Bribing police... in America

You've heard the stories and tips before: when you're driving around in other countries, particularly developing nations or those with high levels of income disparity, it is very possible that the local police will pull you over and expect some type of bribe payment to leave you alone. And I can assure you it's a true statement. I've had friends receive this type of treatment in Mexico, parts of Europe, and all over Asia; additionally, as a kid, I remember sitting in the backseat while my parents got pulled over and had to pay $20 to drive away in Mexico for a traffic infraction I'm inclined to believe never occurred. Fact of the matter is, there are plenty of crooked cops out there, and we can't help but think about how poorly- and unfairly-designed the legal systems are in these other countries. Here in America, shit like that makes the news in a heartbeat. We're so caught up in the idea that we have the best legal system in the world, and we fail to realize that we're being completely suckered.

For example, let's say a cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket. He might tell you that your exhaust is too loud, and then send you on your way. Most people will accept that he must be right, especially if the car has been modified in any way. However, there are certain thresholds under which the noise level is legally permissible. You have every right to fight the ticket. So, you take the car to a state-appointed "referee", who determines whether or not your car is in fact legal. A staggering number of times, the car is legal for use on all California roads. You'd think that the ticket gets dismissed and you go free, right? Wrong. You then need to pay $10 for having the ticket "written off". Perhaps you can see what's going on here. A cop can technically write a citation for every single car he sees, and they'll just keep paying $10, regardless of whether or not they (or their vehicles) were perfectly within the boundaries of the law. Why the fuck should any citizen pay just because he had the misfortune of running into a stupid law enforcement officer? How is this any different from being pulled over in another country and slipping a few bucks to drive away? In fact, at least in the latter case, you don't have to tie up hours, days, weeks, and months of your time dealing with a bogus accusation.

Consider also a personal incident, where I was driving a rental Elantra and got ticketed for doing 62 on a curvy road with a 30mph speed limit. The only problem is, I really wasn't speeding. No, this isn't one of those lies where I keep insisting on one thing to believe it; I genuinely was going w/ the rest of traffic, and that was at 30mph or less. Regardless, the cop suddenly pulled me over as I rounded the bend, and then accused me of driving way too fast, cutting off several cars, and almost causing a massive accident. I argued, and the cop threatened me with,"Are you saying I'M A LIAR? Because then we might have a big problem!" Power-trip much? I went back to the site of the citation later, and I took a series of measurements using a rolling measuring wheel, a basic ruler, measuring tape, and estimations based on nearby objects. All of the measurements put his distance from the very first possible point he could have seen my car at 220 feet at the point of his radar-gun reading. The ticket stated 670 feet, and I had confirmed this number visually, as I had asked him to see the actual reading from the gun. I took numerous pictures, and presented this argument as thoroughly as humanly possible. The judge's decision? He took the cop's word over mine. What exactly was the cop's testimony? "Your honor, the defendant was speeding and driving very recklessly." Umm, yeah bullshit?

Or consider Leo's example, where he was ticketed for having tint that was too dark. He was given a ticket and ordered to pay $110. Not wanting to pay the fine, he took all the tint off before taking it in to the referee inspection center. They confirmed that his windows were within all legal requirements, and set him on his way with the write-off in-hand. He took this to the courthouse clerk, where they dismissed the ticket, ordered a $10 write-off fee (noted above), and then tacked on a $100 "administrative and handling" fee. No wait a minute, here. So basically, he gets a $110 ticket, "proves" that he shouldn't have to pay that fine, and so the court responds with,"Okay yeah, you're right. Just pay us $110. It's only in administrative fees this time, not for the citation. Otherwise, you owe us late fees." Talk about fucking crooked.

Believe me, I've plenty of examples, and one day I may feel inclined to present more; however, the post is getting long, so I need to wrap. In closing: let's face it, we do not have the perfect legal system (not that one could ever really exist outside of theory). We simply have the one that most professionally carries out the unnecessary taxation on those under its authority.

FUCK the justice system.

