“This guy parks like an asshole. Taking up three spots at Taco Bell on Bundy and Pico.”

Seriously, if that’s not lazy and inconsiderate, I don’t know what is. At least this guy was parked when the submitter encountered his car. One could only imagine how such a person would drive on the roads.

Here’s an SMS message submission we received: “My worst case scenario was a woman getting on the 805 freeway while breastfeeding, using her cell phone, smoking, and putting on her makeup.  She was driving a humongous SUV also. Thank goodness I was not getting on the freeway.”

I don’t know how this lady had enough hands to pull all that off, but there you have it. I’ve seen plenty of nutty stuff firsthand, so I can’t immediately discount this story as fake. However, breastfeeding while driving and smoking violates at least two laws right off the bat. It takes a very special person to put their child in such imminent and long-term danger at the same time.

Lastly, here’s a story of a commuter who frequents the canyons as I do:

“I live in Topanga Canyon, and the only way we get into or out of our community is to drive six miles on a two-lane winding road through the canyon. There aren’t very many places where you can overtake and pass another car safely, and during busy commute times, there’s often a solid stream of cars going through the canyon; so typically, the vehicle in front of you can’t go any faster than it is. Nevertheless, we still get some total jerks tailgating people – I’ve been behind some folks who are less than a car-length from the bumper ahead of them while going 40 mph. Often, you’ll see someone just pull over on a wide dirt shoulder just to shake the jerk behind them.

One morning at 5:30 am – I kid you not – on my way to a swim lesson, it was just me and two other cars going south to PCH. The guy in front of me hugged the bumper of the woman in front of him the entire six miles to the coast – this can be really scary on the “S” curves. At PCH where the road splits into two lanes, he pulled alongside her and rolled down his window and yelled out “Go back to FRANCE!” I have no idea what he meant! When the light changed, he roared around the corner and I made eye contact with her and just shook my head.”

So, hmm, this aggressive assnut encounters someone on the road who isn’t taking turns like an Indy race car driver, and he immediately assumes that person is from France? I wonder if he started calling french fries “freedom fries” when the French refused to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Regardless, tailgating on single-laned, winding canyon roads is a huge pet peeve of mine, especially during rush hour. Where do these people really expect traffic to go? Do these drivers actually expect one car after another to pull over to the side of the road to allow them to pass so that they can zip through hairpin turns as quickly as possible? I’ve given up trying to relate to the mind of a road raging prick…rather, I just blog about them.

“When the rain comes down, the idiots come out. I see four cars with no lights on here. I know you love these shots. It was worse all over town. Numerous cars in the ditch, particularly on ramps and transition roads.”

It’s a myth that it doesn’t rain here in L.A. We have rain season every year. The people here are just too stupid or stoned to either remember how to drive in the rain and learn from their mistakes or build upon their limited experiences of driving in inclement weather.

On a completely separate note, I wanted to give a shout-out to a mobile app called HipSwap. It’s available on the iPhone, and the Android version is coming soon. The app allows you to buy and sell items in your area with friends, your neighbors, and local merchants. HipSwap GPS locates any posted item, so when you open up the app, you can instantly view what’s for sale nearby. And posting items is easy. All you have to do is take a photo or video, price it, title it, and post it. Within seconds, you’re selling your stuff. I a big supporter of local businesses and small town, neighborly commerce. I haven’t personally tried the app out, but it seems like a pretty nifty idea.

So D-Day approaches. D is for “detour”, and I’m calling it that because Carmageddon is so overused that I swear there’s going to be a B low budget feature released with that title. The kicker is  I hear that they’re going to need to close this same portion of the freeway again for a couple days next year because they won’t be able to get all the work done this weekend. I wonder what people will call that…the Third Coming?

Anyway, there’s a lot of misinformation around, so for those of you who want to know exactly which parts of the 405 Fwy will be shut down, here it goes:

• Northbound I-405: 10-mile closure between I-10 and U.S. 101
• Southbound I-405: 4-mile closure between U.S. 101 and Getty Center Drive Ramps

On Friday, July 15, ramps along the 10 mile closure will begin to be shut down as early as 7 p.m., and closure of freeway lanes will begin at 10 p.m. to ensure full freeway closure by midnight. The closure will continue until 5 a.m. Monday morning, July 18. Ramps and connectors will be reopened by 6 a.m.

That’s the gist. If you want more details, such as suggested detours and the like, please go to this site: Mulholland Dr Bridge Demolition and I-405 Closure

Here’s a quick shout-out to my colleague Jason DeFillippo over at blogging.la. Click on the link to read a little interview I did with him over the weekend.

This was too cool to pass up. A friend sent this to me from FlowingData, which is an animation compiled by Waze, in collaboration with the Gray Area Foundation and Nik Hanselmann, that visualizes 24-hours of traffic data in Los Angeles. The red dots stand for traffic congestion, and the green dots stand for traffic incidents. In particular, pay attention to what happens during rush hour. Very informative….

I received a letter from the DMV a few months ago that said, “Congratulations! You are eligible to renew by mail; internet/phone. Renew early to receive your new license before your current license expires.” FYI, my license expires on March 31. Yes, I was once a mighty ram, and now I’m a slimy fish…go me. Anyway, I knew that transactions with the government would be taking longer than usual in these budget-tightening days, so I promptly went online to renew via the interweb. I was already sensing that something would go wrong with this whole license renewal procedure since the online process kept crashing. I tried renewing again and again with three different browsers on two different computers at two different points in the day, all to no avail. I finally decided to renew by phone, which thankfully worked. OK, problem solved, or so I hoped as I wrote down my six-digit confirmation number and filed my AMEX back in my wallet.

Now call me slightly paranoid, but I’m starting to wonder if my license would ever arrive in the mail. And I’m not alone in feeling this way. As I relate my concerns to my friends and colleagues as B-Day approaches, I’m hearing more and more stories of people who had to wait for months, fighting tooth and nail all the while, to get their renewed licenses. A few people actually drove around with an expired license for several months, while others trekked to the local DMV to get a temporary license. Apparently, if you renew by phone, internet, or mail, you can just lie to the DMV and say that your vision hasn’t changed; however, if you renew in person, they make you take a vision test. Since when are people more honest when they’re not dealing with you face-to-face? Maybe that’s why I see so many damned squinty-eyed tunnel-visioned bats aimlessly meandering our streets.

Regardless, the DMV website does say that your renewed license will come in the mail within 60 days. Given that I received my notice in late January and renewed at that time, the jolly folks up in Sacramento were already pushing my renewal notice pretty close to my birthday at the end of March. I’m a patient man, but a part of me is thinking, “Do they mean 60 business days? And what about the furloughs ever other Friday, or the third Thursday of every month, or whatever it is? That essentially puts me three months out, which means that the one-armed hardworking gang of six in the renewal office didn’t send my “early renewal” notice in time, which also means that I won’t get my license until a good four to six weeks after my current license expires.

….wow…..that would be totally awesome…..so not winning.

I’m going to give this another week, and then it’ll be time to make an appointment with my local DMV office to get my temporary hall pass. And yes ma’am, my vision is still good.