The Laundry Nazi

Down deep in some dank minimum wage hole, lives an awful creature.  She stalks about during the day time, her attitude acidic, her voice abrasive.  Travel into her den, and be prepared to do battle. 

The Laundry Nazi, in her natural habitat

Step out of line just one time, and feel her wrath.

This is not some beast of mythical lore, no, this is the old woman who runs the day-to-day operations at my local laundromat.  She's a vile, evil, semi-human bitch of a woman, and she doesn't take shit off of no body.

The establishment itself is a dirty little building, a series of washers in the middle of the floor,  banks of dryers along the walls.  I'm pretty convinced that they recycle used washing machine water without any sort of filtration.  The people who congregate here are usually the lowest of the low: desperate shells of human beings, most with limps and lumps, scars and vacant stares.

But one amongst them all is the queen cunt.  The Laundry Nazi.

This woman, who plants herself in the far corner of the small one room laundromat, scans over her land from over the top of a free newspaper.  Her glasses are grimy, clothes stretched and threadbare, her teeth the color of the bottom of a urinal.  She has a very strict protocol for doing your laundry in her domain, and if you fail in any such way at all, you'll feel her burning hot meth-breath all over your neck.

Stories run far and wide, but I can only tell you about our first hand experiences:  A few summers ago, I was doing a load of wash.  I had been keeping an eye on the clock, knowing that, since she was on duty that day - and it was a busy day at the laundromat - I had to be Johnny-On-The-Spot changing out my load, or she would do it for me.  And you don't want that to happen.

In the back of the laundromat, there's a little closet filled with black plastic bags full of moldy, abandoned, misfit clothing that people had left in the washers for too long.  What's "too long?"  About a minute, according to the Laundry Nazi.

As I walked the thirty or so feet from the parking lot to the inside of the laundromat, I could already see her standing over my washers, black plastic bag in hand, lifting a washer's lid.  I sprinted, yanking the door wide open, and shouted out.

"Hey!  What're you doing?"  She reared her ugly, shovel-beaten face, snarled her day-glo yellow teeth.

"This washer has been off for 5 minutes!  We're very busy here today!"  She croaked like a toad with it's legs caught under a tire.  I glanced down at my watch and saw that maybe a minute had passed since I had started into the laundromat from outside.  I got between her and her bag and the washing machine.  She skulked away, snarling.  Her forked-tongue slipping out between her crusted over, crackpipe-burnt lips.

My wife would have similar experiences as well.  One time she loaded a washer without knowing the machine was out of order.  She placed detergent in it as well, and when she discovered the washer wasn't working, she had to face the Laundry Nazi to get a refund for the 2.50 in quarters she fed the machine.

"She was so rude!  I almost told her to forget it; it was worth the 2.50 to not have to deal with her," explained my wife, days later.  In sum, the Laundry Nazi gave her an inordinate amount of grief for putting detergent and clothes into a malfunctioning washing machine.  My wife tried to explain to the despot that there was no signage to indicate there was a problem, but the Laundry Nazi pulled out a scimitar and started waving it around like crazy.  It was all my wife could do to get out of there alive.

She has since decided to do her laundry late at night, since the facility is open 24 hours a day.

Scholars believe this is the first known image of the Laundry Nazi

Most recently, again, I was doing laundry, when the machine wouldn't take a quarter I was trying to insert into it.  I checked the coin to make sure it wasn't Canadian, and it was good ol' fashion American currency.  I gave the coin bank a little shot with my palm to rattle it just so, and apparently this was enough to spark the ire of The Laundry Nazi.

Like an evil genie, she materialized next to me, the smell of pure sulfur announcing her arrival. 

"Is there a problem here?"  She hissed.  My skin went cold and rippled with goosebumps.

"The machine won't take my change..." I was barely able to indicate, as I could feel the life being sucked out of me.  She admonished me for "beating on the machine" and then shoved me aside.

She then began to wallop the washer while howling at the tops of her lungs like some sort of she-wolf in heat.  She snarled and kicked and slashed with her hawk talon-like hands.  The local residents cowered, taking cover behind industrial grade trash barrels and giant dust bunnies that have been a part of the landscape since the 1980s.

She then turned to me, as the tiny "clink" of my change being finally accepted by the washer sounded.  "In the future," she starts, "don't hit the machines..." the last word rings in my ears like Parseltongue.  She walks away, back to her perch and free newspaper.  Her grease-slicked glasses lamping over the establishment, silently keeping order.

Seven(ish) Reasons Why I'm #NotFollowing You on @Twitter

By now, most people understand the very basic concept of the social networking site Twitter.  Unlike Facebook, with it's time-sucking gravitational field of information overload, and Tumblr, which is essentially Twitter without the character limit, Twitter is a "microblogging" site where users can post quips or links, but are restricted to 140 characters to get their point across.  It can be kind of like a game sometimes, trying to fit your idea into a limited amount of space.  Imagine being a headline writer for a newspaper, or Mark Twain's retarded nephew.

One of the aspects of Twitter is following people.  By "following" I essentially mean subscribing to another's Twitter-ers feed, and everytime they update, you see it on your screen, phone or whatever.  The unspoken rule for Twitter is that if someone follows you, (that you aren't already following) you should follow them back, for at least a little while, just to give them a chance.  Because in the Land of Tweets, how many followers you hold, is sort of like internet clout; you could argue that the number of followers you have, represents the direct amount of influence you hold over the world in chief.

You could argue.

However, there are certain criteria that will not get you followed, by me at least.  The following are about seven reasons why I'm not following you:

1.  You're a bot.  A "bot" being a "robot" or program that someone created to dispense information autonomously and automatically around the web.  It can be essentially just a mindless commercial bobbing around in cyberspace.  Typically, these are laden with viruses, or other malware.  They might pop up and ask you to click a link amongst a smattering of gobblygoop.  I would argue that at least half of my followers are bots.

2.  No biographical information.  If I get a notification that so-and-so is following me, and they have what looks to be an actual picture of themselves, I'll go the further step and check out their profile page.  The profile page is where Twitter users put a little information about themselves... kind of like a pitch in order to get you to follow them.  It usually involves a location (say, Boston, MA) as well as a little about what you could expect them to tweet about ("I work at Cyberdine Industries; robots are fun!").  But often times, people will either leave this whole section blank or not even post a picture of themselves.  Instead, I'll be greeted by an egg with a colorful background (Twitter's default profile pic).  If I don't know who you are, why the hell would I follow you?

3.  You don't tweet enough.  Looking at your biographic info, I can see how many times you tweet, or post something on Twitter.  If it's less than say, 100 times and you've been a member for over a year (which I can also see) I'm not following you.  Why bother?

4.  You tweet too much.  Again, if I'm looking at how many times you tweet, and it's at 100 and you just joined today, I'm not following you.  I already think my feed is filled with mindless drivel from the people I DO follow, I'm not adding your hysteric ADD tweets to the mix either.

