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  • #16
    Quoth RealUnimportant View Post
    Damn... I've done that "blink and find yourself on the car in front's bumper" trick, it's amazing how it clears your head isn't it?
    Very much, though it doesn't last. I think at that point we were 20-ish minutes from the border and the truck stop. I did drive the rest of that distance, but even by then the adrenaline rush was wearing off and I'm glad dad could take over for the next big chunk. I dozed/slept most of the way from Belleville to Toronto, and took over from Toronto to Waterloo basically.

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    • #17
      My first car was an old Honda Accord. The stereo broke, so I removed it, intending to replace it with something functional. Installing a stereo is more involved than removing one, and so there was a hole in the dash for quite a number of months. I used to joke with my co-workers that "Someone might break in and install a stereo."

      I drove my buddy and myself to lunch one day, and as we parked back at work made the standard joke--"Don't forget to lock the door, or someone might break in and install a stereo!" That evening, as I was driving home, I glanced down at the dash... THERE WAS A STEREO THERE! I started laughing so hard I almost drove off the road.

      I called my friend up and asked if he had forgotten to lock the door at lunch. His response was "No, I did not forget to lock the door."

      Talking to him the next day, he said that he was very glad I had asked in those specific words. He had, in fact, not forgotten. His not locking the door was deliberate. He and another coworker had scrounged up an old non-functional car stereo and had put it in the hole in the dash after lunch.


      ... I have other driving stories, but I think most of them would come too close to breaking my (relative) anonymity here ...
      “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
      One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
      The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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      • #18
        Somewhat related to Nunavut Pants' cheeky friends: I have blown 3 sets of rear speakers in my car.

        First set was an AC/DC album but can't remember which of the 6 I have. Second set was Deep Purple's Machine Head and the last set was Billy Thorpe's Live at Sunbury, the album that was recorded at Australia's answer to Woodstock.

        My dad, brother and cousins have all refused to help me buy or install new speakers again. So now I can't crank up the stereo above 25.
        A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

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        • #19
          Quoth Blue Ginger View Post
          ... So now I can't crank up the stereo above 25.
          (visual of Big Bird's head sticking out of the sunroof)


          Yo! Big Tweet!
          With the car bouncing two feet
          To the yip-yop beat.


          Se habla DEEF?
          I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
          Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
          Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke.

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          • #20
            Many years ago, I was weaning myself off Effexor (antidepressant) and hadn't had any bad side effects other than a few weird prickly feelings in my brain. The day in question, I was driving to work when out of the blue a very strange zapping, seizure-like episode began. I could see what was in front of me, but my brain was on the fritz. I knew that there was a pull-off coming right up, so I immediately went to turn into it to get off the road. Unfortunately, there was a semi-truck parked in it, and my fritzy brain was telling me "You're STILL on the damn road - pull off!" not realizing I was already pulled off, so I pulled off further, and ended up in the ditch.

            I was fine and so was the car, as it was a very shallow ditch, but I didn't drive for 6 months after that. I later found out that "Brain zaps" and seizure-like episodes were common withdrawal symptoms connected to Effexor.
            The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.

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            • #21
              Quoth dalesys View Post
              (visual of Big Bird's head sticking out of the sunroof)


              Yo! Big Tweet!
              With the car bouncing two feet
              To the yip-yop beat.


              Se habla DEEF?

              I don't think Big Bird would fit in my car. Animal from the Muppets would though.

              Normally my stereo is on 10. When other people are in the car, it's on 7. When I want to rock out or am going down the freeway at 100km towards freeeeeedom it is anywhere between 15 and 20. Some albums/songs should always be loud.
              A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

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              • #22
                OP, do you by any chance watch Canada's Worst Driver?

                There are some interesting drivers out there on the show and some of the things they end up doing while ON the show just make you go either or . Might be a good pick-me-up.

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                • #23
                  Well over 30 years ago not long after my wife and I were married we had saved up some money to go out to eat. As we were very poor at the time our big treat was a Long John Silvers 3 piece fish dinner with a side of popcorn shrimp and clams, we got water to drink. As we were sitting and enjoying our $5 meal I noticed a black pickup rolling across the parking lot (backwards) heading toward a low curb between that parking lot and a 5 foot drop off into the next parking lot. I piped up and said I'm glad that's not my truck. Well it was, I had forgot to set the parking brake on a somewhat slight hill and the clutch didn't hold it. Thankfully the damage wasn't real bad the bed and front end was bent up a little but not beyond driving. At the time I didn't have the time to do the body work so while it was being repaired I road a bicycle to work 9.2 miles each way on a very dangerous highway. My boss took pity on me an let me drive a company car after I came very very close to getting run down. All that for the want of setting the parking brake.
                  I've done some really stupid things both in cars/trucks and especially motorcycles, it's only the Good Lord's grace that I'm still here.