Fatseat

Believe it or not, the above picture is real. The blue seat is designed specifically for use by obese people. This is in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Call it smart, call it sad, call it thoughtful and considerate. No matter what you call it, it's fucking funny.

Man gets glued to toilet (and probably deserved it)

On Digg today, I found an article talking about an old dude who got glued to a toilet in a mall. Basically, some punks left a bunch of glue on the seat, and the 58-year-old man sat right on it. He had to be carried out of the mall with the toilet seat still attached. Authorities are trying to appeal to the public to give information on who could have carried out this "sick joke".

Initially, it's a mix of funny and sad. But when you really think about the story, I think we need to do a little more thinking before pointing fingers. When you walk into a public restroom, you do a few things. First, you check to see that there isn't piss all over the seat. I think a slimy substance on the seat (i.e., the adhesive) should immediately inform you to find another stall. Second, you wipe the seat once with a piece of toilet paper. This step is optional, but I do it anyway to ensure that there aren't not-so-visibly-obvious droplets of urine on the seat. If the piece of toilet paper sticks to the fucking seat, again, I find another stall. Lastly, I use the damn first-pull-up-then-pull-down toilet seat covers to ensure I'm protected from whatever the sicko before me had on his butt. In fact, I almost always use two covers, since some of them have little holes in them.

The "poor bloke" who got stuck to this toilet failed utterly in performing the very basic hygienic steps necessary to ensure the safety of himself and subsequent users of the toilet. If you ask me, he got what he fucking deserved.

High-fiving a whale

I love finding pictures of questionable authenticity on Digg.

Like this one (which appears to be real):

Kudos to this guy who appears to be happily high-fiving a fucking humpback whale. He's apparently way more man than I am, because I would not be swimming around with that fucking thing. I don't care how tiny its throat opening is, nor that it only eats a bunch of plankton and weird tiny shit; I would crap my fucking pants and swim for safety.

Good places to find porn

As I blogged about a while back, there's something that makes finding unexpected nudity/porn so much more exciting than watching actual pornography. If you've ever been super excited at clicking a YouTube link in hopes of finding a nipple or two that slipped by, you know what I'm talking about.

But really, there are some places that you don't really go looking for porn. The Los Angeles Times is one of them. Really, people, there are better ways to see naked women.

Things I wish were still cool

Things change when you grow up. You need to worry about making money, not smelling funny, getting laid, all kinds of serious stuff. I don't miss being a kid at all, mainly because I didn't get much pussy as a kid, but there are a few things about being a kid that I miss. For example...

Rollerblading
When I was a kid, I played roller hockey. What? An Asian kid playing hockey? Believe it. While the other Asian kids played handball, joined the math team, and played chess, I learned to rollerblade like Wayne-fucking-Gretzky (Fuck you, I know he was an ice hockey player, but if my first pair of blades said Wayne Gretzky on them, I'm sure he was a mean rollerblader too.). I used to ride around carrying my hockey stick and pick up games with the racist white kids at YMCA. When nobody was looking, I would pretend that the hockey stick was a scythe and I was the Asian Grim Reaper [on wheels]. Apparently, rollerblading is now queer.

Videogaming
Back when I wasn't selling crack-cocaine and getting in huge gang fights, I played a lot of video games. In fact, I'm trying to get back into it (No really, I am. And fuck you for judging me.). There were two games that were my pride and joy: Goldeneye and Tetris Attack. I used to pride myself on taking on 3 people (against myself) in Goldeneye and coming out with a 263-12 win. Also, at one point in time, I truly believe I was the best Tetris Attack player on the planet. No, not regular Tetris; despite the misleading name, the game had nothing in common with Tetris except that there were some squares on the screen. But then Tetris Attack resurfaced as fucking Pokemon Puzzle League. That's when I realized videogames aren't really cool anymore. Also, Notorious B.I.G. rapped about Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis at one point, so fuck you, it was definitely cool.

