My first moving violation

I managed to go more than 10 years of licensed driving without ever getting a ticket for anything – or even getting pulled over for anything. Sadly, that all came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago when I learned an expensive lesson about the speed limit in school zones in South Dakota. I was driving under the assumption that the limit was 25 for school zones, like it is in Iowa. Apparently, despite the lack of a posted speed limit sign anywhere in the vicinity, I was supposed to know that the speed limit is 15 in South Dakota schoool zones. But seriously, when was the last time you actually saw anyone going 15 mph just because there's a high school three blocks away?

So, I got clocked doing 34 mph, which makes sense since I always try to drive exactly 9 mph over the speed limit with the assumption that anything less than 10 mph over is not worth the cops' time because they won't be able to slap you with a big enough fine. That assumption probably would have held true, except I was actually going 19 mph over the ridiculously low 15-mph speed limit.

I've heard through the pop culture grapevine that it's possible for women to get out of speeding tickets if you play dumb and act kind of overly polite/flirty/ditzy. I tried, but I guess I'm not very good at playing that game, since I still ended up with a $100 ticket.

But now, the worst part is I just set the ticket on the top of my pile of bills to pay by the end of the month. So I picked it up to mail in the payment today, and I realized that they were supposed to have it by Nov. 22, or else they're going to issue a warrant for my arrest. Damnit, that's what I get for not reading the fine print. So I'm sending in the money today, and I'm hoping that when they get it, they'll cancel the warrant, even though the ticket doesn't say that anywhere and doesn't give me any kind of number to call to find out. All I know is that I'll be really upset – and actually kind of frightened – if I have to spend time in the slammer.

Damn rental conspiracy

Maybe it's just because I've lived in such small, crappy towns in the past, but I've never been in a situation were I was being forced to sign a yearlong lease after already completing a yearlong lease.

Basically, my year lease at my apartment runs out at the end of January. The management here sent me a lovely letter last week giving me a rundown of my options – i.e. we can screw you a lot or screw you even more. They said they're going to raise my rent by $30 a month, but only if I sign another year lease. If I do not want to sign a year lease, I have the oh-so-generous option of signing a six-month lease, with which they will raise my rent by $80 a month.

I am completely incensed by this whole thing. In my experience, after you sign a year lease and it runs out, you go month-by-month. But, all my other experiences have been in small towns. So, I'm wondering, is this how most rental situations work? If so, that's pretty depressing. The stupid rental company is basically dictating my life, telling me I will never be able to move on my own timeline without paying a severe financial penalty for it.

I'm kicking around the idea of moving to a different apartment complext just because I'm so pissed about their bogus set of "options" that they laid out for me. But I'm not sure that things would be better anywhere else. I fear that this is how the entire rental market is run. The greedy bastards.

Right-wing hypocrisy exposed

Ahhh, there's nothing more satisfying than seeing the hypocrisy of the religious right exposed. That's why at work, we've been having a field day with the Ted Haggard story. An influential evangelical leader and homophobic crusader against gay marriage didn't just allegedly have gay sex, he freakin' paid a gay prostitute for gay sex while high on methamphetamine. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Or does it? I think a lot of these homophobic clowns are probably closeted gay drug users. The more homophobic they are, the more likely they're trying to cover up their own gayness. So, Santa, if you're reading this, what I'd like for Christmas this year is to see Iowa Rep. Steve King's gay sex life exposed.

For anyone not familiar with good ol' Steve King, a brief background: He's a congressman who represents northwest Iowa. He's actually attracted some national headlines in the past for his extremist right-wing views. Most recently, he accused
Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver (who's also running for governor as a Democrat) of violating the state’s English-only law by posting voter registration forms in Spanish on a state Web site. Basically, he hates gay people, Hispanic people, nonChristians and anyone who doesn't look like him and the white, insular voters of northwest Iowa.

So, I'm putting out a call to Steve King's gay sex partner – who might even happen to be Hispanic – to come forward and share the details of your sordid relationship with the good congressman. You owe it to us. Come on, what's he ever done for you?

Oh yeah, hearing from James Dobson's gay lover would be pretty cool, too. That's not too much to ask, is it?