Passive Entertainment Convergence

Okay, I'm not usually one to gripe, or even talk about, the horrors of keeping up with all my favorite TV shows and movies. But last night was just not fair. UPN was showing two episodes of Star Trek Enterprise (one of the two TV shows I watch), one at 8 and one at 9. The 9 o'clock showing overlapped with the season finale of The West Wing (the second of the two TV shows I watch), which overlapped with my travel and prep-time for the 10 o'clock theater showing of The Matrix Reloaded (one of the few movies I've bothered to see the premiere of). What's a Science-Fiction/Political-Fantasy geek to do? What kind of messed up cosmic forces come up with that kind of timing? Hmmm...the Borg collaborating with the people that kidnapped Zoe, working inside the Matrix? Nah.

Legal Morbid Buckeyes

I went to the Ohio BMV yesterday to get my Indiana driver's license converted to an Ohio driver's license. It went fine, but the "written" test that I had to take was a little bit different than what I remembered from my first time around. For one, the test is now computerized, which, given that I sit in front of a computer for far too many of my waking hours, meant that I picked up on the "subtleties of the interface" quickly.

But the other thing I noticed was how obsessed the test creators seemed to be with death on the roadways. Example: one question displayed a yellow, diamond-shaped sign with a "T" in it. The multiple choice answers were all fairly reasonable except for (D), which said "this sign means that someone was killed by a car at that spot in the road." Ahhh!! Just a few questions later, they displayed another yellow, diamond-shaped sign with a pedestrian crossing symbol on it. Answer (C): "This sign means that someone was killed by a car while crossing the street here." AHHHH! Scary.

Anyway, I passed with a 93 % and got my license. Phew. It makes me wonder if I would have done better on all of those high school Latin tests if they'd been computerized. (And if at least one of the answers could always be eliminated for ludicrous morbidity.) Sona si Latine loqueris.