Driving behind weirdos

Seen on driving over the Key Bridge today

This license plate:










And this bumper sticker:

On this car:

I've got some ideas about protecting life. Doesn't involve advocating forced pregnancies from behind the wheel of a blind-spot machine that could wipe out my Honda Civic in one foul cloud of 13 MPG exhaust fumes.

Do you want to know where I was?

I don't know why this is funny.

I set up this blog in October 2009.
I took a hiatus in January 2010 to teach high school history for one semester.
In May, I stopped teaching and took the last class in my masters program.
From May to July, during class, I had to keep a separate blog for my class work.

That blog is here: http://pippateacheshistory.blogspot.com/

You will probably find it very boring, as it references very specific class readings and discussions that are likely to just be confusing to anyone who wasn't there. But, I feel like I should justify my absence. There it is.

Goddamn it, Karen!

This actually is Karen. See here!

This is Karen. Karen is my GPS. I always talk to her as if she were a real person. I often talk *about* her as if she were a real person.

I've read the "avoid ghetto" joke, but what I really wish was that Karen had a "be sensible" option.

If I've programmed Karen to take me where I want to go fastest, she makes me drive on the mo-foing beltway just to get from my house to the shops. If I program her to take me there using the shortest distance, it will invariably involve driving down alleys behind disused factories that I'm not entirely sure actually are roads.

Obviously, I don't want to drive 5 extra miles on the scariest highway in America to save one minute on my drive. Obviously, I don't want to twist and turn down tiny laneways just to drive 10 metres less in distance. Goddamn it, Karen. Be sensible! Use some normal streets for once.

Clap your hands if you believe in Google

Have I mentioned recently that Google is fucking amazing? Little fragments of miscellanea that have been in my mind for years can be traced to their source in seconds, with only the crudest of prompts. I saw a performance of this monologue from the play 'Dentity Crisis by Christopher Durang probably in 1994. While I didn't know that name of the play, the performer, or the playwright, in 1997 I tried to locate the piece so I could use it for my monologue drama performance in the HSC. I couldn't find it and dropped drama as an HSC subject. It's been vaguely swirling in my head since then, and tonight resurfaced while I was at the computer. I swear I Googled only the words monologue clap hands and there it was (fourth hit).

In 2006 there was an episode of Six Feet Under that featured some Buddhist chanting that I really wanted to hear again. I must have spent 20 hours that year Googling and checking the show's credits and emailing the Buddhist temple the producers thanked in those credits, to no end. A couple of weeks again I typed Six Feet Under Buddhist chanting into Google and there it was on YouTube, embedded in the results. In the comments under the clip, I found the source material was Ritual Chanting by Nine Monks Chanting, which I subsequently bought off Amazon and had delivered to my door.

This world is awesome (for me and other privileged peeps).