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Driving Dictionary

After a conversation I had with some coworkers today, I decided to come up with all the driving pet peeves I could think of.  I turned it into a driving dictionary below.  I’m quite sure I’ll be adding to it..

The right turn hot-shot

When someone that is behind you, speeds up to get around you, pulls in front of you, only to take a right turn and make you nearly come to a stop.

The “please do it for me” driver.

This driver is someone that performs a “fire and pray” on their turn signal.  Instead of being proactive by speeding up or slowing down in order to change lanes without inconveniencing everyone, they let their turn signal blink for as long as it takes before someone “kindly” slows down to let them in.  The appropriate response to this driver is, “Do you want me to get in your car and do it for you?”.

Loose change

This is when the left hand turn arrow turns green seemingly out of order (a lagging left turn).  Before this happens, pleading to the light, “Com’on baby, gimme some loose change” increases your chances of it turning green.

The stiff neck lane change

This is the technique used when you need to get over into the highly populated next lane.  If you turn your head, the drivers will see that you need to get in the lane, and therefore speed up.  In defense, you check your blind spots by looking out of the corners of your eyes and not turning your neck at all.  Thus, you’re pulling off the “stiff neck”.

Sorry for having to get on the freeway

So you’re getting on the freeway.  The on-ramp is about 100 yards, and you barely have enough speed to get to 55.  You have to get over in order to get on the freeway, only to find that about 300 yards behind you, some maniac is going 85 in the slow lane.  Once you get over, they get pissed and ride your bumper. To which you exclaim, “Sorry for having to get on the freeway”.

Plenty of room behind me

Absolutely no one is behind you.  You’re travelling sufficiently fast and keeping up with the traffic in front of you, and yet someone in the next lane tries to speed up and get in front of you.  To which you speed up and say, “there’s plenty of room behind me”.

Good thing you got into that lane

When someone is driving 60 mph with plenty of room behind and in front of them.  Meanwhile, you are coming up on them, only to witness them change lanes right in front of you for no reason.  All while maintaining the same speed.

The pretty girl

Yes pretty girls are used to getting their way and not afraid to ask for anything because they usually do receive it.  This is no different on the road.  We’ve all seen the drivers that cut across three lanes of traffic either majorly inconveniencing everyone or putting everyone at risk, only to make sure they don’t have to do a U-turn to get back to Starbucks.  This is known as pulling a “pretty girl”.

I don’t see a signal

When someone obviously needs to get into your lane, yet they do not turn on their signal.  They are speeding up and slowing down to squeeze in front of you, however too stubborn to give a signal.  To which you exclaim, “I don’t see a signal” and speed up.

The take a chance lane

This is the lane that either merges or goes off into BFE.  Everyone knows you shouldn’t be in this lane, but you’re in it to get around people.  Knowing this, people will speed up to not let you in.  All the meanwhile, you’re acting as if you don’t really need in.  So much so, you even lie to yourself about needing to get in.  Of course if you were not in the take a chance lane, you would be hitting the pedal also.

We’re not in England

What  you exclaim when trying to take a right turn into an AM/PM and the driver trying to leave the driveway is on the wrong side of the entry way.

The freeway hawk-eye

When someone is inconspicuously acting as if they don’t need to change lanes, however you know they do and yet they are not using their turn signal.  In natural reflex, you speed up and don’t let them over.  After they pass you, you continue to watch them for miles to see if they change lanes, only to say, “I knew it!”.

Rear-view Driver

This is a person that spends entirely too much time looking behind them while driving.  Usually going slower than the speed limit, they get paranoid when someone gets within a cars length distance of them, causing them to slow down more while constantly peering through their rear-view mirror.  The appropriate response is, “Stop driving behind you”.

Imaginary Car Syndrome

When someone stops at a stoplight leaving between 2 and 6 car lengths of empty road in front of them.

The difference between asking and taking

Whether someone does or does not use their turn signal to get in front of you.  It’s the difference between asking and taking.

The “It’s not me” face

When you’re driving with someone who clearly does not know how to drive.  You haven’t agreed with any of the moves they’re making.  All drivers are scowling at them.  Finally, they pull a total boner and someone honks and everyone stares.  To which you make the “It’s not me” face.  However you have to do it inconspicously as to not hurt the driver’s feelings.

The California Bitch honk

This happens in California.. LA specifically.  Right when a light turns green and someone honks immediately within 1-2 seconds.

Mr. High Beams

Yep, we all know this guy.

Of course you have to go down this aisle

When you’re in a tight parking lot where the lanes are very narrow.  You’re leaving the parking lot to take a left turn and exit the store.  Even though there are plenty of rows of parking, the person that is entering the store turns on their signal in order to enter the parking row you are in, to which you exclaim, “Of course you have to go down this aisle”

The blockade

When four lame drivers on the freeway are all driving 60 mph while pacing each other side-by-side and covering all four lanes.

