Morton Malaise

BJ Stone did a post several days ago indicating that he takes issue with people who leave their brights on for too long. I have a tendency to use my brights fairly often, and in the opinion of some people, excessively. I have many reasons for this:

1.) I grew up in a part of Southeast Florida where even the neighborhood streets were well-lit. The Peoria area and its neighborhoods are, far and away, the most poorly lit and signage-short places I’ve EVER seen. I will use my brights in your neighborhood, because I don’t want to hit a deer, and I need to be able to read the street signs and house addresses. This is not a problem with my vision, it is a problem with street signs and addresses that outdated and undersized, obscured by someone’s overgrown weeds, or not displayed at all.

2.) While my car is equipped with driving lights, they do NOTHING to extend my vision. As they were originally called “fog lights”, they are aimed under and behind the headlights to light up the section of road under the aim of the main lights.

3.) Illinois law states that I don’t have to kill my brights until oncoming vehicles are 500 feet away, or vehicles being overtaken are 300 feet away. This is a much shorter distance than people seem to think. I’m almost completely sure that the lanes of 74 between the 474 ramp and exit 102A-B are at least 500 feet apart. People seem to think that just because they know my brights are on, I need to turn them off. This is not the case. BJ, I agree with you about the hill crest statement. There’s nothing worse than being blinded just as you begin the descent off the top of a hill.

4.) If there is a large SUV or truck approaching me, I will not turn my brights off unless they flash at me. I have to deal with their lights shining right in my back window EVERY SINGLE DAY at EVERY SINGLE STOPLIGHT. Ever try to drive home in the dark with sensory fatigue blinding you most of the way? I don’t suggest it. The best part is, even if I flip my rearview mirror up, the assholes are always offset to one side so I’m being blinded by my side mirrors instead.

I guess what it comes down to is this- If the equipment came with the car, it’s made to be used. Driving any vehicle, especially a small one, is much safer with the brights on. I have yet to hit a deer or a person, or anything else because . That’s all the reason I need.

And BJ, I respect you very much and read your blog as much as possible. I just felt like the other side of this needed to be stated, and I didn’t want to hog up the comment section on your blog.

For those that don’t know, the next Blogger Bash is shortly over a month away, on January 30th. Since the Blogfather has already decided it will be held at Buffalo Wild Wings, we should probably figure out at which BWW it will be held. I am massively in favor of East Peoria, but mine is not the only vote. EP is more centrally located, and for anyone south of War Dr and east of University, I’m pretty sure it’s closer than the one at Grand Prairie.

For those that are concerned, and you know who you are, the scenery is much better at the EP store.

Back in June, the Chicago Fascists won a huge victory in their war to have government take over every aspect of personal responsibility by passing a law banning smoking indoors throughout the state. Now, being a “big L” Libertarian, I find this law to be completely unjust, nevermind unconstitutional. Let’s put that aside for a second.

The wingtips, suits, and uniforms have had 6 months to develop a formal plan for enforcement of said law. 6 months to decide who would be responsible for enforcement, how violations would be policed, who would do the administrative work, etc. 6 months. Anyone who has read the paper in the last week or so knows that NO ONE, from the Farmington Police Department allllllll the way up to the office of Blagojevich knows how any of this is going to work. The General Assembly committee responsible for developing this plan doesn’t meet until January 9th, over a week after the law goes into effect.

What a clusterfuck. This has got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. All theses assholes were so busy jerking each other off and rubbing their ties together in joy that they forgot that LAWS NEED TO BE ENFORCED. There seems to be a repeating pattern of police chiefs making statements such as “We’re not the cigarette police”, or “These guys didn’t become cops to tell people to put their cigarettes out.” Really? Why didn’t someone speak up BEFORE the law was passed? We don’t have enough plows to keep the streets safe in the smallest of storms, students pay hundreds of dollars to go to primary schools that are at best sub-par, the sidewalks and public ways are falling apart, crime is getting worse instead of better. Now the suits in Springfield (and Chicago) expect local departments to spend time and money on this asinine law, but they won’t tell them how to go about spending the time or money. It’s like telling an 8-year-old to build a Ferrari without tools or parts. He may know what a Ferrari looks like, but without the ways and means to build it, he’s just a kid standing in a garage.

Simply put, the Mitchell Report accomplishes nothing. Until baseball moves to year-round, unannounced drug testing for all players at any time, with additional samples to be frozen for a later time when more advanced substances such as HGH can be detected, the sport and its players can never be trusted again. Uncle Bud Selig can pat himself on the back all he wants, and the MLBPA can say “Nu-uh! You can’t prove it!” all they want, and ESPN can suck their own dick for rearranging their whole programming schedule all they want. Nothing has changed in the game of baseball, except people finally know for a fact that Roger Clemens is a lying assclown. Looking at the list of names on the report, I can honestly say that all the names fall into one of two categories. Either I’m completely unsurprised, or the dude was a mediocre player and no one really cares.

