Those two things aren't actually related, except that both happened to me this evening.
Act One: I Almost Died (Okay, that isn't true, I Was Almost Paralyzed)
We went to see the matinee of Walk The Line this afternoon. I enjoyed the movie, but that isn't really the point. We walked out to the parking lot and got into our car. As I was about to start the car I looked into the rearview mirror and noticed the BMW behind us had its brake lights on, about to reverse. It was a large space to backup in, but I decided to just wait for the car to be completely gone before I started our car. So I was looking right into the rearview mirror as the car reversed and kept reversing. I had one of those surreal moments where you just KNOW that even though that car is about 6 feet away, it is going to hit you. Then it did. Then the driver just put the car into drive and started to drive away. The hub jumped out of the passenger seat and started yelling at the driver. Meanwhile, I got out to look at the bumper (which had a 6 inch dirt streak that will likely buff out).
The driver upon hearing the Hub yell, stopped and put the car immediately into reverse. Again, surreally I watched the car back up right towards me. It didn't stop. I don't know why I didn't move away, but I did yell out, "HEY!" My yell got the guy to stop whereupon I just said out loud, "Jesus Christ!"
This little old man, somewhere in his late 70s, got out of the car. He was all flustered and clearly upset. He just kept saying over and over, "I'm sorry! This is upsetting to me too! I'm sorry!"
I was so shook and felt so bad for the poor little guy that I just ended up lecturing him, "SIR, you HAVE to be more careful backing up. There's ALL THIS ROOM here. Then you almost hit me and you didn't realize it. All I am saying is that you have to be more careful!"
Each entreaty on my part just received the standard, "I'm sorry!" Then we let him drive off into the dark, hoping he wouldn't attempt to maim anyone else on his way home. As I got back into the car I my hands shook a little and I felt like I couldn't really drive. Luckily the Hub offered before I had to say. So then we got out of the car again, and changed seats. A man walked up to us and asked if we were okay. Then he told us he witnessed the whole thing and even wrote down his contact information, and the license plate of the BMW driver. He thought we should call State Patrol, if only to get the ball rolling on them asking the guy in to check his driving skills.
It pretty much ruined the glow I had from the movie.
Act Two: I Am Retarded
I love David Sedaris. I love him so much that I have read all of his books AND bought Me Talk Pretty One Day on iTunes. Read by David Sedaris. So this Summer when I drove down to Oregon I was very excited to listen to it (using my newly purchased iTrip!) because David read outloud by David is much funnier than read by me in my head. Therefore it was extremely disappointing to me to hear this odd echo in the reading. It really got on my nerves and I vowed never to buy another iTunes book, because I only wanted to play them in the car and I thought it was the iTrip.
By tonight I had completely forgotten about this vow. I was looking on the iTunes store for interesting Johnny Cash tunes to listen to, because of the movie. I got sidetracked by a listing for This American Life, another one of my favorite things in the world. However, I hardly ever listen to it anymore because I am not driving to the winery tasting room on Saturdays, like I did back when I worked for Blank Washington Winery. My drive always coincided with the local transmission. But hey! I drive all the time DURING the week now and I have this handy iPod and iTrip and I can listen to these all week long. I bought eleven. ELEVEN broadcasts.
Then after updating my iPod, I eagerly found my headphones to listen to one of them. Shit! Echo! I forgot. Since I was chatting online with a friend, I complained about the echo. She merely asked me if there was an equalizer on my iPod. Huh. Well I started looking through settings, and while I didn't find something equalizing, I did find that it was set to play audiocasts on slow. I bumped it up to normal and lo and behold, perfect sound.
Add to these failures the utter lack of contrition shown by the label and its executives and you get what's effectively an unforgivable combination. (Even more info about the bastids, if you can stomach it.)
Apparently, no news is good news, and we are all going to hell in a handbasket.
Thanks to Kathryn for the links and the heads up.
p.s. Thank god I have a Mac.
Guantanamo inmates to lose all rights
Could this be backlash for the easily passed torture ban? As the article quotes an unnamed source, 'If detainees can't talk to lawyers or file cases, how will anyone ever find out if they have been abused?'
Where is the line crossed that makes people start to pack their bags and get the hell out? It feels like we are inching ever closer to it. Seriously, this is scaring the shit out of me.
link via Dadahead
Shattered Glass is one of the movies that HBO has on lately. If I catch it on, even halfway, I sit down and watch it through*. Partly because it is a fantastic movie, but mostly because my degree is in Communications and back in high school all I ever wanted to be was the editor of The New York Times. When I see a movie that deals with the topic, I am drawn to it. Which is why we went to see Good Night And Good Luck this weekend. Somewhere between being the Co-Executive Editor of my high school newspaper and graduating from the University of Washington it didn't quite work that way.
Purity was important to me back then. I wanted to be a newspaper writer who was pure, unscathed, unbuyable. Curing ills, righting wrongs, angelic, bionic, non-smoking, non-drinking. Thank god I got over that. Anyway, not to bore anyone, but the deregulation of the news industry** by Reagan (hey, thanks, dickhead) created a situation where just a handful of people owned the news printed around the world. AP and other wire services became a major portion of printed news. It's cheaper than paying each author. This killed a lot of local news and changed the slant of anything that was reported because the writers had to play to the owners desires and politics. I was too good for that. So since I gave up on my dream, I decided to pursue something similar that would get me a job at the end of college.
Public Relations. Talk about purity. Snort. I hated every minute. Around that time I started waiting tables to pay my way through college and it ended up being much more money, part time, than all my other friends who had starter jobs and full time hours.
But what if? Hell, I can't even write daily here. Could I have done that job? I don't have an answer and luckily I fell into a job that I truly love and fits my passion. Writing used to be my passion, though, what can I do to keep it a part of my life? And I mean more than just watching it on television.
*In high school I also watched Broadcast News about eight million times. These movies break my heart because there are characters in each film who are unsullied. Sorta hated, not many friends, but pure. They always had to blow the whistle on the charismatic, yet muddied, moral character. The kind of person who would never break a single ethical news rule. I wanted to be that person.
** Oh yes, the deregulation of the news industry in the '80s (that a company can own more than one newspaper, radio station, and television station in a single metro area, thereby creating a more monopoly-type situation) is a good part to blame for things like sensationalist journalism, and people like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.
If the power has gone off in the house, make sure to go downstairs and check the webserver.
A couple of months ago the Hub bought a new/used vanagon. Recently it had a couple of problems. First, there was a problem with 4th gear and now the starter is probably bad. Clearly, he is annoyed by these issues and already talking about getting something else. This is spurred on by the fact that the dude he bought the car from would happily buy it back.
Since he has a VW Thing, and this Vanagon and got both of them since the time that I got my car, I told him I deserved a new car before he did. Why I didn't realize I was opening a door, I have no idea. He, of course, said, "Oh, maybe I will sell my Thing and drive the Beetle around then." Apparently this means he's keeping the Vanagon?
Not 20 minutes later he is looking on websites for diesel VW hatchbacks. (Having a much more accesible trunk would be better for my job, which a lot of time entails delivering wine to restaurants.) I guess that is all it takes around here, the mere suggestion you want a new car.
In fact, I think the only reason it took 20 minutes for him to start looking at cars was that we were eating dinner while having the car convo.