Thoughts before lunch

Today an angry man tried very hard to ruin my morning by irrationally and rudely blaring his horns at ME for letting people cut in front of me, as we made a single-filed trek up the ramp to the freeway. I debated whether or not to shake my fist at him, for all the good that would do. I couldn't bring myself to seriously ponder flicking him off. At first I wasn't even sure what gender this angry creature was, and I thought it was a female. So I muttered a few gender specific expletives under my breath. Then I look closely and it was a man and I quickly switched to the other gender specific expletive and also uttered a silent apology for females everywhere.
It was such a stupid incident though that I think I am doing him too much of an honor by even bothering to memorialize this incident on my hallowed blog grounds. Stupid man, you need to be slapped.

I've been reading the best Travel writing of 2006. A woman went on a daring journey to Lhasa in a rickety broken truck driven by a silent taciturn Chinese man. They had to carry their own gasoline because there weren't exactly rest stops along the way. At one point, the trucker managed the incredible feat of setting himself on fire because he had gasoline all over him. But being stoic and strong, he apparently continued to drive, third degree burns and all.

I also read about this American who went to Japan to partake of the ancient art of tattooing. He made it sound all mystical and profound and sacred. The Japanese are very good at turning the ordinary and the mundane into high art. They are also very good at being disdainful, whether deserved or not. In any case, they look down on American tattooing and believe theirs to be supreme. The tattoo master uses something crazy like 10 needles bound together to pierce the skin. The person being initiated into this crazy ritual must bear the pain and not show one grimace or cringing, so as to earn the respect of the master. Masochism was never a foreign concept for these people.