5.  Your tweets are protected.  I can understand that privacy with online social networks is the topic du jour, but c'mon.  This is Twitter, not Facebook.  If you're protecting your Tweets, why are you on here anyway?  Your 140 characters of intellectual property are not so sacred that you require a lock and key.  If I have to send you a "follow request" in order to see what you're tweeting about (which is likely such mind-blowing topics as going to the car wash, or eating ice cream on a nice day), I look at that as an extra step that's going to take time out of my day from where I could be sitting here, mindlessly staring off into space.

6.  Your tweets aren't funny/interesting/thought-provoking.  I'm not saying every thing you tweet needs to be comedy gold, or in the essence of Walt Whitman, but if all you're ever saying is incredibly dumb, overtly biased rhetoric or some other baseless claim (I'm going to the store now!  I'm eating a waffle!) you're not worth my time.  Granted, we all get one or two every once in a while that is just words for the sake of hearing our own voices, but do it too much, and I'm cutting you lose.

7.  Your tweets are a mess.  If you're tweeting something, and it's all links and #hashtags and @s, so that the block of text is a glowing nuclear field of blue hyperlinks, I'm not clicking on shit except the "unfollow" button.  Granted, people like to share with each other items they think are important, like news stories or other people they think others would want to follow, but put some words around it.  Explain to me why I should be following someone on Friday, or why I should click your bit.ly link.  See The Oatmeal's take on how Follow Fridays should work.

7.5:  On the heels of that, if you're constantly linking tweets to your Facebook or other social networking site, I'm outie-5000.  I got off Facebook for a reason, I don't need you sucking me back in so I can look at your sister-in-law's children, or enter a contest to win "free gear for a year."  Also, if your tweets are constantly too long and they extend to your Tumblr site, I'm not falling for that shit either.

In The Hood

Via Twitter: RT @chrisspahn "I think you can make anyone look shady in a hoodie."

My buddy Chris (a transplanted Codder now living in Ohio, for some goddamn reason....) posted this short tweet a few days ago, and at the time it resonated with me, because it's pretty true.  Put a hoodie, or hooded sweatshirt, on anyone, and instantly they look like a bluddy criminal.

It's unfair that one of my favorite articles of clothing ever invented, the ultra warm, multi-seasonal, all-purpose hooded sweatshirt, has been co-opted by a criminal element and been given this poor reputation.

Don't believe me? Wear a hoodie into a bank in the middle of the afternoon.  Before you even get inside, there's likely to be a little sticker or placard on the front glass doors telling customers to remove hoods (as well as sunglasses and ball caps) before entering.  All one has to do is look at security camera footage from bank robberies to understand why.

So on a cool, blustery early Spring day, any person wearing a hoodie will likely pull the hood up.  I can't walk my dog down our street in the mornings without pulling on my J. Crew fleece-lined zip-up and toss the hood up.  I'll shuffle down the street in PJ pants and birkenstocks, happy yellow Lab on the end of a blaze-orange leash, and tho my neighbors all know (or at least recognize) me, I still find myself getting the stank-eye when I have my hood up.

But I'm equally guilty of this snap judgment as well.  The other afternoon, while out doing groceries, I turned down a side street and was met by an on-coming car.  The driver was some dude in his mid-20s, smoking a cigarette, with his oversized gray hoodie up.

Granted, there's absolutely no reason to operate a motor vehicle while wearing a hood, unless you're a drug dealer, but instantly my mind was made up that this person was probably of less-than-reputable stature in the community, and likely up to no good.

It seems that anyone under the age of, say 25, and wearing a hooded sweatshirt instantly becomes a suspect in a slew of crimes committed and yet to be committed.  I think this sucks.  No other garment as utilitarian as the hooded sweatshirt has the same dubious reputation (well, maybe the ski mask).  The wearer as well, seems to cover himself in a veil of dangerous and ill-will as soon as he or she wears the hood.

I will say tho, with little exception, there's no reason to wear a hoodie indoors.  Half of the kids in my classes wear their hoods up while sitting during a lecture.  If I were a professor, I would find this very disrespectful.  Hats as well, (unless they're beanies, then, by all means, continue to hide your matted-hair shame) should be removed at the start of a lecture.

The case I'm trying to make, ultimately, is that we should all strive to be a little less quick to judge those who wear a hoodie in its up position.  Everyone, and I'm willing to go out on a limb, loves wearing a hoodie: grandmothers and priests alike. 

So before you judge, think about the warm security provided by that piece of inner/outer wear to its wearer.

Unethical and Underhanded

I know I said I wouldn't bitch about my gym anymore, but really, as soon as someone says something along those lines, you might as well peg them as a total liar.  Because, here we go again:

My 15 month gym membership is nearly up and I'm coming to this cross road where I have no idea if I'm going to continue to pay the $55 bucks a month to belong to a gym that treats it's members (and I mean, the core members, the people who actually come to the gym to workout) like crap.

Last night, as my wife and I were heading in for our typical Friday night workout, we were met with this shotgun blast of disgusting and gross behavior, just running amok around the gym facilities:

Children.  Hordes of children.  And balloons.

My wife has a rather bad latex allergy, so balloons, while seemingly harmless helium-filled orbs of celebration, can literally be a death sentence for her.  The entire ceiling was just covered in the local school's colors, black and gold.  Inside, it was like 6th grade prom.

'Tweens (children not exactly in their teens, but older and bigger than most elementary school kids) were running around, crashing into things and people, dancing to the Black Eyed Peas, ... everything you could imagine from a Robin Williams movie from the mid-1990s.  Obviously, to a young couple with zero desire to have children, this was very off-putting.

"You know when you have those feelings when you get in the front door, and immediately don't want to do your workout?" I ask my wife over the din as we cautiously make our way to the front desk to check in.  She's notorious for getting all the way out to the gym, in the doors, only to want to turn back because she doesn't feel like working out.

"You're having one of those moments, huh?"  She says back.  I nod.

We wait at the front desk for an employee to "beep" us in with our membership fobs, but no one's paying any attention to us.  There's one employee way off to the side having some sort of deep conversation with a parent who's just ... caught up in this whole whirlwind of screaming pre-adolescence.  The poor woman looks shell shocked; a victim of some sort of terrorist market bombing.

Eventually, after leaving enough time for someone to notice us, I said "fuck it" and swiped our cards for us.  We grabbed towels (we were going to TRY to swim...) and made our way downstairs to the gym proper, while avoiding more balloons and sugar-high kids.

"But seriously, let's get out of here," I try again, as making our way down the stairs becomes an effort; the stairway is clogged with loitering, unsupervised children.  We're able to look into the pool area and we see it's awash in splashing kids.  No laps for us tonight.

We honestly thought there'd be no way kids would be allowed to run amok downstairs in the actual gym area, but we were wrong.  Tubby kids in the pilates room throwing swiss balls at each other like over-sized dodge balls, children running at full speed across the gym floor, one of the racket ball courts converted into a giant inflatable bouncehaus.  A few hearty (and presumably single) souls were trying to tough it out, and try to workout despite the constant distractions, but you could tell they weren't enjoying themselves.  They were annoyed; one guy just sat on a bench with a numb expression on his face, earbuds in, watching children climb all over the ellipticals. 

