Dear Northern Virginia drivers....

By: Daryl "Just run in to me, I like it. Yeah, do it harder baby" Northrop

Hello reader(s). This morning, for the SECOND TIME IN ONE WEEK, some mentally inert waste of oxygen spaced off at a stop light and rolled backwards into my front bumper. Good. Fucking. Times.

Luckily, an artist was present at each incident and was able to do a quick sketch of me:

Notice that when I am angry, my ears vanish. Weird, right?

Why? Why does this happen? How distracted/mentally deficient do you have to be in order to forget to keep you damn foot on the damn brake????

POP QUIZ: Identify the brake pedal in this mysterious jumble of automotive gadgetry:

Hint - it's NOT the skinny pedal.

And I end up asking myself "Why are Northern Virginia drivers so damn bad at driving?" Then, after nearly 20 seconds of Google-sleuthing, I found this!

AH HA!

Notice the left hand turn from the right hand lane maneuver on the cover. This is a Northern Virginia classic! I see this every single day. You're just not driving correctly unless you suspend every goddamned ounce of self awareness you have and just drive wherever the fuck you want. Bonus point if you are just plain suicidal.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go try to scrub the invisible fucking bullseye off the bumper of my super-tough Prius.

So my Prius was pollen colored.....

By: Daryl "SudsyClean" Northrop

Dear Reader(s),

As you might know, spring is spranging all over the place here in the People's Democratic Republic of Northern Virginia. The means plants have having sex like crazy and spewing their love-pollen all over everything. Well, apparently my Prius is DEAD SEXY if you are a plant, that is. 

It has been covered with tree spunk for about 2 weeks now. So I thought "Hey! Maybe I'll get the car washed and the local Car Scrubbery Center!"

Silly me. What was I thinking?

Car wash number one: out of order.

Car wash number two: overrun with customers, plus their payment box only accepts cash, except that it won't accept cash, so you have to go in and buy an authorization code.

*Thanks for all your hard work, Abdul Raheem! They aren't paying you enough, I'm sure. 

So what's the big deal, you might ask? Let me tell you. There is a weird dichotomy in the car wash world between the "inner suburbs" and the "outer suburbs." In the inner suburbs, you have your choice between: Sketchy automated carwashes located at gas station that are either broken, or nearly broken. Or, you have to go to a car wash center where you have to get out of your car, pick your "wash package" (scented soap, unscented soap, lysol-bomb your interior, sing a lullaby to your tires, rub a goat on your dashboard, alphabetize your glove compartment, remove the banana from your tailpipe?). Ugh. Too many choices. Plus, 75 guys bum-rush your vehicle at the end to dry it off with hand towels. I have no idea if this involves an orgy of tipping or not. It's just too confusing. Too many options, too many people, plus I don't want to surrender my car and actually have to interact with other human beings in any way, ever. So there. 

In the outer suburbs, you have lots of automated carwashes, and some car wash centers. So if you want to use an automated car wash like Zeus intended, then you actually have access to them!!!! Is that so damn hard, inner suburbs???

So in one of those weird reality-vortex's that open up periodically, it comes down to that in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the nation, it's difficult to get your car washed. It would be so much easier if there were some sort of mobile Bikini Carwash squad of attractive ladies that could just come to my condo and suds up the family truckster, but sadly the FASCIST PRUDES of the condo committee have label it VERBOTEN to wash your car in the parking lot.

(Im)Moral of the story: Strike a blow for freedom, ladies! Squeeze into that bikini, and come over to scrub my car!!!!

OH REALLY?

It appears that Mr. Joseph Wong had not only a sex-change operation, but apparently a race-change operation as well.

Fun Fact: Fairfax County Geography

By: Daryl "Professor Touchy-Feely" Northrop

We all know how the 2 dimensional Mercator style map distorts the shape and scale of landmasses, right? (Just nod, you lazy morons. Pay attention for once in class, or else you'll only be able to do politics when you grow up, or be a crazed, drooling homeless person, whatever).

Well, underachievers, the problem is worse than we thought. This map, which cancels out all map distortion issues, shows the true geography of Fairfax County, Virginia (of which I am a proud resident of, because it's a rich, elitist county). We now know that Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire are actually all completely encompassed within the southern portion of the county, near Clifton. So all you crusty northeastern Yankees, feel free to stop on by, you only live about 30 minutes from my house!

Dear Google: Just because it appears in my email doesn't mean I'm interested in it.....

*Editors note - the reason google picked up these terms is from a deliciously ranty email from April :-)

So this appeared in the side bar/frame/whatever in my gmail, right next to the ad for "Green Nigerian Viagra iPad Fortune Cash Money Boobs"

Frankly, not interested. Thanks anyways, Google-Pants.

Oh Commonwealth of Virginia, you so crazy........

By: Daryl "FillYaFullOfLead" Northrop

Found out a fun fact about the Commonwealth of Virginia. Wait. Commonwealth? Common-Wealth? Sounds like socialism to me. But we'll save that for another post.

Anyhow, back to the fun fact about Virginia. Many states have concealed weapons permit laws, meaning, you legally buy a handgun, apply for a concealed weapons permit, and then can carry the gun under your jacket, or in an ankle-holster, or under your mullet, or whatever. Right? Right. 2nd amendment, bishes! Here in the lovely land of Virginia, concealed weapons permits are pretty easy to get.

But what if getting one of those permits is just too much gosh darned work?! Virginia has a solution for that as well. For we are an....drum roll please.......OPEN CARRY STATE. "What is that?" you might be asking as you swill mango-tini's in your posh dwelling, you liberal elitist, you. The open carry laws stipulate that as long as you are: over 21, not a felon, and have most of your teeth (ok, made that one up), you can carry a pistol in a firearm on your hip, or slung over your shoulder, right out in the open, unconcealed, and this is perfectly ok and legal.

Yes, you read that right.

It is completely legal. In fact, it's encouraged here. (Ok, made that up as well, but it's not discouraged either.) So in that spirit, I am going to embrace my rights under the open-carry law, but with some style. Anybody can be a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. But I was thinking of going old school, like a BLUNDERBUSS! Hell yeah. I'm thinking something like this:

***Note to self: Grow massive beard.

And for the ladies, you can be uber-stylish and feminine with your open-carry blunderbuss-based outfit as well!

+

***Massive beard not included, and not encouraged. Ew.

Phone hell, part 9,443,877

By: Daryl

I'd like a time machine so I can kick Alexander Graham Bell right in the nads.

"Watson! Come here, I just got kicked in the junk by some very handsome man from the future!"

Yesterday and today I wanted to use my Cellular Radiophone to send "Text Message" to the ever-scintillating April. It was something really important like "Gimme a dollar" or "Did you smell that?" or "Is it Tuesday?" In any event, when I send a "Text Message" I expect it to travel through the ether, carried by the invisible telephone-gnomes of the Verizon Wireless Amazeballs Network of Speedfulness, and reassembled by the teeny little carpenter penguins that live in April's phone, so that she may read my missives of deep, and profound import.

Naturally, that did not happen. Apparently my phone now needs to be periodically turned off and then turned back on again to get the messages ejaculated into the ether. Glad Android is now starting to behave like every Microsoft PC operating system since Win95.

Looking forward to a healthy tan from basking in the rage.......