Re: I'm guessing my tires are slashed by now.

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You're kidding, right? That note is hilarious. The last note I left someone read, "Nice parking, asshole. Happy motherfucking Easter!"


Posted by: Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 11:59 AM
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I'm sure I've already written about this here, but I once left an insane note on someone's lawn furniture they were using to block off a carefully dug out (BY ME*) parking space in Chicago. Lots of ranting about Republican greed and the expropriation of public property for private use. I think I ended it with something like "If you can't manage dignity at least try for shame."

*I don't put furniture in parking spaces; it's grotesque. But I really really object to someone throwing up lawnchairs in a spot they didn't even fucking dig out.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:04 PM
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Look, some people just aren't naturally gifted parkers. I was actually kind of delighted this weekend, parking some kind of Kia Shoebox from Zipcar, to find out that parking is much much easier when you're driving a shorter car. It wasn't all incompetence, our old Taurus was just really long.

It was, admittedly, mostly incompetence.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:05 PM
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And if you really left that note, you're my hero. And I expect someone has slashed your tires.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:05 PM
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I really really object to someone throwing up lawnchairs

I couldn't agree more.


Posted by: Sore Esophagus | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:08 PM
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someone throwing up lawnchairs in a spot they didn't even fucking dig

My blood pressure is palpably elevated just thinking about this.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:10 PM
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Look, some people just aren't naturally gifted parkers.

This is true, and true of everything. In my defense, the note I left was years ago, when I was in more of an asshole space. I would hope for more generosity of spirit from those whom I incompetently or unwittingly offend.


Posted by: Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:10 PM
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But I really really object to someone throwing up lawnchairs in a spot they didn't even fucking dig out.

I hope that this is the only opinion you share with Christopher Caldwell of the Weekly Standard, who once got like ten goddamned pages of that rag venue for astonishingly frank endorsements of Christian Reconstructionism enthusiastic condemnations of "decadent" Jesuits publication out of the post-blizzard parking-related activities of various racial and ethnic groups in D.C.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:14 PM
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years ago, I was in more of an asshole space

Age-related shrinkage is the worst.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:14 PM
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Oh, my parking doesn't deserve anything but mockery -- anything on the spectrum from belly laughter to awed silence is pretty much appropriate. Restraint would be silly.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:15 PM
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8: It is eeevil! And in Chicago it is not tied to any racial or ethnic group. My neighborhood was white Yuppies -- mostly gay, white Yuppies. What happens is, once people start putting the chairs up, if you don't, then you stand a good chance of never parking on your own street (or anywhere else) again until April, because no matter how quickly the snow melts, the chairs stay up, as the whole thing is just an excuse to guarantee yourself free private parking.

(The whole topic makes me humorless and insane.)


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:20 PM
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And if you really left that note, you're my hero.

Yay, I'm LB's hero. And i just went to check, because I had to pay the meter because Yggles changes the rate every fifteen minutes, and the offending party is gone and did not slash my tires. Presumably, he or she took the extreme step of disabling the brakes.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:21 PM
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Con't: To my street's credit actually, there were a few men who were braver than I who opposed the scheme and would walk down the street in broad daylight throwing chairs onto people's lawns. One woman, discovering her chairs had been tossed, started screaming and sobbing, and marched down the street herself throwing more chairs, and yelling that it wasn't fair for anyone else to do it if she can't. It makes people INSANE.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:23 PM
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I would think it would be slightly but perceptibly more enjoyable to fold up the lawn chairs, leave them in the spaces, and park on top of them.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:25 PM
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So, you know what's pretty nice (acknowledging that it's not a realistic option for everyone)? Not owning a car.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:28 PM
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14: Whereas my approach would be to move the chairs, park, then fire up the grill and set up the lawn chairs in the backyard. Invite the neighbor over for a burger and a beer. I'm so polite, even when it's snowy.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:28 PM
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Indeed. This Zipcar thing is delightful -- every time we decide there's really no reason to drive someplace, it feels like being handed money.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:29 PM
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Grilling when it's snowy out is really nice.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:30 PM
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On the wikipedia page for "parking chair," the second picture was taken within six blocks of my house. I have a driveway, but it got pretty bad.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:32 PM
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I had someone try to claim a spot I had dug out during last winter's DC big snow. I just moved their lawn chair to the top of a big pile of snow, parked, and when I left for work the next day I claimed my space with a deceptively light looking plastic box containing a car battery. I like to think the parking pirate tried to do to me what I had done, and on attempting to dismissively pick up the box and toss it accidentally yanked his arms off Machine Girl style, complete with squirting blood and lots of screaming. I assume he cleaned up after, as everything was free of blood and detached limbs when I returned. I guess he learned his lesson. How he cleaned up with no arms remains a mystery.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:34 PM
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You people know you don't have to live in places with shitty weather, right?


