Fritter and Waste -Wednesday, June 30, 2004 -2:32 am-
Well, I'm sitting in the ER, as I have been for the last two and a half hours, so I figure I may as well blog. This one is going to go back a ways, at least a week. The Saturday before last Michelle, Michele, and I met Mary at Momo. Michelle ended up driving Michele home so I had to drop of Mary on my own. As I was leaving her place I noticed that Mich's car didn't have much of any gas left in it. I stopped at the Marathon at Chittenden and Summit. As I was filling up, a major pimpmobile pulled up. Gold chrome hundred-spokes, purple velvet seats, little gold crown on the rear deck. The driver got out and went around to the passenger side. He opened the door and put something on the ground. I was thinking it was a small dog or suchlike. The driver walks into the store with a leash in his hand. On the other end of the leash was an alligator. About 5 feet long. The man walked his alligator into the store, bought some snacks, and walked back to his car. He picked the alligator up, and the damned thing stuck its nose out the window as they drove away. Only on Chittenden does that make sense.
In further car news, I went to ComFest on Sunday. It was... moderately interesting. I ran into a bunch of people I knew. Parking was a bitch though. I drove for 30 minutes trying to find a legal place to park. I finally came across a side street, well north of the event area, where there were no signs at all. I went up and down the street twice to make sure it wasn't marked as no parking. I parked the car and started walking towards High St. About 100 yards away from where I parked I walked past a gravel lot that was attached to a vacant factory building. As I looked, a car pulled in and parked. I thought about moving my car to the lot, but decided that it probably belonged to someone and I should be nice and not park there. I walked the mile and a half to the venue and stayed there for about 5 hours. Eventually, I hiked it back to the car. As I was walking up the street to where I had parked, I noticed that there were far too few cars and far too many cops and tow trucks. I approached the first cop and asked why they towed my car from a street not marked as a no-parking zone. He replied that the street was only 22 feet wide. "Well, good for it," I said. Glaring a bit he continued on to tell me that Columbus motor vehicle code forbids parking on streets narrower than 23 feet. Riiiiiight... I was supposed to notice the missing foot, less than a 5% difference, from a visual inspection. That also presumes that I was even aware such a crazy law existed. It was a two lane road with no signs, why in the hell wouldn't I be allowed to park there? Thankfully, Mich had just dropped Amanda off on campus and could pick me up. The next day I went with Jeff to pick the car up. He had to go since his name was on the title and registration (we also found out that the BMV still thinks he lives in Westerville). He also had to provide the cash. It cost me $126 to get the car back. A $70 holding fee, a $46 dolly fee, and a $10 ticket. Great.
The Columbus Impound Lot is west of High Street just south of downtown. If you ever have to go there, wear good walking shoes. It was a ten minute walk from the guard tower gate to the row my car was in. The lot had once been gravel but time and toil had reduced it to an ultrafine powder that stirred up from the ground with the least breath of air, hanging lazily, before covering every surface in sight. It was apparent that some of the cars had been there for quite some time, since before the last heavy rains at the very least. These resident cars were sunk into the ground. Abandon your conception of tires squelching ruts into the mud, these wheels had melted there. The ground formed perfectly flat against the tire, following its every contour. The ground between was flat and level as glass. There'd be no driving that riced out Civic with the broken in windows away without a shovel. As a final insult, the white serial number placed on the driver's side window will likely outlast the car.
In other news, Half Persians are the spawn of the devil. They're also incredibly interesting. HP is a bitch to start and a bitch to join. They are, however, extremely fast to make. From a mathematical standpoint, they're insanely great. Take an integer greater than three. Take a second integer that's less than the first. From these two numbers, a half persian can be built. The first number determines the density of the chain and the second number determines the chain's aspect ratio perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. It's pretty damn cool.
OK, we're moving somewhere, bye.
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