ARRRGH! You damned college students!

[Ambush_Bug]

Present company excepted, of course. I'm referring to the particular breed of students that infest Carbondale, Illinois.

The only good thing is that there's plenty of nice-looking women running around.

[rant]

THESE IDIOTS CANNOT DRIVE TO SAVE THEIR LIVES! Hey, you jerks from Chicago, let's get one thing straight! When you come down here, this is not the freaking Dan Ryan Expressway! In a 30-mph, 3-lane road going through the city, complete with many stoplights (which have a timed 'wave' that actually WORKS) and turnoffs, there is NO NEED to go careening through the various lanes at 50 mph, trying to get ahead of that guy in front of you that's going the speed limit.

You know WHY he's going the speed limit? Well, for one thing, the cops here are mean. For another thing, he's going to coast right on through ALL of the stoplights on the main drag at that speed--you, on the other hand, buzzing along, are going to stop--start--stop all the way down 13. There's a reason we natives drive like we do--LEARN WHY.

And another thing! No matter WHAT winters are like up in Chicago, you can take your 'winter driving experience' and STUFF IT. We don't get snow that much, and when we do, we don't have the plows to get rid of it quickly. No, snow isn't the problem--unlike Chicago, Carbondale gets ICE. Lots of ICE. ICE is not like SNOW. ICE isn't something you can crush your way through in Daddy's SUV, kiddies. ICE turns your fancy-schmancy SUV into a freaking ROLLER SKATE. Unless you're used to having no traction whatsoever, don't claim you can drive on ICE, 'cause you CAN'T. I've seen it too many times. We can always tells the natives from the students during the winter 'cause the students are the ones that are in the ditch.

Why the hell are you all driving fancy cars? I've seen soo many damn SUV's, Corvettes, Camaros that it's disgusting. AND THEY'RE ALL RED! Arrrrgh! PICK SOMETHING ELSE, DAMMIT! You should come to realize something else, too. Our roads SUCK. You people with low-clearance vehicles... just don't leave town. You'll lose your drivetrian if you do. There's nothing that makes us laugh more than some student with a fancy low-riding car missing his bumper//differential//muffler because he thought he could leave the highway. If you want to come down here and not look like a FOOL, drive a beater. Get some old two or four door that has bondo all over the place and drive THAT around here--it'll last longer, and your parents won't have to pay so much insurance. Oh, wait.. I forgot... you have an IMAGE to keep up.

Ditch the gold flake paint. It's gonna get keyed, just out of pure frustration on our part. Why? 'Cause it's UGLY.

Buy your freaking CD's! If you'd actually NOT spend all your money on your car, you'd have some cash left with which to buy books and CD's, instead of using ALL THE CITY'S BANDWIDTH with your file-sharing programs!

Ditch the cell phone! This is one of the areas that, until recently, didn't have any. We'd like to KEEP it that way, especially since you maniacs not only can't drive, but 'cause you try to drive and gab at the same time. Why the hell are you on the phone anyway? You're not a native, so everything's long-distance. Are you trying to look cool? Pffft. Most SI natives look at a cell phone and think 'the poor bastard! He's on a leash!'. You are not cool.

[/rant]

[XRogue]

Bug, that was one of your best rants. Sorry for your annoyance.

[Stang]

OMG ALL THAT IS SOOO TRUE!!!

Its like that here, as Im sure EVERYWHERE now days. The cell phones are the ones that bug me the most, HELLO I DONT CARE HOW WELL OF A DRIVER YOU ARE YOU WILL CAUSE AN ACCIDENT IDIOT!!! I mean come on a phone call isnt that important that you cant wait til you get home/office or someone is dyin. And if you REALLY need to talk on it pull over.

I love how people speed around jumping lane to lane and they dont really get any where, then when you get onto the side streets they are either right beside you or right behind you, I laugh right at them "Dumbass you didnt get anywhere".

I never understood the whole thing about lowering you car/truck. I would much rather Higher it that way I can see over your dumbass, or even better run right over you . Just dont understand it.

There will ALWAYS be Idiot drivers out there unfortunatly.

[Ambush_Bug]

Oh, I try, Rogue, I really do.

See, I don't yell this stuff out in public 'cause C'dale is a college town, and I'd get lynched.. I don't mind that it's a college town at all--lotsa nice lookin' women, all kinds of cool stuff going on, walk-in parties, the works. No, it's just ONE thing that bothers me--and I'm going to sound horribly hickish here: CITY SLICKERS.

There. I said it. To quote Jack Palance: "Hrrh. City folk."

