If You Can't Drive It, Don't Buy It!

I will never understand this logic, I go to the car dealer to buy a new car, as I'm browsing the lot, I see this bad ass 2008 pickup. I tell the salesman that he needs to get me into that car, I've got good credit, lets get me on the road with this beast asap. As soon as I leave the lot I find out the car's too much to handle, so I'm stopping late, over/under accelerating, etc.

Unfortunately, I drove it off the lot, like a moron, so it's mine. No problem you're likely thinking, it just takes some time to get used to it, I'll be okay.

I have seen countless morons on the road who cant turn, cant stop, cant accelerate correctly, it's amazing. Does no one bother to take a test drive anymore? I'll be the first to admit my Yaris handled differently when I drove off the lot when I test drove it, but that's because it had the dealer's kill-switch installed, so when I drove it home it drove a lot smoother, but the handling was about the same.

I bring this up because I noticed some idiot driving around in his brand new Chevy Avalanche, assuming you can actually call it driving, basically swerving and not handling his vehicle very well, at all.

My first assumption in a situation like that is that the driver is likely drunk, but it was a monday afternoon and there were actually 3 people in the car, male driver, female passenger, and what seemed like a baby seat in the back, so this guy was likely driving his family somewhere for dinner or similar to that. Mind you, I don't live overly close to the city, we're a few miles north on the interstate, but it's fairly busy. They had recently added an on-ramp for one of the streets and its not very smoothe because of the construction and they have 2 way traffic in an area that will one day become a 1 way. Lets see the graph, shall we? (YAY MSPAINT!)

Bonehead and I are entering the freeway from point A with ultimate destination being point D (what you cannot see, is that point D forks, it will go straight and run along side the interstate, or become an on ramp, the B lane is designed for interstate traffic, whereas C is designed for people who want to drive alongside.) Now, as he drives around the turn to enter lane B, he gets into the lane about 3 hours too late, up until this point he was in lane C, when he notices that it's not going where he wants to go, gets into the correct lane and when reaching the turn, takes the turn so damn wide, almost ends up in the dirt somewhere below the text of this post.

I swear this guy had an Arizona lic plate, that wasn't FLT so no rental, so he should be used to this kind of insane traffic structure (see: How to Drive in Phoenix, if any confusion).

Why Do All Hospitals Seem to Suck at Everything?

Through the course my life, I've had a few family members in and out of various hospitals, the amazing thing about this, the food always sucks. Can anyone explain this one to me?

Sure, I can see why patient food would suck, they have to supply it for free to every patient they have, so it's understandable that they would want to save money. Now, if I'm going to go to their cafeteria, and pay 10 bucks for a Grilled Cheese, why would I want the bread to be stale and the cheese to be uncooked? I don't, but somehow, that's always how it ends up. Or I always have the option of going somewhere close like a McDonalds or something of that nature, but I can't bring it back into the room to spend time with my family member, because they don't allow food past 5 feet inside the door.

The best part is, hospitals will always be able to get away with this, if it was any corporation, you would see a company change it, and then bring in loads and loads of business, the problem, where ever you happen to be when you get hit by a truck, that's where they ambulance is taking you. At least in Phoenix, it's law that the driver is required to take you to the nearest hospital to your location, no matter how much you or your family members ask otherwise. Make sure to think of that next time you're choosing a house, if you have an accident there and need to be rushed by ambulance to a hospital, where are you going?

My girlfriends mother went to urgent care to have a rash looked at, they advised her that it was MRSA(Lovely little infection) that she contracted while at the hospital with her son, and that they would like to get an ambulance to take her to the hospital to get it treated, she politely declined, as the nearest hospital was Paradise Valley Hospital in PHX, and the place is a waste of space. (The doctors actually lost her when her family was looking for her a few years back, how do you LOSE a patient?). Thus driving her infected self to another hospital 10 miles away to John C Lincoln Hospital.

While I'm on the topic of hospital complaints, someone tell me why I should pay to park there? I show up, I'm in enough emotional distress as I have someone I care about in the hospital and you crazy people want me to pay $1-$5 a day for parking. Screw that noise.

So there ya have it folks, I'm sure everyone hates hospitals for one reason or another, my reason is not because sick people are there, it's because they suck in general.

How about you folks leave some comments? We're rolling in the traffic recently but no one wants to comment? 28 Stumbles on Mental handicap pt2 which equaled about 500 uniques, and no comments, seriously?

