Dear Blogger: STOPPIT!

A lot of us got a big surprise today when we went to comment on people's blogs and got a Captcha box to enter a number to "prove we are human". This seems to only happen on blogs where the comment form is a pop-up window, as blogs with embedded comment forms aren't affected.

There is much ranting over at the Blogger forums here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!categories/blogger

Google/Blogger said it's our individual third-party cookie rules, but for me it's only broken for blogs with pop-up comment forms, and ALL of us didn't make changes, so I suspect it's something else.

Until then, I've changed my comment for to embedded. I seem to recall people had problems commenting when I had it that way before, which is why I changed it to a pop-up form. We're screwed either way.


I know, I know: you get what you pay for, right?

/rant

ETA: I've heard you may still get Captcha if you have the embedded comment form, but I haven't seen it yet. I've also heard you can ignore the Captcha and it will still post your comment. Sigh.

Dear Google

I don't know if you, my beloved 3 (maybe 4) readers are aware of this yet, but as of July 1st, 2013, Google Reader is going away. Yes, it is. Here is the snippet hidden in Google's Spring Cleaning post:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

Yep, gone. There was much outrage on Twitter. We went looking for alternatives. We exported our subscriptions. We yelled, we screamed. We signed petitions. We cried.

I love Google Reader. I used to keep a list of blogs in my side-bar, but a few things happened that convinced me to switch to Google Reader. First, the list was growing too long to fit nicely on my blog. Second, I had to click through to each blog to see if any new posts were available. I kinda stopped clicking. Even the Blog Roll widget couldn't handle the list I had.

Enter: Google Reader. I could add blogs to my heart's content. I could tag them with words that made sense to me. I could group them. I could bookmark them. If a new post was up, I knew on which blog and how many. I could look at only my challenge blog list if I felt like it. I could look at only my news blogs if I was in the mood for news. Google Reader was my window to the world.

Until the announcement.

Google states their usage is down. Maybe so, but I'll bet the people who do use it are more and more dependent on it and have thus expanded their usage. I wonder if Google has considered that?

I've heard they don't make any money off of it, and that a business' product has to be viable. This makes sense from a business perspective, but you know what? The more blogs I follow in my reader (I'm over 300 now), the more I click through to blogs to comment, and the more I do that, the more ads I see on those blogs. Guess what, Google, if I can't easily read those blogs any more, I no longer see those ads, so you lose.

On various sites discussing the demise of Google Reader, the comments are the most interesting. One person said if she couldn't click through to her Reader from Gmail, she didn't need Gmail any more, either. She's already gone.

Someone else suggested Google should take the money they've spent on the self-driving car and instead put some of that into Reader, a product thousands of people actually use.

Another person said Google should make Reader Open Source and let us support ourselves. There must be many developers who'd be interested in doing that.

Even if there are people who would maintain Reader to keep it alive, there's the issue of the server farm required to support such a venture. I have a suggestion for that: Kickstarter. If a group of people would get together and agree to maintain Google Reader (or a renamed facsimile), I'd bet a Kickstarter campaign would get them their seed money in no time flat.

Along the same lines, I'd pay a monthly fee to whoever did this in order to keep my window to the Interwebz alive. Heck, I'd pay GOOGLE, I like it that much. And I don't think I'm alone.

I've looked at several other Reader options, and though none of them come up to Google Reader's functionality, the one I'm partial to at the moment is Feedly. Here's why: they make it easy. I'm going to study their tips and see if I can't get it close to what I have with Google Reader.

I'm pretty sure that petition won't go any further than change.org, but it warms my heart to see it has almost 80,000 signatures in under 24 hours. I'm also pretty sure Google won't listen to us anyway. And I'm fairly certain Google won't give away their code to let it go to Open Source. Wouldn't it be nice if they did, though?

Another idea: What if Google SOLD Google Reader to a company willing to take it, and the tens of thousands of users, into their own corner of the web? Yeah, I know, Google wouldn't care.

Sigh. Well, it was a nice ride while it lasted.  I'll be researching alternatives to Google Reader, but I'll use the real thing until they flip the Off switch. I need a way to keep up with my favorite blogs and follow all my peeps in the Blogosphere. It may take me longer to get there to comment, but I will get there to comment.

