A Head Full of Ideas that were Driving Me Insane....

NOT A REAL NEWS STORY. FAKE. MADE UP. NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY CABLE PROGRAM INVOLVING TALKING MILKSHAKES.

BOSTON (RayP)-- Residents of this beleagured city awakened once again to the sights and sounds of terror, all resulting from an attempt at entertainment.  One day after guerilla marketers planted electronic devices around bridges and other potential terrorist sites, police and Homeland Security officials were called to the North End on Thursday night to investigate a series of explosions coming from inside the TDBanknorth Garden.

Passersby began calling 911 shortly after 7:00 p.m. with reports of metallic sparks, bodies crashing into glass and suspicious chants from unfamiliar occupants of the building, believed to be wearing "gang colors" of gold and blue. The reports escalated when flashing red lights, horns, and screams of "around the world!" and "Pominville population!" began coming from the building sometime before 8.

It all proved to be yet another stunt, for a live broadcast on an obscure out-of-state cable network named MSG. Officials initially doubted the network's claim of responsibility, in that most of the participants seemed to be Canadian and Eastern European rather than Chinese, and no cooking paraphernalia could be found. However, after review of this incriminating audio from the scene, police issued arrest warrants for one Christopher Drury of Flatbutt, Ontario province, and one Blaise T. "Tom" Golisano of Penfield, New York for their roles in aiding and abetting the terror.

No representatives of the Boston group using the Gahden could be reached for comment. Several observers noted they hadn't seen any of them for a couple of weeks.

Bail was set at $1 million cash or one large multi-tiered cup. Attorneys for the group promised to deliver the latter no later than the end of June.

END OF FAKE NEWS STORY. WHAT FOLLOWS MAY ACTUALLY BE REAL. BUT DON'T BET ON IT.

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Apparently you can't be too careful these days. All hockey aside, I remain continually amazed by the tiers of stupidity which keep coming out of the real Fake Boston Terror Incident. Ted Turner's having his picture taken later today for the upcoming publication of Webster's Tenth Collegiate edition, where it will be displayed next to the word "clusterfuck."

The original stupid was stupid enough. Boston may not have been bombed on 9/11, but there's a touch of sensitivity there, I'm sure, seeing how it originated the WTC flights. Then the guerilla marketers apparently passed the word to their in-town operatives to keep the truth of the stunt "on the down low" even after the panic had begun settling in. And now we get the two main perps walking out of their arraignment shucking and jiving about the whole business. 

Worst of all? People are talking about it, and I'm willing to bet that Aqua Teen Hunger Force has its ratings go through the roof.

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Yesterday's reports of the Wednesday idiocy coincided with a whole bunch of new rules which took effect on February 1 governing lawyer advertising in New York. They were toned down quite a bit from the original proposed version, which could have theoretically made me mail copies of every entry on this blog, even non-advertising ones, to my friendly local appellate division for review.  Most of what remains is intended to block the tackiest and sleaziest of the operators. Not surprisingly, it took one of them- one of the Syracuse "heavy hitters"- all of one day to announce his intention to declare the rules unconstitutional violations of his free speech. Gee, Einstein, I thought your freedom of speech ended when it got to my eyes and ears, and I am really sick of seeing your 60-ounce Louisville slugger and Jim "The Hammer" and his blinking dollar signs and gold coins falling from the sky and a parade of BMWs following every ambulance on its way from a car crash. Nice job, by the way, getting a public-interest action group to back your constitutional challenge. Don't let the courtroom door hit you where the good Lord split you.

The ultimate irony in these rules, though? I cannot solicit accident victims for 30 days. I must disclose all paid performers in my ads and label everything as an advertisement if it is one. I cannot use tacky monikers or deceptive promises. But there's nothing in there stopping me from putting a dozen of these at the international bridge crossings and subway stations:



On second thought, that might just make a perfect Valentine to send to Zdeno Chara.

A helpful guide to the polluters of the planet who live in the Empire State, on what will be expected of you if your 1996-or-newer car is beset by problems turning on your "check engine light."

You may have read something with a simple declaration: "if the light is on, you fail your annual state inspection." True enough. However, as you learned back in syllogism school, the inverse of this statement- "if the light is not on, you do not fail"- is not necessarily true. Yea, people have found all sorts of cute ways to clear an offending code, including disconnecting the battery and bribing helpful Auto Zone employees. So to keep the game afoot, the manufacturers and DMV actually require that the monitors reset themselves to "ready" after the light itself has gone out.

