The bus driver backs up, turns the bus into the boulevard and comes back at the cyclist who is now standing behind his bike. She comes a bit faster and pushes the bus against the cyclist until the bike is now wedged under the right front bumper of the bus.

Yeah, seriously. The bus driver first honked at the cyclist, then told him he had no right to the road, then ran over his bike. Twice.

And the LAPD, in their infinite wisdom, have said the cyclist may be the one to receive a ticket and have taken no action whatsoever against the bus driver, who obviously doesn't have any business with a driver's license as she doesn't understand the rules of the road.

I'd make the maid dress in a flight attendant uniform from the 1950s, too.

And now we have proof.

This has been another public service announcement reminding you to stay off the crack.

I've filed 122 bugs so far, of which I've personally fixed 12. It's always good to clean up your own mess ;) Of the 45 still open, five are still UNCONFIRMED and four are assigned to me. Of the 77 filed bugs that have been resolved, I've filed six INVALID, 11 WONTFIX, three WORKSFORME, and 11 duplicates, making a total of 86 valid bugs out of the 122 filed so far (conservatively assuming the five UNCOs don't ever get confirmed). That's a .705 batting average, which is a lot better than most of our users but not as high as it probably ought to be considering I'm on the triage and development teams.

The good news is that a total of 51 bugs assigned to me have been fixed (although I think a couple were fixed by someone else without the assignee changing), giving me about a 2.4:1 filed-to-ASSIGNED/FIXED ratio, and that's something I'm much happier with. Ideally it'd be something like 1:1, but the only people I can think of who might come close to that figure are doing this sort of thing as a full-time job. We don't have any paid developers on the Camino team at all.

(There was also an element of pilot error involved; the pilots of the Russian cargo plane ignored a TCAS resolution advisory that likely would have saved both planes and instead complied with the controller's mistaken instruction to continue descending.)

I hope it’s awesome. I suspect it’s going to blow.

Let me save everyone the suspense: it blows.

Exhibit A: the import dialog you get upon first launch.

Note the choices of mail clients from which mail and preferences can be imported.

Note that the number of previous versions of Eudora listed in this dialog is zero.

Remember that every single previous version of Eudora was backwards compatible with previous settings files and mail storage, at least enough that simply launching the new version made things Just Work™, which is of course the Mac Way™.

Ponder the number of people who will try this beta release who are not either die-hard Eudora users or Thunderbird users (also conspicuously absent from the import dialog). Hint: that number is somewhat south of both "significant" and "able to be counted on two hands".

If your mind hasn't boggled yet, you're probably a lost cause.

To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen's most famous line: I knew Eudora. I used Eudora. Eudora was a friend of mine, and you, sir, are no Eudora.

That's $40 in groceries and $40 toward the electric bill, that's $40 toward whatever. When you put both of us together, that's $80 we've saved [by buying cigarettes in Indiana instead of Michigan] going toward our bills which helps us out.

How about you and your girlfriend save even more by, you know, quitting smoking entirely? You choose to smoke, and Michigan chooses to tax your vice. Give up the vice or quit your bitching.

Hello chris
Are you really satisfied with your p*enis size?

Yes, in fact, both I and your mother are quite satisfied with my penis size. Thanks for asking. Your mother appreciates your looking out for her sexual well-being, too.

She also said to get a haircut, take a shower, and move the fuck out of her basement.

A judge who lost a $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner over a missing pair of pants continues to press his suit.

This is excusable, considering they came from a country that has been communist for the last 50 years, where airport security workers make $10 per month and airline pilots for Cubana make the staggering salary of $30 per month, and where a can of Coke costs a week's salary for most people.

Here's the proof.

Knowing how the dealers in Miami have treated me, I added this in the comments field of the quote request:

S-Plan qualified, manual transmission a must-have. Would like out-the-door quotes for both leasing and buying with $2000 down. If you try to tack on $500 "dealer profit fees", be aware that I will laugh at you and walk out the door. If you cannot support your business with the profit you make from selling other cars, then perhaps you're in the wrong business. I'm tired of dealers wasting my time.