Oh and make sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, it's a whole lot easier.

Must be a Mental Handicap Part 2.

This is part two of the Mental Handicap series, see part one here.

I'm usually not one to turn my blogs into a gripe station, but this one needs to be aired. I'm sure most of you have had this experience in your life in one store or another. You find yourself sitting at home and realize you really need something, be it toilet paper, cat food, whatever. This forces you to make a quick run to the store to pick it up. Even though you use the express lane, you're there for 45 minutes.

I'm assuming not all of my readers are from a busy metropolitan city and cant directly relate to this, but hear me out.

I run into Wal-Mart at around 11:30pm to pick up some lunch meat and some cat litter. It's a Sunday night and I need to get back home and get to bed as I need to work the next morning. I run in, find the items I need and now it's around 11:45, I get to the express lane to check out so I can make a quick escape, when all of a sudden this woman slides her cart in front of me and begins to check out.

The bad part about this is that although it's a 20 items or less lane, this woman has a whole cart full of food and clothes, basically, the works. As she is piling her stuff onto the little counter usually reserved for people like me who have 2 or 3 things, the cashier is just looking at her dumbfounded because she doesn't have one of the black conveyors that are usually used for this transaction, so this woman is piling items on top of items in order to empty her cart.

After about 15 minutes of this, all the items are finally scanned and the woman now has to look for her card. This is another 10 minute process because "I know it's here somewhere." Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the line has formed to now 7 people, including some annoyed, already drunk frat guys who are wanting to purchase their 2 bottles of Smirnoff and some orange juice, a crackhead homeless guy who just wants to buy a candy bar, and myself. She, seeing this, turns around to apologize to me, not because she just wasted 20 minutes piling her stuff on the counter, but with a giggle, that she can't find her card.

Finally, I get to buy my stuff and I'm out the door within 5 minutes from that time. All this for a loaf of bread, 2 deli meats, and cat litter.

I swear, I could make this blog all about the stupid people I encounter in my every day life, but there's enough of those out there.

A Graduation to Remember

For almost anyone, your highschool graduation is a day you will never forget. For me it was a few years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. For my little brother who just graduated on the 22nd, he had a little bit extra to go with his.

Lets start out by saying May in Phoenix is supposed to be hot, we prepare for these things, as do our guests. According to Wikipedia, the average high temperature for Phoenix in May is 104. And anyone who read my post earlier this week about being over the top, it was 107 on Monday. Now, the glory in all this, we have family that came in town from literally all corners of the US, Washington, Maine, and Georgia.

As the day arrives it becomes very overcast and it starts to cool off. "The bastard," I think to myself, when I graduated it was 114, and he gets a nice 80. As the night starts to roll around it starts to get cooler and cooler, and then the wind kicked in. At 7:00pm, when the ceremony was set to start it was 44 with windchill. As I sit there in shorts and freezing my ass off, the ceremony starts. Luckily the speakers realized everyone was generally uncomfortable and cut some out of their speeches and the person reading the names sounded like an auctioneer, the poor principal who was taking pictures with the grads was going from side to side non-stop for about an hour because they had just over 400 graduates.

On a side note, hearing the principal improvise his speech to add in a bit about the weather was pretty funny. As he is talking about how far all the graduates have come since day 1 as Freshman to the point they are at now, and all they have in front of them, he makes the comment, "All I hope is that when you all grow up and start your careers, you will be able to move somewhere warm." Clever.

The best part of the night is when they got to about the "s" part of the class and the stage started to fall apart because of the wind. It was a 4 piece wood backdrop that had a painting on it and parts 2 and 3 collapsed in 2 directions, 1 forward toward the podium, the other backwards onto the sound equipment.

Even before the final word was given, caps were thrown and people were running to go. We don't work well in cold here folks.

StumbleUpon Update:
For those interested about some updates on my ScrewU StumbleUpon post, here's the stats for today:

stumbleupon.com 38

So it is improving day by day, but this is also helped by the fact as I post more, more sites are entering the SU database.

In Phoenix, We're over the top...

So yeah, today was the first 100 degree day of the year here in Phoenix. Most places on the first day, it's usually 100 or 101, no, not here in Phoenix, we like to go big, so we rocked a lovely 107. I'm sure it hit 110 in some locations, but Yahoo only gives me Sky Harbor's official reading, so that will have to do. The best part about it had to be the 10 mph winds that go with it, so you walk outside to that wonderful feeling of someone blowing a hair dryer behind your neck. So it got me thinking, what else do we do in Phoenix that's a little over the top?

