uninteresting :: rich

over a week has passed now, so i can finally think more rationally about this without wanting to kill someone…

on one of the rare mornings i actually drove to work, i stopped off for some coffee and left my car in a bus lane with the hazards on. and i got a ticket. and it’s for $250. for stopping for 5 mins to get coffee. the whole 45 min drive down to cupertino, i fantasized about different scenarios of catching the parking cop in the act and strangling them.

i just did a quick online search about it, to see if anyone had good ideas for getting out of paying it. instead, i’ve found that i’m just one of many to be screwed by the Great Bus Zone Scam - and nobody gets out of paying. it’s by far the most expensive kind of parking violation (the next closest is $100 for parking on the sidewalk…i coulda parked right up on the sidewalk and saved myself $150!). also, you can get ticketed for just stopping in a bus zone. i never knew any of this. and now i’m a victim. my coping mechanism, as i prepare to write the check, is to think of it as a donation to the city of SF.

heed my words: beware the bus zone.

so true, so true…

Berkun blog - There are two kinds of people: complexifiers and simplifers

i think i’m an uber-simplifier. ’nuff said.

they should take every sweet drink on the market and dilute it 50% with water. everything would taste so much better, and you’d get twice as much of it. i mostly drink just diet drinks (and lots of iced coffee), but even those are way too sweet.

and what’s with places getting rid of nutrasweet and replacing it with splenda?

i don’t know why i’m not just put in charge…

The foolish reject what they see, not what they think.

The wise reject what they think, not what they see.

as usual, i took the A home from work today. as we pulled into the union square station, i moved aside for a woman behind me to get out, and heard her say “bitch don’t you do that to me” to another woman in her way. it quickly became a standoff, and seconds later they were flailing away at each other.

like most fights of the sort, it would die down a bit, and then they’d jump back into it. we were all angling for a good view. some were laughing and snickering about it.

it’s curious how we can be mindlessly riding the subway, and just moments later be blinded by rage and violence. i’m sure as hell not above it: a while back i was getting on a train and a guy bumped into me on his way out. as he did, i noticed he leaned into me just a little bit harder to force his way through me.

normally i just brush it off when people bump into me, maybe look back with a grin, indicating a “sorry”. but in that almost imperceptible instant, i felt his motivation and it just pissed the shit out of me. i looked back at him, hoping he would look back also and instigate something further. but he didn’t, and i got on the train really pissed, imagining how i would’ve kicked his ass all over the place and how good it would have felt.

—

once i was in traffic school, maybe 10 years ago, and the instructor was talking about road rage. he said, “next time someone cuts you off on the freeway, instead of getting angry and dangerously tailgating or cutting them off, try just letting it go.”

when i started reading “7 habits” the first time (maybe 5 years ago), it spoke of choosing your reaction to things. though we tend to subconsciously act out scripts that are engrained in us, there’s nothing preventing us from examining those scripts, deciding they suck, and choosing different ones.

today, i read in “buddhism, plain & simple” that one should try to see reality for what it is, to “act without intention.” that is, i believe, to behave consistently, regardless of whether people bump into me by accident or to purposely plow through me. extrapolate that idea out a million-fold, and you might live a life free of dukkha (dissatisfaction, the wants and worries that fill our heads).

this book is blowing me away. i need to think about it while stoned, but i’m afraid my head will explode.