The joys of running on the Silver Comet Trail not

The above image encapsulates exactly what it’s like to run on the Silver Comet trail, which is a super awesome run/bike trail here in the Metro Atlanta area that basically stretches from the outskirts of the city and supposedly connects all the way west, to almost the Alabama state line.  It’s a great trail for people of all skill and experience levels, because it has so many points of access, people can use it for leisurely walks, lengthy excursions or just to train or casually exercise on.

I’ve always used it as a place to train up for long runs, as well as my preferred location to do any of the longer, numerous virtual runs that I always sign up for in order to add to my running medal collection, and it really is a wonderful trail because it’s fairly flat, completely shaded by trees which helps in even the hottest of summers, and there are multiple break points for people to rest, get water and take bathroom breaks if needed.

However, my only real criticism of the Silver Comet trail, isn’t something that can really be controlled, and is actually something that I’ve gripe-brogged about in the past, which is all the fucking bicyclists on the trail who think they own the entire thing, and go around flying down the path at 30+ mph, screaming ON YOUR LEFT all the time as if they were getting paid a quarter every time they had to wail it out.

Seriously, thanks to the Silver Comet, I fucking hate bicyclists, more than the times when I used to have to traverse around the city and had to share the roads with all the hipsters on their fixed gears clogging up lanes.  And to be more specific it’s not all bicyclists, and it’s not even the mega-tryhards that act like they’re participating in the Tour de France with their matching uniforms and barely existent thin-ass aluminum bicycles.

It’s the weekender bicyclists who think they’re on Lance Armstrong’s level when he was roided up to the gills, who are usually by themselves or with 1-2 other douchebag weekenders, who get on the trail and act like the whole thing belongs to them.  They’re the ones who are incessantly screaming ON YOUR LEFT to everyone as if they’re taxicabs in F-Zero, strategically placed just to ruin their day when they’re the ones in fact ruining everyone else’s day by being entitled assholes, hogging the entire trail for themselves and screaming at everyone.

Like, real pro-tryhard bicyclists for one, travel in large packs, but also have been doing what they do long enough to understand that all other travelers on the trail are not stupid, blind or deaf, all at the same time, and don’t hardly ever spam ON YOUR LEFT, unless they have a reason, like some dumbass who’s swerving along the trail.  The weekenders scream at everyone as if it’s their problem that they haven’t noticed that the people in front of them 100 yards away have maintained their lines and paces, and need to be reminded to watch out for them, while they travel at speeds, which in a car would definitely kill a pedestrian, but on a bicycle could be pretty lethal too.

For real though, weekender bicyclists are the god damn worst.  Nothing pockmarks a good run session than any time some bicycle douche screams ON YOUR LEFT and whizzes past me way too close to comfort when I’m already running on the edge of the trail, because it’s slightly flatter than the slight slope which is meant to control water on the surface from pooling aboard.  It’s like these cocksuckers all think I actually can pull over to the right any more than I already am at to convenience them, and they’re really lucky I just don’t stick my arm out and start clotheslining from hell every shithead who thinks they’re going to win the Tour de Douchebag.

I’d say as much as I loved being able to get back out onto the Silver Comet for the first time in nearly three years over the Labor Day weekend, that the weekend bicycle douchefucks were the worst thing about my run, it actually turns out that my 10K time crept over the 60-minute mark that I so fervently try to stay underneath.  At 61:14, I’m glad I was able to complete a 10K without any difficult laboring, but I’m pretty dissatisfied that it took me over an hour to accomplish.  I can’t use a lack of training as an excuse this time, considering I’ve been fairly consistent with my maintenance running over the last year, so I guess this is just a sign of age starting to catch up with me, and that I have to make some actual changes if I want to get my speed back up.

God Bless Rednecks, Sometimes part 2

Nope, the following picture is not a photoshop or a sports meme gone awry.  General Booty’s legal name is actually, General Booty.  There is a man living in the United States who’s birth certificate is legitimately General Booty.  General Axel Booty, and not an actual military rank.

I really hope this becomes more of a thing in coming years, because fewer things are more smugly amusing than hearing about rednecks from Texas who have ridiculous names like General Booty or Bumper Pool, whom to their credit of overcoming the criticism that silly names tend to degrade at, manage to get good enough at football to where they can actually try to make a future out of it.

