It’s vacation time in Turkeyland. The summer heat has withered this Turkey’s wattles, so I’ll be grabbing Artificially Sweetened and Da Cupcake and heading north for a while. Oh, sure, y’all have been in the throes of a heat wave up there for a while now, but at least the nighttime temperatures will be respectably sleepable.

I won’t be posting much, if anything, while I’m away from steamy Central Florida. When I return, I’ll dive right into to what appears to be a topsy-turvy season for the Nittany Lions.

I hope all of you are having an enjoyable summer and beating the heat in an enviable way.

Small, independent opticians in the United States have seen their market share decline for many years. Competition first came from the discount optical emporiums such as Pearle Vision and LensCrafters, which seemed to sprout like weeds in shopping malls and strip centers across the continent. Later, the discount clubs and Wal-Mart got into the act. The most recent incursion into mass-marketed eyeglasses has come from China (where else?), in the form of Internet opticians. Each wave of competition has increased the available supply of glasses at increasingly competitive prices.

Until the Internet mail order players entered the market, shoppers could assume a reasonably high level of service and good quality products from both large and small opticians. This Turkey tends to trust the small guy to deliver the best of both, and to be able to take the time to make special accommodations for me. I have also used both Pearle and LensCrafters from time to time. They’re cheaper, offer comparable products, and I had no complaints, other than the “bus station” environment. A couple of years ago, I bought a pair of glasses at Costco Wholesale Club and, aside from having to wait for service for 10 minutes or so, my experience was similar. With these experiences under my belt, I decided that after my annual ophthalmologic exam, I would order some specs from the Orient.

I had first heard of the mail order optical sites through Clark Howard, “The Consumer Warrior” on the radio. His website mentioned Zenni Optical, Eye Buy Direct, and Glasses Unlimited. There are others, but I decided to try these three. They offer a similar on-line user experience, some with more bells and whistles than others, and they’re all cheap. They all bulk ship their glasses to a drop shipment point in the U.S., where they’re trans-shipped to the end user via USPS.

First, I had to get a prescription from my ophthalmologist, so I waited for my appointment to roll around before doing anything. Having read instructions on all three web sites, I was prepared to ask Dr. Jack the right questions, or so I thought. It seems that one particular specification is typically omitted from the eye doctor’s prescription and left for the optician to determine. This is called pupillary distance (PD), and it is exactly what it sounds like it is. This is where I ran into some trouble.

“I can’t give you that. You’ll have to get it from [name of the optician whose shop is adjacent to the waiting room]. It’s even against the law for me to do it.” said Dr. Jack.

Say what? A licensed ophthalmologist is proscribed from measuring pupillary distance? If you say so, Jack! I began to look forward to the fun experience I would have asking an optician—who was already beaten down by all the big competitors in the market—to spend his precious time measuring me for glasses I would procure elsewhere.

Before I describe my experience with the optician, let me get back to that business of it being against the law for the eye doctor to write down pupillary distance on a prescription. I have checked the Florida Statutes and I have found nothing except this second-degree misdemeanor: It is unlawful for any person other than an optician licensed under this part to use the title “optician” or otherwise lead the public to believe that she or he is engaged in the practice of opticianry. Nothing else is even suggestive of the writing of pupillary distance on the prescription by an ophthalmologist being an egregious sin. So, I cannot blame the opticians’ lobby in Tallahassee, as there seem to be no laws specifically directed at their protection on this pickayune point. Either I’m missing something, or Dr. Jack doesn’t want to waste his valuable time measuring PD, and is using the typically inscrutable Florida Statutes as an excuse. I am wondering whether I am indeed missing something. Anyone with specific expertise in this area is invited to comment.

As I sat in the combined waiting room, I wondered whether a flame suit would be necessary when I asked the optician for what I needed. When he became available, I found that the flame suit might have been overdoing it, but not by much.

“What can I do for you?” asked the optician.

“I’d like you to measure my pupillary distance for this prescription. Dr. Jack referred me to you.”

“Whattya, buying glasses through the Internet?”

“Exactly. I thought I would give that a try.”

“I’ll measure it but how are they going to get the near distance? I don’t measure that unless I’m making the glasses.”

This old Turkey wears progressive lenses, because he is over 40 by a long shot and can’t focus on near objects while wearing regular corrective lenses for his mild farsightedness.

“Look,” I said. “I’m just trying these guys out. I wouldn’t be bothering you except that Dr. Jack said that it would have to be done by you. Please write down what you can write down and I’ll order glasses. If they’re no good, I might see you again.”

