Weekend Assignment #115: You'll find an online highway sign generator here. Go there, write your own highway sign, and post it in your Journal or Blog.As you can see, I have decided to participate in John's weekend assignment this week. I love playing around with these sign generators, but I'm never happy with the captions I come up with. They just never seem to be as witty as I think everyone else's are.
So, with that in mind, I present to you the mediocre comic highway sign. (By the way, we call them highways here in Southern Ontario. What do you all call them where you live?)
The sign to the left isn't from the exact generator John linked to, but that page had links to several others, including this one. I was struck by the fact that this is what about 75% of the Greater Toronto Area looks like from May to October every year. Except that we usually have those big barrel shaped pylons. And more trucks. And more workers. I swear, I don't think there's any other place in the world where a work crew going around filling small potholes with asphalt consists of twelve men in four trucks. Everywhere else I've seen it's two guys with a wheel barrow and a shovel, and they fill as many holes in an hour as we do up here. That's what happens when you let the socialists run your city for too long.
Okayyyyy...moving on. Sorry about that little rant. It just kinda slipped out. Back to the topic at hand. This is what all of those electronic highway signs should say as far as I'm concerned:
Seriously, if more people would just look at the road in front of them, we wouldn't need special, programmable, electronic, overhead signs to tell us that traffic is slowing down up ahead. Look up past the license plate of the car in front of you. See those red lights coming on up the road? Those are brake lights. It means people are slowing down. GET READY! That's all I'm saying.
Extra Credit: What was the worst traffic jam you've ever been in?
I can't remember the worst traffic jam I've ever been in, but I sure can remember the stupidest. It was only a couple of weeks ago. I drove downtown on a Friday morning to do a little shopping at the St. Lawrence Market. I needed some rice, and some bagels. My wife had taken the train into work that morning, and was leaving early, so I hung around and picked her up at her office shortly after 1:00PM. A couple of short stops later, and we were ready to head back North up the Don Valley Parkway.
Well! We had just turned off the Gardiner onto the Parkway (I know, I said we called 'em highways. We call this one a parkway. I don't know why. At rush hour, though, it's called the Don Valley Parking Lot ::grin::) when traffic came to almost a complete stop. We proceded to inch along at a stop and go pace all the way up to Lawrence Ave. It took us forty minutes for what should, even in moderately heavy trafiic, have been a fifteen minute ride. When we finally got to where the slow down ended, we realised that there had been a minor fender bender at some point. All of the cars were already pulled off onto the shoulder ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BLOODY ROAD!
That's right, we had a ten mile long freaking traffic jam due to bloody rubberneckers. There was no obstruction of any kind on our side of the road.
tags:Memes, Weekend Assignment
4 comments:
Your signs are a lot less friendly than mine, but they'll do!
I have a useless city work experience to share with you.
One summer morning, the city workers came by, and made a ton of noise digging a hole in front of my house. They tore the top layer of asphalt off, then they put up some cute little orange cones, and promply left. Three weeks later, they came back and filled the hole.
That's it. They didn't do a damn thing other than remove a ten-foot square of asphalt. The city workers do that sort of thing a lot around here. It's kind of weird.
-Dan
http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/
It isn't just city workers, you guys. Last summer, a storm downed a power line across the street from my house. They first came and put crime-scene tape up to prevent anyone from coming in contact with the live wire. Good move. But...they left it up (the only barrier against catastrophe) for a full week, then came back with four trucks and 12 men who spent two full 10-hour days walking up and down the street, standing around and chatting about whatever, and finally fixing the power line. This is not a government entity. This is a for-profit investor-owned unregulated utility that charges me an arm and a leg for my energy useage...and there isn't a thing I can do about it. Can't even threaten not to vote for whomever.
wow! you did liek this assignment:)
natalie
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