We got about halfway to the lockerrooms when I tried again, to dissuade my wife from actually going thru a workout that evening.  She finally relented when a pudgy 11 year old came flying around the corner where they keep the floor mats, with what looked like fresh puke smattered on his oversized cheeks.  From the far corner of the gym floor, where the rockwall is located, we could see children dangling upside down in some sort of crude version of the Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark play.

We about-faced and tossed our towels on to a nearby desk, like "fuck it."  We weaved back thru the crowds of ungrateful brats and stunned proctors.  No one seemed to notice that we were leaving within five minutes of arriving.

Last night wouldn't have bothered me so much if there had been at least a 24 hour heads up, some sort of printed-off notice that said "hey, on Friday night, we're hosting a middle school dance and function, you might not want to be here for it, thanks, the Willy's staff."  Something like that, printed out and taped to the wall over the water fountain would've sufficed.  Nothing crazy, no mass emails, no phone calls, nothing.  Just a simple white sheet of paper with those words on it.

It took me less than ten seconds to type that sentence out.  Printing might've taken all of 30.  Taping on to a surface within a high-traffic area, maybe a minute.  Seriously.

But no heads up was given.  Literally, we were blindsided by this turn of events.  Did the Willy's staff really think for a second people, due-paying members, would want to workout in this type of environment?  How bad is this facility hemorrhaging money to rent out the whole establishment on a Friday night (see also: failed restaurant-in-the-middle-of-winter-on-Cape idea)?

To make matters worse, the management at Willy's (in Eastham, MA by the way.....) has been stacking it's reviews on the business web aggregate site "Yelp" recently.  By "stacking" the reviews, I mean, hiring people who may have never stepped into the facility to write bogus glowing reviews in an attempt to raise the business's web clout.  You see, Google ranks it's search listings for businesses based off of reviews from sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.  The better the overall reviews, the more frequent and more towards the top of the search pile the business will appear.

For over a year, there had only been three reviews for Willy's Gym, the best was a 4/5 star rating from some gay dude out on San Fran.  The other two (one being mine) were mediocre.  Suddenly last week, a slew of ultra-positive, rather vague reviews from Oregon of all places, started to pop up on Willy's Yelp site (not to mention "new" Yelp pages, stacked with positive reviews, to help off set the original site listing's less-than-stellar rating).  The reviews are pretty much identical, from people whom have reviewed no other businesses on the site, and have no real profiles.

Thus, a rather unethical practice, attempting to dope the casual summer tourist into thinking Willy's Gym is worth the 20 dollar day pass. 

I can only hope that people will be able to see thru the bullshit.

The State of The Art

From Twitter: "@jcharles_ "Seems like a new big game is just another FPS that isn't as good as #cod"  -John Nup (@_jnup)

That's my friend John commenting on the lack of originality found in most of the "big games" that were due to come out this early 2011.  His point: games are trying hard to surpass the gold standards of gaming, but coming up way short.  Probably because they're trying to inject too much shit into games and not sticking to what makes gaming fun: simplistic, intuitive gameplay.

The "COD" he mentions is the long standing king of the hill in First Person Shooters (FPSs) the "Call of Duty" series.  Since the early 2000s, COD emerged as the go-to in shooter games.  Military in nature, players take over the roll of a grunt and are placed in harrowing and engaging missions.

Then you have the online multiplayer aspect.  The COD games have always made the online part of their games to be truly enjoyable experiences.  Experiences other game developers try desperately to emulate.

Case in point: Earlier this year, two new shooters were introduced: "Bulletstorm" and "Homefront" both slated to be "COD Killers." "Bulletstorm" is a crass, futuristic shooter that allows players to interact with the game beyond the normal "Aim Shoot Move" series found in most FPSs.  In it, you can lasso an enemy, kick him into a pile of cactus or rebar or hot lava, and then slide away into cover to take on the next wave of enemies.  While this all sounds cool, and it's game controls aren't that hard to master (going from mashing one series of buttons to another) it becomes tedious after a while.  Mix in the terrible voice acting and plot, and soon enough any player older than 21 is going to be reaching for his Black Ops disc (Black Ops being the latest in the COD franchise) for a more rounded out and polished game play experience.

I was most excited for "Homefront" when I first heard about it.  In it, a unified Korea (sometime in the future) invades the US and citizens become insurgents to fight back the oppressive invading army.  I watched a few videos of the online play, the story mode, etc.  I was pretty much hooked on the idea that I would plop down my 65 bucks and pick this guy up.

But then I started hearing from credible reviewers and people I know, saying that the single player campaign is woefully short (about 4 hours...) and that the multiplayer aspect wasn't all that deep.  Sure, they added a few nice touches (leveling up while in a match, opposed to waiting for a match to be over to reap the benefits) it really wasn't worth paying retail.

I mean, four and a half hours for the games primary story line?  For those of you who are not gamers, the average "single player" experience in most games usually runs around ten hours.  In recent years with shooters, this number of hours has been drastically cut, as developers want to spend more time and energy on what they think the gamer will be spending more time and energy on: multiplayer.  So the single player experience suffers.

I mean, seriously, four hours?  I'm supposed to believe that a home-grown insurgency repels a national army in just FOUR HOURS.  There is so much you can do with that story line!  I know you want to leave something for the sequels, but come on, seriously.  I buy the game after lunch and I've got it beaten before dinner.  That sucks.

And if the multiplayer isn't nearly as engaging as what your dev team thinks it is, I'm going to be returning the game for a full refund before the end of the week (thanks GameStop!).  It's shitty to think that gamers of any age or skill, are going to hang on to a game that has no redeemable replay value.

I'm looking at you "Medal of Honor."

Games are becoming more mainstream as time wears on, even being compared to an art form.  There are some really great games out there, as there are shitty ones, same as with movies and television programs.

But video games have the cards stacked against them, because like comic books, there's still a lot of people out there that assume video games are just mindless entertainment for kids.  If gaming wants to be considered a legitimate art form, they've really got to go in and hook a wider audience.

You're not going to do it with cookie-cutter shooters, or sophomoric sandbox games (Looking at you, Duke Nukem Forever).

At the same time, developers, stop trying to stuff as much shit as possible into a game.  Yeah, it's cool that I can do a little more than just riddle my enemy with bullets from a cache of assorted Cold War Era weaponry, but all the effort to go out of the way, all the time, becomes tiresome (looking at you Red Dead Redemption).

Instead of seeing how many freshman can fit into a phone booth, how about finding out if the phone booth works first? Take all that energy and refocus it on amazing game play, super intuitive controls and a story arch that lasts longer than lions fucking.

I was reading an article on the up-coming "Saints Row: The Third" game... a giant sandbox-style game that pits you against virtually a whole city, ala "Grand Theft Auto."  The interview with the lead developer went something like this:

Interviewer: So what can we expect from the new "Saints?"

