Ugh.

In related news: I’ve been a bit behind on my Daily Show watching, so it was only a couple days ago when I saw the September 3rd episode that covered the RNC convention in Minnesota. It is perhaps the best episode of TDS so far this year, and definitely in the top-ten for all-time best. The whole episode (here, on thecomedynetwork.ca, or here and here for Americans) is gold, but particularly great is Stewart commenting on the various sound- and video-bites accrued from the convention.

Why is it that Matt Damon, Jon Stewart, and Tina Fey are the only people on television (or YouTube, as the case may be) that seem to be saying anything worth listening to? Okay, this ‘Jeff Cafferty‘ seems to be kinda on the ball, but who else?

Palin may be a wonderful Alaskan governor, and I have no reason to doubt her abilities in that role. But she really, truly, absolutely cannot become the VPOTUS in November. Whatever Obama’s policies are, I can’t imagine they would do anything worse than the Plame/Abu Ghraib/WMDs/Afghanistan/Surge/wire-tapping/Miers/Katrina/Halliburton/waterboarding/etc. scandals of the past eight years. And whatever you can say about Obama’s lack of experience and personality flaws, I can’t conceive of his credentials being worse than those of the confident-but-clueless ex-mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. So if you aren’t voting McCain/Palin-08 for the policies, and you aren’t voting McCain/Palin-08 for the personalities - what’s left?

Please, somebody, tell me it isn’t as bad as all this. McCain/Palin must have good points too? Am I just being blinded by my leftist Kanuckistan lifestyle?

I had this guy. On the road. He was driving. I was parked on the side of the road. In a parking spot there, on a fairly busy street, just happens to be where our vet is located. So I was parked. Finished with the vet, we’re sitting in the car now. Put on my blinker, sort of edge out a bit, wait for a break in traffic. This guy in his car goes by me, but then stops directly in front of me, and puts on his blinker and his reverse lights, as if he wants to back up into the spot that I’m trying to vacate.

Problem is, I can’t go forward into the lane next to my parking spot, because he’s in it. And I can’t get out into the next lane over, because it’s already busy, plus now everybody who sees the lane ahead of them is blocked (by this dork) is changing lanes way ahead of time, so I doubly have no chance. I wait for a few seconds and see it’s hopeless, so I sort of wave at him, hopelessly. He opens the door, leans out, and motions for me to pull out into the lane with all the traffic, then returns to his car.

I wait for another 20 seconds, still nothing, then a red light comes (we’re sitting about 50 feet from an intersection ahead of us), so now the cars are stopping and there’s triply no chance for me to get out. I wait for the green, hoping to speed out really quickly before anyone can pick up speed, but the people in the next lane are just packed together, and they start going too fast before I can nose out.

So I wait some more. And honk this time. Again, he opens the door, gets out and just waves dismissively in the direction I want to be going but can’t because of traffic, then gets back in. I’m thinking: “Dude… what the holy eff do you want me to do here, fly over the cars that are whizzing by me so fast I can’t merge?” In spite of my unspoken biting wit, he stays resolutely in front of me.

I wait some more, blinker on, hoping for a break. I wait until the second red light.

At this point I just honk at him again, louder and longer, because this is stupid: it’s been over a minute, and we’re basically creating a huge traffic jam by eliminating an entire lane in one direction on a four-lane street. So he again gets out, all exasperated-like, walks into the other lane of traffic with his hand up in a “stop” gesture, and almost gets run over by a car. Then he waves at me like I’m an idiot, as if to say, “THERE. Now you can get out into the far lane. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

My window is down and he says to me as he’s motioning, in a patronizing tone, “Vas-y!“

Flabbergasted, all I can shoot back as I pull away is,  “‘Vas-y’? ‘Vas-EEE’? You just held up traffic for TWO red lights! There WILL be other parking spots, you know!” And I drive off, thinking very satisfying thoughts of going back to slash his tires.

Oi.