Red light racer

Someone who continuously takes off like a bat outta hell when a light turns green.. only to stop at the next red light 300 feet away.  This continues to happen for miles.

The Long Merger

When someone travels the merge lane as far as they possibly can.  Passing up multiple chances to merge into the stream of traffic and be a respectable member of society.  Instead, travelling with half their car in the emergency lane, pissing everyone off.

The Merge Cutter

While merging, instead of respecting the 1 person merges per each car that passes, this person attempts to merge along with the car in front of them.

Mr. You’re gonna go my speed

Possibly the most annoying of all drivers.  This driver travels 15 mph slower than the speed limit on a two lane highway.  When you’re finally able to pass him, you change lanes and gun it, only to find that this person puts the pedal to the metal.

I’m not following you signal

When you and the driver in front of you have been making all the same turns. Finally, you are on the last street before your destination and even though this person is in front of you, you turn on your signal before them to show that you’re not following them.

YOU go first.. after me

When you and another driver arrive at a 4-way stop at about the same time. The other driver signals you to go first, then immediately guns it.

Virgin America Review

My new favorite airline. I flew this airline from Los Angeles to Boston and it was a more comfortable experience than any other airline. First, the minute. The tickets they hand you are not the size of the old computer punch cards, rather, they actually fit in your pocket. The lighting on the plane is a neon blue, not the ugly flourescent you usually see.

Lighting on Virgin America

Lighting on Virgin America

The safety precaution video is not uptight and ominously creepy, instead it is very funny. The staff is allowed to show more personality.

Now for the more important. The seats are very comfortable. They provide lower lumbar support, and even with slippery pants you won’t slide off (like with Southwest).

Touchscreen LCD’s are at every seat, along with a wired remote and keyboard nestled under the armrest for additional control and gaming.    The system’s name is RED and runs on a Linux platform.

Virgin's "RED

Virgin's "RED" In-flight Entertainment

The downside of the touchscreen is the menu navigation is bad and half the features do not work. (Take a page from android or apple guys, use icons instead of menus).

Virgin's RED Menu layout

Virgin's RED Menu layout

Despite the navigation, it’s still the best thing out there. There was a chat feature which allowed seat to seat communication.    How do you chat you ask?  The wired remote comes with a mini keyboard and gaming controls on one side and the other side contains the TV remote.

Red Wired Remote, Keyboard side

Red Wired Remote, Keyboard side

Red Wired Remote Media Side

Red Wired Remote Media Side

I think the chat was the catalyst for 8 passengers standing up partying in the back of the plane with beer and cocktails. Guys, if any of you party people read this, kindly give 6 inches of room between you and the bathroom next time. Privacy in the potty is great. Oh and by the way, the toilet is full size.

There may be slightly more space between each seat. The plane I flew on was an Airbus A319. Mostly a British used plane.

Wifi is available on the plane, and thanks to moneybags Google, it was free this holiday. In order to get it to work on the Droid, I had to set the wifi on, select the provider, gogo something or other. Open a browser, then wait patiently for about a minute for the wifi splash screen to open. Once it did, I entered my email as requested as was off surfing.

Two power outlets are available for every three seats, however the one under me did not work. Supposidly there was a usb plugin somewhere but I could not find it.. may have not been on my flight. On the trip back however the plug did work, but there was some strange IRQ issue because the phone was behaving stranglely. It actually worried me because it seemed to shut off an not turn back on. Once I removed the battery (eat your heart out iPhone) it worked again. I will not be using the plugs again. Maybe the couple as data transfer. Whatever it is, they caused interference that I have not experienced before.

The flight attendants are rather cool, they offer the trendy vita water, whatever its called. The pilots were also laid back. the main pilot was british which seemed appropriate for this British owned airline.

I will fly this airline from now on.

Motorola Droid Rocks Review

Yes this review is biased. For good reason however. I’ve been holding a blackberry for almost two years waiting for an iphone killer. And while iphone will not die unfortunately, it definitely will lose marketshare. What’s so great about the droid? The answer is, everything the iphone lacks. recognizeable as a mass usb storage device, removeable memory and battery, physical keyboard, plays all music file formats, tactile feedback. And why does the iphone not have these features? Because they want to rule the smart phone world. By luring you into their user-friendly world, you are simultaneously giving up your inherit freedoms as a smartphone user.

