Crushing hoons

Hoon is a fun word.  I don’t know if it used anywhere else in the world but in Australia it’s used to describe hooligans.  Trouble-makers.  Loud mouths.  Idiots.  It’s often used specifically to describe morons who drive like they’re trying to over-compensate for their tiny penises and get involved in illegal street racing.

Because going after these dorks is a sure-fire vote winner (“law and order” never goes out of style) politicians are always proposing new laws to punish these miscreants.  Each new edict tends to get promoted as an “anti-hoon” law which has a nice ring to it.

In the news at the moment is a proposal by the NSW government to actually crush the cars of hoons convicted of illegal street racing.  I know there are similar laws around the world but I like the twist they’re adding to this one.  They aren’t simply crushing the cars into cubes.  They’re actually using them for crash tests.  And the bit I really like is that they’re planning to video the crushing and put the videos online.

That’s a good start but I have an idea for taking it one step further…

Another possible variant is to strap the worst of these morons into their stupid penis compensators and use them as crash test dummies.  It would be the first time in their lives that most of them have been useful.

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Think ahead

As part of my preparation for going to be interviewed in LA, I’ve been working with a director to practice responding to questions.  I’ve mentioned the director before, his name is Adrian Calear.  I went to college with him and these days he’s a respected director in the Melbourne comedy scene.  My thinking is, chances like this don’t come along very often so I really don’t want to fuck this one up.  If I do well in this, who knows what other doors might open.

One of the things Adrian has been teaching me is how to structure my responses.  Start with something concise that can fit into ten seconds but be thinking two sentences ahead in case the interviewer asks you to elaborate.  While the skills I’ve been learning will be directly useful beyond this TV interview (I have to start going to job interviews again soon) there’s a lot of areas where it would be indirectly useful too.

This was actually brought into focus for me as I was driving home.  There are a significant number of drivers on Melbourne roads who are only alive because they haven’t run into another driver (literally) who’s as stupid as them.  These are morons who seem incapable of reacting to what’s directly in front of them.  Hoping that they learn the ability to plan for what’s ahead is a long shot to say the least.

You end up stuck behind these cretins when they slam on the brakes as they reach a green light because they suddenly remember they wanted to turn at this intersection.  They come out of side streets without slowing down and just maybe think about looking for oncoming traffic after they’ve already cut you off.  These are the people that I use to justify my car-mounted machine guns.

The biggest concern with these morons is that their idiocy is life threatening when they get behind the wheel.  But sometimes they’re just plain fucking annoying.  The particular brand of genius I was subjected to on this drive was when there were two turning lanes at an intersection they get in the wrong one.

I’m talking about the sort of intersection where there are two lanes for turning right.  If you’re going straight once you turn the corner it doesn’t matter which lane you’re in.  But if you’re going to turn left STRAIGHT AFTER the intersection, then common sense dictates you get in the left lane.  Sadly, common sense doesn’t seem to be one of the core requisites for getting a driver’s license.  Because there are far too many morons who clearly think “hey, I’m in the wrong lane, but what could possibly go wrong with sailing across a few lanes of traffic without indicating?  Because after all, my convenience far outweighs little things like the safety of other people.”

I wouldn’t have believed I could have morons inflict this on me three times in one drive but that’s what happened.  I guess they were very excited at this weeks’ meeting of “Morons United” when the chief moron explained this brand new way to fuck people up.

Worse still, these idiots cop an attitude when you dare point out their stupidity.  It drives me crazy when they flail their arms about pulling “what’s your problem” faces.  You’re my fucking problem, dickhead.  Well, I’ll fix them with my new invention: chainsaws mounted on extendable arms at the front of my car.  Let them stare at the bloody stumps where their flailing arms used to be until they get the message.

When idiot drivers DON’T get what they deserve

I like to think of my car as a four footed destroyer of stupidity.  “Sent to strike down the unroadworthy” to quote a the Night Rider from Mad Max.  I have had passengers question why I sound my horn so enthusiastically when some brain dead fuckwit cuts me off (for instance) or runs a give way sign.  “Why not just let them go?” passengers often ask.