Okay, enough with that, I'm going to go craft something.

Thanks for stopping by!

Crafty Packaging Mini-Rant

As I opened and spilled yet another package of crafty goodness, I thought I'd take a moment to extend a plea to the packagers of said products to please consider a more viable alternative.

I just acquired a few packages of wooden embellishments. I don't mean to call out any one company, because several of them do this; these photos are only to serve as one example.

This is a package of wooden stars:

LOTS of pieces in here. But the problem is what to do with them once you've opened the package.  In my experience, taping or stapling the original package to keep the remaining bits from leaking out is a mess waiting to happen. 

I now immediately open the packages and dump the contents into one of my collection of empty SU embellishment containers:

 See? All nicely contained.  And since I have more than one *ahem*, I have stacked them here:

During one of my re-org efforts I emptied a full storage caddy, so I'm down to two now. If I ever empty out enough slots, I'll be able to put these in one of the caddies. I like having them where I can see them. None of that stuff got used much when it was in a drawer.

Now, back to the original packaging ... How about at least a re-sealable package? Some embellishments come in packaging that has a cover on the plastic part so it can be re-closed (if that's a word). Or maybe include a small zip-top bag? Or heck, make it a plastic container to start with and put the cardboard inside the package. I know it's plastic, but I have to use other containers once I open yours anyway, so sell me yours.

Meanwhile I'll keep using my SU containers.

So what do you guys do with packaging like this? Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks for stopping by!

Crafty Thursday

Let me begin this post with a tale of woe. Well, not really woe, but I've been pretty stabby all day. Yeah, I know, I should put this on my ranting blog, but I don't feel like it, so here we go.

I've been trying to find some more letters to use for my shadow box ribbon wreaths and I've been less than successful. I thought I wanted Thickers (they come in all sorts of fabby fonts), but I wanted white, and no one had all the different ones I desired, so preferring not to pay shipping from multiple stores, I thought to try Amazon.

Now Amazon and I go way back, like to the first year they were in business, before they turned a profit. I got a Thank You coffee travel mug that year. I did! But once they started adding other stores besides books and music, I kinda lost the love. I think what totally turned me off was when I bought a book and it turned out it was from a 3rd-party seller, and since I was having things shipped from multiple sellers, I paid like a squillion dollars for shipping. Never again, I said, never again.

I tell you this because I found all the Thickers I wanted at Amazon. ALL of them. And I knew enough by now to check to see who the seller was, and I made sure they were all the same one, even if it was 3rd-party. But when I went to check out and verify my order, I saw that shipping was MORE than the product! Look:


I was in shock, so I double-checked and yep, all of them were from the same seller. What the?!?!?! I mean come on, Thickers weigh less than AIR, and even 10 packs of them would fit in a bubble envelope, or a flat-rate box, and ship for less than $11.00. Seriously.

So when I got home tonight, I opened a chat window with Amazon and guess what - I got INDIA! They don't even try to disguise it any more. Grrrr. So Amar said hello, I asked my question about shipping and I waited. And waited. I typed, "Hello?" and I waited some more. I typed, "Amar, are you there?" and he said "Yes, I am here. How may I help you." You see where this is going, right?

After a few more minutes of him "checking" he asked what I was trying to buy. WT?!? What was he checking?!?!?! I told him to maybe look at my shopping cart (DUUUUH!) so he came back and told me I bought from a 3rd-party seller.

*steam came out of my ears*

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Me: How can I contact the seller to ask about the shipping?
Amar: You know you could contact the seller.

*steam came out of my ears again*

I said, "Thanks." (because my Momma taught me to), and ended the chat session. I wasn't going to wait around for him to ask if there was anything else he could help me with. Afraid of what I might have said.

But all is well! Why? Because (1) I found the Thickers I wanted at another online store that I'd missed earlier today, and (2) I got a survey from Amazon asking me to rate my satisfaction with my Chat person. heh heh heh *rubs hands together*

So in the end, I am no longer stabby; well, no longer AS stabby, and I made some cards. I finally broke into my other two Paper Smooches sets and here's the first card I made:

ALL of the papers on here are remnants. ALL of them. This card is a weird size - 4x6, but I used most of a lone remaining piece of 12x12 Melon Mambo, a piece of orange paper from some Specialty DSP, and some of that American Craft cloud paper. I made two of these.

