Shit that Pisses Me Off

In the last couple of weeks I've had several people tell me they had been arrested for drunk in public in Blacksburg, Virginia. All of them were walking home late at night, alone, seemingly being responsible by not drinking and driving. A police officer driving by stopped and inquired if the person had been drinking and then arrested them for drunk in public.  This piqued my interest as to why would someone walking home minding their own business get arrested for drunk in public. All said they were not stumbling in the street or misbehaving. Then I ran across this  article  from the Collegiate Times in 2004. It seems the Town of Blacksburg can collect the money from the fine for drunk in public. I guess the local police are instructed to collect some taxes for the good of the town when they are having a slow night. I understand that people who are obnoxiously drunk in public or a danger to themselves or others should be arrested. The problem with the charge is th...

Just got a letter from the people of Murray Street...guess they moved from Roanoke Street. The letter said I should trim my bushes, That seems a bit personal, my bushes and the amount they are trimmed is best left to me. Also that I should clean up the mess. We recently put the house on the market so the mess was pretty much tidied up. One one have to assume that the person or creature writing these missives must be a clean and tidy freak of some sort, beyond the obvious matter that they are frigging' crazy! I was starting to take these personal but after showing the letter to some of my neighbors, they allowed as to the fact they had received some as well. So I guess psycho letter writer has several targets. So just to be clear, we won't be making any changes to our bush trimming.

I received an anonymous letter yesterday from the people of Roanoke Street. The letter said I should clean up my yard. It also said my house looks good and I should stop blocking the road. not too sure what to make of it... Well I'm pretty sure people who do that suck ass. We have been moving for a couple of months and there is a couch and some other furniture out behind my house as well as some old lawn mowers under a tree. I've been hoping that the trash guys would take it but no luck. None of this is visible from Roanoke street so I suspect it's actually the people of Murray Street or Main Street who are taking issue with this. Apparently they haven't lived here long and don't understand the gravity of the situation. You may not want to be my friend, but you certainly don't want to be my enemy! Or perhaps they DO know and that's why they chose the anonymous route. The real problem here is that a non trivial portion of the town has done bad things to m...

I was driving through Radford in January and received a tax ticket from Cpl. Frost for an expired inspection sticker and not wearing my nanny belt. I was out of town on the first court date and he had a training on the second one so it was continued to June. I arrived at the time noted on the summons and got my first indication that this was going to be an interesting morning. The summons lied, of course the SCOUS has said cops can lie but I wasn't aware that fell to the courts as well. Court didn't actually start until 9, not 8:30 as stated on the summons. The Officers at the metal detector were telling the assortment of college students to tuck in their shirts and no shorts and take your cell phones back to the car.  Lawyers get to keep theirs as well as cops, I saw three of the cops get calls or texts while waiting and run out for conversations. They all came back so I'll assume it wasn't a crime spree they needed to respond to. We got into the courtroom and wa...

The Virginia State police are operating their mega tax program this weekend on the interstates. The claim is they are going to make us safer by giving out tickets for not wearing our seat belts, even though they promised when the nanny's made the law, that it would be a secondary offense.There is some evidence that primary seat belt enforcement kills more pedestrians, since the drivers feel more secure and drive more aggressively. Let's talk about the speed limit. It's an arbitrary number that some unknown entity charges according to their mood. I can remember the interstate speed limit being everything from 45 to 80, the road didn't change so it must be an arbitrary number. Lots of places change the number to create speed trap tax income. I guess if they could they would do the whole state like out tax collecting State police. Didn't really feel safer today on 81 from Bristol to Blacksburg. Same number of idiots in the left lane. It just seemed like everything ...

Can someone please explain to me why the State of Virginia and Botetourt County gave all their employees the following holidays? Christmas - December 23 and 24.   Taxpayers - 1/2 of December 24th New Years 1/2 of December 30th and all of December 31.   Taxpayers - No time off! This weekend - January 14th (Lee Jackson Day) AND January 17th (MLK).  Taxpayers - no time off or some on the 17th. We are in the middle of an economic slowdown.  Why do government employees who receive pensions, health insurance, and automobiles also get all these days off when they don't even fall on the holiday?  The private sector doesn't take the holidays when they are on the weekend, why does the public sector? Speaking of elitist government, the way to fix Social Security and the health care crises is to make the congress use both.  They have their own health care and if you serve one term in congress, you get a pension for life!  What happened to cit...

Both sides do it. Conservatives and liberals like to jump to conclusions that they think makes some stupid point of their political agenda.  Today lots of crass liberals are basically saying that Sarah Palin killed the congresswoman in Arizona because there's a web site with the congresswoman's head in gun sites.  These are the same liberals who laughed at this: Or this: These are ok but Palin's cause deaths!  Somehow they missed the report that the shooter's my space page states that he was a big fan of the communist manifesto which would align him more with Obama than Palin.

