Glad you’re feeling better. Wonder what the article’s about…

Chestnuts roasted by Jeff @ 07/15/2006 5:23 PM

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Yay, a new ar…I mean, you’re healthy!

Chestnuts roasted by Ragnarok @ 07/15/2006 5:35 PM

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I hate online traffic school. I recently rolled my car, and the asshole cop on the scene gave me a ticket that, in Idaho, could result in a $500 fine and possibly jail time. What was my crime? I fell asleep.

Now, I could understand if I’d been speeding, driving recklessly, or drunk. But I was coming home from work after putting in some overtime. I was not being a menace. I was actually thinking about finding a place to pull over and take a nap. However, the road through the Idaho desert doesn’t exactly have lot of rest stops, or even paved shoulders.

Why didn’t I lie to him and tell him that I swerved to miss a deer and lost control? Because I try very hard to be an honest person. So instead of lying I innocently told him what happened. What’s worse, I went to the station a couple days later when he asked me to come in and give a taped statement. He waited until after I had convicted myself of "Inattentive Driving" until he told me I was being charged. Is that even legal!?

I went to court to fight the ticket, and the prosecutor refused to dismiss the charges. He did reduce them, and my lawyer told me I could do online traffic school to get the points off my license.

So I now have online traffic school open in another window. However, it’s completely stupid. Now, I’m no English major (I’m an engineer), but I do know the difference between "affect" and "effect," as well as "they’re" and "their." Apparently the authors of this online course do not. Reading this stuff is flat-out painful.

Even worse, the questions are so simple-minded that I can answer them all correctly without reading the material. However, there’s a minimum time you’re supposed to spend on each section, usually 25-35 minutes. However, I can skim the material and answer the questions in under five.

If you try and submit your answers before their timer is up, it resets and you have to start over. I’d just do each section and go do something else while I wait for the timer to count down if it wasn’t for the popups. See, they popup a security question to verify your identity at random times. There’s no noise to grab your attention, and you have to answer in under two minutes. So basically I have to keep at least half an eye on the computer and wait for the time to be up.

The total time is six hours. SIX HOURS! I could have the whole damn thing completed in about an hour. So now I’m spending my Saturday staring blankly at my computer, instead of doing something fun. That’s what I do at work! What’s worse is that this is my first day off after six days on, and tomorrow starts another six days on. My sweet, sweet recreational time has been pre-empted by morons obsessed with how much time I spend "studying" material I already know.

ARRRGGGHHHH!

Chestnuts roasted by spaz307 @ 07/15/2006 5:59 PM

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(I hope Greymatter un-banned me, I had to post my last post on another computer. If this poat ever goes through: Matt, you gotta do something about this.)

I got a poll, what do you think were:

1) the best XE Articles Ever

2) the best XE Blogs Ever?

if I get unbanned, I’ll post my $.02 later on

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 07/15/2006 6:00 PM

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I also forgot to bitch about the cost. I’m paying $60 for the privelege of giving up most of my day off.

Chestnuts roasted by spaz307 @ 07/15/2006 6:04 PM

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Poor Matt! My BF and I were out a week and a half with something oddly similar. ~_~ Just getting over it now!

Chestnuts roasted by Rabiesbunny @ 07/15/2006 6:17 PM

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Spaz,

I had to do online traffic school in January. What a pain!! But I would much rather do it on the internet than have to sit in a class and listen to some person talk for 6 hours. At least online you can skim through the chapter and then do something else while you wait for the timer to run out. When I did mine, the timer didn’t actually show the correct time, and so I ended up taking 2 hours on a section that only had to be 30 minutes!!

And the questions are so dumb. Mine had a bunch of true/false…pretty much stuff like "True or false – you should not drive while you are drunk." "True or false – you should pay attention to your surroundings while driving." Let me think about that one…

Chestnuts roasted by LuLu @ 07/15/2006 6:29 PM

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A phone that one can blog on? What’s next, a portable Playstation 1.5?

Chestnuts roasted by Warx @ 07/15/2006 6:38 PM

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A steak and ale pie? Is that like beer battered fish? Or Beer chicken? Whatever it is, it sounds English.

Chestnuts roasted by IHAQ @ 07/15/2006 7:11 PM

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Whoo, Yes for being better. I was getting worried. Really. I have nothing better to do.

Chestnuts roasted by Mattman @ 07/15/2006 7:38 PM

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There’s a new "Nightmare on Elm Street" comic series coming. Here’s the link:

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77053

Nothing going on tonite, although I am currently watching SNME on NBC.

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 07/15/2006 8:11 PM

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Based on past experiences with dirty-but-fun Hostess outlets, you probably won’t find old stuff there outside of signage, but you will find things your local markets don’t sell.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 07/15/2006 8:45 PM

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