The Wave

I recently purchased a Jeep Wrangler. I did this for a few reasons:

1- It's a fun summer car
2- I've kind of always wanted one
3- My previous car was a piece of crap

I didn't buy a new one because I didn't feel like delving into a monthly car payment. So I picked up a used one to tool around in for a few months. I thought of a lot of different things when I first decided to buy one; how bad it is on gas, how much of a pain it is to take the tops on and off, how totally sweet it looks to drive with the top off, etc. But I did not think about being inducted into a club of sorts.

I'm talking about the Jeep Wave. To be honest, I had never seen "the wave" between Wrangler drivers until about two weeks before I bought my own. I always thought that vehicle-based acknolwedgements were reserved for fat bearded dudes riding Harleys.

But evidently I was wrong. My second day driving it, a kid who couldn't have been older than 19 approached me from the opposite direction driving a Wrangler remarkably similar to my own and lifted his fingers off the steering wheel. Instinctively, I made the same gesture. The guy blew by me and I realized that I had been unwillingly initiated into the world of jeep drivers. I wasn't quite sure how to feel because whenever I see guys on motorcycles do their wave, I think, "That's kinda stupid. He probably doesn't even know that guy." But when you're actually participating in something like that, it's pretty cool. It's a type of comeraderie that doesn't exist among people who drive other vehicles. I mean, you never see two guys driving Hyundai Elantras give each other a respectful wave as they pass by each other.

I didn't realize how big a deal this whole "wave" thing was. But there are entire websites dedicated to it (see: http://www.jeeptalk.org/jeep_wave.shtml) They even give guidelines for how much creedence to give other jeeps based on age, appearance, upgrades, etc. It's freakin nuts. Who would actually put that much thought into something like this? Personally, I don't care enough to read through all the "rules of the Jeep Wave", so I'll just wave at all jeeps I see.

I'm not too discriminatory.

Awesome quote by Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone recently approached Iranian officials about making a biopic about their president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but was rebuffed because even though he was viewed as "opposition" by many in the United States, he is still part of the "Great Satan". To which he replied:

"I've been called a lot of things, but never a Great Satan. I wish the Iranian people well and I only hope their experience with an inept, rigid idealogue president goes better than ours."

Good stuff, Mr. Stone. Good stuff.

Mid-Week Days Off

Is there anything worse than having a day off in the middle of the week? This has happened two years in a row with the 4th of July. Last year it was on a Tuesday and I had to work on Monday because I worked at a bank and it's a federal law that banks can't be closed for more than 3 consecutive days. So that was gay. And now this year, it fell on a Wednesday. So on Tuesday, it felt like the Friday before a 3 day weekend; I came in to work wearing shorts and flip-flops, hung around for a few hours, did about 15 minutes of real actual work, and left at 12:30. It was awesome.

I had a whole big day planned for the 4th. I was gonna go crabbing with some guys in the morning, which was just an excuse to drink beers on a boat at 8:30am, then bring the crabs back to cook them up and have a bbq by the pool all afternoon and then maybe go check out some fireworks. It was gonna be a good 4th.

But what actually happened? I woke up at 5:00am, drove 20 minutes to John's house to find out that there's heavy rain and wind in the forecast, thus cancelling our crabbing trip/booze cruise. So I drive back home, sleep for a few hours, wake up around 10:30 to a dreary and drizzly Independence Day, and proceed to do absolutely nothing all day. The most exciting thing I did was return the empty keg from our housewarming party the previous weekend to the liquor store to get my deposit back. WOO-HOO!

Well, no. I actually did go to the movies with the little lady to see 1408. (Good movie with some geniunely creepy and jumpy moments. Very well-done. Almost worthy of its own blog entry.) So at least I did something. But after the movies, it was back home again. And it was rainy and damp out so we didn't feel like going to check out fireworks. I'm not an uber-patriotic American who gets a hard-on for fireworks on the 4th, but I still kind of felt like I should have at least seen some fireworks, even off in the distance, just to make it seem like the 4th of July. The whole day felt like a dreary Sunday. Why? Because I had to go to work today and Friday. And it's totally pointless because nobody wants to be here. Also, my boss isn't here. So that only adds to the "I Would Rather Be Anywhere But Here" quotient.

Plus, I'm leaving for a seven day vacation starting this Saturday. So all in all, I'd say my level of motivation falls somewhere between "Wanting to get a root canal" and "Desire to get punched in the stomach really hard." This is going to be a pretty brutal day.