Next I broke into the other set and used the cow image to make this:

Lots going on here. I made 4 of these, and used up another chunk of that cloud paper, some Pear DSP, and the yellow layer is from the GAH bright card I made for this (last) week's Hambo Hoedown challenge. The sun is my newly initiated MFT sun die that I cut out of a yellow remnant and some scraps of that dotted yellow paper. It's gone, people, gone!

The ribbon is A Muse Studio and let me tell you something I learned this evening... When you use this fold-and-stick technique with sheer ribbon, even the top loopy part sticks. Sweet.

So that's it. It's pouring rain, and I think I need to go to bed. I love sleeping when it's raining.

Make sure to stop back tomorrow for the Hambo Customer Blog Hop! We used movie titles for our card inspiration, and I may or may not have gotten a little irreverent. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Bah, Humbug

Let us take a moment and mourn the loss of my Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad. It was a little dry, which makes sense, as it is pretty much the ONLY ink I use any more, so it needed some reinker. I was pretty sure I had purchased some in my last shopping spree at Angela's, so I went a-searchin'. Found it, made sure I'd picked up a black one. Yep - it said NOIR. ... ... ... Yes, an astute reader will notice where this is going.

So I inked her up before I got that sinking feeling in my gut, right next to the last piece of pumpkin cheese cake I had consumed. Yep, I'd just applied Palette Noir black ink to my Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad. Oh, I used it, and it colored okay with my Copics, but for all intents and purposes, it is toast. Sigh.

Tonight's project was to use my Bah, Humbug sentiment from The Cat's Pajamas. I was going to use the bloodhound image and have him saying it, but I instead opted for this lady:


Oh, yeah, classy!

I had a difficult time coming up with the right combination of colors to get her coat close to coordinating with the blue paper. The cool thing I learned from Ellen Hutson was the layering of colors to get what you want. When you buy your Copics from her, you can ask for her SU color chart where she has laboriously figured out what combo of Copics is close to each of the SU colors. Some of hers have one color under another one to get it right. I took this a few steps further and kept adding layers of different colors to the jacket until I got it to where I was okay with it. Kinda fun to try things and see how the layers of color work. Pretty cool!

I even added some color to some clear dew drops with one of my brown Copics. This came in handy as I thought to add something to that spot only after I'd already stuck down all the papers.

And me? Bah, Humbug? I object to the commercialization of "the holiday season", so I get all Bah, Humbug around this time of year. One of the best TV shows I ever watched was an episode of Eight Is Enough (yeah, I am pretty sure I've told this story before...) where everything got stolen from their house just before Christmas, and they were forced to make things for each other. Everything was personal and had meaning, and it was really just a touching show. I just wish more people could get past the commercial aspect of things and remember the reason for the season. And it ain't presents, I can tell you that!

Okay, I think I am dangerously close to breaking my No Ranting rule, so I will bid you good night. I hope to stamp a few more of these tomorrow night, maybe even a few with the dog.

Oh, and remember to stop by my etsy shop on Monday to take advantage of the Mimosa Club Cyber Monday Sale! You'll get FREE STUFF! You can even go to my store before then and check out the list of participating shops. You just might find something you like! ;-)

Thanks for stopping by!

Rant(s) Du Jour

Don't get old. I know, everything changes, and we need to bend before we break, but there are a few things I think are common courtesies that no matter who you are or how young you are or or how different "things" are today, you just do them because it's right.

Rant #1: I go past a small Whole Foods market on the road I take from work to get to the highway. When it first opened I thought it was very cool to have one so convenient for me. WRONG! Since it is small, and it is inside the Beltway, and anyone who lives in the DC area knows that "inside the beltway" has it's own driving rules (like "I live here, therefore I have the right-of-way"), this conveniently-located store became a thorn in my side. Let's go back many years, when I picked the wrong day to drop in to pick up "a few things". It was one of those days when the shopping center had hired a group of full-of-themselves boy-scout-esque 20-somethings to direct traffic. Yes, I said "direct traffic" in a parking lot. See what I am dealing with? Well, this guy directed me to a parking spot right next to a car where the driver had gotten out, opened his back door, and was getting his child out of a car seat. Being a reasonable person, I waited. But nooooooo, the guy with the flag started yelling at me to move already! Uh, excuse me? I really did not want to hit the guy and his kid ... to which he yelled that I was holding up traffic. So I calmly drove straight out of the parking lot and never went back. Never. I did write a letter to the store when I got home, but I am sure since someone behind me took that parking spot and shopped in their store, they really did not care.