Obviously, this is a subjective judgement on my part--but maaaan, does it hold true around here. And it's relatively easy to tell the natives from the imports, too--mostly by mode of dress--specifically, the pants. Locals almost always have on bluejeans this time of year. Imports almost always have on some kind of pants that are some OTHER color than blue. This works both ways, making us natives easy to spot for the imports. To wit:

There came a time when I had to replace the battery in my old Buick, which had died on me in a parking lot. I walked the distance (about a mile) to the local Wal-Mart, bought one, and started lugging it back. If you've ever picked up a battery for a large sedan with all the fixin's, you know they're damned heavy, and that dinky excuse for a 'strap' will cut right through your hands. So, I had to hoist it on my shoulder and carry it.

Here I am walking back, and some chick buzzes by me in a tricked-out Escort (why the hell does one do that to an Escort? Spoilers on the back? WTF? It makes no sense.), and she slows down, leans out the window, and says, "Hey, that ain't a boombox, farm-boy!"

My reply: "No ****, lady!"

The other thing that's been driving me nuts is the blatant disregard imports hold for traffic signs. Specifcally, there's a one-way loop going through the apartment complex. Said loop has parallel parking spaces on the inside circumference, making it effectively just over one lane wide. Entrances are CLEARLY marked with large signs--'One Way: Do Not Enter."

Yet, almost every day, as I'm heading out, there's some jackass that comes careening into the exit of the loop, barely missing me, and always with a surprised look on his face. "What the hell is a car doing facing THAT way?"

This is annoying, but potentially amusing. In fact, I'm just waiting for one of these fellows with their plastic cars to plow into the front end of my all-steel Buick some day. The damage will be spectacular.. to him, anyway. This is the same Buick that killed a large deer with the front end at 60 MPH and suffered no alignment problems whatsoever. The court proceedings should be quite interesting too:

"You did pass traffic school, right?"
"Yes."
"Including the written test?"
"Yes."
"And you saw the DO NOT ENTER sign?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And what?"
*At this point, the bailiff draws his pistol and shoots the guy for violating Darwin's Laws.*

At this point, I'm considering sneaking out in the dead of the night and tacking on a big addition to the Do Not Enter sign that says: "THIS MEANS YOU, POP-CULTURE BOY!"

The rampaging boom-sleds that patrol the town at night don't bother me a whole lot, though... that's mostly 'cause I can't hardly hear 'em when I'm asleep.

Differences aside, this IS a pretty cool town, once on sifts through the import (and native) population carefully. There are plenty of cool students that come in, just as there are (unfortunately), plenty of spazzes that come in.

As countrified as this place can be (there are small ranches IN the city limits, as well as meat//poultry farms outside), it's still pretty cool. And you just can't beat the Shawnee National Forest for getting away from it all.

[Maz]

Cut me some slack here, I'm a college student, I drive an Piece of sh|t, it's no red, and I do not speed in town. And in winter, I put winter tires, not all-season, all-season is just another word for fancy-summer tires. People are so cheap, they drive a Benz with summer tires in winter when theres 3 inch of snow on the road, and then they slip and slide and alomost hit you cause there too fancy to get winter tires, damn rich people. Elders are horrible drivers too, I was driving on the highway at 65mph(speed limit here) and this old lady was doing 40mph in the fast lane, I was like WTF? is she trying to get kill? So I call the cops on her, the cops call me back, her reason for driving slow in the fast lane was: They are'nt so many car in this lane, that why I drive there

Duh- there all behind you honking the horn and passing you in the rigth lane

Moral of Story: Keep rigth unless passing someone

[XRogue]

Heh, even when I was in college, college students annoyed me. Though to be fair, I was a city kid in a small town college. On purpose. It was cheaper to go there and there was a smaller population of idiots. Enjoyed it too.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Well, you could just not drive, like me.

I got sick of all those people around here, too. It's just that reason that I did not get a new car when I totalled mine.

[Aluscia]

Heh... You know, Bug, Hamilton is exactly the same way. All of the lights are perfectly timed so that you can get from one end of the city to the other if you drive the speed limit... And Hamilton has two 5-lane 1-way streets going through it instead of one road... And we *still* have jackasses that drive WAY too fast, lane change like they're in an Indy race, and get into accidents with buses because "the bus wasn't moving in the right hand lane". Hmm... maybe that's because the bus was serving its primary function? you know, stopping to pick up people and drop them off? Yeah, I get real pissed with people too... Unlike a lot of my rich friends who go to University, I had to rely on my scholarship just to pay my tuition. So I don't have a car. I have to take the bus *both* ways, when it's a 90 minute ride one way. And let me tell you... Car's treat buses like they're turtles or something... Buses don't drive slowly! I've seen a bus driver go 80 clicks down a 50 road (that's like 50 on a 30 for you Americans). So yeah... pity me, who is at the whim of not only the bus driver, but all the bad drivers in the world, and doesn't even have the power to swirve out of the way...

[Maz]

Laur rigth about this one, bus drivers have a heavy foot