EvilTemptress

It was a slow day at work. I was whining to a friend of mine, Czeano, about craving entertainment. He told me to go read E2. I did.

I had been there before. He'd been telling me for years that I needed to join. But when I poked around, I didn't understand the site. The links seemed to lead to random places. People wrote about weird things. I thought it was lacking in coherancy.

Until that day. I started to really read it all. I followed random links. I got enveloped in stories. I learned things I'd never known before. And then it happened.

Misinformation.

I read about a thing or two I did know something about. And it seemed to me that the nodes were sometimes incomplete or misleading. I wanted them fixed. I wanted the truth out there for anyone else looking.

I knew it might as well be me that fixes them.

Maybe I'll add some things that are completely new, if there are subjects out there that no one has managed to touch on yet. Maybe I won't write much. But I'll write what I can. Anyone here looking for actual information deserves to view a complete picture.

The name is a nickname my former roommate gave me. It always made us laugh, and it seems as good a name as any.

So here goes. I'm just getting started.

. . . So clearly it's about time I started meeting noders!

Noders I've met:

For reasons I don't fully comprehend, the length of time it takes me to drive to work directly corresponds to how much time I allow myself to get to work. And by "allow" I mean "allow, assuming I park my car, run to the door, and make it to my desk roughly a minute later than I should be there".

I hate being late to work. It really bothers me to not arrive at least ten or fifteen minutes early. However, when I leave ten or fifteen minutes earlier than I would need to by my definition of "allow", I am guaranteed to get caught by enough traffic lights, obscenely slow drivers, and pileups behind accidents that I arrive no earlier than I would have had I left ten or fifteen minutes later.

Why do I bother? Because some little part of me needs to believe that I have some control over when I arrive at work. After all, I am the driver. I know how long it should take me to get there. I am an engineer, and I have the inner longing to plan out every aspect of my life, especially my commutes. I want to be able to arrive as quickly as possible with as little variation in my schedule as possible. I want everything to work out perfectly.

But the Laws of Chance laugh at me. They care not for my plight. The more I try to control, the more variables are thrown into the mix.

And I get screwed.

Today I left my apartment giving myself an extra ten minutes to arrive at work, hoping that that perhaps would be enough to arrive on time. The Laws of Chance had a different idea.

Everything was going well at first. There were no major discrepancies in Time Continuity, and it took me an appropriate length of time to travel most of the distance. The only major obstacle I had left was a tricky left-handed turn a few blocks from my work, tricky because the left-turn light isn't green for very long. Typically, a handful of cars can get through the light if they speed and ignore the yellow. If every car hits the gas quickly, roughly half the cars in the turning lane can make the turn before the light goes red. Then, the remaining cars get the privilege of waiting about five minutes as the lights go through their entire rotation. It's exciting stuff.

I approached this light still running 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Of course, the Laws of Chance could not bear the idea of me making it to work at an appropriate time. So they caused a massive car pileup roughly 3 blocks long in the left hand lane.

I looked at the cars, horrified. This would require at least a twenty-minute wait just to get through the light. I quickly decided I would not be able to handle sitting in traffic that long and certainly forfeiting my carefully arranged schedule. So I pulled into the next lane over, which had NO pile up, and kept driving, considering my options. I could go past my turn, pull into some business, and backtrack. This would eat the ten minutes I was ahead, but would not make me ten minutes behind. This appeared to be my best option, until I approached the previously mentioned now-nicknamed Traffic Light of Doom.

In the turning lane, right next to me, was a semi-truck. When the light turned green, said semi could not accelerate very quickly. I, in a rash and uncharacteristic move, cut in front of him (which didn't really slow him down at all) and made the dreaded left-hand turn, having managed to avoid the twenty-minute wait. I was very pleased with myself.

I had tricked the Laws of Chance. They were angered. As my punishment, every car I followed went absurdly slow for the last bit of the trip. I still managed to arrive a work a few minutes early, but alas! The door was locked! I could not get inside (as I haven't been issued a key) until I could beg someone else to let me in!

And ultimately, the Laws of Chance had once again had their way. I got to my desk, as always, about a minute later than I should have officially arrived.