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:36 PM
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I'm kind of surprised people respect the spaces at all -- I'd think that as soon as parking got scarce at all, people would move placeholders without even thinking about it. I don't think I've ever seen snowstorm-parking-place claiming around here -- probably people would just ignore it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:37 PM
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21: We'll all be setting up tents on your lawn. Hopefully you've got enough pineapple to go around.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:38 PM
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22: Tires get slashed! That happened to me once on the next street over. Someone had placed two chairs verrrrry far apart from one another, and, after driving around for 20 minutes at 2am, I moved a chair up maybe two feet and parked. The next morning I had two flat tires. Guess they had a van or something.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:40 PM
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I'm right with you, NPH. They seem bright in other ways, but they've somehow missed the obvious.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:41 PM
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Dammit. Those days!--days!!!--wasted, now, it seems. Although maybe a trickle less fraud in the universe isn't a terrible thing, on balance. I guess it's just that pedophiles don't seem to be welcome in these parts (metaphorically speaking, about something back there somewhere), or shouldn't be welcomed, or that's the belief anyway, even if no one says it out loud (what's that about "says", anyway? No one says anything. It's just clickedy-clackedy, clickedy-clackedly LOL LOL LOLZ, day after day after day after day. Cf. that thing about the serpent eating its own tail. Fuck that noise. That's what you're wondering, if that's what I do in my spare time: fuck the noise? I'm not telling. What about you? "Out loud"? Hah! But I digress. Twice now, depending on who's counting. But who's counting? Certainly not me.), that I recall right now at least ("RTFA"? Yeah, you got me. Fuck you too, asshole. Oh, ha ha, sorry, yeah, I was just joking too, jesus you're sensitive.), though admittedly that ability seems to be fading recently. I blame the creosote. (But then again I would blame the creosote, wouldn't I? Wouldn't you? Unless maybe it's the mercury. The other possibilities are too disturbing to think about, mostly.) Really, though, it's not the heat--it's the humidity. I truly believe that. Oh well.

Sincerely,


Posted by: Ben Quayle | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:41 PM
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24: Wow.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:42 PM
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22: On my street, many of the neighbors knew who dug out which spot and which house goes to which car. Even without snow, many people feel they own the spot in front of their house. I've gotten a note that my car (with valid tags) was going to be reported as abandoned. It had been parked for two days.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:42 PM
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|| I hate my fucking job and I hate the fucking weasel who put making nice and keeping the peace ahead of doing the right fucking thing. |>


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:42 PM
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You people know you don't have to live in places with shitty weather, right?

I hung out with a friend from San Diego last night. He was complaining about how hot it is here.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:43 PM
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29: Oof. Poor Di. That sucks.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:44 PM
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Parking in Chicago was crazy-making even under the best of conditions (i.e. June through September when the city is not a howling wintry hell.) I think people just budget for parking tickets.

I left a note once, too, but the thing is it wasn't for bad parking; it was for a car alarm that had gone off three times before six a.m. So my note was long, furious, jam-packed with profanity, and incoherent. I'm sure it looked like a crazy person had written it.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:44 PM
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32: Did you live in HP? That just ups the parking madness to 11. Permits!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:46 PM
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23: I know where they sell it. But I do need to do some yard work; at the moment you'd be pitching your tents in the jungle.


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:48 PM
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34: Jane is hot. What more do you need to know, you loincloth ogling perv.


Posted by: Tarzan | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:49 PM
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I lived in HP for two years and Bucktown for two. It was ok in Bucktown (though I had two car CD players stolen in Bucktown before I gave up.) Hyde Park was, yeah, extra special fun because the South Side is, how shall one say, not a priority to city administration, if one is to judge by snow removal. And buses. And a lot of other stuff.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:49 PM
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This is the part of the post where you all tell me I'm just an asshole.