The great features are:

  • easy access email via notification bar
  • integrated Google voice (automatic dial out with Google Voice number)
  • play any music format
  • drag and drop files from windows explorer
  • 5mp camera
  • great video – DVD quality (720×480 resolution) up to 24 fps capture
  • facebook, outlook, and gmail contacts automatically synch into your phone contacts
  • edit mp3s as ringtones using an app
  • provides detail of applications usage of battery
  • Google navigation
  • universal charger (micro usb)
  • large screen – 3.7″ –  WVGA (480 x 854 pixels); 16:9 widescreen
  • physical keyboard
  • multitasking (can perform multiple tasks at once)
  • supports flash player (flash to support Droid early 2010)
  • Integrated voice search
  • 550 MHz processor

If that’s not enough, I don’t know what to say. I on the other hand am a geek and love this phone. I even composed this entire article on it.

The Truth Behind Macromedia’s Buyout — Flashpaper

In 2005 Adobe systems purchased Macromedia for 3.4 Billion.  What most people do not know, is why Adobe purchased Macromedia.  Slashdot claims that Adobe purchased Macromedia because they were afraid Microsoft was going to buy them first. (link here).  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Macromedia is in no way a threat to Microsoft.  Did Macromedia have an OS?  No, all they’ve had is flash and Cold Fusion (purchased from Allaire).. Flash is without a doubt one of the most pervasive (if not the) apps on the internet.  Cold Fusion however is arguably dying.  Don’t believe me? Simply search: [ "coldfusion" "market share" ] and look at all the negative articles supporting Cold Fusion or talking about it’s demise.

So why did Adobe purchase Macromedia?  Very few know.. however I happen to be right  in the middle of a situation that transpired between Macromedia and Adobe.  First of all, let me ask, how many people do you know that like PDF files?  Everyone I know that surfs the web, refuses to open PDF files because the Acrobat reader is notoriously slow.  Click on a PDF file, and wait for acrobat to open.  When it finally does, at least 30 seconds later, you have to wait for a PDF file to serve into Acrobat reader.  If you’re lucky, the PDF has been linearized, meaning it will partake in byte-serving.  So Adobe creates a quick launch for Acrobat Reader, pre-loading it into memory to help minimize the load time.

Compare this to Flash.  Once you get to a webpage, flash is loaded within a few seconds.  Introduce Flash to simple documents, and it is even quicker.  Flash loading a text document will load a good sized text file within a few seconds.  Couple this with Flash’s cross platform capability and you have a true Acrobat killer.  Once this was introduced was Adobe scared?  You bet.  Especially when Adobe grossed over 1 billion of it’s 1.4 billion a year business on Acrobat.

So when Macromedia started to exploit Flash Paper, I happen to be working at a prominent server-side PDF company.  Macromedia had just hired a prominent architect at an up and coming PDF company.  The guy was not very people friendly, however you can tell he was smart.  I know this because he visited us with Macromedia’s CIO, Macromedia’s head of business development,  and Macromedia’s head of development.  The agenda for the meeting was “what can we do with Flash Paper to go after the PDF market?”.  Obviously, they were not shy regarding the meeting.  In fact, in retrospect, they were trying to drum up attention in the PDF world so that the could get purchased by Adobe.

Shortly thereafter, Adobe purchased Macromedia for 3.4 Billion.  Coincidence?  No definitely not.  Adobe got scared because they know their PDF product sucks.  What they are is a 500 lb. gorilla that totally owns a market.  Yes their time is limited, however since time is money, they are buying more of it, by purchasing Macromedia.

Now that Flash is in the throws of Adobe, they have done nothing with it.  Adobe’s development team is notoriously slow and adverse to change.  This comes not from me, but from very prominent people at Adobe.  (I cannot mention who).   They stopped the development on Flashpaper, and why not?  Why not squash something that will kill what surely works now?  The truth is, PDF will not transform or go away until something challenges it.  Adobe is alive because of it’s cross platform capability.  The same capability Flash had, however Adobe’s beef was with other cross-platform companies, not with Microsoft as slashdot would have you believe.

Overall, after working with PDF for 4 years, I cannot stand them.  They ultimately do not fit into the long-term view of the web due to their slowness and dependency on PDF viewers.  I would like nothing more than for a flash-type alternative to make a comeback.  This is probably one of the biggest openings in the web market today.

Roku Player for Netflix or Amazon

After subscribing to Netflix for one month, we got a Roku player.  Trust me, you want one of these.  It really makes the Netflix Instant Queue more appealing to watch.  I didn’t think I was that much of a sucker for convenience, however I am more realistic about it now.

The Roku Player is relatively easy to get up and running.  Either plug in a network cable into the back, or configure it for using your wireless router.  I actually had issues configuring it with my router, (and I work in IT and am the goto guy for my non-IT family and friends).   I stopped fiddling with it after about an hour and just plugged in the CAT 5 cable.  After that, you wait for it to boot up, then enter the code it gives you into a page on the Netflix site.  Once finished, you can play movies from your instant queue.