The dealer where I was subjected to the three-hour test drive ordeal on Thursday was one of the dealers from which I requested a quote. The Internet sales manager at that dealer got back to me this morning:

Hi Chris,

Well sorry, laugh and walk away.

After all this is a business and we are entitled to making a profit.

I'm sure that whatever your business is, the customer does not set the price. and here we do have operating expenses that must be covered. If I sell at invoice, our income comes from dealer fees, and that is not even out net profit as from there comes our expenses/operating budget.

So please, feel free to take your business somewhere else where they may want to sell at a loss, but I won't.

My response was this:

Thank you for not wasting my time.

>After all this is a business and we are entitled to making a profit.

Actually, I don't see anything in any laws anywhere that guarantees you a profit. It's a free market, after all, and I'm quite free to take my business where I choose.

I choose to take my business to dealers who are perfectly capable of making a profit after paying all their operating expenses from sales prices that do NOT include a $500 "dealer profit fee" added onto the vehicle's purchase price.

Your loss. Sorry.

Some people just don't get it.

I am in the market for a car. I have been in the market for a car since, oh, December.

Two weeks ago, I walked into the showroom of a local Honda dealer looking like a lost puppy dog. It took 45 minutes for a salesman to even approach me and ask if I needed help. When I told him I was interested in a Honda Fit Sport with a manual transmission and that I wanted to test drive one, he quickly agreed and promised to find one.

An hour later -- apparently it's all the rage for kids these days to steal shift knobs when salesmen are looking the other way, so no cars on the lot have them, and the management keeps the two spares under lock and key -- I was finally in the car watching the salesman drive it across the parking lot at 25 MPH in first gear. After the first turn, he said, "I don't really like driving a manual transmission."

Yeah. Ya think?

Then he tried to tell me I could only test drive it around the parking lot because the service department had all the plates. I told him to go get a plate and that I was taking it for a test drive, which he finally did, and I finally did.

Upon returning to the dealer, he immediately offered me the one I wanted (which they would have to order from another area dealer) for $65 under sticker. Honda Fits are notoriously difficult to come by in some parts of the country, but here in south Florida they seem to have plenty of stock, and they're all '07 models which are about to get superseded by the '08s.

But when he printed up a quote, there was a $599.95 "dealer documents fee". When I asked him what that was -- title and license were listed separately -- I was told that they have to "pay the janitor, keep the lights on, etc.", to which I responded, "But that's the normal cost of doing business."

I walked out.

I went to the Honda dealer back home and asked if I could buy a Fit. I was told I could get on a two- to three-month waiting list, that I would have to put $1000 down to reserve my spot, and under no circumstances was the sales manager going to let any Honda Fit leave his lot for less than $1000 over sticker price before taxes, title, delivery, license, etc.

I walked out.

I went to the local Mazda dealer yesterday to test-drive a Mazda 3. I'm very much interested in a 3s Touring with a manual transmission. The salesman told me they didn't have any. I asked if they had any Mazda 3 models with a manual transmission, and he said, "I don't know. Let me check with the manager."

This was to become his refrain for the next hour and a half.

When we finally located one, he couldn't find a key. He had to check with the manager.

Once he got the key, the car wouldn't start due to a dead battery. He went to check with the manager and the service department.

Forty-five minutes later, as I read through the magazines lying around the showroom, he introduced me to another salesman, saying he had to go to the airport and that the other guy would take care of me. "I'll be here," I said.

Nearly half an hour later, the second salesman pulled up in a Mazda 3i with a manual -- but not the same car I had been looking at before. No matter, I wasn't interested in that colour anyway, but I could at least get a feel for the car and take it for a test drive, which I did. On the test drive, I asked him if he could get me a 3s Touring model with a manual from dealer stock somewhere in the area. "Probably not," came the reply. "Well, how long if I had to order one?"