1. Fife Symington III

Governer of Arizona from 1991-1997. What makes him so over the top? we lets see.. He was convicted of Bank fraud in 1997 which forced him to resign a year early due to state law barring felons from holding office. Then later that year stated he witnessed the mass UFO siting known as "Phoenix Lights" and did a panel on it with Larry King speaking about UFO's.

2. Our Sports Arenas

Check this out, we have an indoor football stadium, with natural grass. How does one pull that off? Retractable turf baby. Oh yeah, and we spent about $455 Million on one of the worst football franchises in history, go us. Oh right, that baseball team that won the World Series against the almighty Yankees in their first few years of existance? They had the first retractable roof ballparks.

3. John Sidney McCain III

Oldest mofo to run for president(and actually have a shot at winning) . Even Ross Perot's old ass cant even compare to the longevity of Sen. McCain. Anyone heard of Al Gore in the polical sphere recently? No, he gave up and is persuing global warming after being beaten by W. After getting his ass handed to him in 2000 against Bush in which he was accused of having a child out of wedlock, being insane, and being a homosexual, guess who won the Republican nomination in 2008?

4. SR 153

Of all the useful highways we have here, we decide that we need some useless ones. I give you State Route 153. A 2 mile stretch of road that does nothing but drive past Sky Harbor Airport and then become a street again like nothing ever happened. Like stated in my previous post about Driving in Phoenix, no one really knows what its purpose is, but we spent money to build it anyway damnit!

5. Sky Harbor Airport

You read that correctly, our airport is over the top. Not in the same sense as our ballparks in that they are way expensive, just how crazy it is. City officials expect the airport to serve over 42 million people in 2008. And check this out, a few years back we had record breaking heat that grounded flights because of fears the runway was not long enough to allow planes enough time to gather speed in order to take-off because the air was so thin.

How to Drive in Phoenix

This came to me as a chain email from a coworker, so I cant take credit for its humor, but I figured it was too good not to share. Many of you who read the blog can see that Phoenix and I, we have a love/hate relationship, and maybe that's why this is so funny, but I'll paste below.

How To Drive In Phoenix

1. You must first learn to pronounce the city name, it is: FEE-NICKS.
There are other names to learn such Ahwatukee (Ah-wa-too-kee) but that
will be included in the advanced course.

2. The morning rush hour is from 5:00 am to noon. The evening rush hour
is from noon to 7:00 pm. Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.

3. The minimum acceptable speed on most freeways is 85 mph. On Loop
101, your speed is expected to at least match the highway number.
Anything less is considered "wussy".

4. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Phoenix has its own
version of traffic rules. For example, cars/trucks with the loudest
muffler go first at a four-way stop; the trucks with the biggest tires
go second. However, in the East Valley, SUV-driving, cell phone-talking
moms ALWAYS have the right of way.

5. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear ended,
cussed out, and possibly shot.

6. Never honk at anyone. Ever. Seriously. It's another offense that can
get you shot.

7. Road construction is permanent and continuous in Phoenix. Detour
barrels and barricades are moved around for your entertainment pleasure
during the middle of the night to make the next day's driving a bit more
exciting.

8. Watch carefully for road hazards such as drunks, skunks, dogs,
barrels, cones, cows, horses, cats, mattresses, shredded tires,
squirrels, rabbits, crows, vultures, javelinas, roadrunners, and the
coyotes feeding on any of these items.

9. *Maricopa Freeway, Papago Freeway and the "10" are the same road
unless it's the part of the 17 that's also called the Maricopa Freeway.
*SR 202 is the same road as The Red Mountain FWY unless it's east
of the 101 and then it comes the SanTan, then it ends, and then becomes
the SanTan again.
*SR 143 is a street AND a freeway at the same time. Either way,
it's the Hohokam Expressway.
*No one really knows what purpose SR 153 has exactly.
*SR 51 has been called both the Squaw Peak Freeway and Piestewa
Freeway. Depends who's talking to you. US 60 on the east side is the
Superstition Freeway. On the west side it's a diagonal road with lots of
traffic lights that's best avoided altogether.
*Sometimes you'll hear things on the traffic reports that refer to
"the innerloop". No one (besides traffic reporters) ever called anything
in Phoenix by that name. Matter of fact, I'm not sure where that is
exactly.
*Dunlap and Olive are the same street. Bell and Frank Lloyd Wright
are the same street as well.
*Jefferson becomes Washington, but they are not the same street.
*SR 101 is the Pima FWY east of I-17, which is the Back Canyon FWY
(south of the 101, north of the 101 it is Veterans Memorial HWY) unless
you are south of the 202 then the 101 becomes the Price FWY.
*SR 101 west of I-17 (at all times) is the Agua Fria FWY.
*No one is quite sure where Bethany's Home is.
*Lastly, Thunderbird Rd. becomes Cactus Rd. but, Cactus Rd, doesn't
become Thunderbird Rd. because it dead ends at a mountain.

