Year: 2016

South by southwest?

This makes me a little sad. Winston-Salem seems finally to be abandoning its never-much-used quadrant system. As street signs age, they are being replaced with new ones that lack the “NW/SW/NE/SE” indicators.

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The quadrant system for identifying streets seems to have been introduced in the 1950s. Several North Carolina cities (Hickory and Concord for starters) implemented some version of the system over the years, and it was not a big success in most of them. In fact, it seems to have been largely ignored in Winston-Salem by the 1980s, no longer being used in published addresses even though the designations continued to be included on the street signs.

When the ex and I moved to Winston in 2006, we added the “SW” to the end of our address from day one, just because that’s the sort of geeks we were. I liked the the whole anachronistic nature of using this convention most people no longer observed, even though the city apparently still did. I believe the quadrants may even have still been part of the tax map database as recently as a few years ago.

I haven’t seen any official notice of the change anywhere (though I haven’t looked very much) but it’s pretty obvious that the signs they are a-changin’.

The 8th of November, eh?

With my passport fail now in the process of being corrected, I have decided that I will indeed make my autumn excursion to Canada, even though it will be later in the season than I prefer, resulting in a cooler and darker journey than usual.

It will also mean I will be outside the country on Election Day, which seems like a really safe and sane option.

Of course I will vote before I leave. But I will avoid the whole American scene the day and night of the election, and that makes me really happy. I can hear about the winner on the CBC, which makes things seem much more civilized. (You can rest assured that the Canadian media will cover the U.S. election far more completely than the U.S. media have ever covered a Canadian one.) And if the fires start, I’ll sit them out at a shawarma joint on Bloor Street somewhere.

Better still, if I’m in Canada and the unthinkable occurs, I will be better positioned to decide whether or not to come home.

So look for me in a Canada near you come early November.

Social media sucks

This week:

  • I have been accused of inciting a “boycott” because I mentioned to my 79 Twitter followers (45 of whom actually saw the post and about 3 of whom actually could feasibly patronize the business in question anyway) that I would no longer be patronizing some local businesses that have been quite supportive of the fine folks behind HB2. The post got more traffic from the business owner’s responses to it than it ever would have otherwise. I think my influence is being way overstimated here.
  • I have blocked one old friend from San Francisco who used to be a reasonable human being but has morphed into an Trump-thumping “men’s rights activist.”
  • I have muted numerous good friends because the perpetual outrage (which I share) was raising my usually very low blood pressure. That will be temporary.

Now I’m going to not watch the debate because my need to be able to sleep tonight is stronger than my need to watch an orange-haired socioplath fall on his arrogant face. Watching this travesty now would just get me more pissed off.