Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts

Monday, January 21, 2008

Squalor Detracts from the Now

Are you tired of looking down your nose through the electronic-liquid-crystal-tinted windows of your Bentley and being forcibly reminded of the world's morass of entropic bedraggledom?

It's impossible to drive through any neighborhood without being accosted by the morass of roadside filth - shards of glass, empty fast food bags, would-be window washers, tiny pebbles, degenerates desperately squirming through the gutter towards their leering pushermen, grit, empty 40's of malt liquor, mouldering underpants, blue collar peasants staring with their vapid stares down the street, slouching indifferently towards the eventual arrival of urine-soaked, ever-tardy public transportation as broken thrift store toys litter the streets.

It's difficult to focus on the upcoming merger with this sort of distraction, no matter how crisp the gentle thrice-filtered HEPA air conditioning and the exquisiteness of the in-car live violin trio. Squalor detracts from the now.

One option would be to buy out these middle-class slums and turn them into an exclusive country club. This is very costly, and involves attending endless city council meetings to get sufficient re-zoning permits. Also, rubbing elbows with The Great Unwashed, which gets into the uncomfortable likelihood of exposure to something called 'elbow grease'.

At long last, there's a better option! Have your personal assistant make a convenient call to EtchCo's Commute Beautification Hotline, and our team of Commuscapers(tm) will do the rest.

Gone will be the shards of glass, empty fast food bags, empty 40's of malt liquor, and the rest of the...unpleasantness. Our fleet of industrial vacuum trucks will make a Commute Inspection and Cleanup Sweep(tm) mere minutes before your commute begins. All degenerates too weak to walk will be loaded into vans and transported in comfort to the nearest shelter. All public transport loiterers will be ferried to their destination at no charge, clearing the route for you, our priority commuters.

Tired of long waits at crowded intersections? You're far too important to sit at the same stoplight through two cycles of the same light as traffic edges along - our fleet of Traffic Flow Modification(tm) vehicles will arrive at key intersections fifteen minutes before yourself, to guarantee the right sort .reach the green lights they need in a timely fashion.

You've made the right choices in life - born well, made the right connections, married well, and are chauffeured in the utmost style and comfort - why should you expect any less of your commute? Call EtchCo's Commute Beautification Hotline today!
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Friday, January 18, 2008

more data is needed

I have a 41 mile commute to work - luckily this is 99% freeway travel, or I would have to start killing people.

The Highway Patrol is very diligent along this stretch of road - I have seen - and I shit you not, eight HP cars along my route. They just pull over driver after driver (this is the middle of nowhere, and the speed limit is 70mph, so of course everyone goes 85).

(I limit myself to 76, for the record. I've yet to get pulled over.)

I recently wrestled the digital voice recorder from Cindy and have taking it with me on my commute. Mostly I come up with blog post concepts, no Great American Novel epiphanies yet.

With so much Highway Patrol activity, I thought I would keep track of which cars were pulled over, and see if there was any truth in the old wives' tale that red cars get pulled over more often. Since I started keeping track, I've only seen two vehicles pulled over - they were both white. The weird thing is, as soon as I started keeping track, the HP has been almost nonexistent. Maybe they're guarding a different stretch of road, letting us drop our guard?

I'll keep you posted!
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