By the way, this store is still a thorn in my side since the same people seem to shop there, they still have people directing traffic in the parking lot, and they still back up traffic onto the main road because they are incapable of driving like normal people. JMHO.

Rant #2: Same shopping center, same parking lot, blessedly no one directing traffic. I needed to stop at Whole Foods on my way home last night, so since traffic was not backed up from the store's parking lot into the main road, I decided to ... give it a try. I pulled right into the main aisle in which they have cleverly posted signs with arrows to tell you that you may not turn into any side aisle from the main one...you must drive to the end and come at the side aisles from the other side. I guess this is supposed to keep traffic flowing. So I pulled up behind the only other car in the half-empty (for a change) parking lot, and this woman just stopped. Stopped dead. Then she put her car into reverse and started to back up! BACK UP! Wah?! Turns out there was someone in a parking space who had not even begun to back up yet, so she should have driven on past and just parked in the next row. But noooooo, she needed THAT spot, so she backed up to let him out. Unfortunately I was behind her, and when she waved frantically at me like "move already!" (do we see a pattern here?) I backed up, she backed up, the car in the parking spot backed up and left, she pulled right in, and I drove past the 18 other empty parking spots and left the lot, never, never, never, NEVER to return. NEVER!!! Oh, by the way...on my way out of the lot, someone turned left past the No Left Turn sign and parked. See - they live there, so that sign does not apply to them. Never going back. Never.

Rant #3: Tonight I made my usual Post Office stop to have a bubble envelope of stuff weighed to get the postage. It is a quick in-and-out task. I am (surprise!) one of those people who thinks other people's time is as important as mine, so I try not to waste it - theirs or mine. Silly me. I had no idea that you could bring a shopping bag to the Post Office, and take that opportunity to try out all the bubble envelopes and boxes offered for sale to see which one fit your item(s) best. Then you can get out of line, start to pack up your items, then get back in line later, but since you got there so long ago, you can just cut in front of whoever is closest to the head of the line, then you can spend 10-15 minutes discussing shipping options with the clerk, go back and forth to the shopping container area, then you can start to tape up your box, then begin to look for the address you need to put on the shipping label... Why is this okay? I take great pains to have my items packaged before I get in line. What is wrong with people that they think this behavior is okay!?

So, am I too old to go out in public any more? Should I move to an island somewhere? Or maybe a farm in the middle of nowhere? Please, tell me what you think! I really want to know...really!

Oh, and I simply LOVE Whole Foods, but I shop at the very large store near where I live; the one with the very large parking lot with mostly very courteous drivers.

I think I need to go stamp something.

The Chronicles: Day 5

Before we get to The Chronicles, let me first come clean in the Ribbon Department. You may recall I had three things to do on Saturday: take the cat to the Vet, start my taxes, then start on my South Dakota Road Trip scrap book. Well, I went to the Vet, and kitty now has a chip and no collar. Done.

Then the phone rang - it was my trusty cohort M., on her way to one of our favorite stamp stores about 45 minutes away in Virginia, and did I want to go along. Hmmm ... stamp store ... taxes ... hmmm ... the stamp store won! While I was there, I bought some more ribbon. Bad, I know, but I HAD to get it! Check it out:

The two sheers are white with swirls and cream with swirls, and were too beautiful to pass up. The ropey one is a really cool (neat) blue & green. And the one with the dog bones just called to me, ya know?

So I get home and look what was in my mail box:

My latest delivery from my Really Reasonable Ribbon Club membership. Can you say Yellow and Green? :-) So I guess I have a bit more ribbon winding to do.

Then, I was good. I went to the computer and loaded my Tax software, updated it, imported last year's return, copied the spreadsheet from my laptop to the other computer and started to finalize my 2007 stamp-related income and expenses. After about an hour I'd had enough, so I took a break...and I am still ON that break, and it is now Sunday evening! HAHAHA!