See, I suspect that you knew that leaving that note would make us all think you're awesome, or possibly even heroic, and were just waiting for the compliments.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:50 PM
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||

Waah, my best client contact just emailed to say he's retiring. He's in another city, so I didn't even know he was old enough that that was an option. Whoever replaces him is probably going to suck.

|>


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:50 PM
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29: Argh. You can fantasize about injuring them? That's what I usually do.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:51 PM
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29, 38: This work would be so much easier without clients and colleagues.

But in a couple of weeks I'll be a client and I'll probably suck.


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:54 PM
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the South Side is, how shall one say, not a priority to city administration, if one is to judge by snow removal

I liked the winter where some kind of pipe busted under the snow at 57th and Woodlawn, leading to a sheet of ice at the corner that slowly expanded over the course of two weeks, filling much of the intersection, before a crew arrived to repair the leak.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:55 PM
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39: As a non-violent, yet still completely vindictive sort, I fantasize instead about finding something better elsewhere and then humiliating them repeatedly by the sheer and unassailable force of my professional skill and integrity.

And then I go home and cry.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:57 PM
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Bastards, anyway. Is there an anonymizable story to tell?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 12:59 PM
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21 You people know you don't have to live in places with shitty weather, right?

Isn't it too hot most of the time, where you live?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:00 PM
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The temperature inside Mammoth Cave is 54 degrees F, year round, with very little fluctuation. If someone would build a major city inside, that would be ideal.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:03 PM
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42: The problem is that such people are often shameless enough that humiliation doesn't work. And when they do suffer professional setbacks, they can't understand why, so the desired message never gets received. That's why it's easier just to convince yourself that being an asshole is somehow self-punishing (or that God Will Get Them, if that's how you roll), so you don't have to worry about it.


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:03 PM
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Bummer, Di.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:03 PM
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||

OT, I love this cartoon in response to the Cordoba House/Park51 controversy. Perhaps it's an obvious cheap shot, but not one that I had need previously.

|>

Di, my sympathies. Hating your workplace/supervisors/coworkers is a recipe for huge amounts of general life stress.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:05 PM
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44: Depends what you consider too hot. It usually gets a bit sticky from August into November or so, but not as bad as a lot of other places (high 80s or occasionally low 90s), and there's a breeze most of the time.


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:10 PM
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48: The Daily Show recently made a similar joke about building a Catholic Church next to a playground. Sure, you can; but should you?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:14 PM
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It usually gets a bit sticky from August into November

They call it "Gummy's cousin is visiting"-time.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:16 PM
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Ah, exposed as a non-watcher of the Daily Show. It made sense that somebody would have made that joke by now.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:16 PM
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43: I wish. You would all support me, in emails.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:29 PM
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||

Got to meet a sitting US Senator today, although some of the time he was walking around.

I didn't complain to him about the potholes outside our building though. Oh well, missed opportunities.

||>


Posted by: William Howard Taft | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:35 PM
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Stanley's attempts to get onto the UGBs are getting more and more obvious.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 1:50 PM
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You should just say what you were thinking, which was probably along the lines of "You left me no room to get into my car/out of my parking spot, you inconsiderate jackass. Jesus fucking christ, please pull your head out of your ass the next time you park." That gets the message across. My hunch is that, ironically, the passive aggression in the note you left might only encourage more bad behavior.


Posted by: Pan flute | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:13 PM
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56: I'm going to start using the construction "a pain right where I sit" from now on.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:14 PM
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57 to 55, not 56.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:26 PM
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I guess I'm feeling confused by the idea of a place where parking density is high enough to need to fight over parking spaces, but people drive at all. Rationally, I guess such must places exist; if there are cars on the streets then of course they can't all be visitors or people who are at some nearby event or commercial district and couldn't find any spaces closer. I suppose you might find it funny how quickly I've gone from a lifestyle that required a car all the time to being unable to understand why anyone would want one. Seriously though, if I relied on a car and decent parking suddenly became unusually hard to find, I wouldn't start competing over it, I'd give extra thought to the public transportation options.

That being said, I'm sure borderline cases exist but in the really extreme case where I shovel a space out and someone else tries to claim it with folding chairs, well, fuck them. Whether those chairs go in the sidewalk, in the street or under my wheels would depend on my mood and any witnesses present, but those chairs are getting moved and I'm parking.