Thus did I learn yesterday, as I deposited another $200 in the Cleveland Drive Boat Payment Fund to fix the AC again (more about that later), that the shop's over-the-weekend repair of the emissions system hadn't quite registered with the onboard system yet. Here, straight from the DMV's mouf, is what you must do to get the monitors to reset to "ready":


l. As soon as the engine starts, idle the engine in drive for two and one-half minutes, with the air conditioning (A/C) and rear defrost turned on, if equipped.

2. Turn the A/C and rear defrost off, and accelerate to 55 mph under moderate, constant acceleration. Hold at a steady speed of 55 mph for three minutes.

3. Decelerate (coast down) to 20 mph without braking (or depressing the clutch for manual transmissions).

4. Accelerate again back to 55 to 60 mph.

5. Hold at a steady speed of 55 to 60 mph for five minutes. Decelerate (coast down) to a stop without braking.

Now, the reality of what that means.

1. Realize there is no way in hell you're gonna go from step 1 to 2 anywhere other than just off the 90, so leave plenty early, planning on consuming a Timmy Ho's mocha in the Walker Center car park while the engine cools back down to a cold state.

2. View drivethrough line at said Tim Horton's which, as it always is 24/7/365, is longer than Methuselah's funeral procession. I swear they're dealing drugs out of that pick-up window, cause it is always, and I mean ALWAYS, full of cars.

3. Regroup, heading over to the two-block-away Mickey D's for coffee and return for cooling of car.

4. Watch as oncoming traffic on Main Street before the 290/90 onramp builds to a veritable swap meet of SUV'S.

5. Barge past several of same and onto on-ramp, fighting the westbound salmon stream to get to the Albany side knowing full well the "moderate, constant acceleration" is as likely to occur as a Brink's truck is likely to stall in front of me, spilling packets of $100 bills everywhere.

6. Nonetheless, get to 55 in a relatively steady pace, EZPass lane and all. Cue "Supper's Ready" and reset clock to "time of track" function to keep track of the intervals.

7. Discover that going 55 on the 90 between 50 and 49 is the functional equivalent of a suicide note.

8. Put flashers on.

9. Notice that nobody notices flashers.

10. Pray that the three-minute interval at cruising speed will clear the exit and oncoming traffic from the Transit onramp. Succeed in prayer, for once, as deceleration to 20 is on a surprisingly abandoned stretch of Thruway. Turn flashers off, in bold move of derring-do.

11. Reset Genesis to 0:00 and accelerate to 60, still a dangerously slow speed out there.

12. Begin deceleration on shoulder, flashers again turned on, just past the Cintas building. Marvel at how fucking long it takes for a little car to come to a complete stop, despite no acceleration, no downhills and the affirmative braking effect of those keep-you-awake rumble strip thingies.

13. Hope no trucks are coming out of the maintenance garage just before the Ransom Road bridge.

14. Drive so close to pillars of Ransom Road bridge, electrons are actually exchanged.

15. Attract attention of cop, who proceeds to pull behind me, roof rack on, and essentially scotching the whole experiment just as the car was finally down to about 3 mph or so.

16. Apologize for wasting his time, showing him the brochure I'd been following to the letter and praying he wouldn't notice this part which I conveniently omitted earlier: "IMPORTANT: If you choose to use the generic drive cycle below, you must obey all traffic laws and drive in a safe manner."

17. Cause moderate amusement for man in the Smokey hat, waving as he passes me. Resume normal insane highway speed.

18. [and quite a bit later under entering-secure-public-building circumstances]: Realize you have no effing idea where, exactly, your drivers license is. You know, the one you keep in the car in case you forget the OTHER only-acceptable-ID for getting past court metal detectors (as you do at least once a month). Thank gods the cop didn't ask for it, whether on general principles or to amuse his buddies at the cophouse with the name and street address of the geeky asshole he caught earlier.

So. How was YOUR day?

After all that, I won a motion I was shocked to win, got payments from two people who I'd have expected to die first (and leave me nothing in their wills), and generally had as non-sucky a day you could have after that kind of start. (Even found the license, eventually- in the car the whole time, of course.) Well, except for realizing that yesterday's A/C repair did absoluckingfutely nothing to make cool air come out of the dashboard, and that I'm looking at either two months of blowing-steam on me or close to a grand for the Full Monty repair of that system. But the check engine light did not come back on, and come hell or high water that thing's gonna have its newest, and possibly last, inspection sticker on its fat little face by this time tomorrow.