“Oh, you’ll be back, alright!” he said huffily while inscribing the PD on my script. “Here’s your pupillary distance.”

I thanked him and left, thinking that one way or another, I sure as hell had no desire to see this guy again.

So, I ordered one pair each from Zenni, Glasses Unlimited, and Eye Buy Direct. I “guesstimated” the near PD. What the hell, it was for the sake of science!

The rectangular "computer glasses" looking at YOU

The Zenni pair arrived first. These were the most expensive, by design, as they were the closest match for the pair I had bought at Costco a couple of years ago for $230, only these cost just over $100. They fit fine with only minor adjustment of the nose pads. The lenses were pretty good, but I thought that the reading portion of the progressive lens extended too high into the far vision field. The glasses I ordered from Glasses Unlimited came next. The frames fit perfectly, and the lenses were better than Zenni’s, in that the progressive reading area was where I thought it belonged. The third pair came from Eye Buy Direct. These were intended to be “computer glasses”—that is, glasses that were intended for work somewhere between “near” and “far”. (EyeBuyDirect.com has a drop-down menu item for specifying computer glasses.)  They were absolutely perfect for the intended purpose.

Later, when I was making fun of rectangular shaped glasses on Facebook, I ordered some of those abominations from Zenni and Eye Buy Direct so I could show people what a hypocrite I really was. (The Facebook group is called “Rectangular Lenses are for Lens Lemmings”.)  I was not disappointed with either. They were far vision only, which simplified the lens grinding chore. Far objects focused perfectly. Both frames were plastic and fit well on the first shot. Now, in addition to the computer glasses pictured here, I have three pairs of blasphemous rectangular-lensed glasses.

If you’re wondering what I’m doing with nine or 10 pairs of functional glasses, only Imelda Marcos could possibly answer that question. I can damn well accessorize for any occasion.

One comical thought arose when reading instructions on one of the websites about how to get the frame fit adjusted locally. They suggested going to a local optical shop to have it done at no charge. I can only imagine what kind of fun this would have led to with the optician I saw for the PD measurement! Nah, I’m reasonably skilled in using pliers and heating plastic, so I winged it on my own. A couple pairs needed only minor adjustments.

All three eyeglass merchants supply cases and microfiber cloths. I found Eye Buy Direct to be the sturdiest and most aesthetically pleasing and Zenni to be the cheapest looking and feeling. The EyeBuyDirect.com website is, to this user, the best of the three. I am certain that I will be dealing with EyeBuyDirect again in the future. You can find more user comments about all these vendors, along with some others, on Clark Howard’s Site.

Particularly if you have a simple prescription, it would seem that the risks of using these sites would be minimal. As I’ve mentioned, I have mild nearsightedness (OD -1.75, OS -3.25), astigmatism, and presbyopia (+3.00). People with uncomplicated farsightedness should fare even better than I did, easily scoring glasses for well under $100 a pair— possibly as low as $8. I’m thinking that the cheapness would be ideal for families with kids who always break or lose their glasses.

I haven’t had to return glasses or otherwise deal with customer service operations, so I can’t comment on that aspect of the mercantile experience. However, I’m reasonably satisfied with the rest of the experience and I would recommend that you give these cheap vendors a try.

So, the LeBron James decision to join the Miami Heat is bringing them out of the woodwork. A gaggle of washed-up NBA has-beens have begun to announce their willingness to play for the Heat now that Pat Riley has bought himself a USDA Prime team. With Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and James, Miami is looking like a strong title contender, so the ringless wannabes, including good ol’ Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, are showing up in force.

Those of us from Orlando remember Penny playing here from 1993-1999. He was a four-time all star with the Magic. His first couple of years made us wonder whether trading away first overall pick Chris Webber for him was a good idea. He had been a shooting guard with Memphis, but the Magic wanted him to be their point guard. During his tenure with the Magic the immature Hardaway was a big pouter, and his leadership was questionable. He and other team members fomented a rebellion against Head Coach Brian Hill in order to get a coach “with rings”, convincing management to fire Hill and go after the late Chuck Daly who fit the description of having championship rings. After a year of putting up with crybabies like Hardaway and his cronies, who apparently thought they were running the team, Daly retired for good.

By the way, Penny got his name from his grandmother, who reportedly couldn’t pronounce “Anfernee”, calling him Penny instead. There’s no telling who gave him the name Anfernee and why.