Lead Dev: You're going to be able to sky dive naked and fall into a car being driven by a fucking tiger, and then you're going to be on a reality tv show where you do nothing but feed hotdogs to pornstars, and then you can go and gamble all of your winnings away at any of the cities nine-fucking-casinos, all while your buddies mod out your stolen car at any of the 173 chop-shops in the city.  Pretty much, if you can think it, you can do it in this game.

Which is all well an good if you're a spastic high school sophomore with ADD and a crippling energy drink dependency.

Hey Saint's Row developer, how about focusing on making a game that (first, isn't a crudely drawn GTA knock-off, second) won't drive me mad with just this laundry list of shit I feel like I have to do in order to experience your game in full?  It's cool and all that to have a game that will allow me to do anything, but what I really want to do is drive from point A to point B, murder some gangsters, go home and have a PB&J, nap, and then hit the gym.  If you can make a game that has all that ridiculous shit you mentioned, you can give me a game that is simplistic, easy on the eyes and above all else, fun.

A Tweet Too Long to Post about Sandwiches, Jokes and Married Life

Wife: this butter and honey sandwich is like sex on bread!

Me: gimmie a bite.
Her: no get your own!

=

I heard a joke today, but you'll have to find the guy who told it to me.

Reviewing Yelp

If you've never heard of Yelp.com, let me break it down for you like this:

Imagine a world where anyone, anywhere, can voice their opinions on anything (pertaining to mostly businesses and locations) for the whole world to see.  And then, based off of these, say, "reviews" an overall score was given to said establishment.

That's Yelp in a nutshell.

Yelp.com has existed for a few years... at least as long as I've had my iPhone, which has been about two years.  I've been a reviewer for about that long, coming and going as I please.  To me, my relationship with Yelp is love/hate.  I love being able to review and read reviews of places I either have frequented or plan to visit (a new coffee shop or bagel place for instance...) respectively, but I hate the aspect that ANYONE can write a review for a place.

Let's focus on my hate, first: It's terribly irksome to me, that someone from out of town can swoop in, try a place out, and based on that snapshot, five minute experience, decide to give a local business a shitty review.  As we all know, I live in a tourist-based summertime community, where most of these businesses are only open for a few months out of the year, and even then, hire high school kids or kids from overseas on Study Abroad programs to help out during the rush hours.  Of course, that's when Johnny Tourist is going to walk in, demand his needs are met expertly on demand, and be disappointed.  He then logs into his Yelp account and leaves a scathing, unwarranted review.

Granted, I've been known to do this as well, as my reviews range from Angelic to Acidic.  But when I sit down to pound out 250 words on why I didn't enjoy my experience at a particular place, I try to find issues with my experience than can only be attributed to the business itself, not it's staff or customers.

I also try to keep in mind that if it's my first time at a particular place, to try to give it a break.  No business, especially small, locally owned businesses (chains are exempt from this rule.  A cup of coffee from Dunks in Boston should taste just as shitty as a cup of Dunk's coffee on the west coast...) can't be firing on all cylinders 100% of the time.  That's just impossible.

So my solution for these snapshot bad reviews, is have Yelp only allow reviews from patrons who have "checked-in (a feature where a person who has a Yelp account can use their GPS-enabled smartphone to log in to a particular location just as long as they're within a certain proximity)" no less than three times.  This will allow people to maybe get a full spectrum view of the business before tossing down a 1 or 2 star review.

Understandably, if a person had such a terrible experience with a business that they'd never dare go back for a second and then third visit just to write the review, I would say, allow a solid week to go by without a check-in before unlocking the review feature.  This would help curb trigger-happy bad reviews made in the heat of the moment.

Another advantage to having users check-in "X" amount of times before leaving a review is the eradication of the "spam review."  A business can be helped or hurt by these types of reviews, which take place when either the owner of a business creates a number of false accounts or gets friends to create accounts and leave biased "outstanding" reviews to help float the business's profile.  This can also be used to hurt a business, as someone with a grudge can do essentially the same thing, but in reverse, leaving tons of really bad reviews to trash a business's site.  Making it so actual real deal people would have to check-in to a business before leaving a review would make spamming to much of an effort to be followed thru upon.

Another unfortunate aspect to Yelp is that business owners can be a touch thin-skinned at times, especially regarding poor reviews.  Some businesses owners are not even aware their business has a profile on Yelp (anyone can "create" a profile for the business in question, tho Yelp does offer a special profile tool for business owners that allows tracking of stats and other doo-dads).  However, those who do, and did not like what people have said about their business in the past, have gone so far as to take legal action against certain reviewers, citing "harassment" and "obstructing the normal operations of the business" with a bad internet review.

While these cases are extreme (I can't seem to find the corresponding articles in the NY Times), it goes to show how much persuasion a business owner can be put under by a Yelp review.

Which brings me to my next issue with the website: the reviews.

I consider myself fortunate enough to live in an area where there are not many reviews for places on Yelp that I frequent, other than my own.  If I lived in NYC or Boston or any other major city, I'd likely be flooded with reviews for places.

Reviews can be helpful, but you have to know how to read thru the bullshit.  If I see a reviewer giving a negative review and he's not from the area, I disregard (mostly for the above mentioned reasons).  If a review looks like it was written by a five year old or was typed using a mashed fist on the keyboard, I disregard.

A lot of the reviewers I find on Yelp are articulate, at times funny and usually fairly flattering, even with negative reviews.  Unfortunately, some reviews come with only one word:  "Sucks" "Great!" or "Ok."

If it sucked, why?  If it was a great experience, tell us more!  Like, actually try, people!

The people working behind the scenes at Yelp do a pretty good job policing the antics.  Some comments and reviews will get filtered out, and from what I understand, it's pretty hard to dupe Yelp with spamming reviews.  I myself have been alerted that one of my reviews was being taken down because I had admitted to working for the business I reviewed while in High School.  Oops.

All in all, Yelp works for the greater good, and I feel that it's doing more harm than good.

(You can follow my reviews on Yelp by checking out www.itsjim.yelp.com)

In Defense of The Situation

Most of you have now seen, or at least heard about, how Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino bombed the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump harder the Muammar Qaddafi has been bombing his own people.  What my job today is to take up an indefensible position and defend Mr. Sorrentino's performance.

I won't sit here and tell you the performance was "good."  It wasn't.  It was fucking god-awful.  If you haven't seen the clip it's cringe worthy in only in a way that can take us back to that time when Michael Jackson's crazy ass dangled his genetically farmed offspring over that balcony. 

But here's what everyone's forgetting: Mr. Sorrentino is not a comedian.  He is not an actor.  He's essentially nothing.  He's famous for doing his laundry, tanning, going to the gym, and for a mediocre-at-best set of abdominal muscles he calls "The Situation."

He's not a bad guy, but no where near a good one, either.  In the spectrum of Total Assholes of the 21st Century, he's closer to your creepy unmarried uncle than George W. Bush.