Because I was quite tickled pink six years ago when I found out about Bumper Pool, and I’m quite amused to find out that there’s an actual possible starting quarterback for fucking Oklahoma, named General Booty.  I mean we’re talking about possibly being a successor to guys like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Spencer Rattler.  General Booty has the opportunity to get his name into the annals of Oklahoma football, and not just because his name is General Booty, although I think he’s already on his way there, regardless of if he ends up as QB1, 2 or even 3.

Regardless of his chances, let’s just do a little mini-dive into this guy named General Booty, and how the hell he came to fruition:

To no surprise, his father is a former player himself, having played at LSU as a wide receiver.  I say no surprise, because it’s the meathead jock type like a guy who played at LSU whom would be so fixated on the military rank of General to where he vowed to name his son by a rank should he have one, and by god did he ever, and therefore we have a legitimate person named General Booty.

Aside from his dumbass dad, it turns out that General Booty is actually related to former USC quarterback John David Booty, who actually made it to the NFL, even if he didn’t last that long in the show, but it goes to show that there’s clearly football in the genetics of the ol’ Booty lineage.

If I’m a betting man, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s going to be QB1 for the Sooners, seeing as how fifth-year senior Dillon Gabriel seems to be the more likely candidate to start, but stranger things have happened in sport.  I imagine that with the awareness of General Booty spreads, he’ll have a Brian Scalabrine-like cult following in the world of sports fandom, and any time he steps onto the field, people will be snickering and chuckling over his name, and by proxy, probably cheer everything he does, just so that they can talk about and spread the word about a guy named General Booty.

Car Week: Hybrids that camp EV spots are dicks

The parking garage in my office has six EV spots.  There’s a sign on the zone that states that those who park in them are limited to four hours of charging at a time, but the thing is that there’s no enforcement of it whatsoever, so basically it amounts to rockstar parking for those who are fortunate enough to get to the building early enough to be able to camp one.

The thing is, it’s low-key become assigned parking for the same cars on a daily basis, and it’s become very clear on whom has what days as remote days, because they’re not in, but someone else is.  I’ve only gotten to park in one of them maybe like three times, and on two of those times, I strategically went outside during lunchtime to see if anyone had left and immediately moved my car to get one, but for the most part, it’s the same group of cars that camp them, not because they actually need them, but because they’re close parking spots in the grand spectrum of the property.

On most days, there are three Teslas who appear to arrive early enough to where they always park in the same spots.  Then there’s this one Nissan Leaf who reminds me of when Gilfoyle got that weird electric motor scooter so he could fuck with Dinesh when he got his Tesla, because they always camp the fourth spot.  The fifth spot is usually occupied by an Audi Q4 e-tron on most days, but some other Nissan Leaf on the days when Audi person must be remote.

But it’s the sixth spot that is the impetus to this post, because it’s there just about every single day, but it’s a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid (a minivan).  Obviously meaning it is powered by both electric and petrol, and doesn’t necessarily need to be plugged in order for it to survive the next time the driver hops in.

Honestly, the first time I saw it, I didn’t know that it was a hybrid and I figured it was some idiot driver who didn’t realize the spots were EV spots, but then as I walk past it, I see that the power cable is plugged into it.  But then I see that it’s a hybrid, and I’m like wtf?  That’s how I knew this was a behavior I found unappealing, because it didn’t concern me whatsoever considering how little I actually drive the Tesla into work, but it still annoyed me.

Seriously though, I just feel like this is a dick move for the hybrid car to camp the EV spot, just because it’s capable of using it.  When I got my Tesla, prior to getting the charger installed at my home, I actually needed the spot at work to keep my car charged, and even that wasn’t enough.  I still had to go find superchargers to keep it topped off until we had our home charger installed.

Frankly, ever since getting the home charger installed, I’m seldom in a position where I even need public charging.  I also imagine most of the people who have their own EVs probably have chargers at home, because the chargers at work are like, 2 kW, and even in an eight hour charge session, I’m lucky to get like 30% of battery life from it.

