He approached the car from the right side, as to not get hit by the side road traffic that I had deliberately pulled over on, instead of pulling into one of the many available parking lots for the stores and restaurants. He told me to hand over my license and insurance, which I already had ready. Then asked several strange questions, "Where do you work? Are you a student? What does your middle initial stand for?", after which he returns to his car for a period of about 20 minutes. He then returns to my car telling my license came up "clear" (imagine that, I don't have any warrants!), and hands over all my papers along with a violation ticket.

I let kenny investigate the papers, as I was still trying to drive away from the scene, and he told me that "Disregarding a traffic control device" was a mere $20 charge. Easy enough, I'll write a check for it and be done with the matter. Not so fast. Upon further inspection of the papers by myself I found that there is a MANDATORY "PREPAYABLE COURT COST" in the amount of $110.50. Let me spell that out, ONE HUNDRED AND TEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS, in addition to the $20 for the actual violation. I'm not even going to court over this, but I have to pay court costs? What in the hell is this? What kind of system involves me paying for court when I don't go, and not only that, but what’s going on to incur a $110.50 charge? I hope they serve prime rib in their court room while deliberations are going on. There is a number that I can call for "questions", so I hope I don't get the run-around, and be forced in to paying for this nonsense court charge for no apparent reason.

The Citation

Closeup of the explanation.

and happy birthday to one derek poore.

Of COURSE we do.

Such a brilliantly clean advertising campaign—really, it's so uncluttered and to the point, that you can't help but enjoy it. But for most of us, it stops there. Enjoy the commercials, enjoy watching them again on the internet from your PC's, because that's probably all you can afford.

That's the way it is for me at least. If only the people at Apple realized how much I truly want to switch; so much so, that I almost feel like I NEED to switch. But alas, that won't be happening anytime soon for me (unless an Apple exec. stumbles upon this article and decides to be gracious and send me free items). I would give anything to own a Powerbook G4. I'm not even going to be greedy about it. I'll take the 15" instead of the new 17" widescreen edition, but seriously, with a BASE price of nearly $3,000.00, it's going to be a while before I can afford to make my dreams a reality.

Oh yeah, I guess I shouldn't forget to mention what is perhaps the greatest hand-held device ever invented; that's right, the iPod. It's amazing, and Apple KNOWS it's amazing. They're producing it in a Windows version. WINDOWS. They're making product for the enemy. Why? Because they're good, and they know it. But being good comes at a price. Thousands of PC users dying to get their hands on these items, but due to outrageous prices, they're stuck wishin', instead of switchin'.

So, all the subdomain webmasters were given fair warning about this change, and if their site isn't up yet, feel free to yell at all of them. Most of them seem to have gotten their acts together though, so that's good. So yes. Hopefully now that NOTD and all of it's posting functions are active once again, things will pick up around here. So keep checking back.

If found please forward to Wigs Unlimited

Owner seeking item for personal reasons.

That is all.

Apparently gas prices are going to rise whenever this whole war deal gets going--so says Dave. Well that just sucks. They're high enough as it is. I remember when I first started driving I was pissed when I had to spend over $0.80 a gallon for the cheap gas. Now when I see it for under $1.25 I nearly die of excitement. I'm sure it's even more in other places--left coasters, I'm talking to you.

So the #1 ranked Florida Gators sure showed the nation what they're made of in the L-E-X tonight, losing to the #7 Kentucky Wildcats 70-55. I wonder if their mom's taught them to play like that? Shooting only 19% from the field during the first half, they looked worse that half the high school girls basketball teams I've seen--and believe me I've seen HUNDREDS. Of course Lousiville would kick either of those teams to the curb...

***BONUS LINKS FOLLOW
Yeah so I was over at the good old Doozer's Den yesterday and I saw that he finally removed his link to the once mighty Who'sTheManIAm.com. Sad, really it is. He did however see fit to replace the lost legend with a new hyperlink of the flavor Studied Authenticity. I've enjoyed it so far, so feel free to give it a read, you have my blessing to do so.

By the time 5:00AM rolled around and all I had done was roll around in the bed for two and a half hours I was getting mad. I don't normally have these problems. I LOVE sleep—with a passion. I guess I finally convinced myself of this because I never saw the clock read 6:00AM. From then on, smooth sailing...or not.

I didn't sleep well at all. I kept hearing these noises. I've convinced myself it was the wind blowing strangely around the corner of the house. I can't prove this fact, but it gives me a more secure feeling than I would have if I thought it was a person in our attic. So it's the wind, end of story.

The worst feeling in the world is lying in bed, awake, but almost asleep. You're laying there, eyes closed, but you know, you FEEL that your alarm is about to go off. You could check and be wrong, and rewarded with another hour of sleep, or you could check and be right, and be mad because you only have seven more minutes, and no one can enjoy a mere seven minutes of WATING for the inevitable. So you look anyway...damn 10:45AM.

So I roll back over, mad at the world that I looked at the clock. Then, out of nowhere, noise, LOUD noise. I slammed down on the snooze button. Nine more minutes, that's all I would need. Life would be perfect after those nine more minutes of sleep. Wrong. Those nine minutes felt like 5. In fact after about the fourth time that I hit the snooze button I was convinced that the time between alarms had been shortened to about three minutes. This apparently is what sleep deprivation will do to a person. Sucks doesn't it? Maybe I'll just throw my alarm clock out the window tomorrow morning. Speech class couldn't be all that important anyway, could it?

Kangaroo Indian Head yields this:

Why? See, thats the magic. I'll continue.

Funny Face Ashley produces this wonderful image:

eBay auctions to watch out for here and here

Thompson has also been interviewed by Salon.com. From the article: He calls himself "an elderly dope fiend living out in the wilderness," but Hunter S. Thompson will also be found this week on the New York Times bestseller list with a new memoir, "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century."

Of course, you have to pay for full Salon articles now--the goofs should just create a print version, I'd pay to read a magazine I could actually hold in my hands.

Carry on.

"When technicians ask him, Cat Boy reports he was dreaming that he is a large cat following a female zookeeper with a bucket of raw meat."

"A taped snippet of one of his nights in the sleep lab is part of a parasomnia training video. At 4:24 a.m., Mel begins sleep-talking: ''Quit using the goddamn bowl for banging like that -- quit it now! Get the hell out of here! Go on! That's about four times this morning that I have told you. I don't know if you're that deaf or that dumb, which . . . goddamn continuously. . . . What the hell are you looking for, a walleye?'' "

This surely explains several of kennys activities during the night hours.

A senior U.S. official told the Associated Press that "it's gone" and the astronauts were dead. He said NASA officials have recovered parts of the shuttle on the ground.

NASA officials made no official announcement about the fate of the crew, but flags at the Kennedy Space Center and the White House were lowered to half staff. A press conference was scheduled for 1 p.m. (EST).

Washington Post
Columbia shuttle breaks up over Texas
ABCNews Radio reports debris falling in different parts of Texas/Arkansas.