His five minutes of roasting Donald Trump is hard to watch, yes, but if Mr. Sorrentino is guilty of anything, it's for his arrogance.  I suspect that Mr. Sorrentino wrote his own jokes, which bucked the trend where non-comedians usually have jokes written for them by some Comedy Central writers, and are simply told what time to show up and read from the teleprompter.  This is evident in any other Comedy Central Roast that's ever been televised.

But Mr. Sorrentino obviously sees himself as a trend-setter, if not a trend-bucker.  High on his own inflated sense of self-worth, and likely enough steroids to kill a Bull Mastiff, he likely arrived to the Roast with a few crumpled and sweaty pieces of computer printer paper, with a series of jokes he'd written on Microsoft Word a few days before.  This is how the conversation between him and a Comedy Central producer likely went during the rehearsal, a mere few hours before the taping:

Comedy Central Producer: Ok, Mr. Sorrentino, I-

Mr. Sorrentino: Hey, just call me "The Situation," or ... "Situation..." or.... "Sitch..."

CCP: Uh, ok, Mister... uh, Situation, um, here are the jokes we have for you to read, they'll be up on the teleprompter when you get to the podium, so -

Mr. Sorrentino: Nah, I wrote my own jokes... (and he stuffs the paper into the CCP's hands)

CCP:  ...Your ... own jokes....

So, really, if anyone's at fault here, it's Comedy Central, or at least one of it's producers, for not having the balls to put their foot down, and tell the overly entitled and demanding Reality TV star that, no, you can't do your own material.  It's terrible.  Just stick to the script.

But that never happened.  No, Mr. Sorrentino got up to the podium and unleashed such an ungodly, unentertaining, bowel movement of only what some could consider a handicapped attempt at playfully insulting other members of the dais and the guest of honor, that it became genuinely insulting to anyone within earshot of his microphone.

Watch the members of the dais; other comedians and actors.  They're faces betray every emotion from complete and utter shock (Whitney Cummings) mild amusement at Mr. Sorrentino's expense (Seth MacFarlane, Lisa Lampinelli) to shear embarrassment (Ice-T, Cocco) to boredom (Snoop Dog).  The crowd even begins to turn on Mr. Sorrentino about three and a half minutes into his set, bringing Jeffery Ross to try to aid the ... Situation.

Ross plaintively urges the crowd to "let the kid finish" which should have been enough of a hint to Mr. Sorrentino to get the fuck off the stage.  Instead, he decides to let loose a few painfully uninspired jokes at Mr. Trump.

But like I said, what exactly were you expecting, America?

Mike Sorrentino is a product of what YOU wanted.  Between seasons of Mtv glorifying teen pregnancy we get "Jersey Shore," a version of the network's long standing reality series "The Real World" literally on steroids. 

I've admittedly watched two episodes of the first season, and all of the second season, because it was on Netflix's "Instant Queue" and my wife and I felt like destroying some brain cells and couldn't reach our usually trusty meth dealer.  And even then, the second season, which took place in Miami, (as so the producers of the show could cash in on the surge of popularity of the show and it's cast without pesky mother nature getting involved) was hard to watch.  Everything from domestic violence to straight misogyny was ready at our Cheeto-stained finger tips.

What else you have to consider in Mr. Sorrentino's defense is that he's currently being dragged out to sea by the undercurrent of the anti-Jersey Shore tide that's come in recent months.  Snooki's appearance on the cover of a recent Rolling Stone was met with considerable backlash from the last bastions of people who actually read Rolling Stone for it's journalistic integrity. 

You created this monster, America.  You.  So, when you want to decry Mr. Sorrentino's lack of comedic guile, or attack the fact that he's a muscle-brained ignoramus that had no business telling jokes before a live and televised audience, remember this:

Mr. Sorrentino, to a young woman he had brought home, upon learning she doesn't "smoosh" on the first date:  

"That's ok, you can just blow me."

I rest my case.

Post Script 3/19:  I've been informed by a number of people that Sitch actually had jokes written for him by Comedy Central staff, but was allowed to "put his own spin" on those jokes.  Well, ok then.

Dispatch: Rochester, NH

This is a real place in Rochester.

Rochester is the scraped knee of New Hampshire.

Sitting next to the boarder between Maine and New Hampshire, Rochester, population 31K as of 2009, is a sizable town in the southern Seacoast section of the oblong state, one of the few towns that can claim it has a "share" of the Atlantic, tho the town itself is landlocked with the exception of a few dirty rivers that feed thru it.

No, Rochester exists for the shear reason that raccoon shit exists, because it has to; no rhyme, no reason, it's just simply there.

Nestled at the foot of the White Mountains and at the very most southern tip of Lake Winnepasaki, Rochester is the gateway for summer vacationers on their way to kinder trappings northbound.  The town is simply a pit-stop; to refresh ice, to get a soda or boat fuel, someplace no one wants to spend very much time at all, if they have nicer places to be.

From the outskirts, pick a hill (there's a ton) and look at the farm land the makes up a patchwork of properties surrounding the town proper.  Still, centuries later, property lines are forged with knee-high stone walls, set in perfect squares.  Old farm houses, likely passed down from generations of patriots who hiked to Lexington or Concord or Bunker Hill, still stand on this property, slowly sinking into the dirt like an old war matron too proud to die.  Along side these sagging old buildings, the occasional abrasive ranch home, newer, single-story, plastic siding, cutesy-driveway, jarring to the landscape like a bar room sucker punch to the base of the skull.

The roads from these plots, towards town, are lined with the occasional discarded Miller Lite can, half crumpled, faded with age.  A mailbox hangs by a bent rusty nail to a rotted post, the name of it's owner half missing.

The town itself, what most would consider "downtown" is like any you would find in middle America.  Pizza places, Subways, tire stores, gold and pawn brokers, gas stations, and a bar about every fifth step.  With St. Patrick's Day looming, the proprietors shamelessly post signs with overflowing flagons and leprechauns on every window of their establishments.  It's almost overkill; like the extra kick sent to a disobedient puppy.

Rochester is a town that Republican Ideals long forgot: the average age of someone pushing a baby stroller is around 22, tho they look older, mid 30s with a lot of road wear.  Both sexes exhibit facial, neck and hand tattoos, smoke cigarettes precariously close to infants and share a 40+ inch waste line.  If one were to guess, the chief export of Rochester is violent domestic assaults, bad parenting and lung cancer.

On a nearby tv, the local news runs a story about a Rochester couple being brought to court on charges of Gross Child Abuse, the facts of the case state that the live-in boyfriend beat his girlfiend's 3 year old son with a belt for pissing his pants.

It all seems to fit; Rochester seems like the type of town in which a kid would get beat with a belt.

Out front of the Cumberland Farms off of Main Street, a gas station and convenience store, Police Officer Ted Ramsey props himself up against his cruiser.  Like all cops, he's wearing a cocksure smirk under his mustache as he balances his store-brand cup of coffee between his thumb and forefinger.

"Pharmacies, that's our biggest problem," he remarks while peeling back the tab on his plastic coffee lid.  And it's no wonder, there seems to be as many pharmacies, be it a Wal-Greens or a local Mom&Pop, as bars in Rochester.  These pharmacies, says Officer Ramsey, stay open late, which to the mildly afflicted tweeker, must look like glowing hot lust at midnight.