The way the instant queue works, is that you log into Netflix, and choose the movies you want to watch on the Roku.  You add these movies to your “Instant Queue”.  Once there, they will appear on the Roku screen within about 1 minute.  Yes, it would be nice to have the convenience of being able to search directly from the Roku, however the solution they provided definitely is manageable.  The Roku player then shows a large image of the movies for you to scroll through in order to find what you want.  When you select the movie, it gives you a synopsis and the ability to rate the movie, or remove it from your instant queue.  What is also nice, is the ability to resume watching a movie where you last left off.

If you have a connection like mine, then you are somewhat unfortunate (I have DSL – not by choice).  The Roku player does compensate though.  If a movie does not successfully stream, it will reduce the quality.  The quality is indicated using a 4-star system.  4 stars is high quality and 1 star is low quality.  I have never seen the Roku switch to 1 star.  It seems the lowest it can go is 2 stars.  Honestly, I can’t tell the difference in quality.  What would be nice is if you could manually set the quality of the movie.  I get disappointed when the Roku determines the bandwidth of my DSL should be a 4 star rating.  This usually means for me the buffer will run out twice before automatically downgrading the quality.  If I could manually set the quality, that would be ideal.

All in all, the Roku player is a good investment.  It also allows streaming and one-click purchases from Amazon’s library of pay-for-movies.  We will usually get one of these on a Saturday.  You can also search Amazon’s entire movie selection from the Roku also.

Best Movies on Netflix Instant

WALL-E
A Few Good Men
Let the Right One In
Ronin
Die Hard
The Big Lebowski
Eyes Wide Shut
Best in Show
Serenity
Man on Wire

For those of you who have Netflix you will know that their instant queue is worth the price of admission itself.  For those of you that do not have Netflix, It’s definitely worth exploring.  Basically, Netflix allows you to instantly view about 10,000 different movies.

After my wife and I have had it for the last 3 months, we have found many movies that were great.  Some of the movies we watched that were good include Step Brothers, Best in Show, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Pinapple Express.

The new movies they receive are pretty good, however I have noticed a slight degradation in movie quality.  It’s very uncertain how the whole movie online deal is going to work out.  Lately also, I have noticed they are starting to remove movies (or give advanced warning that they are removing movies).  One of the ones they are removing is The Fifth Element.  I’m not sure if they have these movies on contract for a short period or how it works.

Also, if you are serious about streaming movies, might I suggest getting the Roku Player.  You can find my review of it in the link above.

As for some of the best Netflix Instant Queue movies, here they are:

  1. WALL-E
  2. A Few Good Men
  3. Let the Right One In
  4. Ronin
  5. Die Hard
  6. The Big Lebowski
  7. Eyes Wide Shut
  8. Best in Show
  9. Serenity
  10. Man on Wire
  11. A Few Good Men
  12. Eyes Wide Shut
  13. The Shawshank Redemption: Special Edition
  14. Barton Fink
  15. Braveheart
  16. Good Night, and Good Luck
  17. Miracle at St. Anna
  18. Powder Blue
  19. Full Metal Jacket
  20. Wendy and Lucy
  21. Made of Honor
  22. Bridget Jones’s Diary
  23. Penelope
  24. Shakespeare in Love
  25. Strictly Sexual
  26. The English Patient
  27. Notting Hill
  28. America’s Sweethearts
  29. French Kiss
  30. She’s All That
  31. Hancock
  32. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Extended Edition
  33. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
  34. The Machine Girl
  35. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
  36. Twister
  37. Conan the Barbarian
  38. Romancing the Stone
  39. 12 Monkeys
  40. Blade Runner: Theatrical and Director’s Cut
  41. Starship Troopers
  42. The Terminator
  43. The Man from Earth
  44. Ink
  45. The Fifth Element
  46. The Matrix: Reloaded
  47. Alien Nation
  48. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  49. A Clockwork Orange
  50. Dr. Strangelove
  51. Cool Hand Luke
  52. Blazing Saddles
  53. Dial M for Murder
  54. Hang ‘Em High
  55. The Thomas Crown Affair
  56. The Pink Panther
  57. Casablanca
  58. Tooth and Nail
  59. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
  60. Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy
  61. Day of the Dead
  62. The Evil Dead
  63. Interview with the Vampire
  64. Quarantine
  65. From Dusk Till Dawn
  66. Night of the Living Dead
  67. The Craft
  68. Pineapple Express
  69. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
  70. Steven Wright: When the Leaves Blow Away
  71. Step Brothers
  72. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
  73. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
  74. The House Bunny
  75. Dead Like Me: Life After Death
  76. Blindness
  77. 88 Minutes
  78. The Code
  79. Sneakers
  80. Traitor
  81. Righteous Kill
  82. Enemy of the State
  83. Lakeview Terrace
  84. Passengers
  85. In the Electric Mist