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I notice most days that when I leave work my entry to Hwy 270 (from Page) is pretty seamless. The cars merging from the highway onto Page don’t gun the motor to get ahead of those trying to merge, many use their blinkers (a practice largely ignored in STL), and for goodness sake people will actually apply their brakes to let someone in! Rarely do you see some ignoramus muscle in at the last second with half their car on the shoulder. After you’ve navigated the ramp getting onto 270 it’s the same drill; cars that need to slow down do, people that need to gas it a little do so. There’s a natural harmony to it and everybody gets where they need to be. It’s like a bread line for transportation.

I notice most days that when I approach Olive and 270 the circumstance is different. Cars who didn’t merge off of the Page entry lane burrow towards Olive scooting over only after they’ve passed a few chances to merge without an entire lane having to apply their brakes. The ramp onto 270 from Olive is a double barreled shotgun of foreign cars* that frequently force there way into traffic like a donkey onto a bunny rabbit. The people making 270 look like Christmas lights don’t pause to see who they just cut off because they’ve accomplished their goal – to get ahead regardless of what damage that 18 cylinder SUV will commence upon the ever present 4-banger that always seems to miss being crushed.

This observation was written quickly after almost dying 3 times on the way home a few days ago and I acknowledge it would fall apart under the lightest scrutiny.

Addendum related not just to 270 rush hour traffic: If you’re going to drive like a prick don’t do so in the stylish SUV emblazoned with information about your small or home-based business because it’s bad advertising.

*Face it, your car is only American in the way Madonna is. The Material Girl was born here but hasn’t made anything in the States for so long that she isn’t native anymore.

I was doing an audit of sorts of all the stuff on my server and came across a few things I’d uploaded but for some reason or another didn’t post.

Rectification below.

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This post isn’t about the “food” spam but the kind we all get in our e-mail.  Blogs get it too and it seems that when I post more than 500 words the spam filter here clogs up quicker than an 80′s metal band getting their head shaved in my bath tub.

The filter catches just about everything though, only a handful have snuck through in 2 years.   Most of it is words like ‘viagra’ and ‘mortgage’ with bits of coherency mixed in to confuse the filter.  That method achieves high art on occasion.  Below is an example of some of the more clever spam that gets caught.  It reminds me of the fake kung fu movie translations that made the rounds a while ago.

If this was coherent I’d caution you on the adult content but in this form it only manages to allude to the lude.  All punctuation and spelling is [sic].
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