People who speed in residential areas have no dicks

Last night I was riding my bicycle home from the train station, I've explained in a previous post that my commute puts me in such a good mood that I find myself compelled to ride my bicycle twice a day, not for entertainment purposes, but for the more European (and eco-friendly) transportation purpose.

Just to set the scenario, my house is on a residential street (no really? Duh!) that turns twice, basically, as I look out my front bay window, I see the road coming down towards me, turn left (right as I look out), pass in front of the house, turn right again (absolute), and drop again out of sight below.

So last night, as I'm pedaling away, going up the hill that leads to my house, and believe me it's an impressive incline, I have two cars riding my ass, they were slowed down somewhat by the fact that there is a stop sign (that most motorists largely ignore) at the bottom of the hill.

Then as they finally passed me, at about mid-hill, did I mention it's an impressive incline?

It's not very long, although you wouldn't know it as you go UP. It's possibly 200ft, maybe a bit more, and the incline is impressive.

But I digress...

So as they finally passed me, I looked up and found another car coming my way.

Fast.

Not just fast, damn fast.

The limit on my street is 30km/h because there is a park.

When I first moved into the house the limit was 40km/h, it was not posted, but it was the municipal limit for residential areas, and I had to write the city for them to post the limit.

I also explained that since there is a park on the street, and the park is in the middle of the second part of the hill (as you go up), the same hill with an impressive incline, the limit should be lowered to 30km/h as per provincial regulation.

To my amazement, a few weeks later some Maximum 30km/h signs appeared at both ends of the street.

So here I am, riding my bicycle uphills, with a car barreling towards me FAST. I don't have a radar gun (yet) but he must have been going at least 60km/h.

He passed by me, and by then I had reached my house, and was about ready to cross over to my side of the street (the left as I come up the hill) when another vehicle appeared at the top of the hill.

A contractor pick-up truck.

I thought I had time to cross in front of it, after all, this is a residential area and he was about 300 feet away but I hadn't realized this guy was going even FASTER than the previous one.

As he turned the corner directly in front of my house, at mid-hill, he couldn't see me because his windshield pillar was hiding me so I had to scramble to avoid him.

When he finally did notice me I was quasi safely on my own front lawn.

Quasi because a few times I've had to tow vehicles, mostly minivans, out of the ditch in the winter, and occasionally, I've found my lawn had been passed on by a night time out of control vehicle like a car, or a van.

Once I collected a cyclist who had lost control and wound up (unharmed) splattered on my front door.

I'm an adult, trained driver, have been riding bicycles since I was 8, that makes it a whopping 30 years (almost) and for over 20 of those I've been driving cars, 22 years very soon actually.

What burns me is that if riding my bicycle instead of me, had it been my daughter or even my wife, that guy would've taken them out and wouldn't even have noticed them.

So now it's on.

Every afternoon, at around 5PM the "rush hour" starts.

Like in the morning between about 7:30 and 9AM, the afternoon between 16:30 and 18:00 or so, my residential street, complete with 30km/h limit post-signs and park, becomes the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I've complained to the city who promptly have done fuck-all about it and told me to complain to the SQ.

I've stopped POLICE CARS on the street to ask them to monitor my street at least once in a while to slow down traffic, they do it in the West Island, why not here? They also agreed to monitor the street but I haven't seen any police cars on the street other than the occasional traffic.

I've asked for a speed-hump to be placed at the top, and bottom of the hill to slow traffic down, even a removable one so that it doesn't hinder the normal snowplow operations, but they've largely ignored me.

But now, it's on. I have a plan.

Where's all the playing time gone?

Last night I made it home after work, had supper, prepared a few things for this morning like coffee etc, bathed and by the time I got around to relaxing on the couch in the living room, I was already pushing 10PM.

Now normally that would all be fine and dandy but then I ask myself the following questions that apply to not only me, but my family members as well, wife, daughter, etc.

Where the fuck am I supposed to find the time to play with my toys?