It’s education as far as I’m concerned.  Not calling them to account for their stupidity is the same as rewarding stupidity in my book.  Maybe they’ll wake up to themselves and stop doing stupid shit.  If I let them get away with it, they’ll keep doing it.  I could even be saving their life.  I’m very selfless that way.

I bring this up because I had to let one go this morning.  I have to drive about 45 minutes out into boodock suburbs for my current job.  I’m sure it isn’t my imagination – the further I get out in the suburbs, the drivers get… slower.  This normally gives me many opportunities to “educate” them. 

But when I start to get close to work I ease off a bit.  I don’t want to have conversations with cow-orkers along the lines of “Why was I behind you beeping for 90 seconds screaming GET OFF THE FUCKING ROAD YOU FUCKING MORON WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?!?!?  That wasn’t at you.  That was at… someone else.”

So when some fucking tool backed out of a driveway right in front of me and then blocked two busy lanes while they did a three point turn, I let it go.  It was only a few blocks from work and they were pointing in the direction of the office so I figured it wasn’t worth the risk.

Actually I’ve been easing of a bit in general lately.  I’m a big believer in Murphy’s Law and seeing as I’m doing job interviews at the moment I don’t want to push my luck.  It’s actually a recurring nightmare of mine that I abuse someone on the way to an interview and they turn out to be the interviewer.  Talk about starting off on the back foot:

“Just now, when I said you were a fuckwit… I didn’t mean it.  Oh, and when I followed it up by saying you were brain dead pond scum who shouldn’t be allowed to breathe, let alone drive… I didn’t mean that either.  And the stuff I said about your mother?  I meant that.  C’mon, be fair, we both know she must have fucked some sort of farm animal to end up with you.”

Hey, if I’ve failed the interview before even starting I want to at least have a bit of fun.

SUV drivers deserve what they get

I found a funny article today via Reddit that tells of some loser who decided he could compensate for his tiny penis by buying and oversized Hummer.  The damn thing was so big it wouldn’t fit in his garage so he had to park it in the street.  It seems his neighbours believe a Hummer is a poor choice of a vehicle.  To the point where someone trashed his stupid truck.

Ha fucking ha.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer moron.  32, living with his mother, feels compelled to buy a stupidly oversized vehicle and fit it out with extra bling.  Yeah, no issues going on there.

Now, this isn’t something I’d do myself (trashing an SUV, that is).  I prefer the “Toothpaste for dinner” approach – put a “God bless terrorism” sticker on them and let someone else do the work.  Actually, trashing these vehicles isn’t something I really advocate.  Owning an oversized truck when you have no good reason for it is pretty fucking antisocial but I don’t see how acting antisocial in response improves things.  It’s still fucking funny, though.

This story is good timing for me because I was going to blog anyway about the moron I was stuck behind in traffic the other day.  I hate getting stuck behind these stupid 4WD / SUV / whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-call-them pieces of crap.  You can’t see a damn thing past them.  Plus, it’s a safe assumption that anyone who’d buy one of the overpriced shit-heaps is a moron so they’re probably going to do something stupid at any moment.

So I’m stuck behind one of these tanks and its bumper is at about my eye level.  And the fuckwit who own it has put a bumper sticker on it.  Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t an honest sticker like “Fuck you!”  It was an “environmentally conscious” sticker which read “Think about the planet.” 

This type of vehicle wastes an absurd and unnecessary amount of resources during manufacture then continues to waste an absurd and unnecessary amount of resources when you drive it. The level of cognitive dissonance required to put a “green” bumper sticker on such a vehicle simply astounds me.

Like I said, I don’t advocate violent retribution against these morons.  But in this case, an effort of supreme willpower was required.  I kept imagining how satisfying it would be to drag this moron out of the driver’s seat and smash their face repeatedly into the bumper sticker until they acknowledged their own stupidity.