As if one queue, a spidery-looking, face-scratching twenty-something crab-walks out of the convenience store clutching an energy drink, eying the cop like a wary Hyena stalking a fresh kill.  Officer Ramsey returns the gaze, a silent match of witlessness, before he carries on.

"It's all we can do to keep up," he carries on about the pharmacies like a poorly written script for a bad tv cop drama, "they push, and we push back, and they push back even harder, so..." he trails off, either pausing for effect for just losing his train of thought.  He comes back after a second of staring off into space.  "I've been working here for two years, and you know, there's good people here, really.  They live here, just, all you ever hear about is the bad ones," and with a sense of finality in his statement, he leaves it at that.

Inside the store, the employee behind the counter, a skinny twenty something with bad skin named Dave, has a different take.

"This place sucks, man.  I'm getting out of here as soon as I can," but when that is, who knows, surely not Dave, who has a pregnant girlfriend who doesn't work.  When asked if he's ever been robbed or a victim of violence on the job, he laughs a little and shakes his head.

"Not me, but it's only a matter of time.  I only started working here a month ago, but I hear stories from the other employees.  I actually have my first night shift alone this weekend.  Can't wait." he deadpans before ringing up a customer who's buying at least $60 dollars in scratch tickets, beer and cigarettes.

The local library has been in Rochester for just over 100 years, and is attached to the town hall.  According to the librarian on duty, a forty-ish woman named Mary who's been working in the Rochester Stacks for close to 15 years, the library pretty much is the de-facto Blockbuster for the community.

"We loan out more movies than anything else," she starts as she flips thru a sort of record keeping book that looks a lot like a grade book elementary teachers keep in their desks.  "But of course, we don't get a lot of them back," her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, "I think they get sold or traded for drugs," and she doesn't look up, but looks down at an empty space on her desk. 

As of right now, she says, there are 30 dvds out, but she estimates that only half will make it back in.  And what's the use of late fees or banning of memberships if the culprits never come back in the first place?

"If it gets to a certain point, we'll make it a police matter," but she goes on to say that she doesn't think the local police department gives stolen library merchandise a high priority, especially if there's multiple culprits.

The library went on the offensive in a way, by limiting the number of DVDs a member can take out, from three, to one at a time.  Still she says, it doesn't stop them from wandering off.

"And don't even get me started about the internet terminals," she abruptly turns the conversation and does exactly what she said she didn't want to get started with... "we find all sorts of ..." she pauses for the right word "smutty things, left on there."

She's never found anyone acting in a lewd manner, she's quick to add, which she's relieved.  She says that she wouldn't know what to do if she did tho.

"I'd probably ask them to leave," she blushes.

Upon wrapping things up, a man interrupts the conversation by placing a clear plastic DVD case down on the desk and waits for it to be checked back in, so he can presumably rent out another.  The title of the returned DVD is a "Veggietales" cartoon, a children's show that teaches children wholesome Christian values using CGI fruits and vegetables. 

The man's broad face and build exudes all the charm of a shotgun left on a get-a-way car's floor.

He wanders off, to the DVD section and Mary the Librarian waits a breath.

"That's Jason," she begins, her voice lower, "he runs the Youth Ministry over in Gonic," the next town over.  "He's in here all the time." 

She seems satisfied with sharing this information, as if it's vindication for the town's hard-scrabble way of life.

March Run Mix

Every month I'm going to try to share with you a playlist of songs that I enjoy running to/with (?).  Feel free to cop these where ever you buy music, and then immediately turn around and hit the road.

 

The Catalyst, Linkin Park:  I like the slow build of this song, especially on early morning runs.  You can see yourself pushing off from your starting point just as the choppy-techy beats drop in.  A very affirming song to start out any distance running.

Resistance, Muse:  Another slow builder, equally good for a playlist headliner.  The soft vocals eventually give way to a powerful ballad that will pull you down the street by your heart strings.



Rolling in the Deep, Adele: A funky, disco-y track that builds quickly just as the heavy thumping of the drums kick in.  Great for pace work.  When I ran to this the other day I found my feet hitting pavement in time with the beat.

Drumming Song, Florence + The Machine: Another beat-heavy track, when this comes up in my buds it will usually put a smile on my face, which makes me a better runner, for some reason.  And what's better than the line of the refrain "sweeter than heaven, hotter than hell?"  That usually sums up most of my runs, actually.

 

Viva la Vida, Cold Play:  Ok... admittedly.... I have this song on my iPod, but that doesn't make me gay!  It's a good track.... the song's about how this guy first obtains power and then loses it.  You know what, you're not even paying attention to this anymore, you've come to your own conclusions.  Fuck it, I like running to it.

Pumped Up Kicks, Foster the People: What's a better song to run to than one about gnarly shoes and out running guns and bullets?  ...Because I can't understand anything else the vocalist says in this song.



Wolf Like Me, Tv on the Radio:  Another beat-heavy track.  When I listen to this song on my runs,  I feel like I'm being chased thru the woods.


Handlebars, Flobots: Kind of a braggart's song, I like running to this song when I'm feeling slow and just pacing out the last few miles of my run... because the last 1/3 of the song it picks up quick and hard.  Try not to mind the political undertones.




Harder, Better, Faster Stronger, Daft Punk:  The quintessential techno-workout track, the French Robotic DJ-Duo give us four goals that we should each strive for in our workouts.


Bad Romance, Lady Gaga:  Techno-y, thumping, full of energy.  Just what you need at mid-run.  (True story: I was running on a treadmill at the gym at my old job and thought I was alone.  I had plugged my iPod into the stereo system and Gaga's "Boys Boys Boys" started to play loud over the speakers, and since I was on the treadmill I couldn't just hop off and change songs.  One of my bosses ended up walking in and called me a "fag.")



The Beast and The Harlot, Avenged Sevenfold:  A fast, hard, 80's speed metal track from a band that was born around the same time Axel Rose took his first hit of cocaine.

Animal I Have Become, Three Days Grace: We should each strive to become a fucking animal during our runs or workouts.  When I'm running and I hear this song, I picture myself turning into a lion and chasing down tasty-ass gazelles. 



Battery, Metallica:  Easily the greatest song they ever wrote and performed.  Powerful, epic... this song is like the battle scenes from Gladiator and Lord of the Rings, combined.

Lose Yourself, Eminem: This song should really be at the top of the list, not towards the bottom.  This is the song I listen to before every competitive event I run in.  Just the spoken-word beginning is enough to get me ready to set a PR.



No Love, Eminem featuring Lil' Wayne: Another powerful song that builds.... it covers all the bases: Beastmode, never breaking stride, monopoly boards.... I hear this song and I instantly feel stronger.

 

Hell of a Life, Kanye West:  A track about what it's like to marry a porn star, I just really like running to the beat and hook.

Power, Kanye West:  A tribal track, theme music for superheroes.


