As any vehicle owner knows, an integral part of owning a vehicle is getting hit with a steady stream of fees and taxes just for the privilege of having personal transportation. And, fortunately, most of these expenses make at least some sense. But, here in Harrisonburg, VA, there’s one mandatory fee that really bothers me: city tax stickers.

First, a bit of introduction to Virginia taxes, for those who don’t live here. In Virginia, the tax code allows cities, counties, and some towns to collect a personal property tax on motor vehicles, trailers, boats, and other assorted vehicles. And, since it’s an easy revenue stream, the vast majority of counties and independant cities in the state collect this tax (whether or not it’s fair is debatable, but Virginia is one of the cheapest states to own a vehicle in without figuring this tax into the equation). So, since this is handled separately from any other vehicle-related fees, localities need an easy way to see which vehicles have been paid for. The traditional method of doing this is with city stickers.

Now, logically, one would assume that when the tax is paid, the taxpayer receives a sticker to replace their old one. And, indeed, this is how most localities that use city stickers implement them. However, Harrisonburg does things differently, running the city stickers almost like their own vehicle registration system. Paying the personal property tax is typically done in November or December, but the city stickers aren’t replaced until March. And, the part that really irritates me is that in addition to the personal property tax, the city charges almost thirty dollars just for the sticker! That’s almost as much as license plates/registration in this state. The only reason for the sticker is to avoid getting pulled over/ticketted for not having one within the city. That’s it! It’s completely arbitrary, and the fee keeps going up (used to be $15, and it may have even been less before that). Considering how many people live in this city, I find it impossible to believe that the stickers themselves and the administration overhead to sell them costs anywhere close to that.

Unfortunately, without state-level legislation to ban this ridiculous practice, it’s unlikely to change. It’s a per-vehicle fee that’s completely arbitrary, and nearly impossible to avoid if you have a vehicle registered in this city, so they have no real incentive to stop doing it. Virginia’s DMV already has provisions in place to link local personal property tax databases to the state registration system, so a person can’t renew their license plates without paying personal property tax, and they no longer have to sell/distribute and enforce the stickers. Many areas have taken advantage of this, but unless Virginia makes this the standard practice state-wide (which I would readily support), I guarantee that Harrisonburg will one of the last cities to switch to it, if they ever do.

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Once again, Harrisonburg utterly fails at city planning. This is getting really old.

In an effort to turn every square foot of undeveloped land into high-density townhouses/apartments, the city let a developer pretty much go nuts with a section of land that isn’t very easy to get to. The area grew up, lots of people moved in, and…oh look, a road that most residents didn’t know we had now has too much traffic on it. Funny how that works, considering that the exact same thing happened with the Harrisonburg Crossing shopping center (”uh, why do we have constant gridlock on the only road that leads to our new shopping center?”).

So, they want to extend the road (which is currently a dead-end) and connect it to a major road a block away. Fine, whatever, this happens all the time. Except, instead of determining in advance where the road should go and routing it properly, they waited until the last minute, and decided that the only way it could connect is by running it right through someone’s house. Oh, and it’s among the oldest houses in the area.

You’d think that historical preservation would be a high priority for region obsessed with the “War of Northern Aggression”, but in this case, the city appears to not care. Nice.

The claim that “improved fire department access” is a reason for doing this is particularly amusing. There’s a small fire department on the road they want to extend, and they presumably want to make it easier for them to get to apartments along the road they want to connect to. Except, they don’t really have that much trouble with that now. It only adds an extra half-block to take the current route instead of the proposed route, and while there is a bad intersection involved, it’s only bad because of traffic on those roads. The visibility is pretty awesome, and if you’re in a big loud truck with spinny red lights, it’s a breeze to get through. Add a well-adjusted traffic light with an Opticom sensor to it, and you’ll not only make it a safer intersection for everyone, but you create a prioritized route for fire trucks. I fail to see how making a new intersection, which is guaranteed to have poor visibility due to the surrounding area, is a superior idea in that regard.

I used to really like Harrisonburg, but it continually does everything wrong when it comes to running a city. They let developers run wild in the name of growth, without any consideration for what will happen, and it’s getting worse every year. I don’t even want to think about the gigantic new downtown apartment complex with no parking areas is going to do to that part of town. Combined with everything else, I’ve pretty much stopped caring about Harrisonburg as a city, and I don’t plan to make this my home any longer than I have to.

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Continuing the trend of local news that ticks me off or disappoints me, my favourite music store is closing its doors at the end of this month. Plan 9 is a regional chain that, despite how rarely I actually shop for CDs, was always enjoyable to visit. They have a suprisingly good selection of mainstream stuff, in addition to being the central resource for local bands, and with the unmatched variety of the used section, I could always spend hours there looking for treasures.

The chain isn’t completely going out of business, thankfully, but all of the locations except Richmond and Charlottesville are closing down.

Really makes me wonder if something else will open up, or if Harrisonburg will continue the trend of cramming in more generic nationwide chains at the expense of local flavour (and then whining when they can’t keep businesses in their precious downtown). This city is already as soul-less as a midwestern strip mall, it really doesn’t need to get any worse. I honestly have a hard time telling the difference between Harrisonburg and Pittsburgh’s fringe suburbs anymore, it’s just so bland around here.