I like this note on the Wikipedia page about "parking chairs":

This article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to train. Please help improve this article either by rewriting the how-to content or by moving it to Wikiversity or Wikibooks. (February 2010)

So that bit, blatantly in violation of Wikipedia's policy, has been there for six months presumably because no one is has been thinking about this stuff since then.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:28 PM
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||

I was checking on my niece's flight here on Flight Aware, and find that they also have private planes. Jets, anyway.

|>


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:30 PM
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http://flightaware.com/live/flight/EJA630P

Messed up the link. Again.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:30 PM
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I'm feeling confused by the idea of a place where parking density is high enough to need to fight over parking spaces, but people drive at all.

Excepting during heavy snow, in my neighborhood the fights over parking happen because nobody wants to walk more than 50 feet. There's always a spot.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:31 PM
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Chairs left at the curb, much less across it, are abandoned. That's pretty much a universal understanding, isn't it? If someone throws trash in the street in front of my house, of course I can clean it up. If I want.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:33 PM
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Yeah, the only fighting is when the spots only exist as a result of individual decentralized shoveling effort.

Related, I spent 9 winters in Pittsburgh and never until this past winter heard about the "tradition of the Pittsburgh parking chair". I heard the concept associated with Boston and Chicago on multiple occasions in that time. Conclusion: the 20-year snOMGasm we had in Pittsburgh this year is the kind of snOMGasm they have every year in those places.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:36 PM
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Chairs left at the curb, much less across it, are abandoned. That's pretty much a universal understanding, isn't it? If someone throws trash in the street in front of my house, of course I can clean it up. If I want.

Similarly, if they park their car in front of your house, it's your property.

This depends on the neighborhood.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:37 PM
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Related, I spent 9 winters in Pittsburgh and never until this past winter heard about the "tradition of the Pittsburgh parking chair".

People do it daily on some streets.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:40 PM
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66: No! Oh, lord, that would kill me.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:42 PM
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You can fantasize about injuring them? That's what I usually do.

Nah. Just leave a note on the weasel's car.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:47 PM
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But in a couple of weeks I'll be a client and I'll probably suck.

Nosy lurkers sent me e-mails asking me to ask you who you're suing.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:48 PM
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Posted by: | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 2:59 PM
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I left an angry note on someone's bike once because in locking their bike to the rack they also locked it to mine. Something along the lines of "thanks for making me walk home," I forget if I included "asshole".


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:02 PM
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re: 59

Where I live it's sometimes quite hard to find a space, and public transport for me [while something I use maybe one week in three] is i) massively more expensive than driving,* and ii) takes significantly longer.

* don't even get me started on the rant about that: in any world in which the train costs nearly double** the cost of a single person driving a car, on their fucking own and not car sharing, to travel approx. 100 miles a day, is one in which transport pricing is utterly fucked.***

** that's with a season ticket. On-the-day prices are, and I kid you fucking not, approaching 5 times the cost of driving.

*** that shit should be properly fucking nationalized, rather than the half-arsed system we have now.****

**** possibly with gibbets lining the track for shareholders ....


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:07 PM
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72: I like the sound of "The train from Euston is delayed, due to shareholders on the tracks."


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:08 PM
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72: 100 miles a day? That's like half way to Wales.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:11 PM
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On-the-day prices are, and I kid you fucking not, approaching 5 times the cost of driving.

*boggle*

Though the cost for one person of taking the train from here to Seattle is also more than the cost of driving (with the multiple depending on how you calculate the cost of driving, but about twice the cost of gasoline).


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:12 PM
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Today I learned the word "gibbet". Thanks, ttaM!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:23 PM
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71: Remove the lock from your bike, put it on both bikes. Detente!


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 3:30 PM
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77: Then use the two locked-together bikes to mark yourself a parking place.


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:07 PM
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||
Hook 'em job woooooooo!

Details after I get drunk.

|>


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:07 PM
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||

That's it, I'm going back to the financial industry. I don't care if it kills me, at least there'll be money for the funeral.

||>


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:12 PM
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79 and 80 don't reflect some conservation law, I hope.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:17 PM
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& also hooray chopper!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:18 PM
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Go Chopper!