Monster, Kanye West featuring Rick Ross, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj:  The first three words of this song are all I need to hear before I go run a sub-six minute mile:  Bitch, I'ma Monster.



Better & Better, KRS-One, featuring Pee-Doe:  A dope beat to run to, and KRS makes a valid point that hip-hop really was better in the 90s.


All of the Lights, Kanye West featuring Rhianna:  When I hear this song towards the end of my runs, I picture winning a championship, victory, completion.



My Body, Young the Giant:  This is my official training anthem:  "My body tells me no, but I won't quit, cuz I want more."  Perfect.


Hurt, Johnny Cash: While some of you might bristle at the idea of running to this song... on a clear morning, I can't run and NOT listen to the man in black's tragic voice and what it says.



Pain, Jimmy Eat World:  This track, about pain killer addiction, was used by NBC's Sunday Night Football for it's opening montages.  I'm thinking someone doesn't listen to lyrics down at NBC....

All I Do is Win, Ludacris, featuring T-Pain, Rick Ross and Snoop Dogg:  What else do you need to know about this song?  It's called ALL I DO IS WIN.  Perfect for finish lines and post-race winner's circles.

 

Empire Ants, Gorillaz featuring Little Dragon: a cool down track that pumps it up towards the back half.  Love the chick's voice.

We Made It, Busta Rhymes featuring Linkin Park: At the bottom of your playlist you need a song that reaffirms all your hard work.  Use this one.  "I'm a symbol of greatness, call a nigga Morpheus" routinely plays thru my head, post workout.

War (as a Business Model)

Profiting from war is an age-old means of generating giant mountains of cash.  I'm talking Scrooge McDuck Money. .... Ben Franklin cedes his position on the 100 dollar bill to your visage.... you get the idea.

But what about studying a war as a business model?  As I was coming home with my wife from errands this afternoon, I posed this question, because it was randomly on my mind at that time:

"Would you consider the Army (or the military as a whole) and the Taliban to be co-workers?"

My wife didn't say anything for a minute.  Then she broke the silence with "where did that come from?"

I explained that my line of thinking was this:  both organizations are in the business of changing (by mostly force) the ideologies of a populace.  The Taliban will roam your neighborhood streets and beat you with a tire iron if you don't grow a beard (ladies too) whereas, if you don't think Democracy is the cat's balls, the US military will either send some black-clad men with machine guns to your hut in the middle of the night or just drop a two-ton bomb on you from a mile in the sky.

With this, my wife, smartly asserted that the US Military (henceforth "military") and the Taliban are competition in the same market, similar to Coca-Cola and Pepsi.  Both soft drink companies are trying to get their product into your home, and spend tons of money to do so, and while they operate in the same market, they do not "work together" towards their common goal.  The Military and the Taliban both want to change the hearts and minds of people... by putting their "product" in their homes, but the product is slightly different. Both Coke and Pepsi are similar products (soft drinks) as is the "product" of both opposing forces in the War on Terror; an ideology, oppose to a sugary soft drink.

As we rounded the last corner to come home, my wife quipped "talk about cut-throat business...." ...and that folks, is why I married her.

The Crop Dusting Controversy

If you accused me of putting too much personal stock into my Twitter account, I'd likely plea "guilty as charged."

The other day, Runner's World Magazine (the authority for running sports, as far as I'm concerned) started a trend on it's twitter feed called #confessionsofarunner.  Runners who follow the mag (you can follow too at twitter.com/runnersworld) began to submit their personal confessions with the #hashtag.  Some of these were pretty funny; most, if not all were gross in one way or another.

Some examples:  "Don't shake my hand after a winter race, because I wipe my nose in my gloves," and "I re-wear grungy running socks before washing them," etc.  So I decided to put in my two bits.

I tweeted:  "@runnersworld I take satisfaction in crop dusting slower runners #confessionsofarunner"

Now, whether I do in fact take satisfaction in the act of spraying my fecal matter in an aerosol fashion is neither here nor there.  I was just having some fun.

But what started as just gross fun, became an afternoon of infamy.

Of course, whoever runs the Runner's World twitter account retweeted (or RT) my tweet, with the comment "best fart confession."  If you still don't fully grasp what "crop dusting" is, let me explain.

Crop Dusting, in a similar fashion to the little single engine airplanes that spray pesticides over farmer's crops, is when you spread a fart over an area while moving.  Say, while running in a pack of people.  If you're sitting there, reading that last bit, and thinking to yourself that you've never, in a hundred million years, would ever consider doing something like that, than I accuse you of being a robot.

After the RT from Runner's World, which went out to over 60,000 people who follow the magazine on Twitter, the comments came back with a vengeance.  For the most part, people took to the joke.  It was supposed to be fun, if not a little raunchy.  But some other people, well... they took things a little too seriously.

One responded with a tweet:  "I'm a slow runner and I don't appreciate that," another, dripping in sarcasm, "good one Runner's World, way to encourage beginner/slower/differently abled runners," ... like, people, it was a fucking joke.

Here, let's cut the bullshit:  If you've ever run in a big race... say a 10K or better, with a large group of people, say... 100 or better... past mile 3, you're going to hear "walkie-talkies" coming from runners all around you.  When I ran my marathon last Fall, (which did not allow for the use of iPods or other MP3 players and ear buds) people were farting left and right all around me.

I'm supposed to hold it for 26.2 miles?  Or... I'm supposed to say "excuse me" to everyone around me when I force out what could be a time-killing cramp?

Truth:  The night before and the morning of my marathon, I carb-loaded like a crazy man... I ate like it was my last meal.  Whole wheat pasta, meatballs, french bread for dinner... doubled up protein shake, bagels with peanut butter, and bananas for breakfast.  I was a ticking time bomb of gas.

And for some stupid reason, right at the start of the race, as soon as I crossed the starting line (I was a few rows deep, but not buried... about 8 seconds difference between my gun time and race time) I felt gassy and crampy.  I tried to hold it, or let little squeakers out as I ran, highly embarrassed.  People could see and here me.  I wasn't paying attention to my pace as much as I was to the growing boulder in my stomach.

But all pretense of politeness went out the window around mile four:  A bobbing pony tail in a pack about fifty yards ahead of me suddenly diverted from the race course down a side alleyway.  As I approached where she had left the course, I turned to look where she could have gone, slightly concerned.

I didn't have to look far... because she didn't go far.  She tucked into the side of the building, not two steps from the race course, squatted, dropped trow and was pissing a strong, hot stream of urine all over the sidewalk.  And I was holding back a fart?

Throughout the race I would see runners dip-diving off the course to run into the woods to relieve themselves... it was a pretty intense course (lots of hills) and people were... just in need.

In the end, Runner's World retracted the RT and put out an apology tweet re-affirming that they support runners of all different skill levels.  I felt kinda bad about that, but then again, they chose to RT me.  I'm sure someone got a nasty email from an editor tho.

So ... do I really take joy in crop dusting another, slower runner? ... Maybe... if they're douchey and do the whole ... sprint a mile a head of you, only to be seen walking as you approach and they are using you as a place marker... so when they see you they start running again.  When I pass that guy, I might spray him down if I got one in the chamber.... sure.