The other thing I don’t like is the fact that, as I said, the bumper of these fucking things tends to be at your eye level if you’re in a normal car.  It’s all too easy to imagine these morons rolling right over the top of you.  And the terrifying thing is, many of the people who buy these monstrosities cite that as one of their reasons.  The think they’re more likely to survive an accident because it seems clear that you’re less likely to survive if you’re on the receiving end.

This is the final nail in the coffin for these scumbags, in my opinion.  It makes for a pretty disgusting excuse for a human being if you buy a vehicle specifically because of its ability to deal out horrific injury and death.  I really do think these things should come with a “fuck you” sticker pre-applied.  It would be much more honest.  But more than marking you as an evil scumfuck, this decision marks you as even more of a moron.  You know why?

It simply isn’t true.

Drivers of these type of vehicles are actually statistically much more likely to be in serious accidents and suffer much worse injuries than people who drive normal cars.  One of the most interesting pieces I’ve ever read about these crapmobiles was written by Malcolm Gladwell (I’ve linked to this before but it’s really worth reading.)  He gives great detail on how stupid the damn things are: expensive, dangerous and pointless.

And the people who build them think the people who buy them are morons.

You can’t get much more blunt than describing “the mixture of bafflement and contempt that many auto executives feel toward the customers who buy their SUVs”.  But the article is chock-full of great reading including “SUVs tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills. ”  That little gem comes internal automotive industry research, not some green group trying to discredit them.

So if you’re still convinced you need to drive one of these behemoths, don’t say you weren’t warned.  In all likelihood you’ll pay the ultimate price.  Having your truck trashed by vandals should be the least of your worries.  Just remember, as you proudly sit in your lofty throne, master of all you survey: everyone hates you.

Most people in the street think you’re an ignorant, arrogant fuckwit.  The car dealer gouging you for a massive markup can probably barely contain themselves from laughing in your face.  The oil companies can’t believe how stupid you are, giving them enough money to run three more sensibly sized cars.  But you think you’re right – reality hardly counts in the face of that, right?

Road Conversation #1 – MC NoseJizz

The conversation is started by Adrian twanging on his nose. I’ll have to leave “twanging” to your imagination as there are no sound effects to go with this post. Essentially he was flicking his nose rhythmically while making a vaguely musical sound in accompaniment.

“That’s really special. Just the thing to make the drive go faster.”

“Why thank you, it’s nice to be appreciated.”

“I can’t belive you aren’t more widely appreciated for that. What the hell are you actually doing?”

“Well, I’m trying to clear some man juice that’s lodged up there after a particularly spectacular blow.”

“Sorry I missed that. The musical aspect is a nice addition”

“That part I have actually been appreciated for, it’s been a major part of my career.”

“Oh wow, were you MC NoseJizz back in the 90s?”

“That was one of my stage names, yes.”

“I’m a big fan, I bought all of your CDs. And your signature range of tissues.”

“It isn’t about me, it’s about you. It’s always been about the fans.”

“And the jizz.”

“The fans and the jizz. Preferably the jizz on the fans. Nothing ever made me as happy as when I was unloading a good spray onto some fans.”

“It was always hard to get front row tickets for your shows.”

“I prided myself on always going well beyond the front row. I couldn’t sleep at night for worrying that there were fans who weren’t wearing enough of my jizz on their faces.”

“Is that why you would get the backing band to help?”

“They helped but it was never enough. That’s why I franchised the MC NoseJizz concept, including the female MC NoseJizz.”

“Sistah SoulJizz?”

“That was her. I had high hopes for Sistah SoulJizz but her heart was never really in it.”

“She didn’t care enough about the jizz?”

“She didn’t realise how important the jizz was. It was all about the fame to her, I tried to explain to her that the jizz was bigger than any one person but she never really got it.”

“Maybe it was because she was always reliant on you for the jizz.”

“I think that was it, she never really valued the jizz, she thought she was better than the jizz.”

“I’m sure that’s why the public turned on her.”

“Yep. One night she went on stage with her nose only half full of jizz. That was the beginning of the end.”