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:23 PM
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Two cheers for employment.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:24 PM
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If you want three cheers, win the lottery.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:24 PM
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81: We could always hope it's only conserved mod 2.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:38 PM
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And congrats to Chopper. We await your drunken exposition.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:39 PM
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Yay income!


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:40 PM
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Yay Chopper!


Posted by: Mr.Blandings | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:41 PM
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Congratulations and condolences. The only thing worse than having a job is looking for one.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:49 PM
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||

Katy Perry finds her own music annoying. And she's a fan of Die Antwoord, according to a recent NYT article.

|>


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:53 PM
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If it's not something that she doesn't want, it doesn't happen.

So...


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 4:59 PM
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Will to Cleavage.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:00 PM
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91: I still find it totally weird that Die Antwoord isn't just some odd little curiosity on the web but a world-touring band that people actually go to see.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:19 PM
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Congratulations, Chopper!


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:19 PM
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What did Antwoord ever do to anybody?


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:20 PM
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Yay for Chopper!


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:52 PM
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Congratulations, Chopper! Great news.

I'm a bit worried about Natilo.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:53 PM
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re: 75

The train for me is a little less per week [buying a weekly pass] than double the cost of petrol. Although that's now, when petrol is quite expensive. A couple of months back the train was a clear double.

However, due to rush-hour price gouging by the train companies, a return from London to Oxford, if you don't have a season ticket and want to buy a ticket on the day, and want to travel at a time that covers rush hour, it works out at £40 - £50. Petrol for me is under £10 for the same return trip.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 5:56 PM
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99: I realize that this is an unfair comparison for a variety of reasons, but allow me to gloat a bit. It's been a long week at work and at least one of the people annoying me lives in your hemisphere.

When I commute to work all five days of the week, I spend less than $15 on gas for that whole time.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 6:43 PM
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in your hemisphere.

Northern, or Western?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:00 PM
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I split the hemispheres differently. The eastern hemisphere starts at Scranton.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:02 PM
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100: I'm with you, man! Commuting five days a week I spend... oh. Nothing, actually. Still, $15 is almost nothing!


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:03 PM
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94: Me too. That's why I had to post that article, even though I don't really care about Katy Perry at all.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:06 PM
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Still, $15 is almost nothing!

That's just gas. Parking is about $100/month, which is why I'm on the (free to me) bus when I can.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:11 PM
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106

||

Don't go to law school. (The shocking bit to me is how much things have changed for new lawyers in the time I've been in practice, and my cohort was ~ 10 years too late already.)

|>


Posted by: Not Prince Hamlet | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:11 PM
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29: On Wednesday, I was so angry at everyone--because the atmosphere is toxic--that I was worried I would blow up. Today I was just depressed. People look ta facebook on their breaks all the time, but I don't think that I could get away with reading unfogged to blow off steam. We sit at tables lining the sides of a room. Actually they're not tables. They're slabs on top of filing cabinets.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:43 PM
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108

The bus/coach from Oxford is not as expensive, though. Right?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 7:52 PM
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109

the cost for one person of taking the train from here to Seattle is also more than the cost of driving

With the recent NJTransit fare hikes, this is now also true for traveling from here to NYC.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:00 PM
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On the subject of parking, a nice British lady stopped me on the street earlier to confirm for her that her street-parking job was legal. She was concerned because she was in front of a tree. Do they hide the fire hydrants in trees in the UK, or was she just figuring US traffic laws are probably all fucked up? I mean, either way I was amused.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:08 PM
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111

106: Now you tell me...

107: My sympathies. It really is not a pleasant way to live.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:15 PM
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Further to 110: And, to be clear, I promptly assured her that her chosen parking spot was perfectly legal, and that, moreover, she could park there all weekend long if she liked, it being after 6pm heading into a weekend. And then I found five quid.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:17 PM
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113

So when someone chops down the tree on Sunday afternoon and destroys her car, we'll all know who to blame.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:41 PM
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114

Fuck. I totally forgot about that ninja-lumberjack problem we've been having in town. Now I feel awful.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:52 PM
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Aw, don't feel bad, Stan. Nobody expects the ninja lumberjacks.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 9:55 PM
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Oh, my peeps. I am lit. Lit like, I dunno, something really lit. A roman candle? Like that. I am literally afeared of my good fortune. After 22 months of very close holding of cards to my proverbial vest, I now have a job that superficially is the job of my dreams. I will be the owner of the company brand. I will have minions. I will be traveling internationally. I will be like unto the god of Choipperlike ambitions.