"December."

We returned to the dealer and discussed pricing, which consisted of the salesman asking me how much I wanted to put down ($2000), and whether I wanted to buy or lease (work up numbers for both, please), after which he replied, "OK, let me go check with my manager."

Can we eliminate the middleman, please? If these salespeople aren't authorised to actually, you know, sell anything, how about you fire them and stop charging these ridiculous "dealer fees"?

That guy disappeared for 15 minutes, and out of nowhere, the manager appeared and sat me down in his office, whereupon he quoted me an out-the-door price of $17,800 (based on a retail price of $15,995) for the vehicle I just drove. When I asked for a printout of his figures, lo and behold, a $499 "dealer fee" was in the price. I pointed to it and asked him what it was. "I have to keep the lights on," he answered.

"But that's just part of the cost of doing business. You're supposed to cover that by the profit you make selling cars."

"I'm not making any profit selling you this car. I'm selling it under invoice." (Which, incidentally, is true, but ignores the obvious point that he clearly isn't selling every car on the lot under invoice.)

I then asked him to work the lease numbers, which he did extremely fast, probably in hopes that I wouldn't notice a) the sticker price being used as a basis for the lease and b) the $908 figure in the "dealer profit" box.

When I asked him why the starting price of the lease was different from the sale price he just quoted me, he said that I must be mistaken. When I told him they were some $900 different, he said, "Oh, leases start at MSRP."

"No, I want to lease this car at this price," I said, pointing to the piece of paper.

"Can't do it."

I walked out.

I'm through dealing with all this bullshit and nonsense. My new approach is going to be this:

I walk into the dealer's showroom and ask to speak to the sales manager.
I tell the sales manager that I'm very much interested in purchasing Vehicle X, and that I will not be paying any "dealer greed and extra profit" fees that he wishes to tack on. (Note that I am willing to have the dealer handle the paperwork with the state for a marginal fee, like $100. $500 or more is a complete rip-off, though.)
I point out that the sales manager has two choices: he can accept the profit he'll make by selling me a car without those fees, or he can accept a profit of zero dollars by not selling me a car at all.

Take it or leave it, guys. And stop wasting my time. I can't get in and out of a dealer in anything less than three hours!

CLN salutes you, Mr. Crack Smoking Highway Multitasker, with the coveted Dumbass of the Day Award.

Hay un hombre de España que está de vacaciones en la Republica Dominicana, y necesita tomar un autobus. Le pregunta al nativo, ¿Dónde puedo cojer un autobus? y el nativo responda, "Por el múfler."

Warning: not even remotely safe for work.

For those of you who are not Spanish speakers, the crux of the joke is that the word "cojer" in Spain and much of the Caribbean and South America (but not in Mexico, most of the rest of Central America, or the Dominican Republic) means "to catch", in the sense of "to catch a bus" (which is what our Spaniard friend is attempting to ask). In Mexico, most of Central America, and the Dominican Republic, the predominant usage is vulgar, essentially equivalent to the English "to fuck". The Dominican understands the Spaniard's question as the latter meaning, and tells him, "In the muffler".

Except that's a joke. No one is suggesting that the Spaniard then went off to find a nice warm tailpipe in which to relieve himself. But there apparently exists that contingent of society -- and this is why I both love and hate the Internet, where any random nutjob with an opinion out in left field can publish a how-to guide for the most bizarre fetish -- who actually loves their vehicles so much that they wish to copulate with them.

I really wish I were kidding.

Bridge Collapse: Who's at Fault? It's Still Too Soon to Know If Anyone Is Legally Responsible for the Disaster

How about instead of trying to assign blame somewhere, you spend your time, money, and efforts figuring out how to ensure this doesn't happen again?

Sometimes, I really hate American society.

Not sure those are the kind of ladies I'd want to meet, though. (Click for full-size image.)

(via Dave Barry)