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Rice Thresher: Zeff
named to Accounting Hall of Fame. No word yet on the Racquetball
Hall of Fame.

The Boston Globe claims that the major roadblock (so to speak) to the
completion of the Big Dig is software
problems. One of the programmers speaks
out on Slashdot.

There’s a followup
story at Plastic on the topic of the Voronoi zen
rock garden.

I have recently received complaints that the recounting of my recent CHP encounter is most infuriating due
to the notable absence of a citation and fine.

To those people I say, “OK, fine, but let me tell you about the time
Boston decided that I had been delinquent in paying hundreds of dollars
in excise tax on my car, and had informed me that they would impound it
if they saw it. They were right; I hadn’t paid any of that tax. (But I
had also MOVED AWAY the year before.) It took about a year and a half, and
several hundred dollars, all told, to get them to stop trying to collect taxes
on my California-registered car.”

I had a hard time getting to work today. Traffic was lousy, and I was
kind of distracted (I’m getting sick, so my head is getting foggy). Oh,
and I got pulled over.

Travelling westbound on 92, I debated turning on my wipers; my car had
been parked under a tree all weekend, and was full of schmutz. I was
going slowly enough (up a hill on 92) that I figured I was probably not
in danger of over-spraying wiper fluid all over the car behind me (this
is a point of highway courtesy seldom followed). I
checked my rearview mirror to see what kind of car I might be offending
in case traffic started moving, sending some of my wiper fluid onto his
windshield.

“Hey, it’s the CHP! And they have their lights on! And are motioning
me to pull over!”

[The officer walks very, very cautiously up to
the passenger-side window of Dan’s car.]

Dan: Uh, good morning?

Officer: Do you know why I pulled you
over?

Dan: Um, no.

Officer: Your registration has expired.
Six, two thousand two. That’s a long time ago.

Dan: Uh, oh, gosh, wait, did I forget to put the sticker on? [Note:
the rest of Dan’s lines must be read in the
style of the geeky monsters from Monsters Inc.] I must
have forgotten to put the sticker on. [rummages around in glovebox,
to the increasing unsettlement of the officer; removes an envelope and
empties the contents.] See, here it is, I just forgot to put on
the sticker!

[The officer takes the sticker-carrying
registration sheet from Dan’s hands and
scrutinizes it. He turns it to face Dan,
slowly, and begins flicking the sticker, even more
slowly.]

Officer: You’ve gotta put this
on. [Flick, flick.] Where are you driving this morning?

Dan: Uh, to work, sir.

Officer: And where is that located?

Dan: Uh, Sunnyvale, sir. [thinking: “I
work for the White
House.]

Officer: Well, when you get there,
you put this sticker on right away. They’ll
pull you over for it again if you don’t. Now accelerate slowly, and
merge when it’s safe. [walks away]

Dan: Thanks, sir, yes, I will, sir!

Twitch, twitch. I simply do not handle interaction with The Law
gracefully. (Ask E. to tell you about the time we went through Canadian
customs. Remember to imagine the geeky-monster voice!)

Kuro5hin is carrying an excellent
multi-part series on movie screenwriting: part 1, part 2, part 3
(so far).