“If only more people realised that, you’ll never get anywhere with your nose only half full of jizz.”

8 more hours of driving to go…

A modest proposal

As I was being subjected to the usual cavalcade of idiots on the drive in to work this morning, I came up with a potential solution.  I’m going to be writing up a formal proposal for this idea to submit to the federal government because it will require the creation of a new public holiday.  This holiday will be known as “No Road Rules Day”.

On No Road Rules Day there will, of course, be no road rules.  There will also be no repercussions for any automotive transgressions committed on this day.  Speed all your want.  Cause all the multi-car pile-ups you like.  Ignore traffic lights.  There will be no rules.

There will also be no ambulances.

I’m going to present this proposal as a chance for all the anti-social hoons to get their aggressive tendencies out of their systems but it will actually be an opportunity to see Darwinism in action.  Sensible people will spend the day safely indoors.  Fuckwits will be out in huge numbers being even bigger fuckwits than normal.  Many of them will inevitably die, resulting in a noticeable improvement in the gene pool.

At the end of the day, the wreckage and corpses will be scooped up by specially designed dump trucks.  Normal people will wake to a new day with clean streets.  And on the way to work, everyone will be thinking the same thing:

“Wow, traffic’s way better than usual today.”

Rolling forward into stupidity

Today’s leading indicator that work stress is getting to me is the way I went off at a driver on the way to work today. His sin? Rolling forward while waiting at a red light. I’ve always taken this practice to be a sign of extreme stupidity but it really bugged the shit out of me this morning.

This behaviour makes me angry for two reasons: one, it isn’t as if the light goes a different shade of red to tell you “start rolling forward now”. When it’s red you fucking stop. You wait until it’s green to go. This is driving’s version of premature ejaculation and it can be just as messy. Rolling out even a little into an intersection when opposing traffic still has a green (or orange) light is an invitation to disaster. Just say no.

The second reason this behaviour pisses me off is that in my experience, 9 out of 10 drivers who do this actually miss the green light when it comes. They wrongly anticipate the change and roll forward. The light doesn’t change and they still roll slowly forward. Then they think “why the fuck hasn’t the light changed?” and hit the brakes. Then the light goes green but it takes them a few seconds to adjust and actually go. I’m sure there’s an appropriate sexual metaphor for this as well but it escapes me just now. So I also hate the behaviour because most of the time it’s counter-productive, perpetrators get through the lights late rather than early.

My personal favourites (read: people I’d really like to bash some sense into with a length of lead pipe) are the ones for whom there is truly no point in rolling forward. It was one of these this morning who triggered my angry response. This tool in a 4WD (SUV to my American readers) was going to turn right at an intersection which meant they had to give way to the oncoming traffic (we drive on the left side of the road here). So there’s no way possible he could get through the intersection quickly when the lights changed but the fucking moron was still rolling forward while the lights were red.

The second one that really pisses me off is trucks. I’ve often found myself in the situation of being next to a truck at an intersection and after the intersection the road goes down from two lanes to one lane. Then the jerk in the truck starts rolling forward before the lights change. As if the slow moving fucker is actually going to streak across the intersection and cut me off. It’s utterly pointless for the truck driver to roll forward like this so the only conclusion I can draw is he’s too fucking stupid to know how idiotic his behaviour is.

So yeah, this little bit of shitty driving normally pisses me off but I think the way it got to me today is a pretty good indicator that my stress levels are a tad higher than is good for me. I think I’ll have a vodka and valium cocktail when I get home tonight.

The Angry Pedestrian

I’ve sounded off several times in the past at things stupid pedestrians do to make me angry but of course I’m often a pedestrian and there are many stupid things people do to me in this circumstance that make me angry as well. First and foremost are dickheads who apply “the rule of tonnage” to pedestrians. Namely, “I’m bigger than you and made of metal so you’d best watch the fuck out.”

