There are no bad owners, only bad dogs

2004-10-18

Random crap generator

Half an hour and 50 bucks. That�s the cost of putting gas in the company car this morning. I accidentally drove past the gas station driveway, so I assumed that I could just travel up to the next roundabout and turn around, since it appears that it is a legal requirement that there be at least one roundabout per mile of British road. Well, damn. I happened to find the one stretch of road in all of southern England that stretches on and on without a roundabout.

A U-turn was out of the question as there was bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles in both directions. Finally, I came to an intersection with a traffic light, turned into a street, turned around, got back into the bumper-to-bumper traffic, and crept along back to the gas station.

Gas prices are cleverly disguised here by posting them in pence per liter. Tricky bastards. So basically you buy gas a quart at a time, and it�s somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.62 per quart. Yeah, you read that right. Making a gallon of gas about $6.50. Making filling the tank extremely painful. Making getting lost and driving the wrong way on the highway for 40 minutes very stupid and very expensive.

I spent the weekend with my monkey � yay! His stepmother is insane � boo! He stays in his room most of the time in order to try to stay out of trouble and not irritate her (which he does just by breathing), and guess what? She�s irritated that he stays in his room! She doesn�t like that he doesn�t talk to her! When he talks to her, he gets in trouble! What�s wrong with these people? They are so weird. They sent me a very snotty e-mail on Friday that they apparently collaborated on to get the rudeness just right. This is in reaction to my asking them what their plans were for Christmas vacation so I can plan my time off around the monkey. Their response to my query: Why don�t I just go off and go to Cancun for Christmas if I wasn�t going to spend time with the monkey. ?!? Morons.

So we just hung out, cooked, watched movies, slept late. Things normal people (i.e., not his father and stepmother) do on the weekends. The monkey�s been talking for months about this movie (said it was his favourite movie, turns out he had never seen the whole thing�) called Donnie Darko. We found it in the sale bin at the Virgin Megastore, and I�m telling ya, I don�t know why I hadn�t heard about this movie before. It�s very weird and odd and strange and thought-provoking and interesting. I recommend it. Only if you can tolerate loose ends, though.

I hate it when I have a good diaryland idea then it disappears by the time I get to a computer to write it down. That happens to me about 8 times a day, and sometimes the memory of the good idea never comes back, which is why you're reading this crap right now.

I have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of dairylanders: Those who write as therapy, and those who write because they just like to blather on and on and don't care if people listen. I'm the second kind. The first kind are the people who go through an emotional crisis in blog-land, then disappear for days, weeks, months. They don't need US anymore! They've got Jesus or Dianetics or some crap like that. And all of the people who acted as surrogate therapists and listened to them have a crisis, well, we're just sycophants and screw us for wondering what's up. Not me. I admit that I DO check my stats a little too often, and then it becomes a need and that's a responsibility. But really, I just like to chat. OK. Not quite true. I like to bitch. But I do it in a chatty tone. And since British people as a whole tend to be a bit - ahem - cold in comparison with Americans, I don't get to chat much over here. So I do it here.

I am constantly irritated by the phrase "I thought to myself..." Who the fuck else are you going to think to? I personally have never figured out how to send my thoughts telepathically, and neither has anyone I've ever met. So when you think, it really has to be to yourself, dumbass.

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