c o l l i s i o n b e n d . c o m

…and it has been rough, let me tell you. I got a lot done, though, but if you look at the SPAM emails I received in the last 24 hours, you’d think I haven’t done enough.

To wit:

“Tracey Teague” thinks I am in search of a university diploma. I am not, thank you very much. I have more of a college education that she’ll ever have — and probably more than most people. Try me on this one…

“Monty Shaffer” says I can increase my… erm… you-know-what size by 3″ by using his patented technique. You really sure I’m that self-conscious about how big I am down there? In a day and age where people use plastic surgery, pills, and just about anything else to enhance their looks, you might think I might be interested. But I’m afraid not, pally: I’m fine just as I am, no more, no less. In fact, I’m probably better endowed than you are.

That’s not saying much, I know, as I’m not all that big (it’s pretty dinky, if you ask me — with the emphasis on “pretty”), but when you get into the territory that these guys are talking about, there’s only one way a guy goes, and I don’t go that route: uh uh, sorry Jack. Even a less-experienced woman knows that it ain’t the size of the gun, it’s the motion of the ocean. The only people who care about the size of that body part are guys that are… well… “a wee bit lavender,” (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) if you know what I mean…

“Euro Software” thinks I can speak German… ‘fraid not, pal, sorry.

“Stuart Page” wants to sell me a watch. Well, maybe not a real watch, but a “repl1ca w4tch.” I guess it’s a real replica of a replica watch. Something. I really don’t know, but I really don’t care, either; I no longer wear a watch: I can’t, as it prevents me from reaching all of the keys on my computer keyboard, which is essential to any Web-based job…

So, now, “Stuart” didn’t get the gist of my non-reply, so “Howie” thought he’d try as well. Sorry, still not biting…

Now here’s something I can really use: “Sylvester Walden” wants to sell me Viagra for US$1.41/pill, or Cialis for US$2.22/pill. Hmmm… that’s only slightly more expensive than my insurance company can get me those same pills, and I can get that prescription from my doctor with a simple phone call and have that prescription filled within an hour — let’s face it: at my “advanced” age, we’ve discussed it. I’m OK so far, so I think I’ll pass… for now…

“Hazel Dernovsek” wants to sell me bling. Not just any bling, mind you, but “fantastic bling of all sorts.” God knows I haven’t enough bling, so I gotta buy more, right? It’s really too bad I’m not into bling of any sort, let alone fantastic bling…

“Lori Hunter” just wants to say ‘Hi!’ I wonder what she wants… maybe I could take my accounts offline and open the email just to take a peek. It’s probably a call to another Web site that is going to either fill my screen with porn, or try to reset my Internet Explorer settings so that all I can ever see is their porn site.

It’s really too bad I use a Mac, isn’t it? Assholes.

Now “Lavern Guy” wants to sell me “waterproof replica watches,” as if I still hadn’t quite made up my mind. Hate to tell him (maybe it’s a “her”?) what I didn’t tell the other guy…

And then there are those idiots that send email in foreign languages, using Cyrillic or Asian typefaces. Sorry, but I am at a loss with this one. I’m an American. My family has been in this country for almost 400 years. REPEAT: 400 YEARS. English is my primary language, even though I have a German last name.

I sport the “Standard Midwestern American English Accent” so treasured by US broadcasters that in college I was trained in public speaking without my consent (I have a good speaking voice, so they made it an educational requirement by decree — they could do those things back in the 70s), so that I might have a future as a broadcaster one day. Little did they (or I) know at the time… ;-)

But, I digress.

So why send me a sales message in a language I can neither understand nor comprehend, let alone read? Cheap broadcast is one thing, but Common Sense is another.

But… wait a minute… we’re talking about spammers here… Common Sense is certainly NOT one of a spammer’s essential core qualities…

Silly me.

By now, I can assume that you have been able to dig yourselves out of the snow and actually get around our fair city.

For some of us, that process took longer than others.

I got home Friday night around 7:30, and it was just in time: I took my lunch leftovers and the daily mail inside, dropped it on the kitchen counter, then slid into the bathroom to do something… well, if you can imagine that it took me almost 90 minutes to drive home, you can imagine what I had to do in there.

Afterward, I went outside to have a cigarette, and I saw the first of what was to become a long list of cars to get stuck in front of my home over the weekend. I lost count around 18 or 20, most of which were 4-wheel drive trucks with snow plows, or Jeeps, but there were a couple of cars and minivans — and one of the latter got stuck right at the end of my driveway sometime late Saturday morning.

By that time, we had at least 16 inches of snow in the street, and it was still coming down — hard. (When all was said and done, we ended up with 28 - 30 inches of snow in the street, drifting to 4 or 5 feet in some places just off-road.)

The lady who owned the minivan abandoned her vehicle with the intent of returning to get it out. She tried later, only to get her Jeep stuck before she arrived at her minivan.

What really got to me was what happened Sunday morning: a city snow plow, trying to get around Ms. Had-no-business-being-out-in-the-worst-snowstorm-in-Cleveland-history’s minivan, got stuck in the very same place many other vehicles found them selves in the hours earlier.

I woke up just in time to take these videos (I apologize for the sharpness — I woke up just seconds before, grabbed the camera, and began shooting; the fuzziness is the window screen):

Turn the volume up and you can hear my bride and I talking about what a good job these guys were (and have been) doing — and they have.

I mean, let’s face it: the heavy snow wasn’t hardly their fault. Nor was the fact that their jobs were made infinitely more difficult by the bozos who felt that they were such good drivers, and their cars were so great in the snow, that they could get through anything.