Eventually, Hardaway was traded to Phoenix, where he sat out the bulk of the following year with a foot injury, for which he blamed his shoe manufacturer. Are you getting an idea of the type of whiner we’re talking about here? Since his time in Phoenix, he’s knocked around the league a bit, including a stint with Miami in 2007, after which he was released and he presumably retired. He struggled with injuries for most of the latter part of his NBA career.

Hardaway is now 39. He offers the following bit of wisdom.

“I can understand where Michael Jordan was coming from coming out of retirement a couple times, I can understand where Brett Favre is right now,” Hardaway told the Orlando Sentinel. “When you still have something in the tank it’s really hard to let it go.”

I’m not quite sure what’s left in Penny’s tank. Wonder if he’s still driving around in that black Lamborghini Diablo with the “P1NNY” license plate. Better be putting 93 octane in that tank.

If Penny wants to play for the Heat, so do I. I’m a little older than 39 and I have nothing left in my tank, but what the hell, I like rings and I like to bitch and complain, so why is Penny any more qualified than I am? I’d gladly play for the NBA veteran minimum, too, with a non-guaranteed one year contract, just like Penny.

I heard a rumor that Tracy McGrady wants to play in Miami, too. He’s yet another whining non-leader who should hang up his tennies once and for all. McGrady played for the Magic, too, and in fact he inherited Hardaway’s number, the overambitious #1.

Can it be long before a bunch of other second-rate NBA would-be superstars without rings descend on Miami to make their pitch to Riley? Latrell, are you listening?

This one is for my Facebook friends and my former Facebook friends. The lyrics are sung to the tune of “The Great Pretender” by the Platters. If you’re under 50, you might not remember the song, but sing along anyway.

Oh yes, you're a great defriender
Pretending that you're doing well
Your need is such
You defriend too much
You're angry but now I can't tell

Oh yes, you're a great defriender
Adrift in a world of your own
Facebook's the same but to your real shame
You're drinking your Kool-Aid all alone

Passive-aggressive is your feeling of make-believe
Too furtive an action that Facebook will conceal

Oh yes, you're a great defriender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
You seem to be a crackpot, you see
You defriend me and don't make a sound

Too slimy an action that Facebook will concealllllllll

Oh yes, you're a barking moonbat
Wearing tinfoil hats like a clown
It must be my inflammatory posts, you see
You defriend me and don't make a sound
Pretending that I...
Pretending that I care you're not around.

This Turkey has been sporadically playing interactive games via computer since long before there was such a thing as the Web. I don’t play a lot because I lack the reflexes for shoot ‘em ups and I lack the patience for real-time card and board games, which entail baseball-like pauses in the action while the opponent makes a move, a bet, or whatever. In the past few years, I settled on a couple of board games on Facebook, both of which allow players to make their move and go do something else while waiting for the other guy to move. One such game is the Dot Game, a computer version of dots and crosses, and the other is Scrabble, which is the subject of this article.

I’m pretty certain that you all know what Scrabble is—a crossword game in which players earn points for valid words they spell out on the board. The on-line version is identical to that which you would play at home on a card table, at least in terms of the mechanics and rules of the game. However, there is a significant difference in how players determine which words they will play.

In the card table version, players agree in advance on house rules regarding the use of dictionaries or other aids in various situations. Bending those rules is not possible without agreement among the players. In the on-line game, a spelling validator and a list of valid two-letter words are provided to each player with the intent being to level the playing field. It is assumed that all players have access to these tools and that they are free to use them. However, there is generally no discussion among the players about the use of aids.

When I started playing on-line Scrabble a couple of years ago, I noticed that I was being clobbered with regularity by people from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of education. While I have a pretty robust vocabulary, these people were coming up with words that I had never encountered in nearly six decades of reading. It didn’t require consultation with a Mensa member to figure out what was going on. At least some of my opponents were using computers—either via the Internet or local—to generate plausible words, including some rare ones that stuck out like sore thumbs. What to do? I decided to fight fire with fire.

I did a little research to find some convenient Scrabble crutches on the Internet. The simplest are anagram solvers, which merely generate all the words that can be formed with the letters one inputs. On the next higher rung are anagram solvers with sensitivity to Scrabble boards, where the user inputs the letters on hand in the rack plus potential prefixes, suffixes, and internal letters on the board. This one allows the user to input “blanks”, the Scrabble equivalents of wild cards and it generates words with specificity to the board situation presented to it. One more step up is a program into which the entire board can be entered, along with the contents of the user’s rack. This nifty tool will, in split seconds, tell the user exactly what the best play is on the entire board. With certain browsers, this program has a plug-in that allows it to import the board in one fell swoop. Finally, at the top of the heap of cheats is a fully automated “bot” that runs on a local computer and will play one’s opponent without human intervention once it is turned loose.

