Am I Too Angry?

Here we go again:

So I’m driving back from the supermarket.  I come to an intersection.  I get in the far right lane.  The light is red.  On the other side of the intersection, roughly 2-3 car lengths down,  there is a bus parked in the far right lane.  The Volvo next to me starts to do that rev-the-engine-to-start-fast-off-the-line-so-the-guy-next-to-me-can’t-get-in-front-of-me-because-there’s-a-bus-over-there-in-his-lane rock back and forth.  Whatever.  So there is some traffic behind him and I know if I don’t beat him off the line I’ll be stuck for awhile.  So he’s rocking, light goes green, of course I beat him off the line and with more than enough space (I’m really not just painting this in a light that makes me look good, I really had plenty of space to get into his lane), I merge to the left because of the aforementioned bus.  Now this dude in his Volvo starts to hardcore tailgate me.  So I tap my brakes to back him off.  He backs off, but then right back on me.  So now I slow down to roughly 15-20 mph.  He backs off.  We pass another intersection and I’m about a half block from my turn into my apartment.  I get into the right lane and slow down a lot because it’s a pretty sharp turn into the lane to my apartment.  Now here’s where I admit I pulled a bit of a childish thing, but I turned and stared at the guy as he passed while I was slowing down to turn.  It’s important to know I had my blinker on in a proper distance to let people know I was turning in.  The Volvo passed me and about two car lengths down the guy stops short of the traffic, turns in his seat and is flipping me the bird.  I mean the guy looks late 30s, rolling the family Volvo wagon.  I can see he’s yelling too.  Emotions get the better of me and I eschew my turn and pull up next to him (he’s still stopped short of the traffic ahead of him to flip me off).  I stare him down hard and flip him off as well.  I had no traffic ahead of me so I kept going, albeit slowly, flipping him off, made a turn and then went back to my place.

So I ask you, Am I Too Angry?

New feature: Am I Too Angry?

So with a fair amount of frequency things happen to me that tend to annoy me to the point of anger.  Some are just absurd.  Some are legit.  And, admittedly, some are just me being ornery.  So when things happen, I’ll post the story and put up a poll and you tell me, Am I Too Angry?

Here is the first installment (second and third installments will be posted shortly):

A few weeks ago I was leaving work after a long day.  I was crossing the street in the crosswalk.  I saw this black Mercedez barreling down the street.  He had a stop sign, so I turned and crossed the street again (standard intersection, four way stop signs).  Rather than slow down because there was a pedestrian in the street, the guy sped up to try to pull a rolling “stop” and keep through the intersection instead of stopping at the stop sign and letting pedestrians go.  So I had to literally jump back to keep from getting hit by this car.  The guy did his rolling stop.  As he passed I slapped the back of his car (rear fender) hard with an open palm.  I continued to cross the street.  When I got to the sidewalk I looked back and saw that the Mercedez stopped in the middle of the intersection and the guy was yelling at me through his window.  I didn’t hear what he was saying because I was listening to my iPhone.  But he was yelling, so I yelled back “What?!  Fuck off man, there was a stop sign, I was fucking in the street!”  Of course I threw my hands up in the “What? You want some?” pose.  He fucking got out of his car.  Older white guy, probably early to mid 40s.  He was yelling some more.  I yelled back “Fuck you man!”  Turned and kept walking.  I was about a half block to the subway and was praying that he’d turn around and come yell at me some more so I could unload some vitriol on him.  So I ask you: Am I Too Angry?

Cataloging apps

I just gave Delicious Library 2.0 a shot and it’s a mixed bag.  Importing via the iSight is nice and it sure is a pretty program, but I wish it was a little more database focused.  I might give DVDpedia a shot, but I think DL2.0 is good enough.

I really miss the program I used back in my Winny days, DVD Profiler.  It relied on user to input information into it’s database which was then used to fill out the information when you typed in the ISBN or UPC number or put the DVD in the drive and let the app recognize it automatically (though I always found it easier to just type in the number).  For a tiny few titles, it was crazy, but for the most part it was spot on.  Of course you’d run into issues with spelling every now and then, and the use or not of “Jr.” or other end of name things.  What I loved most about the program though, was that it acted like a real database app.  What I mean is I could sort the info however I wanted.  I could click a movie and it would bring up all the info, including full cast lists.  And for most/all of the actors I could click on the name and it would bring up what other movies the actor appeared in within my collection.  Or director or etc etc etc.  It was great.  Admittedly it’s not the most useful/necessary feature, but it was something I loved.  Sometimes I would go on a movie run where I tried to connect the next movie with the movie I just watched and it was very useful.

I loved this app so much, that I considered installing VPC and windows JUST for it in my PPC days and to this day think about running a virtual XP machine to use it.  Though it might suck now, I used it many many years ago.

Delicious Library

DVDpedia

DVD Profiler

I know it’s terrible, but I’m not going to lie

I want to try it.  The Hardee’s Prime Rib Thickburger, the latest in the line of Thickburgers.

The St. Louis-based fast-food chain’s latest menu addition, available as of Wednesday, is the Prime Rib Thickburger. The sandwich – 780 calories and 48 grams of fat – will have a suggested price of $4.49, or $6.49 with fries and a drink.

“We’ve never been ones to follow the fast-food herd mentality,” said Brad Haley, vice president of marketing for Hardee’s.

The Prime Rib Thickburger is almost health food compared to some Hardee’s offerings – the chain offers four sandwiches with more than 1,000 calories, most famously the Monster Thickburger with 1,420 calories and 108 grams of fat.

That’s right!  F the herd.  Even if the herd is going toward health.  Bring on the 2k calorie burger!

Flatpack stadium

Flatpack stadium to be taken down and reassembled where/when needed.

What a great idea.  They are comparing it to Ikea furniture.  But on the other hand that’s scary.  I’ve never seen a piece of Ikea furniture that was quite as sturdy the second time you put it together.  The Olympic stadium as one of those traveling carnivals that set up in the parking lots of big box stores.  Umm, it’s kind of fun to be scared to go on a structure/ride designed to be disassembled in minutes, but tens of thousands of rabid fans in a ready to be disassembled stadium, might be something to think about.

MS should’ve given them a cut rate on Office 2008 and/or Access

The Federal government can’t afford Excel 2007?  And, umm, Excel’s considered a more powerful database application?  I mean I guess versus earlier versions or something.

FEC, media can’t handle Obama jackpot – Kenneth P. Vogel – Politico.com

If you want to comb through Obama or Clinton’s cash, you either need to divide and import their reports section-by-section a time-consuming and mind-numbing process or purchase a more powerful database application, such as Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel 2007, both of which retail for $229.

I know MS has deals in place to give some colleges/universities MS software for $5/disc, maybe the government cuts them a break on antitrust fines or something and MS gives them a newer office suite.

I wonder in what format/program Obama sent the information to the FEC.

I really dislike Olbermann a little

He’s good.  He’s the left’s Bill O’Reilly, though in no way as ridiculous.  And I like his rants and whatnot.  He’s gone off on Hillary a few times.  The latest was after the whole RFK assassination stuff.

 

But I have to say, and I have no idea how long he’s done it, hell maybe since day one (I don’t watch regularly), I find Olbermann’s use of “good night and good luck”, aping of Edward R. Murrow a little off-putting. As much as he might be a hero/idol/etc., it just seems a little pretentious.