The fact that pedestrians are squishy and vehicles are hard has resulted in all sorts of laws and protocols that attempt to provide some sort of balance. These include things like footpaths, pedestrian crossings and crossing lights. None of which are a guaranteed protection against some of the fuckwits out there. The most extreme examples that I have personally been subjected to include:

Being with someone who was hit by a bus while he was standing on the footpath. As large buses come into stops they tend to “swing” in at an angle which results in their front end crossing well onto the footpath. This happened to my friend – he was completely on the footpath (not leaning out onto the road as some dickheads tend to) but he had his back to the bus so he didn’t know what it was doing.

The fucking bus driver, on the other hand, was looking straight at him. The driver didn’t stop despite the fact he was heading straight at a pedestrian. He didn’t slow down. He didn’t change trajectory. He didn’t even beep his fucking horn in warning. And the prick acted like he’d done nothing wrong when my friend accosted him. 

Luckily, all my friend received in this case was a shock and a bruise but there was a case in Sydney when a bus did this at speed and hit a semi-famous soap star and sent her flying through the air. She was knocked out when she hit a wall but more through good luck than good management she didn’t suffer any permanent injury.

Another instance I recall is when a dickhead bike courier nearly took me out while I was on a footpath. The spandex-clad moron came barrelling around a corner on a crowded footpath and missed me by a few millimetres. It’s unlikely he would have killed me but it would have hurt like hell. By the way, I don’t know about where you live, but here you aren’t allowed to ride bikes on the footpath. So, beyond being a dick, he was breaking the law.

In my shock I uttered a fairly quiet “fucking moron!” Spandex boy took offence at that, stopped his bike and leaned threateningly towards me saying “What did you say?” Now, I really fucking hate bike couriers, they’re such ponces. In Sydney they tended to hang around in groups, clearly thinking they’re cool and above mere mortals. I always wanted to yell at them “It’s a fucking job, not a sub-culture you knuckle-dragging wankers!”

Anyway, one thing working as a bike courier tend to do for you is give you pretty impressive muscle tone. This guy was taller than me (not hard – I’m a shortarse) and had way more body mass. He knew he had these advantages and was trying to exploit them to the max. But I was really pissed off. I literally screamed in his face “I said you’re a fucking moron! This is the footpath you ignorant prick, I hope you get taken out by a truck at the next intersection!” This scored some laughs from the other pedestrians and made the dickhead back off. And it sure as hell made me feel better.

One more story, this one about a pedestrian crossing. I have people tell me they deliberately don’t look at cars when they’re crossing a road where they have right of way. They think this puts all the responsibility on the driver. Maybe it does but most car drivers don’t give a shit about you. I do the exact opposite – I stare right into the car driver’s eyes so they can’t pretend they don’t see me. This also gives me a pretty clear indication if they’re not going to stop and I have to jump out of the way.

In one case, I was crossing a fairly narrow road in a suburban shopping street. Their was one none-too-generous lane in each direction, cars parked on both sides, lots of people and a speed limit of 50km/h. Not the sort of place you expect some dickhead to come speeding down the road. So when I saw I guy thundering down the road at around 75-80km/h in his V-8 tiny penis compensator straight at the pedestrian crossing I watched him very closely.

I kept expecting him to stop and he kept not stopping. I had only taken about three steps which put me right in front of him and he was only a short distance away and still not slowing down. At the last second I jumped out of the way (literally) and he chose the same moment to slam on the brakes, creating a cloud of smoke and drawing quite a lot of attention to himself.

So I got back to my feet and started walking again. This fuckwit had the nerve to the try and make it my fault. He said something out the window along the lines of “You’re supposed to look before you cross the road.” That was it. I snapped.  I stopped and seeing as the wanker had his window open to impart his wisdom to me, I took the opportunity to impart straight back at him.  At the top of my lungs.

“I was looking you fuckwit, that’s how I avoided being run over!  This is a fucking pedestrian crossing!  I don’t wait for you, you wait for me.  Not running over pedestrians is not an option that you get to decide on a fucking whim!  And there’s a speed limit here as well!  Just shut the fuck up and piss off before I call a cop!”

It’s amazing how good I felt after that.  Sometimes it’s the little things that can brighten you whole day.