But, I have completed nine pages for my scrap book. Nine pages and I am still on Day 2 of a 16 day trip. Uh-oh. So as I was working on the next two pages, I looked up and realized the stuff on the table had reached critical mass. I think the moment has arrived!

I have gone from clean to a total mess in only 5 days! My goodness, what will happen between now and my next workshop!?!?! Yikes!

So ends The Chronicles. At this point I think I will have to start putting things away to do much more work, as I am beginning to lose things under there. Not a good thing. The GOOD news is all this scrappin' has me using a LOT of stuff from my stash! I have been quite resourceful - lots of chipboard letters, miscellaneous brads, retired-and-hoarded ribbon, lots of the stickers from a partial Scrappin' Kit - like I said: LOTS of stuff getting used up. YAY!

Ah, well, I am off to spool up some ribbon and maybe work on a few more scrap book pages.

PS: Before I forget, I ran into a college Sophomore today who did not know the significance of the year 1776. He just looked at me blankly. And he is a History major in college, but he was quick to point out he was focussed on European history, not US History. Yes, he was familiar with the Fourth of July, but had no idea the original event we celebrate occurred in the year 1776. Once I explained it to him, he said he'd had US History in his Freshman year of High School, as if to say, "How do you expect me to remember that?!" OMG, this disturbs me, a lot.

A Rant Retraction

I was just a little off with my rant last night about the snow not sticking - durn it if it didn't accumulate, even on the roads. And yeah, I need to shovel my front walk (in the morning - I am already in my jammies tonight).

But that still does not excuse the mania that surrounds the mere mention of the 's' word in these parts! Thank goodness I took the car with gas in the tank today, because the other car is running on fumes; even though the gas station is only about 3 miles away, and right on the way to work, it took me so long to get that far this morning, I would have been just another news event on the radio, sitting in a backup caused by my empty tank!

So anyway, it took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to work today (it runs 30-45 minutes on a typical travel day.) At that hour there was NO accumulation...the roads I traveled were merely wet. W-E-T! I got into work so late that I had to stay so late to make it up that by the time I hit the road there was virtually no traffic, but there was snow. I estimate two inches - tops!

Actually, I think I figured out the silliness of inclement weather and DC-area traffic: the proximity to DC! All that hot air must send out some sort of chemical that rises into the atmosphere where it co-mingles with the droplets that will become precipitation. This would explain why you automatically have to add 30 minutes to your commute time if it is raining, undoubtedly due to the release of this mystery chemical back into the air we breathe as we drive...er, crawl on the mis-named expressway. And we all know snow is just a firmer form of rain. Being firmer, it apparently contains a more concentrated amount of this mystery chemical, causing mass hysteria, nay: panic, in the minds of the commuting populace. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

OhMyGosh, it's begun ...

I grew up in the Midwest, including stints in Ohio, Michigan and the Chicago 'burbs. I know about Winter and snow and cold.

When I first moved to the DC area in '85, and the weather person predicted "frigid temperatures" followed by a forecast of {shudder} temperatures in the 20's...I almost spewed my beverage. 20?!?! Frigid?!?!!? Uh-uh. Frigid temps is when the wind chill is 60 below zero and your knees turn a bright pink, even under the long coat that covers them and half-way down your up-to-the-knees boots, then once you get into the building it takes about 2 hours for the color to fade to normal and sensation to return. THAT is frigid. Anything between zero and 32 is just "cold".

So after 22 years I am almost used to the silliness that is the DC-area weather, or should I say DC-area residents! If the forecast even mentions the word "snow", the stores are packed with people buying milk, bread and TP. (What's up with that, anyway? I do not recall that phenomenon in the looong Chicago Winters...) Oh yeah, and the little weather alerts will come on TV and squish your viewing area to a teeny tiny square so you can watch for ... drum-roll, please ... school closings! I swear! The schools have closed (that is, not opened) because there is a chance of snow around 2 pm.

I will admit there is some cause to be frightened around here when it does actually precipitate and the ground is cold enough for it to stick. We just do not get enough snow every year for people to remember how to drive in it. We'll get one or maybe two good coverings each year, usually in the January/February time frame. The first week of December? Nah - just talk.