Honestly, it’s not just the hybrid that’s being a dick about using the EV spots, it’s basically everyone else who camps them on a daily basis as personal parking who are all being dicks.  I’m pretty sure the EV spots were really designed to be in-a-pinch charging options for people who actually need to use them to charge, and not peoples’ private assigned parking spots.  This isn’t just applicable to my office’s parking garage, but everywhere where there’s EV parking.  Especially shopping centers where they have a handful EV spots as literally the first spots closest to the business, even ahead of handicapped spaces.

In conclusion, EV drivers are dicks.  Yep, we’re all dicks.  DICKS

Car Week: When did Dodge Ram trucks become the official vehicle of insurrectionists?

Living in Georgia, there are plenty of rednecks around my neck of the woods.  That being said, there are a lot of people who drive around in pickup trucks, because rednecks love driving around in pickup trucks.  So when it comes to observational data, I do feel like I’ve taken in sufficient information over the years I’ve been a Georgia resident, at least to the point where I could make a post like this that does some wide-sweeping branding.

But as the subject says, I have to ask the question, when did Dodge Ram trucks become the official vehicle of insurrectionists?  Serious question.  Because I don’t think it’s really that far off-base to throw it out there that pretty much whenever I see someone driving around in a Dodge Ram truck, it’s always slammed to the gills, often times have some sort of aftermarket lifting to its cabin, and is driven by a white guy that not only looks like voted for the baked potato, but was probably circling around on the Capital Beltway on or around January 6th.

Like, I’m barely even kidding when I say it’s all Dodge Ram trucks.  I’d say that at any given time, eight or nine out of every ten Dodge Ram trucks I see on the road fit this exact description.  Always aggressively driving and giving off that aura that they have a lot of strong opinions about people that are not also white males.

Sure, there are the occasional Ford F-150s or Chevy Silverados that shoehorn their way into these descriptions, but for the most part, Ford F-series trucks are typically driven by people who actually use them for heavy-duty truck use, and Chevys are GMs and GMs also have Cadillac and Cadillacs are loved by black people, so you don’t see nearly as many Chevy or Ford trucks as white-powered up as you see Dodge Rams.

Anyway there’s a reason why this topic sat on the bench, because there’s really not much substance to it as much as it is a wide-sweeping accusational observation.  But I would encourage any of my zero readers to try and keep their eyes peeled on the road for Dodge Ram trucks, and see they get the same vibe I do, or if this is just kind of a Georgia thing, or just spectacular bullshit that only I’m capable of making observation of.

It doesn’t happen often

But what we have here is someone who appears to be more egregiously overpaid than a professional athlete: Georgia Department of Transportation commissioner to receive a $100,000 raise, bringing annual salary up to $550,000

Obviously there’s no shortage of crooked government workers in any state, but GDOT’s flagrant doling out of taxpayer dollars to some stooge who doesn’t know how to use the railroad button in Sim City is pretty noteworthy, at least to make it onto the brog, interrupting the fairly droll legion of baseball, professional wrestling and angsty dad brog posts.  At least it gives me the opportunity to blow the dust off of the ohgeorgia tag and utilize it to throw shade at the state’s poorly veiled attempts to pad the pockets of some glorified crooks.

Seriously, I’m hard pressed to think of anyone getting more money for as little justification as possible as this clown of a DOT commissioner.  Even the article itself fails to really come close to justifying why they deserved a 22% raise up to over a half-million dollars cumulatively:

Among achievements Brown cites are McMurry’s management of a series of highway improvement projects, including reconstructions of major interstate junctions in Atlanta, Macon and Savannah.

Reconstruction?  What reconstruction?  I’ve literally driven in all three of these cities within the last six weeks, and there’s been no real construction anywhere.  There have been lots of instances where shoulders are closed, cones are doled out all over the roads, some concrete barriers are erected, and the rando police car with their lights on to try and get the speed demons of Georgia to slow the fuck down, but there sure as shit hasn’t been any construction beyond maybe re-paving of some highways here and there.  Unless we’re awarding raises to people who look like they’re pretending to do work, there’s zero merit to these fake claims that these are actual improvement projects.