Still angry after all these years

Just to show that yesterday’s post was an April Fool’s joke (apart from the stuff about milestones – that was true) WHY THE FUCK DO SOME PEOPLE BRAKE AS THEY APPROACH GREEN LIGHTS?  Some people hate drunk drivers.  Some people hate fast drivers.  Some people hate slow drivers.  I just really fucking hate stupid drivers.

I can think of two frames of mind that could contribute to someone braking as they approach a green light.  One would simply be when they are too fucking stupid to remember that green means go (this is actually the camp that I suspect most stupid drivers belong to).  The second option would be that they think “Hmmm, that’s been green for a while.  It might change before I get there and I don’t want to have to jam on the brakes at the last second.  I should start slowing down now and see if it goes red.”

If this is the case with you, may I suggest the following: fucking deal with it already!  I’m no fan of the people who speed through orange lights (or worse yet, red lights) but braking while the light is green is stupid.  It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy: of course the fucking light will change if you slow down enough.  Here’s what the different colours actually mean:

GREEN: Go.  How simple is that?  Just. Fucking. Go.

ORANGE:  If you can stop without slamming on the brakes then do so.  If the light turns orange just as you reach it, it’s perfectly acceptable to go through.  You don’t have to jam on the brakes and you don’t have to slow down while the light is still green.

RED:  Stop.  Not speed through because “it only just turned red.”  Not go through because you’re impatient or you’re frustrated with how many times you’ve been stopped in traffic.  It’s pretty bloody simple really.

Having to go to work sucks.  Having to drive sucks even more.  Having to deal with flat-out stupid people in traffic raises the whole thing to a new level of sucktasticness.  I’m in a nostalgic mood still thinking about my past year of posts.  To go back to one of my early outcries: what the hell is wrong with you people?

I have a sore throat

The drive to work gave me a sore throat today.  This was the natural result of the horn on my car not working (I think the fuse is gone).  Add to that the fact that this morning was the worst drive to work in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very long fucking time.  This resulted in a sore throat because the only way to express my frustration at the large number of fuckwits on the road was to scream at them.

And there were a shitload of fuckwits this morning.  They came in every stripe and colour.  It started simply with traffic being more congested than normal.  An annoying state of affairs but one I can normally cope with.  But then I had to cope with dickheads just springing out of side streets and swerving across multiple lanes of traffic every five minutes.

The nadir of this particular nightmare came at an intersection where I have actually witnessed a mildly serious accident (I even wrote a blog post about it).  I was waiting at the lights to turn right (convert this to a left turn if you drive on the right hand side of the road).  I got a green arrow to go so I started forward but then had to slam on the brakes because of the idiot who went through the red light on my left.

This fuckwit must have been sitting waiting for oncoming traffic so they could make their own right turn but then they sorta fell asleep.  So they’ve noticed their light has gone red AND THEN DECIDED TO GO THROUGH THE FUCKING INTERSECTION ANYWAY.  Everyone runs a red light occasionally but this idiot made their sin far worse by going from a standing start a full five seconds after their light went red, which made it several seconds after mine went green.

I’m actually pretty careful at light changes in case some dickhead runs a light but she didn’t decide to run the light until after I had actually started into the intersection.  I saw her.  She was stationary.  Then I started around the corner.  THEN she went right across the front of me.  She’s fucking lucky I didn’t decide to run into her purely in the name of Darwinism.  I would have t-boned her – straight into her door.  Her stupidity created a situation where the risk of injury to me was pretty low and the risk of serious injury to her was pretty fucking high.

I fucking hate having to protect people from their own fucking stupidity.  At least she seemed to realise (far too late) how fucking stupid she had been.  The look on her face as she sailed past (BECAUSE I FUCKING BRAKED!) was a mix of horror and deep embarrassment.  She clearly knew she was only in one piece because I wasn’t as fucking stupid as she was.  For this reason I resisted the urge to haul her out of her car and punch some sense into her.

Plus, that would be a really mental thing to do.