Collections
Every kid had a bullshit collection or two. POGS, baseball cards, toy cars, coins, you name it. But there comes a point where the kid looks at his collection and thinks,"Oh man. If I don't throw this away, I'm a big fag. I'd better lose it...". Then, as much as it pains him to do so, he tosses the entire collection, pretending he doesn't still think about it. Think about the collection you threw away. I know what you're thinking: "What a waste...". Yeah, it really was a huge waste, huh? See, when you're an adult, you're not allowed to collect shit. Any collector is a huge nerd, a sexual deviant, or a pretentious rich loner (Note that these classifications are not mutually exclusive. Any combination of the three is still valid.).

Random shit on the floor
You're ten years old. You go on a camping trip. You walk along a tiny little riverbed and you find a little speck of what you think is gold. Holy shit, you've just started the next Gold Rush! No, you dumb fucking shit, you've found a little piece of aluminum foil that got burnt and chipped off the grill from the BBQ upstream. See, when you're a kid, you tend to be a bit optimistic. You haven't discovered how evil pussy is, you don't know what it's like to be broke, you've never been turned down by a woman yet. So when you see that piece of shiny shit on the floor, you actually believe you found something worth a pretty penny. Hell, you're willing to pay $2 for a piece of fucking rock clearly labeled "fool's gold". That's pretty fucking retarded. You find a piece of white rock in your backyard and you're convinced you've found quartz. Yeah, quartz... quartz isn't even fucking valuable and that's as far as you can stretch your imagination! But as a kid, these things are cool. Shiny shit on the floor, white rock, smooth rock, a stranger's marble in the sand. But, if you think about it, adults are still as obsessed with random rocks and shit. Just look at all the "zen" bullshit you see. Curvy black rocks contrasting against a pure white backdrop: I bet that's what some of your desktop wallpapers look like.

Sigh. Growing up really takes the fun out of things.

Star Wars

There are a bunch of unspoken rules that dudes need to abide by. Dudes don't cry. Dudes don't speak full sentences to other dudes in the restroom. Dudes don't do both-arm hugs with other dudes (unless a different, third dude died and they're grieving). Dudes don't read books for pleasure. Dudes don't play bitchball (in some states, this is referred to as "softball").

But there is one thing that is allowed of all dudes: Star Wars.

Being a nerd isn't cool. Every dude wants to be the next Kobe Bryant, Jerry Rice, Michael Schumacher, or Muhammed Ali. But a little-known fact is that every guy also secretly wants to be Darth Vader. No, not little faggy Hayden Christensen Anakin, I'm talking about this guy. If you're a true dude, the moment you clicked that link, you heard a blast of John William's full-orchestral soundtrack and BEEYOWWWWWRRSHHHHHH-PSSH-PSS-WRROOOM!!

There would really be nothing cooler than walking around, using the force to convince women that they're your sex slaves, choking people you hate just by making a small motion with just your thumb and index finger, and deflecting fucking laser beams with a light saber. At one point in their lives, every dude has expressed his appreciation for the light saber. Secretly, every guy still wants one. And from time to time, every guy pictures himself running through a hallway with one, taking out storm troopers and fighting another dude with a light saber in some epic duel. No, that's really not gay at all.

Man Hygiene

It seems that quite a few of my fellow males, or at least some colleagues, haven't yet discovered the art of cleaning their fucking genitals. Often times I walk into a restroom stall to take a dump, and I literally gag and run out because of the smell eminating from the toilet. To be absolutely clear, the smell is NOT just shit. It's the unmistakable smell of nutsweat. Every guy knows what nutsweat smells like, either because he has scratched his sweaty nuts and mistakenly gotten a whiff of his finger, or because he secretly smells his ballsweat all the time while sitting around in front of a computer. In either case, you sort of need to go out of your way to smell your jinglejuice. How is it that some guys can stink up an entire restroom stall with the smell of their fucking nutsack? It's absolutely disgusting. These are probably the same people who quickly run a bar of soap across their bodies and step out of the shower.

If you have a fucking ballsweat problem, do the following in the shower:

1) Soap up your balls. If you have a scrubbing towel or a faggy little spongeball thing, use it.

2) Scrub your gooch. Don't know what a gooch is? Pretend you have a vagina. Then again, these guys probably never get vagina, so this doesn't necessarily apply.

