out water, but we missed that somehow.) We also got certificates that we had been in Hell on 6/6/06 (which I'll put here if I ever get around to scanning it). They had run out of the commemorative t-shirts in black, but I haven't given up hope that they'll make more. They had absolutely no idea this would be so huge. According to the Detroit News, over 10,000 people attended throughout the day. The owner of Screams (whose idea this was) was fined for not obtaining a permit for gatherings of over 500 people. He expressed insincere regret that they'd all made so much money.

News Links

• Hot Time Had in Hell (Toledo Blade)
• Hamlet sells ice cream, t-shirts like the devil (Ann Arbor News)
• 6-6-06 People Party in Hell (Tampa Bay 10 - video)
• 666 (Making Light)

Creepy Clyde, The Country Vampire provided musical entertainment (www.creepyclyde.com - but be warned, this crashes both Firefox and IE every time I open it). He had a DVD (House on Haunted Hill, with horror-host additions) and a CD (Spooky Town, containing such priceless gems as "The Carp That Ate Detroit", "A Monster Lives Under My Bed" and "The Old Man From Kalamazoo". It was $10 for the pair, so I bought them. I've listened to and enjoyed the CD, but haven't gotten around to the movie yet. He was so happy to sell a DVD/CD pair that he hugged me and said "Bless You!".

Of course, a "Devil's Day" event could never be complete without the presence of those who live to tell the rest of us that we're damned. I have to admire their dedication. It was hot, and no one was listening to them. Most people just ignored their cries of "You may think this is funny now, but it won't be when you're really burning in Hell!". A few (very few) heckled them, and a few others (notably the nice woman in line ahead of me) engaged with them, giving them a chance to have their say. At one point a biker on a bright red bike (rear fender cut out to look like a devil's tail) kicked up a huge cloud of rubber smoke and dirt, but other than that it was a pretty uneventful protest.

My favorite part of the protest, though, was when the Michigan Athiests showed up. This, I think, is what makes America great. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly - freedom to be as wrong-headed as you want, as long as you're not hurting anyone. I used the Motivator motivational poster generator to make a poster commemmorating it.



All in all I had a Hell of a good time. Lisa and I plan to back and have dinner at the Dam Site Inn, as we hear the food is devilishly good.