Autobahn
Ohio's highways & thoroughfares have the reputation of being heavily patrolled by vast hordes of traffic cops. My childhood memories of the interminable drives to my grandmother & late grandfather's house square with this reputation, but more recent experiences do not. Over the last four years, I've motored to Xanadu alone at least half a dozen times, & never had I seen an Ohio State Highway Patrol cruiser along the Lumi's route into rural Ohio, northwest of Columbus. This past weekend's journey was markedly different, with three highway patrol cruisers spied parked in the median of I-75 & US-23 on my way south & another three sighted on the way back north. This was unnerving. My theory is that this increased patrolling is some manner of reaction to Ohio's recently revised expressway speed limits, the limit on I-75, for example, being raised in some places from sixty-five miles per hour to seventy. It will be interesting to see the density of the patrols when next I return to *shudder* Ohio, the place where happiness goes to die.

This morning, I passed an old Alfa Romeo Spider on the expressway. The wee roadster was cream, a welcome departure from the stereotypical red, a result of the mistaken notion that all automobiles of Italian manufacture or even design should be rosso corsa, Italy's international motor racing color. Adding comedy to the sighting, the Spider was being trailed quite closely by a dark blue Ford F-250, the enormous pickup truck looming menacingly over the tiny Alfa.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Johnny Socko, "Full Trucker Effect" from Full Trucker Effect (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "Hasselhoff" reminded me of how much I like Full Trucker Effect. 'Tis a concept album, the only such ska-punk album of which I'm aware, based around a fictional Chicago-based trucking company called Boraboriniski Bros. Trucking, replete with faux radio commercials. This fiction recalls to mind my old chum Captain Malice, who works for a trucking & logistics company in southern Wisconsin.