Experimenting with anagram solvers, I found that many times the program would find words I would have missed. Moving up to the program that keeps the state of the entire board saved in memory and displayed on the screen, it was pretty easy to stay on top of the heap. However, being an honest Turkey, I quickly developed conscience pangs, so I began to tell opponents that I was using a crutch. A few of them gave me an “lol”, stating that everybody else did, too, but no one usually tells anyone about it. “Sometimes,” said one, “I only use it when I get stuck.” Oh yeah, well that makes a big damn difference, doesn’t it! LOL!

After playing this way for a while I decided that it was getting boring. I was leaving the heavy thinking to the computer. There was no real joy in winning. It wasn’t my brilliance doing the winning; it was a 3 GHz Core2Duo.

As a result, my fascination with on-line Scrabble quickly abated. I didn’t play again for a long while until recently when a few friends started playing on Facebook. I have more fun playing with people I know than with random combatants as I had before, although I did sprinkle in a few games with randoms so I had something to do between moves by my friends. Once again, especially among the random opponents, I saw the same thing I had initially observed a couple of years earlier. Why would I expect anything different? Words that I had never encountered were yet again popping up, such as marron (an Australian crayfish; this Scrabble game is only accessible from the U.S. and Canada, so no Aussie crayfish would be playing) and sulu (I still can’t fathom this one as a common noun—I don’t think George Takei’s Star Trek character is eponymous with anything).

I know, I know! Obviously, the better one gets at Scrabble, the more handy but obscure words one learns, such as za, qad, and xis. I would expect great players to have a mental store of some pretty weird words of four letters and longer, too. However, surely all these on-line players were not Scrabble champs, yet the killer words kept coming at me: ridgel, xebec, stang, crit, qaids, wiss, aecia, etc. I was losing consistently because of my deficient vocabulary. (A Turkey’s vocabulary is limited to gobble, gobblegobble, gobblegobblegobble, and squawk.)

This time I resisted the temptation to fight fire with fire. Recalling the boredom of my first go-round with on-line Scrabble, which resembled

The Battle of the Machines,

I had no interest in trying that approach again. What a waste of time that would be, as if I don’t waste enough time on Facebook already! On the other hand, by playing against the body snatched robot facilitators I’m learning scads of new words, words that will make me a better player, and—God forbid—find their way into this blog during football season.

Still, I have to wonder about what sort of pleasure anyone derives from “winning” a Scrabble game using the computer crutch. The computer will always find the optimal word in any situation, so any element of Scrabble skill is nullified. When both opponents use computers, player skill sets cancel out, leaving the luck of the draw as the game determinant. You might as well flip a coin and get it over with much more quickly! Would you play golf with a surrogate doing the shots for you? You and I out there on the course with a screen between us so we can’t see that you’ve got Phil Mickelson playing your shots and I’ve got Tiger Woods playing mine. Wait! That’s exactly what we do when we sit our lazy asses down to watch golf on TV. So, yeah, that’s it! Letting the computer do the work for a pair of Scrabble opponents reduces them to bystanders who are merely sitting on their asses watching the game play out. How lazy can you get?

I’m just sticking my two cents in. You’ve read this far, so I’ll lay it on you as I see it. I refuse to let the computer tell me how to play. I can’t shake hands with it if it wins for me. I’d get my hand all mangled by the CPU cooling fan. That’s no fun at all. I could kick it if it lost for me, but then I would have to replace it, which would only be fun if I thought I needed to upgrade to the latest 10.5 THz 32-core i77 or something. But I digress. What it boils down to is that playing with computer assistance is a total, complete, major fucking bore, plain and simple!

I feel squeaky clean, playing with no aids. (Plus, it is desirable to be HIV-negative.) I swell with the warm glow of accomplishment if I win and I taste the bitter agony of defeat if I lose. It’s all me, baby.

So, go ahead, you on-line Scrabble players out there. Play the game any way you see fit. You can even boast of your great victories if you want. If your conscience can handle it and you won’t lose any sleep, so be it. But inside, deep down inside in your heart of hearts, in your brain of brains, and in your ass of asses, lazy though it might be, you know that you’re only as good as that Pentium at your side. You’ll never really know if you could have knocked me off without it.