The judges of Virginia have decided that they don't want cell phones in their courtrooms.  I would agree that it is annoying to have cell phones many places that I go.  In the case of the judges, unlike the rest of us, they have the ability to punish stupid people who do not turn off their cell phones.  Like us, I guess they figured out that even with punishment the idiots do not learn. Fair enough.  The problem is that they banned phones in the *courthouse* not the courtroom.  I showed up at Roanoke City Court the other day to file civil papers and had to return to the car to put my phones in since they were no longer allowed in the courthouse. To  begin with, that took 5 minutes off my time available for the 30 minute parking,  As everyone knows, public servants are not known for their speedy work habits.  That's actually our fault since we elect the same clerk of court for like 50 years in a row...what's their incentive for improvement? So ...

Ok, how many of you have *ever* read the terms and conditions?  But we still all check the box.  I had a vendor, who I pay money to, that had the new terms and conditions come up in the middle of updating some information on my site.  It was early Monday morning and I was in my usual foul humor!  So I blasted off an email about how stupid it was to change the terms and conditions in the middle of a contract and so forth. I get an email back saying that if I didn't say that I agreed to the terms and conditions by Friday they were going to cancel my contract.  Guess I hit a nerve.  Anyway, I replied that I had in fact agreed to their terms and conditions in the same fashion everyone else had and if that wasn't good enough, go ahead and cancel my contract and I will sue! Guess we will find out Friday what they decided since even though they are an Internet company, they cant seem to answer an email withing a couple of days. oh, it's VRBO or Vacation Rent...

Some fast food drive thru's have signs that say you can't use your cellphone while in the line.  Then you get up to the window and they are either on the cell phone or talking on the head set.  That's a double standard I refuse to accept!  The latest one was a car wash on Rt. 460 in Roanoke County near Botetourt County.  The sign said to refrain from cell phone use for the safety of the workers in the automatic car wash.  Here's what I could see from my car. And this in another part of the car wash. So if they were depending on my observation and reactions due to my non use of the cellphone, they are going to be dead! In Maryland you must use a hands free device if you are on the phone.  As I look around me, no one appears to be acting any differently.  Actually, before the ban, I would hold my phone up by the windshield so I could also see the road as I was texting or emailing.  Now I hold my phone down by the seat so I don't get a ti...

There are these new signs outside Fincastle that warn you that there is a 45 mile per hour zone ahead.  Is it just me or isn't that what the 45 MPH signs are supposed to tell us?  Wouldn't it be cheaper just to move the existing signs 100 feet out to where the new signs are if people are not slowing down in time. Perhaps people don't notice the 45 MPH signs, maybe that's why they put up the signs pointing them out.  It would be better to redesign the signs that people don't notice or else we are going to end up with two sets of signs for every situation. Where does this end?  If people don't slow down enough now are we going to have signs stating that there are signs ahead warning us that there will be a speed limit decrease after that?  Or a sign warning us of a sign warning us of a sign warning us of a sign?  You get the idea. I know, let's just give tickets to those who exceed the speed limit!  Wait, we do that already. Just confused by our ...

So it appears that the driving infection of the metropolitan areas of Virginia has spread to Botetourt County. We had the unfortunate experience of returning from the new Harry Potter movie at around 6 pm tonight.  When we got off the interstate at exit 150, traffic was pretty heavy.  Even on 81 it was a little thick.  The usual offenders were in the left lane, but we made it in pretty good time. The ride from I81 to Rt. 779 was the usual cluster f**k of idiots in both lanes.  When we got to the stoplight, the left turn lane was green.  This effectively ruined the usual strategy of letting the turning traffic scrape off the slowpokes in the left lane.  So here we go from Daleville to Fincastle, 8 miles of slowpoke hell.  I was able to work my way up to the idiot in the old pickup that was driving next to the same car in the left lane for 8 miles with about 100 cars behind him and tried to work past him but he won the asshole of the day award!  I...

I recently flew from Denver to Lynchburg and was chosen by TSA to experience the naked person scanner.  Out of curiosity I went ahead and went into the machine. They had me take everything out of my pockets and hold it in my hands over my head.  Then they yelled at me because my feet weren't in the little feet pictures on the floor.. The machine swirled around me and they told me to step out and stand on some more stupid looking feet things on the floor.  They then stared out into space, not a word to me about what was going on, and then asked if I had something in my pocket.  I checked and did not.  He said there was a piece of paper in there...why would a piece of paper be a concern anyway...I thought they were looking for guns and explosives!  So then he felt me up in my groin and on my leg.  After he was satisfied there was nothing in my pocket, duh, he let me go.  What a waste of the taxpayers money. I heard that the guy who sells this salt...