3) Lift your dick, and scrub the underside of it, where the shaft meets your nuts. This area accumulates a good amount of nutjuice and dicksweat. Try not to get distracted by masturbation.

4) Scrub your pubes. If you're a caveman who doesn't trim or shave your pubes, shampoo that shit.

5) Pull gently on your dick with one hand and scrub the shaft with the other. Again, try not to let this lead to masturbation.

Nobody wants to fucking smell your ballsweat. Not me, not the Craigslist hookers who refuse to give you head, not anybody. Have some fucking consideration for others.

Let's drive to The Grand Canyon... Wait, WTF?

So I'm trying to plan a quick getaway, and am desperately searching for good vacation ideas. One of them was a trip to the Grand Canyon. Since this is a quick getaway, I don't want to drive too far. So, I looked it up on Google Maps.

Here are the directions I got when I asked for directions from "Los Angeles, CA" to "Grand Canyon, AZ"...

Driving directions to Grand Canyon AZ

464 mi – about 9 hours 31 mins

Suggested routes

Los Angeles, CA

1.	Head northeast on N Main St toward E 1st St		0.3 mi
2.	Turn right at E Commercial St		223 ft
3.	Take the ramp on the left to I-5/I-10		115 ft
4.	Continue toward US-101 S and merge onto US-101 S		0.8 mi
5.	Continue on San Bernardino Fwy		40.0 mi
6.	Take the exit onto I-15 N toward Las Vegas/BARSTOW Passing through Nevada Entering Arizona		336 mi
7.	Take exit 27 toward Black Rock Rd		0.2 mi
8.	Turn right at Black Rock Rd		0.1 mi
9.	Turn left		0.6 mi
10.	Turn right		0.4 mi
11.	Turn right		2.3 mi
12.	Turn right		1.7 mi
13.	Turn left		7.9 mi
14.	Turn left		0.9 mi
15.	Slight left		5.3 mi
16.	Turn right		0.3 mi
17.	Turn left		1.7 mi
18.	Turn right		2.3 mi
19.	Turn right toward County Hwy-101		2.2 mi
20.	Turn left at County Hwy-101		2.0 mi
21.	Slight right		0.3 mi
22.	Turn right		1.9 mi
23.	Turn left		5.8 mi
24.	Turn left		0.4 mi
25.	Turn right		1.1 mi
26.	Turn left		2.3 mi
27.	Turn left		1.9 mi
28.	Turn right		0.1 mi
29.	Turn left		2.3 mi
30.	Turn right		121 ft
31.	Turn left		1.0 mi
32.	Turn left		2.0 mi
33.	Turn right toward County Hwy-103		0.1 mi
34.	Turn left toward County Hwy-103		0.3 mi
35.	Slight left at County Hwy-103		0.8 mi
36.	Turn right		1.4 mi
37.	Turn right		0.2 mi
38.	Turn left		6.4 mi
39.	Turn left		3.1 mi
40.	Turn right		2.5 mi
41.	Turn right		2.5 mi
42.	Turn left		0.3 mi
43.	Turn right		0.9 mi
44.	Turn left		0.5 mi
45.	Turn left		4.6 mi
46.	Turn left		0.3 mi
47.	Turn right		266 ft
48.	Turn left		0.3 mi
49.	Turn left		0.7 mi
50.	Turn left		243 ft
51.	Turn left		2.4 mi
52.	Turn right at Grand Canyon National Park		1.2 mi
53.	Slight right at Grand Canyon National Park		0.5 mi
54.	Turn right to stay on Grand Canyon National Park		2.9 mi
55.	Turn right to stay on Grand Canyon National Park		0.9 mi
56.	Turn left to stay on Grand Canyon National Park		0.7 mi
57.	Turn right to stay on Grand Canyon National Park		1.1 mi
58.	Turn left to stay on Grand Canyon National Park		0.9 mi
59.	Turn left to stay on Grand Canyon National Park		4.3 mi

Grand Canyon AZ

Now, I'm sure there are clear signs indicating the directions once I get there, but geez, sure sounds like a pretty fucking confusing drive so far...