SinoPenn

The Livingston Death-mobile

Livingston American School, the new bane of my existance.  In the last three months, I’ve been at least knicked by 3 cars while riding my bike to work.  The 2nd one I posted about earlier.  The first was 3 months ago on the way to work, and the latest, some jackass in a Suzuki Swift decided to create his own lane on Hami Road, thinking that his car could squeeze through a space no wider than my bike, while I was next to him squeezing by.  I’m truly becoming an Angry Cyclist.

Livingston, however, have the most asinine bus drivers.  For two years I’ve traveled the same route to work, mostly by bike, and I almost always see one of their buses.  A few times now, one of their drivers either cut in front of me, nearly missing me, got so close behind me that I thought I would be served up at the Roadkill Cafe, or drives so close to the curb, while I’m riding next to the bus.

This particular bus however, didn’t kill me using vehicular homicide.  As I was on my bike, and it’s tough keeping up with this fucker while holding a (rather lousy) camera phone, I inevitably couldn’t get the money-shot, a large obnoxious plume of cancer gas eminating from the tail pipe.  It’s not bad enough that they’re lousy drivers, they also have no sense of vehicular maintenance.

Seriously, Livingston.  Get with the program here.  You’re an international school.  Fix the damn buses. You’re supposed to be representing my country of origin. Obnoxiously black smoke plumes coming out of the exhaust, stinking up the last half-mile isn’t the way to do that.

I already posted about my yet to end saga with the Shanghai DMV (or whatever it’s called here.. Ministry of Motor Vehicles?).   The whole idea of driving just got a bit more painful tonight on the way back from the other job.

I was so close to home tonight, I could smell the ayi’s cooking already!  As I passed my beloved Century Mart, a car came barreling out of the parking lot.  I was on my bike, pretty much just heading home when…

He fucking HIT ME!

Not that hard, mind you.  His bumper got up into my petals, and I managed to keep control of the bike.  But that’s about all I kept control of.  I turned around and YELLED!  I don’t remember what exactly, but it was something along the lines of JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!  ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?! WHAT THE FUCK?!

The car backed off rather quickly and I kept going, waiting for them to pass me.  A blue taxi passed instead, so I figured I scared the hell out of them enough that they were going to keep their distance.  I turned toward home and realized, I haven’t yelled like that in years!

I have a few beers now, so time to relax.  Maybe a little Grand Theft Auto is in order.

Back in the states last week, among some of the commercials I saw were a few annoying ones from a company advertising freecreditreport.com. The songs were dumb, and the commercials were on so often during daytime television that those loser-esque tunes would soon stick in your head for days to come if you didn’t weed it out via AC/DC or something. I won’t pretend to know exactly how they make their money, but given what’s posted on the US Government website, they’re not exactly the ones to go to.

Only one website is authorized to fill orders for the free annual credit report you are entitled to under law — annualcreditreport.com. Other websites that claim to offer “free credit reports,” “free credit scores,” or “free credit monitoring” are not part of the legally mandated free annual credit report program. In some cases, the “free” product comes with strings attached. For example, some sites sign you up for a supposedly “free” service that converts to one you have to pay for after a trial period. If you don’t cancel during the trial period, you may be unwittingly agreeing to let the company start charging fees to your credit card.

Some “imposter” sites use terms like “free report” in their names; others have URLs that purposely misspell annualcreditreport.com in the hope that you will mistype the name of the official site. Some of these “imposter” sites direct you to other sites that try to sell you something or collect your personal information.

Annualcreditreport.com and the nationwide consumer reporting companies will not send you an email asking for your personal information. If you get an email, see a pop-up ad, or get a phone call from someone claiming to be from annualcreditreport.com or any of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies, do not reply or click on any link in the message. It’s probably a scam. Forward any such email to the FTC at spam@uce.gov.

There you have it. AnnualCreditReport.com. No silly jingles. Unfortunately, no access outside of the United States either.

The AnnualCreditReport.com website is only accessible through ISPs (Internet Service Providers)
located within the United States and its territories.

One of the reasons I was home was because of the death of my Step-father. About 3 days had passed when my mother received a phone call from a creditor (outsourced to India, of course). The bill was for something valued at around $60. Not sure what it was. Upon learning of his death, this creditor proceeded to tell us that the bill still needs to be paid. It would still reflect on his credit report, and we wouldn’t want the deceased to have a bad credit score, would we? WOULD WE?!

What the hell is that? Your credit score now matters AFTER you die? Who the hell thought of that one? I’d appreciate anyone telling me why that would matter to me. When I’m dead, I’m pretty sure they won’t honor a car loan request. Then again…

As soon as I find myself a nice working US Proxy, I’ll see if I can find out what mine is, just out of curiosity. Doubt there’s much on there, considering the time I’ve lived overseas. But I certainly am curious.

One of the nastier places to try to drive (and walk for that matter) in a civilized matter right now is Jianhe Road & Yan’an South Road during rush hour.  Construction currently going on on the road has somehow released a strange chemical in the air making drivers here act in a much more irratic manner than normal.  Case number one:

Corner of Jianhe Lu & Yan’an Xi Lu. From Shanghai, China- Miscellaneous Pics

From Shanghai, China- Miscellaneous Pics

Note the drivers going straight on Jianhe Road (going right in the first photo,  the black car & the back of a gray van).  The light is green, and as at least some pe0ple know in China, green means go.  The problem with this is that where the gray van is heading, this is where the construction begins, and there’s only one lane. When that light turns red, the large blue truck in the back will sit comfortably in the way of the traffic that would’ve been able to go when their light turned green.  Why is that?  Simply put, no common sense and all personal gratification.  He or she MUST go because he or she CAN go, paying no heed to the fact that he or she WILL end up blocking traffic.

Cars going up the wrong way on a temporarily one way street. From Shanghai, China- Miscellaneous Pics

Cars going up the wrong way on a temporarily one way street. From Shanghai, China- Miscellaneous Pics

Case number two: Due to the traffic only being one lane in the construction area, the congestion is NOT just because of Dysfunction Junction. It’s also due partly to morons like the above who decide, rather than go around, they want to pry their way up the wrong way, slowing down or even stopping those going the right direction.  At the end of this part of the lane is indeed a sign and sometimes a traffic cop sitting on a lawn chair suggesting people simply turn left instead of going straight.  Unfortunately, some people just can’t read.

So there we have it.  On one hand, due to the traffic, everyone needs to jump into the one-way lane and even if the light is red, the common mentality is, “well, the guy ahead of me is going, I’ll go too.  Even if I’m stuck in the middle of the road blocking traffic, or even if it’s going up the wrong way.”

Happy Everyday!