I just have to pick my family up[ and flng them cross-country while doing all of the above and trying desperately while not taking it in the ass on my house. That's doable, right?


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:06 PM
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Maybe what happened here the other day was a massive ninja lumberjack assault. Way too many trees came down to be explained by a storm, and the lack of sightings of ninja lumberjacks is just further evidence for their ninjaness.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:07 PM
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Chopper is chipper!


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:08 PM
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Way too many trees came down to be explained by a storm, and the lack of sightings of ninja lumberjacks is just further evidence for their ninjaness.

Plus now there's this suspiciously happy "Chopper" fellow...


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:11 PM
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Yay, Chopper, woo, hook 'em! And don't worry about selling your house. Bob told me we're all fucked anyway on being homeowners anyway.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:11 PM
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not taking it in the ass on my house

Yeah, you definitely want to do that in your house.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:35 PM
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121: Otherwise, you might get a whole different kind of shingles.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 10:39 PM
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Hooray Chopper!

This isn't going to cut into your quality time with us though, is it?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 11:03 PM
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Also, everyone should join me in getting this song stuck in zeir heads. I'd say it's NSFW but if you've got the kind of job that allows you to watch youtube videos with the sound on, then it probably doesn't matter.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 11:07 PM
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Also, everyone should join me in getting this song stuck in zeir heads.

I am already there.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 11:13 PM
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I should say that mcmc alerted me to the song.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 11:17 PM
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127

Way ahead of you.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-20-10 11:20 PM
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128

Congrats, Chopper.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:01 AM
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128: Will, I think you could make an awesome tv commercial with the Cee-Lo song.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:19 AM
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was she just figuring US traffic laws are probably all fucked up?

She would be wrong?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:19 AM
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129. What would you be advertising? Sub-prime mortgages? Also, congratulations, Chopper.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:21 AM
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I just want to note here that I already congratulated Chopper in another forum, so I wasn't being completely self-centered above.

But yeah, life in my movement job context has really been getting me down. I wasn't even supposed to be here this long -- I'd originally signed up to do it as a temporary, stop-gap measure until we could find someone else to be responsible, but now it's subsumed me. It's really frustrating to work so hard for so little and then have everything I work for undone by some petty megalomaniac lothario. At least back in the financial industry I was compensated at a solid lower-middle class level for all of the indignities I suffered.

Now I have to go in and work with board members to try to get caught up on all the things I've fallen behind on. Dreary.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:33 AM
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||

Weekend cute. Not sure if it's safe for work or not.

|>


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:49 AM
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I hope your family is good with the move, Chopper, and let us know seekritly where you land.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 7:25 AM
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120:I am to blame

I cut down trees I skip and jump
I like to press wildflowers
I put on women's clothing
and hang around in bars

Has Chopper become a MotU? I quake in awe.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 7:50 AM
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yay chopper! hook'em btock style! moving isn't as bad as they say. I mean, it's a pain in the ass, but it does give you the chance to get rid of lots of things and start afresh with a fantasy of organization. of course, I moved in december, and my house is just as crammed with shit as ever.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 7:52 AM
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130: I'm generally pleased with traffic laws, actually. They're actively harmful if I think through their implications. But from a user-interface point of view, I'm selfishly "A+++ product as promised; would buy again". That's sort of, I think, the problem.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 7:54 AM
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Hey alameida, I sent you an e-mail.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 8:00 AM
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133: Wow. Really, really, really cute.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 8:14 AM
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Once we saw a guy who had clipped a parked car carefully write out a note and place it under the parked car's windshield wiper. It read "People who are watching me think I'm writing my name and phone number. They are wrong"

On another occasion we used to regularly use someone's private housing parking space rather than pay meters just along the street.(We were comparatively poor at the time) We came back (for the last time) to find some paper glued to the windshield right in front of the driver's eyes which we just could NOT remove and so had to drive away as though IT DIDN'T REALLY MATTER....
Does anyone know what that paper could have been - it was 100% effective and looked as though it had been peeled off some backing sheet? I'm sometimes tempted to slap some on drivers' windshields who, when stuck in traffic right outside our apartment, just sit on their horns.....