Face it, we live in a society that is driven by commercialism, we all have toys on different levels, be it automobiles or motorcycles, computers, television programs, video games, electronic gadgets, garden or power tools, etc.

And we all have some, regardless of what level of income or status we have, all of us have toys.

Case and point my gaming consoles and PC. There are no less than two gaming consoles, one gaming PC setup for racecar simulation complete with steering wheel and chair, an HTPC (for those who don't know, it stands for Home Theater Personal Computer, mine has a projector and 1100W 7.1 digital sound.), a high definition flat panel television complete with high definition programming from my satellite TV provider, two portable consoles, several musical instruments, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Unfortunately, considering that I've played a total of three golf games all summer, haven't touched my fishing gear other than to shuffle it around in my shed, haven't touched my swimming pool other than to clean it and add chemicals to make it available for my wife and kid (mostly the kid) to bathe in, haven't mowed the lawn with my new lawnmower (thank you little sis) since August 14th, you can bet your ass that I also haven't played any games.

Except last Sunday.

Last Sunday was rainy, it rained all day, the house was clean and in order, there was a formula 1 race in the morning (which I Tivoed and watched later in the morning than the 8AM time it was playing at) so later in the afternoon I finally got around to playing a few rounds of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009 on the Wii. A game I've had for three weeks now. Nice and on the TV, still sealed in its original packaging.

I have a few games like that:

-God Of War
-Rock Band Track Pack vol1
-Crysis

All never used.

So that leads me to the following conclusion:

People that own and actually get to play those games, use their toys have a lot of spare time on their hands.

So what the fuck are they, unemployed?

When I was unemployed the house was spotless, the lawn was exactly 2.5" long all summer and I did bathe in the pool thank you.

Also I had time to play NHL2006 (back then) and to restore a 1991 Sidekick to working (and glorious) condition.

So where exactly has all this time gone?

I know...

COMMUTING.

I did the math this morning you see? I had plenty of time on the fucking train. I'm away from home 12 hours a day on week-days. Consider I have 8 hour shifts and that translates into a whopping four hour commute total every fucking day.

Conclusion?

I should move my job closer to where I fucking live.

No.

Let me rephrase that.

I MUST move my job closer to where I fucking live.

Elevators

Am I the only one that finds this odd? How often I'll be in an elevator and people are having a personal, very personal conversation and I'm forced to listen because after all, we are three people in a 5'x5' box...

I've decided to list some of the oddest conversations and situations I've been forced to endure.

10-People talking about a superior and bitching about her because she has a mole.

9-People comparing tans.

8-Talking about your vacations in an elevator sucks, especially in the dead of winter or (like today) when 20cm of rainfall are expected.

7-People who take half an hour to enter/exit the elevator.

6-People with baby carriages. Why would you bring a baby to work anyways?

5-Bicycle delivery men. Sweaty, smelly, hairy, and with a fucking radio/phone that keeps dispatching someone named Hal to an address in the boonies.

4-People who carry on conversations with someone outside the elevator and keep the door open. We (the rest of the elevator occupants) are happy when you do this. It's quite entertaining to listen to you carry on and on about your kids and how they get along with their new kindergarden teacher meanwhile retarding everyone including me.

3-People on the phone. Cell phones don't work very well in elevators, deal with it.

2-There is this man in my building that every time I find myself in an elevator with him, and some of his co-workers, he keeps complaining about all his other co-workers. If I picked up on this trend, do you not think his co-workers have too? Nobody likes an elevator whiner.

1-Two women in their early 20s, neither of them very attractive, both bitching about how they both hate it when their respective boyfriends spoon them in bed to then get aroused and want to have sex in the middle of the night. My thoughts on the subject are simple, first of all if your boyfriend's advances bother you he should not be your boyfriend. Furthermore, looking like you do (ugly) and with the type of personality you have (bitch) you should be happy you even have a boyfriend.

Please, when in an elevator with strangers, shut the fuck up.