How about giving it a try sometime?

Meanwhile, don’t be a wiss. Keep on blithely sailing your xebec where you can avoid the stang of my crit and may your aecia always bear fruit and provide prolific fungus.

No marrons were harmed in the creation of this blog.

Yes, this will be yet another post about driving. Overpopulation coupled with poor funding of highway infrastructure has led to some pretty annoying situations out there on the road. I’m here to talk about five of them.

What I’m not here to talk about are obvious offenses such as drunk driving, failure to wear a seat belt, yakking or texting while driving, following too closely, driving too slowly, speeding, or deeming the turn signals present on every car sold in the past 75 years a worthless option. These infractions are obvious, they’re dangerous or at best, they’re obnoxious, and they annoy everybody. Well, almost everybody. There are obviously those who are completely oblivious behind the wheel and who have no clue whatsoever as to what is going on around them.

I’ll be talking about five specific driving techniques or maneuvers that bother me. Hey, alright, I’m a self-righteous hypocrite behind the wheel. No doubt I’ll piss off a plethora of pious perusers of this post by positing that a preponderance of drivers are, like me, self-righteous hypocrites. So, be offended. We’re all in the same boat out there. I’m certain that I do my share of dumb things that annoy other drivers, but in my mind, my driving is perfect. The late comedian George Carlin captured the essence of such hypocrisy in this line from his stand-up routine on driving: “How come anyone who wants to go faster than you and passes you is a maniac, while someone in front of you going too slow to suit you is an asshole?” That line has stuck with me, because it pretty much has always been how I view those frequently encountered situations on the road. My choice of labels for the culprits is exactly the same as Carlin’s: maniacs and assholes.

But I digress. Being a curmudgeon, I want to share with you the top five annoying acts of driving stupidity that particularly jerk my chain. I’m addressing this to you, people who offend me, so take heed! You know who you are.