Brown also credits McMurry’s leadership for Georgia’s growing transportation budget, and notes praise Georgia has received for its infrastructure during McMurry’s tenure.

Translation: traffic is so epidemically bad once again due to the world seemingly believing the pandemic is completely over and so they’re all hitting the roads again and clogging everything up that Peach Pass registrations and toll payments have gone up, which is where this transportation budget is coming from.  Too bad it’s going directly into the pockets of all these clowns in GDOT and their cronies, because there sure as shit is still no real infrastructure in this entire state to be worthy of any mention.

What’s incredible is that whomever this guy is, he must have incriminating photos of the people who are in charge of giving him raises, because this is far from the first raise he’s gotten for doing absolutely nothing:

McMurry’s pay rose from $250,000 to $350,000 in 2017, then to $450,000 in 2021. The raises, including the latest, will also boost McMurry’s state pension.

Seriously, the guy got his foot in the door of a job where he doesn’t do anything, and banks a quarter mil.  For pretty much no reason other than he was too lazy to look for anything else, he ends up doubling his salary over the span of like 6-7 years, and he has accomplished basically nothing.  2-3 of those years were kind of a wash thanks to Coronavirus and people not really going anywhere, and the bozo still got a $100k raise in 2021.

Here’s the kicker too.

The state paid Gov. [Yosemite Sam] $176,250 in 2022.

The governor of the entire state makes less than half of what the GDOT commissioner makes.  Now I don’t like that cocksucker either, but something seems fishy when he’s getting literally lapped salary-wise.

Either way, it’s pretty incredible that there’s actually someone out there that actually makes as much money as a professional athlete and deserves the money even less.  It’s also pretty incredible that I somehow managed to find the time to bang out a brog post about something out of the usual array of fallback topics, but I wouldn’t anticipate it happening again for another minute, but for what it’s worth, it was a little reprieve.

That was awkward

Part of my property includes this giant useless field that sits underneath power lines, where the options to do anything with are very minimal, because of the easement and by-laws and other bullshit that are tied to Georgia Power.  Regardless, I am still responsible for my half of the field, and I do the absolute bare minimum in doing so, by paying to have my landscapers run the mower over it, so that the weeds don’t get so high any I have another neighbor try and anonymously report me to the county again, and have them threaten a lien on my property for something I had no idea was my responsibility in the first place.

Despite the fact that it’s legally my property, its ambiguity is still in question to everyone else in the neighborhood, who all seem to make the assumption that I once did, that the land isn’t private property, and that it’s perfectly acceptable for everyone to walk their dogs on, or for people to trollop all over whenever they want to.

Normally, I’m okay with the dogs and the occasional teen girl squad who want to take sunset selfies, as long as poop is not left there, and nobody litters.  A few weeks ago, I came outside to see that a car had parked on the edge of the field and two teen lovers had laid a blanked out on my field and were just lounging out.  It irked me, but I chose to not say anything about it, because I didn’t want to be the neighborhood Clint Eastwood always telling kids to get off my lawn.

Just recently though, I was coming home, and I spotted a golf cart sitting on my half of the field.  I was like wtf, and it turned out to be this couple in the neighborhood that I recognized.  I have no qualms with them, and we’ve been friendly in the past, so I didn’t think it would really be an issue when I came up to them, and explained that I don’t have problems with them walking their dog on my field, but if they would just not drive their golf cart around on it, I didn’t want them setting a precedent that other people would start thinking they could run vehicles on my yard, thinking it was public land.

Pretty immediately, the defense came up, and it was clear that they were not fans of being made a request of, and they immediately disputed the fact that it was my property, and that it definitively belonged to Georgia Power.  They proceeded to bring up the fact that I was dumping tree debris from my fallen tree episode on company land, and that I had allowed so much tree debris to sit there for as long as I did because I have children and no time to clean up my yard whenever I want to.

It wasn’t a pleasant conversation despite both of us being able to keep it tensely civil, but I was thrown a tremendous amount of shade and passive aggression, with his wife chiming in that I should just build a fence, as if I have another spare $10,000 to erect a fence around the field, when I frankly don’t know how I’m going to pay off my credit cards at the end of this month.

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