                  Oh I just heard another wreck out front, drag racers cracked up again. Ooooo fire...
                  Bow down before me for I am ROOT

                  Preserving precious bodily fluids sine 1952

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                  • #24
                    If it makes you feel better whenever it gets just enough snow here to leave footprints the entire Tillicum area turns into a free-for-all slip and slide. It’s so bad that they park the in-training paramedics at the corner so they can get real experience. Rain we can handle even if you can’t even see the front of your car it’s raining so hard. But a half inch of snow and the world’s suddenly ending and three quarters of the city is shut down.

                    All because nobody here has heard of easing off the gas and not slamming the breaks.

                    Oh and there’s one road here that goes sharply downhill and then there’s a sharpish turn after. The turns on a little cliff with houses underneath it. They had to shut down the housing complex because too many cars went flying off the small cliff (about 20 feet) and into people’s roofs.

                    There’s a part of the highway around here that was locally known as the rink (refers to a skating rink) because whenever it rains hard it turns into a hydroplaning nightmare. It got so bad that they started to use a textured metal covering (like the kind that covers ditches in the road during construction) to provide more traction because people just wouldn’t slow down. There actually used to be a video someone made of the cars just slow mo hydroplaning across the highway with soundtrack.

                    My mother, a person that could make the Worst Drivers tv show look like they knew what they were doing has gone through 14 cars... in just over a decade.... because she can’t seem to avoid crashing then into things. And no, she doesn’t drink. I’ve actually got one of her old cars with a dent in the passenger back door that’s big enough you can’t open that door anymore.

                    I once got stuck in behind traffic because a semi who couldn’t read tried to go under a bridge that was too low.

                    I also past a wreck that had firemen scratching their heads because the car tried to climb a tree and got stuck... about 15ft up. Would have loved to hear how the hell that happened.

                    I once had to do a dive rescue where a car driver had mixed up reverse with forward and backed into the ocean. You could see on the lot cameras. Puts car into ‘drive’ and car reverses when gas is applied. Driver gets confused look and decides to just give it more gas. Ends up in water.

                    So you are far from the worst driver out there. I’m still puzzled over the tree one though. I’m sure there’s some semi logical reason.
                    Don’t worry about what I’m up to. Worry about why you are worried about what I’m up to.

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                    • #25
                      Quoth AkaiKitsune View Post
                      All because nobody here has heard of easing off the gas and not slamming the breaks.
                      ... I'm hearing go faster so you get off the ice sooner, right? Pushing pedals to the floor (in rapid sequence) makes it all happen faster, so it MUST be right.

                      One of my favorites to watch (from a safe distance) is the idiots who decide that a steady, safe pace in the plowed lane is just too damned slow, so get over in the unplowed lane and nail the throttle, and DAMN the visibility... with predictable results.

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                      • #26
                        There are many youtube channels dedicated to videos of folks driving poorly. I've put front/rear dash cams in my/wife's daily drivers. I'm hoping to gather enough footage to start my own channel.
                        Bow down before me for I am ROOT

                        Preserving precious bodily fluids sine 1952

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                        • #27
                          I always watch clips from the 11'8" bridge when i'm down

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                          • #28
                            When I was in St. Pete, my coworkers and I witnessed this woman try to park into a small triangular spot that was not marked as a parking place. She backed into another parked car trying to park. After she hit the other car, she kept trying to back into this small spot.

                            Did I mention that this spot was in front of a fire hydrant?
                            This site proves Corey Taylor right. Man really is a "four letter word."

                            I'm now using my Deviant Art page to post my humor.

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                            • #29
                              Let's see... I've got a couple stories that will hopefully make you feel better about yourself.

                              First was about 20 years ago, shortly after I moved to northern Minnesota. I was driving to class the morning after a snowfall. The highway had been plowed, but the turn lane hadn't. So I was driving highway speeds until I tried to slow down for the turn. Emphasis on tried. I slid through the intersection and into the car waiting to turn left through the intersection. No visible damage to either car. I ended up with a ticket for driving over the "safe" speed limit. Only traffic ticket I've ever had.

                              The second was a few years after that. I may have told this story elsewhere on CS.
                              Different section of the same highway. Driving to work, slushy snow on the road. Stupid me was going too fast, not wearing my seatbelt, and didn't have my jeep in 4WD. Came around the corner to see a line of cars going slow because they were following a plow. Slammed on the brakes, drifted into the oncoming lane, overcompensated, slid off the road on my side. My jeep flipped either 1-1/2 or 2-1/2 times, landing on its roof facing the way I was coming, me still inside. I spent 6 months in a turtle shell letting my 4 broken vertebrae heal. I managed to come out of it with minimal issues, but I drive an AWD car now and always wear my seatbelt.
                              "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
                              -Mira Furlan

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