The purpose of a union is to protect the interests and personal safety of its members. The message that the MLBPA has sent is that it will continue to turn a blind eye to steroid use. It negotiated a drug testing policy, but there are glaring problems. For one, the players know well in advance when they will be tested. If Cheech and Chong knew they had a drug test coming in three weeks, they would pass. And that’s pot, which stays in the body far longer than any other illicit drug. Players can run 2-4 week steroid cycles all season long, and when their test is rolling around, they can simply skip a cycle and no one ever finds out they were using.

When certain members of the union are using steroids and other dangerous drugs to enhance their performance, those who don’t use are forced into a decision no one should be asked to make: Do I continue to play clean, and risk losing my income (which, by the way, is about all they have because a large number of major league players chose the minor leagues over college) because I can’t play at THIS Major League level, or do I go on the juice, risking brain cancer, sterility, violent mood swings, breast growth, et cetera, so I can continue to support my family? If the MLBPA were truly interested in protecting the well-being of its members, they would swiftly move towards a much more stringent drug-control policy. Almost every reputable company has a policy that allows it to perform random drug tests, especially in occupations that are unionized. Instead, the spokesman for the union spent his entire portion of the press conference double-speaking and spewing thinly veiled rhetoric, basically stating that they didn’t have to do shit, because Mitchell had nothing but hearsay evidence. When asked if the union should have some moral responsibility to its players’ health, his response was some gobbledy-gook about the players’ legal representation, and how the MLBPA had advised players to seek their own legal counsel; completely irrelevant to the question.

The worst part about the Mitchell Report isn’t the players named, or even Mitchell saying that MLB and management allowed the drug culture to flourish. It isn’t even the fact that the MLBPA has jammed its proverbial head in the sand and refused to acknowledge the problem. The worst part is that nothing is going to change.

…is still chicken crap. The following bulletin was posted (forwarded from someone else) on Myspace by a good friend of mine today:

OK HERE IS AN OPINION OF MINE. THE RADIO STATION 105.7 THE X HAS HAD THE SAME HOUSE BAND FOR WELL OVER 4 YEARS NOW

OK THIS BAND IS TALENTED, AND THEY ARE GOOD GUYS, BUT COME ON PEOPLE YOU KNOW HOW MANY BANDS DO NOT GET THERE MUSIC HEARD BECAUSE OF THIS BAND.

JTM GETS 90 PERCENT OF ALL THE BIG SHOWS THAT ROLL THROUGH PEORIA JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE THE HOUSE BAND. THEY HAVE OPENED FOR SEVENDUST, EVERY NUTCRACKER OF THE LAST 4 YEARS, 3 DAYS GRACE, NOW HELL YEAH AND THERE HAS BEEN PLENTY MORE

THERE SHOULD BE A TIME LIMIT ON THE HOUSE BAND STATUS OF MAYBE SIX MONTHS OR A YEAR, BUT 4 AND A HALF YEARS WOW WAY TOO LONG.

TIME FOR A CHANGE I BELIEVE.. SO MANY OTHER GREAT BANDS IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS WOULD JUMP ON THAT TO GET THE EXPOSURE IM SURE.

SO WHAT IM ASKING IS FOR EVERYONES OPINIONS HERE.

DO YOU THINK THERE SHOULD BE A NEW HOUSEBAND?

IF SO MAYBE GIVE SOME IDEAS AND KEEP THIS PETITION GOING PLEASE TO SEE WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT THIS

IM SURE THERE WILL BE SOME THAT ARE MAD AT ME OVER THIS AND THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO HURT ANYONE, BUT AS A FAN OF MUSIC
I LIKE A VARIETY… SO THIS IS SOMETHING TO GET OPINIONS AND MAYBE POSSIBLY GET A CHANCE TO HEAR A BAND WE NEVER SEE TO OFTEN, SO PLEASE SIGN AND KEEP IT GOING?

This was immediately followed by the obligatory numbered lines so people could “sign their name” electronically. I have made my disdain for 105.7 more than apparent in the past. The lack of innovation and new music on the station should be a pretty solid acid test for their interest in developing and promoting up-and-coming bands in the Peoria area. The “House Band” distinction is nothing more than a business deal between JTM and 105.7. JTM gets gigs, 105.7 gets their name associated with something that doesn’t suck. There’s probably an exchange of cash involved somewhere. I’m not 100% sure of how the financial facet works, so I’m not going to speculate. I know there are at least a couple readers who deal with that stuff on a daily basis, so I’ll let you explain.

My point is, a bunch of people who may or may not know good music if it smacks them in the forehead are not going to change the house band of a corporate demon like 105.7. This isn’t to say that all radio stations aren’t corporate demons. It is to say that 105.7 is a shining example of what happens when megaconglomerates own a “modern rock” station and pander to the least common denominator of their listeners. If they’re making money, they’re not going to change anything unless it means making more money. Period.