Author: mjmadaio

You know what really grinds my gears? When people rewrite “right of way” rules, just to be nice. The other day I was backing out of my driveway, which is semi-difficult, when I saw another car coming down the side of the road I was jutting out into. Seeing that I had only come a few feet into the road, I simply moved forwards so the oncoming car could pass. So, this idiot, instead of going, just stops in the middle of the street. Keep in mind that, at this point, I’ve already moved fully back into my driveway. Now this guy is waiting for me to pull out again. Well, I refused to do it. I waited a few seconds, and when he still hadn’t moved, I honked until he did. It is not that I don’t appreciate a fellow man trying to help me out — I am a strong believer in the courtesy wave — but in this case there was simply no need for him to stop. I was already back in my driveway! If I was in the street and he waved me on, that I can see and would appreciate. But this was just flat out excessive.

Another example: I’m walking down the street near my house the other day right where this pedestrian path crosses the street. this street has a double yellow line but really doesn’t get all that much traffic, just a car or two at a time. so these two people walk up to the crosswalk and, as their mother taught them, look both ways to cross the street. They stop when they see a car coming on one direction (the only visible car on this street). The person driving this car proceeds to step on their brakes excessively, stopping abruptly right in front of the crosswalk and waves the walkers across. Looking quite confused, the people cross the street.

Now, as Mr. Wisdom pointed out to me, technically the pedestrian does have the right of way, as stated by PA law § 3542, “When traffic-control signals are not in place or not in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk.” However, as the law goes on to say, when a vehicle is “so close as to constitute a hazard”, the onus is on the pedestrian to stay out of the way. Obviously this is a judgement call, but to this observer, if the car has to forcibly put on the brakes, they are so close as to constitute a hazard.

The amazing thing to me about this situation is that if the car had simply driven through, it probably would have taken less time for the people to cross the street. Not only did they have to wait for the car to come to a complete stop, they had to figure out why this lunatic jerked to a stop right in front of them. In addition, if I was the pedestrian in this situation, it would annoy me to have to cross right in front of the car. Is one expected to hustle across to pay the person back for stopping? What if I want to saunter across at a leisurely pace?

The bottom line is that when you don’t just go about your business on the road as expected, it creates unnecessary confusion for other drivers (and/or walkers). This wastes time and creates the potential for dangerous situations.

Yep, that’s what really grinds my gears.

First impressions of First Impressions of Earth: Well for starters, it’s 50 minutes and should be about 35. In one track, J.C. repetitively sings, “I’ve got nothing to say,” which becomes quite evident after a while. Songs are way too drawn out. In some respects they are branching out in new directions, which I applaud, but in some respects this album also feels kind of stale. They cautiously explore some new song structures and production tricks and this pays off – but they also maintain the now signature Strokes sound, which of course they should. However, it is a double-edged sword. Write Strokes songs and sound like the Strokes, but don’t rewrite the same Stokes songs over with different chords. Unfortunately, as they take steps forward, they also takes steps back by being stifled by formulas. Maybe we should call this the Weezer phenomenon. Knock us on our asses with two highly original creative records and then coast on fumes that gag us after. First Impressions of Earth is not a terrible record, so it is unfair to compare it to the horrid shit Weezer has been foisting on us, but it also not great or the record most of us wanted from them. I hope that they are able to exploit what is new and fresh about FIOE and come back at us with something that does not feel so reigned in, cautious, and unsure.

So the other night I met up with a few old friends, and we all swapped phone numbers. Unbelievably, my friend Kally’s number uses the exact same digits as mine — basically, if my number was 123-4564, hers would be 132-5446.

What are the odds of that??? And these are cell phones — back when we used home phones with the same first 3 digits (i.e. everyone in town is 687), this may have been more common, but nowadays, this seems pretty out of the ordinary.