Someone has spray painted a dashed line up the side of our street, around the cul-de-sac, up our front lawn, and all the way up to the bundle of coax lines that are hanging out of our house. I think the cable fairies are about to make their visit !

A House committee has agreed to debate a bill to lift the ban placed on the ability of telephone companies to make customer cold calls.

The House State Affairs Committee introduced the bill Thursday and sent it to the Business Committee for review.

The bill is being pushed by Minnesota-based Frontier Communications and Louisiana-based Century Link Inc. The companies say a 2000 law to end cold calls to customers and create a "Do Not Call" list hampers their ability to market new services to new customers.

Yeah, that's the entire fucking point, dipshit.

...makes Oh Shit! face.

via i09

A Republican lawmaker [duh] in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence.”

“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime,” the bill says.

Third-degree felonies in New Mexico carry a sentence of up to three years in prison.

I assume, after delivery, the newborn would be sealed in a plastic bag and stored in a police evidence locker until it could be examined by the state medical examiner. Right?

Roast chicken and sex

Oil in place

As I've mentioned a couple of times, I recently had new tires installed on my car. The original Pirelli P6's had nearly worn smooth and one of them was leaking. So, I replaced them with some Continental DWS's, which were reported to be a bit better in some ways than the Pirellis, and were a touch cheaper.

They give a much smoother ride. And maybe they're too smooth; by comparison, I think I prefer the Pirellis relatively rough, feel-the-road style - it's more fun. Too late now. But more importantly, they've significantly changed the way the car handles on the main road near our house. That road is a busy four lane highway, and while the pavement is generally in good condition, there is a long stretch where surface itself is deformed by deep, parallel ruts running down the lanes in the direction of traffic: spaced exactly the width of a large truck axle apart.

Previously, when my car would get to this section of road it would toss from side to side as if there was a really strong and gusty crosswind. And since this section of road is crossing a large lake, just ten or so feet off above the water, that what I assumed was happening. And then I noticed that the grass on the side of the road was immune to this wind. Odd. So, not wind.

Then I noticed the ruts in the road and figured out that my wheels were just the right distance apart that if my right tires were in the valley of the right rut, that my left tires would be up on the side of the left rut, which would pull the car to the left. And then I'd have the opposite pull when the right tires got up on the side of their rut. Ah ha! But how could the state not fix this road? People drive 70mph through here, and cars being tossed side to side at that speed would surely cause a higher number of accidents along that stretch of road. Then I started watching other cars to see if it was happening to them; it wasn't. Nobody else would shift to the side in the spots my car shifted to the side. OK.. Maybe it had to do with the precise width of my axles? But, before I could verify that, or come up with any other things to blame it on, I replaced the Pirelli's. And that completely stopped side-to-side tossing. So, there was something about those Pirellis, or perhaps how they were set up/alilgned, that disagreed with US 64.

Fascinated, I started Googling, and discovered that the phenomenon is called tramlining (or groove wander), and it is indeed tire-related.

And that's how I learn.

Bon Iver Erotica

Behold The Magnificent Pangolin

Me, trying to find a nearby cheap place for a crappy haircut in my new town: Haircut
Siri: I like your hair fine just the way it is.

Me, trying to find a car wash in my new town: Carwash
Siri: Cars should wash themselves. That's what I think.