10. If someone actually has their turn signal on, wave them to the
shoulder immediately to let them know it has been "accidentally
activated".

11. If you are in the left lane and only driving 70 in a 55-65 mph
zone, you are considered a road hazard and will be "flipped off"
accordingly. If you return the flip, you'll be shot.

12. For summer driving, it is advisable to wear potholders on your
hands.

13. It's a sport to make a yellow light from at least 500 feet away.

14. And finally, enjoy the beautiful landscape along the side of the
freeway. You won't see that in any other city in the state (conspirators
are sure Phoenix as stolen all of the money!)

Nine is my personal favorite, any gripes about your city?

3 Bed/2.5 Bath/No Pizza

There are certain things that should be required to disclose when you purchase or lease a house. Things like murders, Indian burial grounds, lack of pizza delivery, things of that nature. Most people assume that as long as you are in the area of a city as large as Phoenix, you would be able to have pizza delivered to your house, not this house!

No, we don't have a vicious dog that will attack everyone so the pizza guy stays away, we're just lucky enough to live in the 3 square miles of northern phoenix that does not have a pizza place around. Check this out, it is a map of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area, north of Loop 101, with Domino's Pizza locations marked.

As you can see, the locations are quite wide-spread to allow maximum pizza delivery location, now check this out, this is the same picture, only with their delivery route's boxed.

Ok, so I understand Phoenix is a big ass city and we cant expect 1 store to cover 20 miles, but would it kill a driver to possibly drive an extra mile or so to deliver a pizza? It would be moronic to put a Dominos along Carefree HWY/I-17 Junction to service possibly 400 people at best, but cmon, we order pizza for the convenience, if I need to drive to get my pizza, it really loses it's luster. And the best part, this isn't just Domino's, all pizza places like to build right next to eachother, so I guess the driver can work for 3 different places in the same night or something, so no pizza delivery, whatsoever!

But It's a Dry Heat!

This post here goes out to anyone who looks at Phoenix's temperature and states... "that's not bad, at least it's a dry heat" and actually believes that. You know what else is a dry heat?

This thing:

Try sticking your head in there for awhile, sure doesn't feel good does it?

There are a lot of things to compare here, namely, why do people feel this way? Sure, when it's 95 and 100% humidity, that feels absolutely horrible, I know, I spent a week in Maine about 10 years ago during a major heatwave, it was not exactly pleasant. The problem with this is that we are comparing apples to oranges. There is a reason it's a dry heat, there is so much sun beating down on Earth that it drys up the air making humidity impossible. Now, not everyone can imagine how this feels. What you will need to do is imagine all the moisture in your skin evaporating, to do this, try taking a hair dryer on full power and aim it at your arm from about a foot or so up, Ahh, our great August wind.

Now, a lot of people also have this idea that Phoenix never gets rain. That's only partially true, every fall, we have our monsoon season. To anyone that has not had the pleasure to be here for one of these, let me explain. The wind shifts from S->N to N->S, bringing cool air down with it, and cool air and warm air, they don't like eachother, so the moisture from the cool air will begin to form to clouds which will hang out, outside of Phoenix, but never actually making their way into Phoenix, due to the heat rising off of the concrete and asphault in the heat island. Eventually, the city will start to cool at night and these massive clouds will start rolling into town. The thunderstorms don't usually last very long, but they are very powerful, and usually preceded by some very fun duststorms.

My favorite part of the heat, above all else, is that whenever you feel like you want to escape it, you can always just into a pool, as most homes in the Phoenix area will have them. The only problem, pool temperatures are usually the same as the air temp during the night, putting your relaxing pool at a refreshing bath-water temp of 85-95 degrees.

Anyone else have some complaints about their cities?