1. Parking lot lazy-assedness. On a bright, sunny day, you’re willing to circle around in the lot for 20 minutes looking for an absolutely perfect parking slot that is no more than 50 feet from the door of the establishment you are visiting, even though you cruise by perhaps two dozen spots that would merely require an easy 200 foot walk. You spy a suitable space where the present occupant is unloading a month’s supply of groceries from two carts stationed behind the car while she schmoozes with a friendly bag boy. So, not willing to let that primo space go, you plop your Hummer right down in the middle of the aisle to ensure that anyone else with designs on your parking space—notwithstanding anybody else—will be blocked. You sit and wait for another five minutes until the happy shopper and the congenial bag boy have said their goodbyes. You crank the old H1 in there and claim your prize. With the fuel you’ve wasted cruising the damn lot and waiting, you could have bought your wife some nice flowers. But no, you had to waste all that time and fossil fuel to get your lazy ass a minute closer to the store, dumbass! On a nice, sunny day, yet! What about rainy days? Oy, don’t ask!
2. Gotta slow down to pass. I’m cruising down a four-lane divided highway and see a line of tractor/trailers in the right lane ahead. I see you, who have been following the trucks for the past ten miles, still tailgating the trailing 18-wheeler. I flick my left turn signal, indicating that I’m going to switch lanes in order to pass you and the six or seven heavy vehicles when you decide that you can’t let me get ahead of you. No, that would be damaging to your manhood or, if you happen to be of the fairer sex, it would concede male superiority. You speed up and slide directly in front of me into the passing lane, as if to pass the trucks, but just as you are hard abeam of the trailer, you slow down to match its speed. This move never ceases to confound me. What could you be thinking? Are you afraid of passing the trucks? Then why the hell are you in the passing lane? Or are you too lazy to turn off your cruise control so that those behind you who want to pass the trucks can pass? If so, and if you were content to be driving behind the line of trucks and maintaining their speed with your cruise control for ten miles, again, why the hell did you get into the passing lane? Oh, you say it was uphill and the trucks were slowing down. Why the hell does that mean that you have to slow down to their speed in the damn passing lane? God, you’re stupid!
3. You just have to pass me. You’ve been tailgating me for miles, so I slow down to try to get you to pass me. After all, you’ve been doing a slow burn back there, waving your hands and otherwise acting like a monkey. I’ll steal another line from Carlin: I want this asshole up there in front of me, where I can keep an eye on him. So, you finally pass me, acting as if you’ve been relieved of the great, heavy burden your driving histrionics attempt to convey to me. You just had to impress me that I was going as slow as a 90 year-old lady on her way to church in her ’48 Plymouth on Sunday. How? By making me eat your dust and shooting me the one-finger salute on the way past, although you find it necessary to be traveling at least 40 miles per hour in excess of my speed when you pass, affording me precious little time to glimpse your precious little finger. That’s a bit disappointing, because I want to see enough of you to confirm that you look as stupid as you act. Now that you’ve made your statement(s), I can speed up and be rid of your tailgating. I resume my original speed. I see you up ahead—but why am I closing the gap between me and you? As I get closer, I estimate that you’re going five miles per hour slower than I am. Now, I have to overtake you, and the whole process begins anew. Retard!
4. There’s a reason for that limit line. This happens to me almost every day as I leave my community. The entry/exit has four lanes divided into two in each direction by a large sign resembling a granite cemetery monument displaying the name of the community. There is a traffic signal at the intersection of this community access road and a major, six-lane suburban highway. There is a limit line painted on the road just beyond the front of the “tombstone”. (For those of you who flunked the written part of your driving test, a limit line is that thick, white line you see on the road at intersections with traffic lights or stop signs. Its purpose is to signify where you should stop your car while you wait for the light or for traffic to clear at the stop sign. There are several sound traffic engineering principles behind limit lines: ensuring visibility of other motorists, ensuring that cars do not impede the pedestrian crosswalk in front of the line, and ensuring that large trucks have an adequate clearance for their large turn radius, to name a few. Limit lines don’t seem to get a lot of respect—they’re so misunderstood.) Sometimes, I make a right turn at this intersection. Right turns on red lights have been legal for over 40 years, so people should be used to them by now. Yet, invariably, some dork with a van or a large SUV will have cruised to a stop in the left lane, well past the limit line and halfway into the crosswalk. Oh, that was you? Well, I’m trying to make a right turn here, and I don’t have friggin’ X-ray vision, damnit! I can’t see the cross traffic because of you and your sloppy driving habits. Would it have have made you late at the Burger King drive-through if you had stopped ten feet earlier? Hell, no!
   Another variation of this limit line stupidity is what I call the stop and creep creep [sic]. You, the creep, stop at a red light, already beyond the limit line, and you immediately start creeping forward, slowly, jerkily—not because you’ve seen the light start to change in the cross direction, but because you’re neurotic and impatient—oh yeah!—and stupid. By the time the light actually does change, you’ve impatiently nosed out beyond the pedestrian crosswalk into the intersection. But then a curious thing happens. Why is it that you morons who perform this maneuver are invariably the last ones to start moving forward for real when the light turns green? Because you’re neurotic morons and that’s what neurotic morons do!
5. Left-footed brakers. The vast preponderance of cars sold in the United States have automatic transmissions, meaning that the driver’s left foot is free from performing clutch duties. Most drivers of automatic cars, when receiving driving instruction, are taught to use their right foot for both accelerator and brake, switching between the two pedals as necessary. Some applications exist for left-footed braking, for example, when starting forward on a severe uphill slope, but for everyday driving, the technique generally doesn’t work out too well. “Why?” you ask. “After all, it cuts out the time necessary to switch pedals with the right foot.” Yes, it does. No question about that. On the other hand, left-footed braking typically tends to involve resting the left foot on the brake pedal most of the time, which can cause the brakes to drag, decreasing fuel economy and brake life. Worse, it causes the rear brake lights to flash maddeningly at drivers behind you. So, Mr. Left-foot Hotshot, you are in front of me with that left foot spasmodically pulsing the brake pedal, whether due to laziness, restless leg syndrome, or having your girlfriend or wife (or both) fondling you, and your damn brake light is telling me that you’re stopping. So, I hit the brakes. But you’re not stopping. So, I hit the gas. Then, your damn brake lights flash on again. Are you stopping or not? How the hell do I know. I better be safe, rather than sorry. You’re not stopping, damn it! I hit the gas and then you fake me out into thinking that you’re still dicking around, when you finally decide to stop. I screech to a halt an inch behind your rear bumper. Oh, look. I see your bumper has lots of dents and scratches in it. Wonder why. Because you couldn’t beat a chimpanzee’s score on an intelligence test, fool!

Good. I got that off my chest. It’s been bugging me since this morning, when I encountered each of the situations I described above. Thanks a lot, imbecilic drivers of Greater Orlando! You never fail to validate my self-righteous, hypocritical postulates.

If you feel inspired, please use blog comments below to postulate your own self-righteous Top Five or, alternatively, to bitch about mine.