Posted by: Herr Torquewrench | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 10:30 AM
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140: So it was different from a sticker how?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 10:37 AM
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Not that endorse people sticking things to cars that aren't theirs, to be clear. I'm just confused a bit by your description of the gluey paper.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 10:46 AM
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I sometimes see a sort of sticker used by wheel-clampers and other people who sticker parked cars. It does look a lot more like paper pasted on with glue than a normal A4 sized 'printer' sticker/label would.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 10:49 AM
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Maybe something about windshield glass makes it harder than regular glass to get stickers off of.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 11:14 AM
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Congratulations to Chopper. I'm rather depressed about my own employment situation. In late spring I applied for a job that I really wanted. It's a more senior position than what I have now, at an institution that I did some work for in grad school and really love, and which happens to be located just a couple of miles from where I live, as opposed to the 45 minute commute I now have. As the summer wore on and my phone didn't ring, I came to accept that I wasn't really in the running, which didn't surprise me all that much--I was a bit of a stretch as a candidate. Unfortunately what I came to suspect, and then had confirmed to me by someone else a few weeks ago, was that my boss had also applied. I then correctly guessed that the day she was out of the office two weeks ago was for an interview, and this week she told me they made her offer. So now I'm already starting to get pressure from people to apply for her job, which I don't want, at least in its current form; but then again, I don't want a new boss, either. And if I wasn't a viable candidate for the job I really wanted with my current resume, sitting in the same chair for another couple of years isn't likely to make me seem more compelling for anything else similar that might appear.

A few people have suggested to me that I try to redefine my boss's position to make it something that would be better suited for me. And that's good advice that I'll probably try to follow. But there's only so far it can go--a number of the aspects of her job that I'm not interested in are things that can't really be handed off, at least not entirely. It's also possible that in time my comfort level with those areas would grow, but I have a hard time imagining myself being really engaged by them. They are, among other things, dull.

I'm also afraid that not applying for my boss's job would entail a loss of self-respect, with the possibility of a difficult adjustment to a new work relationship to follow. Then there's the chance that I'd apply and not get the job, which isn't impossible (though not the most likely result.) Either way, if I'm not in her position in six months time, it means that I or the institution will have implicitly decided I have no future here. Which is fine in a way (I'm ready to leave, just need to have somewhere to go), but not the sort of thing one wants hanging out there.

Oh, and this is all going on while I'm vacation. I'm planning to come in to the office next week when she tells me that she's going to break the news publicly--I want to be there that day. But meanwhile, this is the worst vacation ever. I shouldn't complain, but still. If I didn't have family in town, I'd just as soon go to work and save the vacation time for when I could appreciate it.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 2:45 PM
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JL, That sounds like it sucks, but you sound like you're thinking through the right issues. Have you thought about applying for jobs elsewhere or taking on her job and then starting to look?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 2:54 PM
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Thanks, BG. I'm probably going to do something like the latter. I'm pretty limited right now in what I'm willing to look at, unfortunately. I'm not willing to move out of the area, and there's only so far I'd be willing to commute. That alone limits my prospective employers in the field to a very small number of institutions, with the two most significant being my current one and the place hiring my boss (and which, as a result, is unlikely to have a relevant job opening for perhaps as long as a decade to come.) But that's mostly short-term. If I can get my boss's job, tough it out for a few years so that I gain sufficient resume cred in that role, it'll be time to start thinking about pulling up and moving to Boston.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 3:05 PM
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130

She would be wrong?

Hey, at least we drive on the right side of the road.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 3:29 PM
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Usually.


Posted by: Humbert Humbert | Link to this comment | 08-21-10 6:49 PM
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A bit late here but I feel my most inspired parking note ever bears recitation:

"Because you left your car blocking my garage, my child was stillborn in the alley."


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 08-23-10 12:42 AM
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Outstanding.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 08-23-10 12:49 AM
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On the subject of parking, a nice British lady stopped me on the street earlier to confirm for her that her street-parking job was legal. She was concerned because she was in front of a tree.

DUDE, NOT COOL.


Posted by: OPINIONATED TREEBEARD | Link to this comment | 08-23-10 2:17 AM
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