chicken cross

I have always been a critic of Seattle driving, but recently I had a chance to see how others drive in far away countries, such as China. Since then, I have developed a profound respect for how we drive here in the Northwest. Why? What could be so bad about the driving in China? Here is a collection of short observations I have made riding in the Great Country of China.

While Driving in China………………………

Traffic signals are (how should I put it…) optional.

Right of way is determined by vehicle weight.

On any given street every car is driving parallel, but none will be driving co-linear.

In taking any 3 consecutive Chinese drivers, 1 will be driving over the median.

In merging lanes, Chinese drivers feel the need to drive neck and neck until the last moment when one finally chickens out.

Whenever a Chinese person crosses the street by foot, he will not consider such meaningless factors as how many cars are on the road, or how fast they are going.

If while crossing the street, a Chinese bicyclist gets 4 beeps from a Bus, 3 beeps from your taxi, and 5 loud horns from a speeding truck, all while going against traffic, he will not so much as turn his head to acknowledge.

Take every gas you find in the Periodic table, Mix this with every gas you would find at a Nuclear power plant, add mustard gas, SMOG, Agent Orange, MACE, and sulfuric acid, this is was comes out of the average car’s tail pipe. A one time drive while riding behind a bus, had identical health effects as 12 years of smoking.

What do Chinese people drive? Hard to answer that, but try to imagine this… Gather the 100 most brilliant and renowned German Auto Engineers, get them really drunk, and give them 24 hours to build a car while wearing mittens.

—–Taxi Driving in China——–

While riding a taxi, If you should ever get the notion to open the window and stick your hand out, you will knock over the first bicyclist, who, upon hitting the ground, will be run over by the second bicyclist.

If ever going from point A to point B, it is faster to drive on the wrong side of the street, your taxi driver will.

While riding from point A to point B in a taxi, you will spend roughly 20% of the time driving, 15% to beeping the horn, 40% to changing lanes, 15% driving on the sidewalk, & 10% driving in the wrong lane.

U-turns, though dangerous are permitted in China; luckily taxi drivers will use extra precautions, like waiting until rush hour traffic, and they will only attempt u-turns in carefully selected places, like busy intersections.

A taxi driver will whiz by within 1 foot of a pedestrian, come within 6 inches of a bicyclist, yet swerve violently 2 lanes to miss a pot hole.

Taxies have an auto-regulating temperature, whereby if a passenger opens a window to cool off, the driver’s hand will slowly move over to turn on the heater; Yet if the passenger turns on the heater, the driver’s hand will slowly open his window.

Traffic jams are common, but Chinese drivers believe traffic jams can be cured by the sonic harmony of every car’s horn.

Foreigners need to be careful when speaking their native tongue, for some phrases translate irregularly.

For example,

1. When speaking to a taxi driver…”Verooom please hurry” translates to …
“Please go through every red light, and get real close to that pedestrian.”

2. “I speak English” translated by a taxi driver means
“Please take the long expensive route”

Taxi companies only purchase luxury cars, whereby after the passenger is in, there remains a spacious 1 cubic foot to put his luggage.

In any taxi the handle for the Turn signal will be pristine and untouched, yet the horn will be worn down to the nub.

Taxi drivers have many options when changing lanes, after they change lanes they can either…
A. Look in their rear view to see if they cut anyone off, or
B. Listen for the other driver’s horn.

New Year’s Fireworks in CHINA…

I was staying in a large apartment park, where half the population of Seattle can be found in 5 square block. For the Chinese New Year, it is traditional for every family to light fireworks, All the people were on one side of the street and all the fireworks were done on the other side. Many images came to mind…
a. Take the most powerful fireworks mankind has ever
made, give them to a bunch of 10 year old kids, and
confine them to a space of 15 square feet.
b. About 1 in 10 fireworks would drift over into the
crowd and blowup.
c. The Noise…roughly 1000 firecrackers going off per second, and 10x that going off from other places around the city.
Imagine having a truck 2 feet behind you, beeping like crazy, and you not realize it until the driver gets out and tells you to move.
d. Crossing the Street, from the Crowd side to the Fireworks side is a once in a life time experience. You not only have to worry about 200 kids Fire-grenades coming your way, you also have to dodge traffic, which seams to be unaffected by the fireworks. The casualty rate for those who tried to cross this divide, were slightly better than storming the beaches at Normandy.

Shopping in China
Go to a store and watch a Chinese person purchase an item for $10, go over to that item, pick it up, watch the price magically go to $80, while a small voice are the corner goes, “Hello, I got bargain for you.”

Dear Mom and Dad,

Our scout master told us to write our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and got worried. We are OK. Only one of our tents and two sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it all happened. Oh yes, please call Chad’s mother and tell her he is OK. He can’t write because of the cast. I got to ride one of the search & rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn’t been for the lightning.

Scouter Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn’t hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up?

The wet wood still didn’t burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We will be home on Saturday if Scouter Webb gets the car fixed. It wasn’t his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left. Scouter Webb said that with a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that’s probably why he can’t get insurance on it. We think it’s a neat car. He doesn’t care if it gets dirty and if it’s hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot with ten people in a car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the RCMP stopped to talk to us. Scouter Webb is a neat guy. Don’t worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive but he only lets him drive on the mountain roads where there isn’t any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks.

This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming in the lake. Scouter Webb wouldn’t let me because I can’t swim and Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scouter Webb isn’t crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn’t even get mad about the life jackets. He has to spend a lot of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble.

Also Wade and I threw up. Scouter Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick that way with the food they ate in prison. I’m so glad he got out and became our scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time.

I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don’t worry about anything. We are fine.

Love, Cole.

What follows is the Commencement address that was thought to have been given by: Kurt Vonnegut recently at MIT
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Turns out that he didn’t, but it got back to him, he read it, and said he wished that he had written it.
Lenochka
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Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘98:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts.
Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate
yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were
young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund.
Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Isn’t it obvious? Can’t you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the “other side.” That’s what “they” call it the “other side.” Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like “the other side.” That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It’s as plain and simple as that.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.

DR. SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I’ve not been told!

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

GRANDPA: In my day, we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.

SADDAM HUSSAIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

RONALD REAGAN: What chicken?

KEN STARR: I intend to prove that the chicken crossed the road at the behest of the president of the United States of America in an effort to distract law enforcement officials and the American public from the criminal wrongdoing our highest elected official has been trying to cover up. As a result, the chicken is just another pawn in the president’s ongoing and elaborate scheme to obstruct justice and undermine the rule of law. For that reason, my staff intends to offer the chicken unconditional immunity provided he cooperates fully with our investigation.
Furthermore, the chicken will not be permitted to reach the other side of the road until our investigation and any Congressional follow-up investigations have been completed. (We also are investigating whether Sid Blumenthal has leaked information to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, alleging the chicken to be homosexual in an effort to discredit any useful testimony the bird may have to offer, or at least to ruffle his feathers.)

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken 98, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook-and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.

EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define ‘chicken’ please?

LOUIS FARRAKHAN: The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the “black man” in order to trample him and keep him down.

THE BIBLE: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road.” And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?

Why did the Dinosaur cross the road?

Because chickens hadn’t evolved yet.