I'm taking a break from my online traffic school (shorter traffic school: Don't be a dick, and slow the fuck down).

I got a ticket recently when I misunderstood some confusing lane lines in Burbank. I thought they were telling me I could turn right from the two right-most lanes, but the friendly police officer who pulled me over told me that they were telling me the second-to-right lane could only go straight. I probably could have fought it in court, but I'm so goddamn busy these days, I just opted to do traffic school (I haven't been pulled over, much less gotten a ticket, in over 10 years).

I think traffic school is kind of a scam, just another way to suck even more money out of us when we make a stupid mistake while driving, but I'm glad the option is there, especially after I asked my insurance company how much my rates would go up if I didn't use it. The entire experience is much better now than it was when I last did it. Sitting in my office, listening to as many live recordings of the Allman Brothers Band I can get from Rhapsody, next to an open window that lets in the warm summer breeze is certainly better than the old way of doing things.

Most of the things it tells me are pure common sense, and I appreciate that whoever wrote this particular course seems to be aware of this, so it isn't condescending or insulting. The stock photos from the 1970s are pretty sweet, too.

===

Before I get back to online traffic school, here are a couple things from today:

Some douche took Ruth's free Lovecraft book, stripped out her introduction, and is selling it in the Kindle store without attribution. Things like this make me all kinds of stabby. Someone on Tumblr thinks she should just be happy that someone thought her work was good enough to steal and sell. I don't even know what to say to that, because I find that idea so profoundly stupid and wrong, I get ranty.

Twitter is rolling out its new photo integration, in partnership with Photobucket. Considering the recent TwitPic fiasco, I wondered what Twittter said about copyright and ownership. It appears that Twitter is unambiguous about it (we own the rights the way we own our  Tweets), but what Twitter is saying is pretty clearly contradicted in Photobucket's TOS. I'm not sure what rights situation would take precedence, but common sense makes me think it would be Photobucket's, since they're hosting. If that's the case, it's another non-starter for me. That's a bummer.

— THE ICE CREAM MAN IS DRIVING UP MY STREET RIGHT NOW!! —

Sorry. Pavlovian response that is as old as time for me.

I wonder why more photo/video hosting sites don't just give users the ability to choose a Creative Commons license (the way Flickr does), because I think that would eliminate the entire issue. Probably because it gets in the way of those sites making money, and the rule of thumb these days is that any service that is cool and free is actually treating its users as products instead of customers. I get that, and as long as we're going in with our eyes wide open, we can all make our own decisions. Still, I'd like to apply the Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike license to all my uploaded pictures, and I hope Twitter will work out something like that.

Alternatively, Twitter integration with imgur would be pretty rad.

I'm back from my blogging vacation, and I have a list of things to post about this week, so it should be fun. I've enjoyed the break, but I also miss the writing.

Okay, time to go back to learning stuff I already know so I can pass the test (here's how much of a geek I am: I know that I can pass with 80%, but I'm determined to get 100%. Some things never change.)

The traffic on the 101 was as horrible as ever. For no apparent reason, every lane of the freeway would speed up to 30 or 40, then come to a complete stop just as quickly. It took me 20 minutes to drive 2 3/4 miles.

I thought, "I don't know how people do this every day, twice a day. This is soul-crushing."

===

Forty-five Minutes Earlier

I was starting to lose my voice. We'd been recording for close to four and a half hours, and that's about all I can do before I run out of energy. I finished the chapter, and took a drink of water.

The director's voice came through the small speaker on the table next to me. "Do you want to keep going, or do you think it's time to call it a day?"

"I want to know what happens next," I said, "but I think I'm done. I usually hit the wall around four hours."

"We're doing 80 pages a day, which is really good. I think we can go ahead and call it."

I picked up my keys and my phone. An LED flashed on the cover, telling me I had a text message. It was from Anne: Do you want to meet me for early dinner on your way home?

I thumbed to the compose screen, and told her that I had just finished, and I could meet her in about 25 minutes.

"Yay!" She replied.

"I'll be back at 10 tomorrow," I said to Tony, the Director. "Have a good evening."

"Really great work today, Wil," he said.

"Thanks."

I squinted my eyes against the bright San Fernando Valley sunlight when I walked out of the studio. It was in the mid-80s, and I could tell that it had been a beautiful day. When I started my car, Van Halen was playing on the radio. I reflexively began to rock out, but by the second verse of Running With The Devil, my voice reminded me that I'd been using it all day. I cleared my throat and changed the station to NPR, which I listened to in silence the rest of my drive.

The traffic sucked, and the majority of other drivers didn't do much to help, with their speeding up and slamming on of brakes and changing lanes without signalling. I took a deep breath, and did my best to just be patient. When I finally got to the restaurant, I was ready to punch Lenny in the back of the head.

I walked inside, and saw my wife, sitting in the corner of the patio. She smiled and waved to me.

"How was your day?" She said.

"It was good," I said. I took a drink of her lemonade. It felt great on my tired vocal cords.

"I realized something while sitting in that horrible traffic on my way here," I said.

"What's that?"

"I'm really lucky."

"You're lucky because you had to sit in traffic?"

"No, I'm lucky that I don't have to sit in traffic like this every day, twice a day, like so many other people. And all this week, I'm getting paid to read and perform a book I love. This is a good life."

The waitress came by, and I ordered a ginger lemonade of my own.