Back in time

For the past three days, Terre Haute's fairgrounds have been host to a "Diesel Extravaganza". As it turns out, this consists of assholes with giant trucks accelerating hard all over town, primarily on Hwy 41 of course, and blowing black smoke out of their oversized tailpipes. Now these are not ordinary diesel fuel vehicles, they are modified to have big stovepipe-style exhaust pipes. They are also apparently never maintained or cleaned, so that I am not even kidding a little when I say big fucking cloud of black smoke.

I honestly cannot remember seeing this much black smoke covering the roadways in front of me since I was a kid. That's not specific enough though, I can't remember any vehicles spewing this many toxins into my face since I was in grade school. This, for those who don't know, was in the early nineties. When you combine this with the fact that Terre Haute has very few wi-fi hotspots, people who dress like they're waiting for the new single from Third Eye Blind to come out, and people who actually chew tobacco, I cannot believe I'm still in 2009. I'm almost certain I'm stuck back in time.

News flash, Kurt Cobain just shot himself! Well, we think he did, but his wife might have done it! Pearl Jam have announced they aren't making any more music videos! What will MTV do to fill the airtime? Babylon 5 just started their 3rd season, and it's getting more intense by the second! Star Trek Voyager is slated to begin production later this month. Apparently the captain is going to be *gasp* a woman!

Ugh, I can barely even make fun of this stuff without it causing me pain. I can't believe, with gas (and diesel) prices being what they are (and what they were this time last year), there are still people with big giant smoke-billowing gas-guzzling do-it-yourself monster trucks driving up the road. These people either have far too much disposable income or don't know how to properly spend the income they do have, like on education and dental work for their kids. I'm not the only one who feels this way, too. I've seen many other drivers waving the smoke out of their faces and coughing as these dickless jokers speed off to the next filling station. Those are probably the only people really happy about this event: gas station owners who sell diesel. It's gotta be like Black Friday for them ... although that doesn't necessarily refer to the ink used to write their sales, more to the colour of everything near a road.

In which a geek is relocated

As usual, it's been a long time since I last updated this. Two weeks ago Liz was offered a store manager position for nearly double her assistant manager yearly wages. Only problem was, we would have to move to Terre Haute.

Now it isn't THAT bad, okay? We have a bigger, nicer apartment on the 2nd floor, keyless entry (yes, keyless entry - a keypad on the door locks and unlocks it), a short drive to our respective works, a shorter drive for me back to Evansville for school, and between one to one and a half hours to Indianapolis, where such things as Skyline Chili and Apple are located. Plus there's the whole "Extra money" thing. That's good.

After we found a place to live and determined that I would still have to go to school in Evansville, my dad decided since he wouldn't have access to the truck on weekends, to trade it in for the Cash for Clunkers programme. This is how I now drive a new Hyundai Accent. It doesn't have a radio, but I listened to my computer on the way up and throughout town I don't need it that badly. Apparently I can fuel the car with $20 and change. I put in a $20 yesterday from below a quarter of a tank and it showed "full" afterward.

Living on Eastern time is something that takes a little getting used to. I like it better because the sun rises and sets at comparable times to Britain. Despite this, my dad calls it "Indiana Pretend Time, where they pretend they're in Eastern Time." This joke wasn't as funny as he thought the first time, and the funny value has only depreciated with time.

The process of moving sucks. It's been two years since I last moved, and before that it was a couple months, then nine months, then something like a year except I helped two friends move in between that, then once from overseas, once to overseas, once the fortnight before moving overseas to move across town ... man, fuck moving. I'm not entirely sure why I can't just get all new shit. The only real problem in moving is the giant chest of drawers, which weighs approximately 2.07 John Goodmans. It also has edges that, when I pulled it up the stairs, pressed very hard into my forearm muscles, causing matching bruises that are still there two full days later. I'm going to try my hardest to just push the motherfucker out the window when next we move.

Something that I'm FAIRLY sure happens in Terre Haute but not Evansville: people with big-ass trailers, I mean trailers longer than their primary vehicle, towed behind their truck/car/motorbike starting through the intersection around the time the light changes from yellow to red. Something tells me, Mr JB Hunt lorry driver, that you are not going to make it all the way through, especially since traffic is backed up so much because of that stopped car and the three cop cars required to assist that stopped car.

We still haven't got internet yet, which means I'm doing a lot of driving from wifi hotspot to wifi hotspot. Once or twice I sat around at ISU's library, but they block chat clients, which is inconvenient. There's a Panera Bread just about a mile and a half from the apartment which works in a pinch. Just north of I-70, meaning a quarter mile from the mall, there is a Starbucks that sits just within range of the Drury Inn opposite it on Hwy 41. The problem with this location is the difficulty involved in getting out of the place through the 41/70 intersection traffic (which is only made worse by all the shopping within half a mile of the intersection).

With a quick bit of google mapping, I found a local coffee shop called Coffee Grounds, which somehow manages to sell its stuff cheaper than most coffee shops I've ever been to. It's a really nice place - semi-industrial brick walls with writing on them, a mural on one section of the wall, tables with messages and names carved in, and four drink sizes - regular, tall, grande, and enorme. Much like at Starfucks, I stick with saying "large."

Once again, I'm hoping to start using this space more. It's not like I haven't had the time, I'm just a lazy cunt.