recently, Washington State passed a law that will (in the future) make it illegal to text while driving (scroll down a bit). starting January 1st 2008, this will not only be reckless and illogical (as it is now) but illegal.

a further measure makes it illegal, starting July 1st 2008, to speak on a mobile phone without a hands-free device. while this makes less sense, Washington is not one to fall too far behind in copying any nanny-state legislation from other places (what took them so long? NY did this years ago).

do these measures go far enough? do we need a separate, specific law for each type of distracted driving, or should we bolster a police officers ability to interpret on-scene what counts, and cite people accordingly?

case in point: riding the bus, i see a lot of people in a lot of cars doing a lot of stupid crap. most of it is what you would expect: talking on the phone, applying makeup. reading a book. reading the newspaper. (while traffic is moving at nearly the speed limit). but today, something blew my mind and made veins stick out all over my head.

i observed a man in a small pickup truck, changing lanes, at highway speeds, holding in his left hand, a cereal bowl. alternating the right hand between the wheel, and the spoon.

at what point is the safety of the general public less valuable than your personal comfort? i would put the public at risk, perhaps, if i needed to speed to the hospital due to some horrific wound.

this guy could have damn near killed someone over breakfast. is it “east coast” of me to think, if you woke up that late, you don’t deserve breakfast. get your monkey ass to work and deal with it?

Posted on June 20th, 2007 by mike
Filed under: vehicles | 1 Comment »

my friend billiam mentioned today that he’s crestfallen.* which made me think, why are we never feeling crestrisen? certainly if our crest can fall, it can also rise.

* billiam was crestfallen because the wikipedia entry for narwhal, under cultural references, does not cite the B-52s.

Posted on June 19th, 2007 by mike
Filed under: lexicon | No Comments »

merriam-webster defines “gruntle” as a transitive verb, meaning “to put in good humor.”

so why don’t we recognize when we are gruntled, instead focusing only on when someone is disgruntled?

perhaps disgruntled is easier to comprehend. the “dis” assures the listener that it’s something negative. and who wants to use this as a verb anyhow? give it a try.

go out and gruntle somebody today!

Posted on June 18th, 2007 by mike
Filed under: lexicon | No Comments »

okay, difficult to determine that i’m talking about meebo in the title, but this is a follow-up to my previous post about my dissatisfaction with meebo’s new features and their affect on performance and availability.

someone from meebo responded to my post, unfortunately getting flagged by akismet as spam. i just found the comment today and published it (remind me to check that more often, plz k thx).

the performance of meebo has returned to what i would expect before their new features rolled out. the only anomaly i notice nowadays is an occasional freak-out with phantom ‘disconnections’ that might be due to my being behind an oppressive corporate firewall.

oh, that and it seems firefox on my mac can’t successfully unload their site; it hangs if i try to close that tab or quit the application (even when signed out). can we work on that as soon as you’re done with R&R time?

Posted on June 15th, 2007 by mike
Filed under: web | 1 Comment »

so i’m at a loss to come up with the right clever/snarky thing to say about it, so you can feel free to try in the comments. i rode on a bus that looked like lifesavers the other day:

Posted on June 15th, 2007 by mike
Filed under: vehicles | No Comments »

as is my custom to point out parts of speech that we only use in the contrary, today submit: wieldy.

when something is cumbersome or not easily manipulated, we call it “unwieldy” but so rarely so we find an object to be “wieldy.”

i thought about that this morning, since i’m done with one of my classes that required an enormous textbook. i would previously carry said textbook with me to work in the futile hope of reading it on the bus or train.

today, sans textbook, i found my backpack to be quite wieldy.

Posted on June 11th, 2007 by mike
Filed under: lexicon | No Comments »

so, i’m visiting my in-laws in manchester, NH. using their verizon DSL, and i haven’t been able to access google for days. here’s a traceroute:

3 so-2-3-0-0.core-rtr1.man.verizon-gni.net (130.81.12.129) 32.784 ms 25.822 ms 25.496 ms
4 130.81.20.116 (130.81.20.116) 28.147 ms 28.763 ms 27.782 ms
5 0.so-2-2-0.xl1.bos4.alter.net (152.63.16.9) 29.872 ms 28.591 ms 30.240 ms
6 0.so-2-2-0.xl3.nyc4.alter.net (152.63.0.218) 34.828 ms 34.378 ms 35.914 ms
7 0.ge-5-0-0.br2.nyc4.alter.net (152.63.3.126) 33.736 ms 33.693 ms 35.232 ms
8 * * *
9 216.6.97.13 (216.6.97.13) 35.982 ms 35.385 ms 35.490 ms
10 if-1-0-0.core3.aeq-ashburn.teleglobe.net (216.6.51.5) 41.242 ms 41.290 ms 41.224 ms
11 ix-2-0.core3.aeq-ashburn.teleglobe.net (209.58.27.130) 40.646 ms 41.295 ms 41.779 ms
12 209.85.130.18 (209.85.130.18) 42.552 ms 42.937 ms 42.501 ms
13 64.233.175.217 (64.233.175.217) 42.152 ms 64.233.175.219 (64.233.175.219) 42.096 ms 45.020 ms
14 216.239.48.190 (216.239.48.190) 44.219 ms 44.511 ms 216.239.49.214 (216.239.49.214) 46.330 ms
15 od-in-f103.google.com (64.233.161.103) 42.817 ms 42.407 ms 42.167 ms


whatever is happening in hop #8 is black-holing HTTP requests.

Posted on June 1st, 2007 by mike
Filed under: web | No Comments »

in my ceaseless search to explore oddities of linguistics, today i present to you:

canny.

sure, we use “uncanny” all the time. but i’ve yet to hear someone use “canny” in a sentence, myself included. i wondered why, until i remembered that i’m not quite certain what it means.

uncanny is defined as being so unexpected as to seem preternatural in origin. we often describe things that are highly coincidental as “uncanny” but that might not be the most appropriate usage.

canny itself is defined as being careful, cautious, or prudent. something that comes about due to careful planning, would be considered canny.

there you have it. try to work “canny” into a conversation in the near future. with any luck, your counterpart won’t think you’re talking about something lewd.

Posted on May 23rd, 2007 by mike
Filed under: lexicon | No Comments »