For that, the proof is in the pudding, as they say:

In this second video, you can hear me say, “oh, please hit that minivan — please hit that minivan!” I was saying this because the person that left their minivan there had absolutely no business being on the road on Saturday — for whatever reason. And their lack of consideration for themselves or others resulted in many more individuals getting stuck in the same place — and to preventing the plows from cleaning our street when all of the others in the neighborhood had been cleared at least twice.

We were stuck in our house until 5:00 p.m. Sunday, unable to go for groceries or other goods when others had been out for hours — thanks to this person’s stupidity.

I took the video because you never see snow plows getting stuck — or pulled out of such a situation; I posted the videos because people need to see what a lack of thought and consideration can do to inconvenience others (and I’m not just talking about me).

Next time they say to stay off the roads unless it’s an absolute emergency — stay off the roads.

UPDATE — My video has been picked up by The News-Herald.

“Stormageddon” strikes the city mid-day. We had plenty of warning, so why was there 5 inches of snow on the Eastbound Shoreway at rush hour?

Seriously. The National Weather Service issued advisories, watches, and warnings for the last three days. We knew it was coming.

Jeff Tanchak on Channel 19 hasn’t worn a jacket for a week now, and his sleeves have been rolled up so long his arms are frostbitten. We knew it was coming.

They can track these storms and predict right down to the hour when they will enter our area — so we knew we would get it mid-day today.

The highways in our area tonight were a total mess at 6:00 p.m., some 8 hours after the storm started. It took me 90 minutes to get home tonight, from Independence to Euclid, white knuckle all the way. Go figure.

Not too long ago, we had another mid-day storm that we knew for two days was coming mid-day, and evening rush hour traffic was again a mess — snow crews hadn’t gone out to plow during the day; they waited until rush hour was over to go salt and clear snow, and by then the highways were a total mess.

Why do they wait? Why don’t they get out there at a proper time and treat the roads so that they don’t accumulate so much snow and cause so many problems? Are they in cahoots with the body shops or something?

(It’s not the guys on the line, in my opinion. I think it’s just a simple case of poor management.)

Oh, by the way, the answer to the question is an ODOT truck. Or, if you’re a Hitchhiker fan, they sleep 42.

And… punt.

From this morning’s Plain Dealer Monday Moaning (the fourth paragraph after the ad dead-center in the article). Euclid Police, please take note:

“My moan is about idiotic drivers who do not know how to use a ‘left-turn-only’ lane. They either sit in the through lane holding up traffic, or they angle the front end of their car into the turn-lane leaving the rest of the car in the through lane still blocking traffic. If you’re too stupid to drive it, then park it.” — Euclid

I would have taken my neighbor’s argument a bit further (no, I didn’t call this in, but wish I had; it was a fellow Euclidian): I think these people should lose their drivers’ licenses.

Seriously. They congest traffic, cause accidents, and angrify other drivers — as if we didn’t have enough “road rage.” To make matters worse, they don’t care.

It’s part of what I’ve said before: we’re becoming more rude and inconsiderate of others every day.

Now, there’s one intersection in Euclid where I can predict with absolute certainty that this will happen: Westbound Lake Shore Boulevard at East 260th Street. No one — absolutely no one — who enters the left turn lane, preparing to turn Southbound on E. 260th, ever lines up in the turning lane properly.

And if they somehow do, by some shadow of luck, pull fully into the left turn lane, I guarantee you that they will fade severely to the right — well into the next lane of traffic — before actually making the turn.

Along the north side of Lake Shore Boulevard at the intersection are three driveways, four telephone poles and a fire hydrant. Someday, someone is quite unexpectantly going to forcibly meet one of those poles, the hydrant, or a car in one of those driveways after being forced over to the right by some idiot who can’t drive.

And someone — perhaps a pedestrian on the sidewalk a mere two feet from the street — will get hurt.

It’s one of the most dangerous intersections in Cuyahoga County, even if it hasn’t been identified as such by any planning commission or traffic survey. It scares the crap out of me every time I drive through it — in either direction — sometimes four times a day, sometimes many more.

Euclid Police should pay closer attention to this intersection — before someone dies.

OK, here’s the scene: we’re coming home from dinner at Applebee’s in Mayfield. We have an iPod (not mine) hooked up to the USB port connected to the car stereo, and the car is equipped with Microsoft Sync. This is exactly how this conversation went down, word-for-word, verbatim:

• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Duran Duran.”
• Car: “Playing artist Carrie Underwood.”
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• (More clearly and deliberately) “Play artist Dur-RAN.”
• Car: “Playing artist Barry Manilow.”
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Go f*** yourself!”
• Car: “Playing artist the Arkies” (the Archies)
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Billy Joel.”
• Car: “Playing artist Billy Joel.”

Interestingly enough, the Billy Joel tune the car decided to play was “Innocent Man.”

Needless to say, I’m reprogramming my bride’s iPod.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now, this is the conversation I imagine having if we had connected my iPod:

• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Eric Clapton.”
• Car: “Playing artist Eric Clapton.”
• Car: “NOW you’re talking! Clapton is GOD!”

~~~~~~~~~~

And while I’m on the topic of Applebee’s: I was always raised to take my hat off when I entered a public building — it was something that a gentleman always did, as a matter of politeness, good manners, and common courtesy.

Tonight, I watched at least 5 grown men, sitting at tables, dining, wearing hats. One even wore a hoodie over his baseball cap, as if he was trying not to be seen, drinking a bottle of beer (not a glass).

Where have our manners gone?

~~~~~~~~~~

Of course, one of them who was not handicapped in the least — nor was anyone in his party — had parked his brand-spanking-new Cadillac Esaclade in the handicapped spot right out front. They all jumped into the car — not one struggled. Not one looked the least bit guilty about it, either.

Yes, he had a placard hanging from the mirror, but I’m wondering: how much did he pay for it?