Ok, some people think I'm over the top on this one but WTF! I am 55 years old and look it! I should not have to show my ID to get served a beverage when the minimum age for the beverage is 21. Some states have a law that everyone has to have an ID to drink, fair enough, but if I am in the airport, I obviously have an ID or I couldn't even be there! Still no relief from the checkers. Usually if I ask for an exception from the manager they let me go ahead and drink without showing it since I am obviously old enough. Hooters in Towson is an example of this as well as Taco Mac in Atlanta. I still don't return to places that do that since I'm not fond of the practice. The Hooter's was next to a hotel we were staying and they lost our business as well, when we decided we couldn't stay there since the closest restaurant was carding everyone. A couple of locations that wouldn't even make an exception are the Brickskeller in Washington DC and The Buffalo Wild...

I woke up yesterday at the hotel in Glen Burnie, MD and the back passenger window of my truck was broken! All they took was some quarters that I had in the console. There was lots of other good stuff, tools, silver dollars and so forth there but these guys were going for quantity not quality. They apparently hit 22 cars at the Comfort Inn across the street and 10 or more at the Days Inn we were staying at. They did not get the work van for some reason. The manager said he would give me a discount on my room for the expense. It was his opinion that a glass place nearby was paying people to do it. He said an undercover cop was working the lot one night and caught a guy doing it and that's what his story as. That guy was just breaking them and one time just took a windshield out and threw it in the woods. Like to find out who the glass company is so I can go kick their ass!

I remember when I was a child Andy of Mayberry didn't even carry a gun. He would talk to his neighbor who was shooting at him and get him to surrender his weapon. Of course, that was TV. In the 60's and 70's police officers were trained to only fire on suspects when they were fired upon first. I guess a knife attack or someone running at them with a baseball bat were also permissible reasons to fire on the citizenry. Since 911, and perhaps before, there has been a movement in this country to place public servants above the general population. For an example other than the police, one only needs to drive by any federal building...even the Department of Agriculture. Those building are surrounded by barbed wire, cameras, large cement barricades and other defenses. Next door is an old folks home with no protection. If the Dept. of Ag. is such grave danger, shouldn't we be concerned about the old folks? I was watching the Gun channel the other day (the name of the actual ch...

Just a quick one today! On the anniversary of April 16th many organizations made statements concerning gun control pro and con. Both sides used exaggerations and hyperbole to make their point. The one thing that most disturbs me is the name of many of the anti-gun groups. There needs to be a correction. For example the group: Keep guns off campus Should be: Keep legal and law abiding guns off campus while allowing criminals to continue to carry. You can just add that part in your mind the next time you see a similar group name!

I live in a small town and have twice had many of my neighbors band together secretly to stop me and or embarrass me concerning political things I was doing. They are Obama Liberals and I am a free thinking Libertarian so their tactics are always covert and sneaky because their arguments cannot withstand the light of day. There is a couple that lives nearby who were very instrumental in both events. How do I know? Well in the first one they signed a petition against me, which was actually a great thing because now I have a signed list of my enemies! In a small southerrn town it's hard to tell who are your friends and who are your enemies because they just talk behind your back and are extra friendly to your face. I think that the friendlier they are to your face the more they hate you. I'm not like that even though I am southern born and raised because both of my parents were from New England. This makes me friendly, talkative, and truthful, unlike my neighbors. Anyway a couple...

So one of my friends went off today on the Virginia law to allow concealed weapons permit holders to go to a restaurant that serves alcohol with their weapon as long as they don't drink. He smirked as he comment that people only go to bars to drink...therefore it's a stupid law. Right now in Virginia people can open carry in a bar and drink...that seems stupider. He just doesn't get that there are lots of people carrying guns in bars right now, most of them bad and he has no idea that they are carrying guns. The main reason this is a good idea is that people, myself included, sometimes want to have lunch or dinner in a place that serves alcohol and not have a drink, but not give up our right to protect ourselves. Some may say that that is what the police are for. Well, I'm not sure who said it, but, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away! We would also rather not leave our firearms in our vehicles while we eat as they could be stolen. The second amendment...

I'm sure that I will not get a lot of folks arguing with me about unsolicited phone calls. I find they come in two flavors. Collection...usually they are after someone with a similar name who lives in another state or country. I know it's a tough job, but there's a special place in hell for these folks. They must go through some kind of Gestapo, big giant asshole, training before they can start harassing people. They have never heard of regular phone manners like "Hi, this is (insert your name i.e. Satan) calling from (insert that information i.e. Purgatory) calling about some strangers past due bill. The second category is telemarketers. They always seem to call at the most inopportune moments. They also seem to target cellular phones, I guess cause we all got rid of our land lines because of them!