And when the ground is very cold, and has been very cold for a long time, we do tend to get more ice than snow. I think the real concern is the school busses on side streets, but that is because we so rarely get snow, we do not spend our tax money on snow removal equipment, and it can take 3 days to get your street plowed if you live on a side street. A week if you live in DC, but I digress.

So today on the way home, the guy on the radio did allude to a chance of up to 2" over the next day or so ON THE GRASS. It has been in the 50's up until the past few days! It is not going to stick!!!! Yep - the stores were crowded.

I am sorry - it all just cracks me up.

Now that I am done ranting and whining, I think I'll go stamp something, like a project for this weekend's workshops! ;-)

I am SO glad to be back!

NOT! This post may be subtitled "Rant Du Jour". Grrrrr.

Back in early September I posted "Driving Laws as understood by DC-area Drivers." That was one heck of a bad commute day. I actually experienced every one of those examples in that one day. Really!

Now that I am back from vacation, I realized why I needed the break, and it is amazing I am still alive to rant about this...

In the past two days, not only did I see all of the previously-posted examples of stupidity, I saw a few more, plus a few in combination. These drivers are nuts!

[Editorial comment: All the following references to #'s refer to the list in the original post.]

I saw someone try to move from the driving lane into the merge lane to pass someone. But - and this is #5, with a twist - he waited until the merge lane was already gone before he tried to swerve into it, putting him immediately on the shoulder. The doofus immediately swerved back into the driving lane, but (get this) re-considered and tried to get back onto the shoulder to pass the guy in front of him! I kid you not! He finally opted for tailgating the poor soul in front of him who was not moving much because the car in front of him was not moving much. Funny how that works.

Then, when I finally got to my exit off the mis-named 'express'way, I got in line like a good driver to exit. Of course, someone, who absolutely had to be somewhere faster than the rest of us, sped along in the driving lane to the very end of the solid double line separating the exit lane from the driving lane, and proceeded to cross the solid double line (a la #6), and drove on the left shoulder of the single-lane exit, parallel to the cars already lined up to exit, hoping someone would let him in. Most people did the bumper-to-bumper thing to cut him off ( I love when that happens!), but he eventually found some slob who let him in. Pooh!

Then someone decided he was going to merge into my lane without regard to the fact that I was there. I will give him some extra credit since he did have his directional on (must have been from out of state originally, see #1), but just because you use a directional, IT DOES NOT MAKE CARS DISAPPEAR! It is my understanding that directionals are for the driver to indicate their intent to make a maneuver; it does not (last I looked) give them the right-of-way, nor does it work magic on obstacles like other cars. I honked, and he kept a-comin'. I then layed on my horn, which made him swerve back into his own lane, speed up, and become someone else's bother. I also strained my thumb on the horn...bummer.

And last, but not least, I survived three parking lots. You see, I needed to stop and buy candy on the way home. Not for ME, please understand (I am one of those freakish people that can live without chocolate), but for my upcoming Holiday Stamp Camp. I promised the Ladies that any serving suggestion (which I call all my card and project samples) that shows candy or chocolate will, indeed, include the same candy or chocolate when they make their own at the Stamp Camp. So I had to get enough to go around, didn't I?!?!?!

Anyway, I had to hit three stores to find more of all the candy-type stuff I had bought to make my mock-ups. Can you believe when I asked one of the guys at the big-chain grocery store if he could tell me where they were hiding the candy corn, he responded that he did not even know if anyone even bought that stuff any more? BAH, I say, BAH! So off I went to the car to go to the store of last resort to see if they could save me, and as I started to pull out of my parking space, some ying-yang was going somewhere way more important than *I* was, so he was doing about 45 mph in the parking lot. I am surprised he did not nail someone, as you cannot even move in that lot without at least 2 other people trying to back out at the same time you are, creating the ever-popular bumper-car situation.

And THEN, to top it all off, as I was very close to escaping the dreaded parking lot, another yahoo (ying-yang's brother, I think), decided that the guy in front of HIM was going way too slow, and was stopping way too much, so he tried to wiggle around him to pass him, in the parking lot. Think NASCAR drivers doing the can-I-pass-now-can-I-pass-now wiggle thing and you'll get the right image. At one point the guy actually started to pass, and then he found out that the reason the front guy was stopping is that we were in a parking lot, at a grocery store, and, um, there are people that shop there, and these people need to get from their cars to the sidewalk to get into the store, so they were crossing the driving lane, in the crosswalk, and the guy in front had the nerve to stop to let the people cross the street. Can you imagine that!?!?! Sigh. I just watched and laughed.