But let me be clear: I never said I took satisfaction in crop dusting "slow" runners... just "slower" as one tweeter said as he came to my defense.   I got nothing against the slow guys... hey, we're all running our own race, right?

And to those who took me too seriously, and got all offended by the idea that they're being shit-upon as they're being passed in a race.... I say:  Blow it out your asses.

How to Get Out of a Speeding Ticket*

(*results vary)

We've all been there:  Driving someplace, not really paying attention, or maybe paying attention, because we're running late and hot-footing it to where we were supposed to be ten minutes ago.  That's when we glance in our rear view mirror, or we see him coming over the near ridge in the road.  The unmistakable light bar on a Crown Vic or Dodge Charger baring down on you.  Your skin suddenly covers itself in a sheen of cold sweat, your asshole clenches, your heart jumps to your throat.  You suddenly glance at your speedometer and realize you're doing nearly 20mph over the speed limit. 

Is he going to pull you over or let you pass?

First things first, the easiest advice to give someone on how NOT to get pulled over by the police for speeding is to tell you to drive the posted speed limit.  Knowing that virtually no one does this, allow me to give you some practical advice based on my years as a law enforcement professional in a small town in Maine.

How Not to Get Pulled Over in the First Place:

If you're on a highway, try to stay with packs of cars going roughly the same speed limit.  Strength in numbers.  A cop would have to be a real dick (not saying they don't exist, but...) to single you out when there are at least five other cars around you, all driving over the limit. 

It's when you're alone and out in the open that a cop will bag you for speeding.  If you happen to break away from the group, check your speed and proceed with caution until you can find more cover.

Most cops will have a predetermined "limit" on what they'll pull you over for, as far as speed is concerned.  Mine was 10 and over whatever the posted speed limit was.  For instance, if you were cruising along at 35-36 mph in a 25mph zone, you could expect me to turn on you.  Anything under that, I usually let slide.  But all cops are different, so it could vary.  But rest assured that no cop will pull you over for anything under 5mph over the limit.  He would have to be a real asshole to do that.

Along with that, radar guns in police cars have tolerances that are supposedly checked before the start of each shift.  But even then, there's a 1-2mph difference, just purely based on the fact that it's an electrical machine. 

With that in mind, if you do get pulled over and the ticket says you were doing "55 in a 54" take it to traffic court.  Likely the judge will let you off with a stern warning, because the cop who issued that ticket is a dickhead, and the judge will know it.


What to do When You're Pulled Over:

So let's say you didn't heed my earlier advice and you now find yourself on the side of the road, flashing blue lights behind you, feeling the gawking stares as every motorist driving by is silently thanking you for taking this cop off the road.  How can you weasel your way out of a 100-200 dollar ticket?

As soon as you're safely pulled over and in park, shut off the car.  This will kill your radio too.  Nothing is more irritating than getting a ticket to a soundtrack.  If it's nighttime, turn on your dome light.  Do not start reaching for your registration, insurance or license. 

For some reason, people think that if they have all their documents ready for when the cop walks up to the window, they'll look favorably on this.  False!  If I'm sitting behind you in my cruiser and I see you moving around and reaching around for stuff, I could think you're trying to hide something, or worse, going for your gun.  Just sit there, and place your hands on your steering wheel, palms facing out so that the officer knows you're not hiding anything in your palms, like a razor or needle.

Why does it take the cop so long to approach your vehicle?  It's because he's running your plates to make sure he's not pulling over a car that was stolen from the vicinity of a violent bank robbery, or that to ensure the registered owner (likely, you) doesn't have outstanding warrants for his or her arrest.  He also might be pre-loading paperwork.  But keep in mind, he's still got his eye on you.

When the officer approaches, be polite.  I can't tell you how many warnings for speed turned into tickets because the guy driving instantly became a total asshole towards me, based off of his own assumptions.  Try not to be nervous, tho we understand if you are, and don't make any sudden movements.  If the officer asks to see the required paperwork, in a friendly way, tell him you're going to get it from the glovebox or where ever you keep it.  Move in slow, deliberate movements.

If the cop asks one of those stupid questions like "do you know why I pulled you over" you can answer in a variety of ways, but don't outright lie.  Cops are people who get lied to every day, and you feigning ignorance is what he's expecting. 

Instead, deflect the question.  Don't admit to speeding, because that's an admission of guilt, but say something along the lines of "Yeah, my wife/husband called and she said there's something wrong with the water heater at the house," or "I'm not entirely familiar with this area, was I above the speed limit?" That last one can be problematic, especially if the officer holding your license sees you live on the same street he now has you pulled over on.

You can always try humor too.  My rule was, if the driver can get me to smile or laugh, he wasn't getting a ticket.  You could try "Jeez, I was speeding a little huh?  I get pretty fired up when I listen to my all-Coldplay mix on my way to work..."

Never say you're running late for something, weren't paying attention, or are "really tired, and just wanted to get home" as these are all signs of reckless behavior.  Who's fault is it that you're running late for work?  Who's not paying attention?  Who should've been to bed sooner?

Cops have another kind of unspoken rule: "the ticket or the lecture, but never both."  If the cop starts in on lecturing you about safety, etc, just let him talk, the longer he talks the less likely he'll want to continue with the stop to give you paperwork.  If he just takes your papers and walks away, be cool, it could go one of two ways, and you have a 50/50 chance of still getting just a warning.

I had a woman jump out of her car during the middle of a stop as I was writing out a written warning, demanding to see my radar equipment.  After calling for a backup unit and getting her back into her SUV, that warning became a $220 dollar ticket and nearly an arrest for disorderly conduct.

In the end, if you wind up with a ticket, just take the paperwork from the officer and follow the instructions on the back of the ticket.  If you have any questions, legitimate questions, feel free to ask, but don't expect the cop to stick around very long to have a Q&A session with you on the side of the road.  Face facts, you got busted.

Preventive Measures: 

I'll be honest with you, I can't fucking stand radar detectors.  These expensive pieces of equipment, although usually legal, will get you into more trouble than get you out.  In my experience, if I pulled someone over who had a radar detector in his vehicle, it gave me carte blance to pretty much make the guy's life a nightmare.  Radar detectors do not prevent tail lights from going out, of signal directionals for you if you forget.

Some companies will "pay your ticket for you" if you get pulled over for speeding while using their radar detector, but this is somewhat of a false promise.  You have to be within certain criteria to apply for this "pay back" from the company, and the company can change it's terms whenever it feels like it and not notify you.  Also, as technology advances, not all radar detectors detect the same radio frequencies used by law enforcement radar guns.  And then there's radio interference.

Not to mention that most of those detectors require a "line of sight" with the cop's radar gun in order to pick up the frequency... and by then, it's too late.  If the radar detector detects the radar from the cop.. the cop's already got your speed.

So that $200 fancy little box sticking to your windshield... it might give you some piece of mind, but.... it's up to you, is what I'm saying.