But, an incident on the way home yesterday renewed my faith in the system. We have an HOV lane (High-Occupancy Vehicle) for 'rush' hour (HAHAHA, rush hour!) and more often than not, people in that lane have no passengers. Almost every day I think, "So where are the cops when you need them?" Yesterday, as some poor passenger-less fool tried to merge out of the HOV lane back into the regular driving lane behind me, I saw up ahead a motorcycle policeman on the shoulder. This policeman sauntered across the HOV lane, held up his hand to the guy behind me, and pulled him over. YES!!! Made my day.

It almost - almost - made up for the nuts I encountered today. There's always tomorrow. ;-)

Driving laws as understood by DC-area drivers

1. Directionals are optional equipment on all vehicles sold in the Metro DC area. (Any vehicles with working directionals were undoubtedly purchased out of state.)

2. If you are in a driving lane that can go straight or turn left at an intersection, it is not necessary to use your directional. The people behind you will understand your intentions once the light turns green and you do not move, as will the oncoming traffic.

3. When turning left, directionals are not necessary if you pull far enough into the intersection. This maneuver, if executed well enough, will put you so far into oncoming traffic that you effectively give yourself the right-of-way.

4. Merge lanes are not to be used to join moving traffic already in the driving lane. Merge lanes serve the purpose of giving you a straight-away to gain enough speed that by the time the lane lines are gone and you are just about on the shoulder, you can cut off the driver immediately to your left, who is in the driving lane, forcing him to stop. This technique, when well-executed, can back up traffic in the driving lane for miles.

5. Optionally, the merge lane can be used as a passing lane. You can leave the driving lane and slide into the merge lane, attain proper speed, and blow past the suckers sitting in traffic, right up to the point where you are on the shoulder, then follow the steps in #4 above to stop traffic and join the other cars in the driving lane.

6. Solid white lines are no different than dashed lines, and may be crossed at will. Crossing a double solid white line is even better.

7. If you are on a two-lane road with parallel parking on the edges (that's really a 4-lane road, but with two driving lanes ...), and someone stops to maneuver into a parking spot, or if a garbage truck is making stops, you have the right-of-way. You may move to the left of said vehicle and cross the two solid double yellow lines, on the curve in the road, to pass the vehicle that is in your way. This right-of-way overrides the right-of-way of any oncoming traffic.

8. If you are in the left of two lanes, you are allowed to turn right into the gas station without regard to traffic that might be in the right-hand lane.

9. If you are turning left onto a road, and multiple lanes turn left, and you have plans to turn right at the next block, you must start off in the far left-turn lane. This will give you additional lanes to cross over within the next block in order to turn in time, and increases your chances of stopping traffic in multiple lanes.

10. If there is an incident on the shoulder of the freeway, you must slow down to get a good look at what is going on. If there are emergency vehicles present, you must come to a complete stop to get a really good look. This serves to increase the traffic back-up by several additional miles.

11. If your light is green, you must enter the intersection, without regard to whether or not your vehicle will actually clear that intersection. If your light turns red and you are blocking the cross-street traffic, you must look straight ahead and never make eye contact with the blocked party.

12. If you want to turn left from a side street onto a main street, again, directionals are optional. What works best is nosing your vehicle into the driving lane so far that you force traffic to stop so they do not hit you. Make sure that as you turn you wave to thank them for not slamming into you.

13. If you are on a hand-held cell phone, you are allowed to go very fast, and you do not need to use your directional when changing lanes. After all, your directional hand is busy on the phone. The other cars will 'get it' when you move into their lane without regard to the fact that they might already be in that lane.

14. If you are running into the grocery for 'just a few things' you may stop your car next to the yellow curb with the posted sign: 'No Stopping, Standing or Parking - Fire Lane'. Those empty parking spaces in the lot are for other people.

15. If someone gets pissy with you about parking in the fire lane, you may park the car in the nearest handicapped spot.