I always thought that Virginia would be one of the last states in the US to get a state-wide ban on smoking in restaurants/public places. This is one of the most tobacco-friendly states (that produces a huge amount of it), where several big tobacco companies are based, and it’s always been behind the times on tobacco laws. We had the nation’s lowest cigarette tax until just a few years ago.

But, a few days ago, it passed. And I, for one, couldn’t be happier.

It always surprises me to see where some of the opposition to these bans comes from; in addition to the smokers themselves, many rather liberal-minded non-smokers I’ve talked to also feel that restaurants should be free to allow smoking in their establishments if they want to. I see the logic; there are a ton of things people are allowed to do in restaurants (or anywhere else), in the name of personal freedom, so why should smoking cigarettes be any different?

The reason it should be different is that, in an open room, smoke permeates the entire room, and a smoker’s right to smoke in such an environment interferes with my right to breathe. The people I hear supporting smoker’s rights are typically the same people who insist that the rights of one group must not trample the rights of another group. So, could someone explain to me why the right of someone to fill a public room with dangerous, sickening fumes on a whim should trample my right to breathe clean air and not have to dig for an inhaler?

Now, I do agree with the anti-ban group on one point; ideally, the restaurant owners should be the ones to decide. And, some have, there are a handful of restaurants in the town I live in that are already smoke-free. But, the vast majority allow smoking because they feel they have to, or it’s the way things have always been, or any number of other idiotic reasons, and without legislation to enforce this, it’s unlikely to change anytime soon. In the meantime, those of us who want to see all you smokers set yourselves on fire have to do constant research to figure out where we can and can’t go to eat in peace, while smokers can go to any restaurant they want. Yes, that’s right, if you’re a smoker, you can still go to a non-smoking restaurant, just don’t smoke in the damn building! See how easy that is? Personally, I don’t see why smokers don’t do that anyway, I can’t imagine food tastes very good mixed with smoke, but that’s beside the point.

And for all the restaurant owners who are worried that this will affect their business? Chill. Seriously. Plenty of states have passed far more restrictive smoking bans than Virginia’s new one (it’s still rather lax, for my tastes, but at least I’ll be able to go to late-night places for a change), and the world didn’t end. In fact, some of you will probably get better business from people like me. You’ll probably get some whiners at first, but they’ll get used to it; they can either go outside like they’d have to do at any other sane business (hotels, hospitals, grocery stores, movie theaters…), or you can stick ‘em in a glass jar like they do at airports. You have more to worry about if you try to circumvent the new law, because I’m sure I’m not the only one who’ll have the health department in their speed-dial once this goes into effect.

…

[takes a deep breath]

I realize that what I wrote is going to upset some people. And, well, I don’t care. I’m not typically a very divisive or hate-filled person, but every time I go out for a nice meal and gag on a whiff of burning tobacco, I have seething urge to find the culprit and make them eat the damn cigarette. It’s the same instinct that makes me want to destroy every cellphone that lights up or makes noise in the theater, or think up new recipes for dead child every time I hear a screaming baby in a public venue. We all have anger-buttons, those are mine. Cigarettes, cellphones, and yowling babies.

And, before the accusations start coming in:
-No, I’m not addicted to anything myself (except caffeine, which is surprisingly annoying to be addicted to for someone who doesn’t start their day with it), so I don’t know what it’s like. I don’t care, either; there’s an entire industry dedicated to breaking the habit, give it a try sometime.
-Yes, I have friends who smoke, though very few of them smoke cigarettes. The ones who do know better than to light up in any enclosed space with a non-smoker, especially me.

So, despite the fact that the new law is somewhat half-assed, congratulations to Virginia for passing it. You’ve finally sorta-caught up to every state north of us.

Awhile back, I heard that cellphone companies were going to start offering personal coverage extenders to be installed in one’s home, to enhance their networks for users who have difficulty getting decent signal strength in their house/apartment. In theory, this should be really easy to sell; you get awesome service at your house, and the company gets reduced network load over their primary towers. Everyone wins!

Well, not quite. In the spirit of all things related to cellphones, all of the companies offering this service are really screwing it up. For instance, AT&T, which hasn’t quite launched theirs yet, will offer these features:

• Up to four simultaneous users supported
• No unauthorized access
• Supports 3G data service
• Unlimited minute plans available

Ok, so not too bad, honestly. But, notice the wording of the last point; unlimited minute plans available. In cellphone-speak, that means that you have to pay extra to get unlimited use of a network device you paid for, that’s attached to your internet connection. In other words, by purchasing this device, you’re basically paying for the privilege of reducing AT&T’s network load, with no real benefit aside from better service in your house.

Unfortunately, it only gets worse from here. Let’s take a look at the microcell offering of Sprint, my new provider:

• No unauthorized access
• No data service supported
• Unlimited minute plans available

Similar to AT&T’s offering, but without data coverage. But, the kicker is in the pricing: $99.99 one-time price for the base unit, $4.99/month to use it. Not only do you have to buy the device itself (which isn’t that big of a deal, honestly), but you have to pay a monthly fee just to use the thing. That monthly fee doesn’t provide any sort of extra minutes, or unlimited use, it’s just an arbitrary fee for no real reason. To get unlimited use of it, it’s $10/month per line, or $20/month per family-plan account.

The worst offender, however, is Verizon, my former provider. They already kinda suck at billing, and at high-speed coverage (among other things), so it should be no surprise that they completely flubbed their microcell offering (despite being the originator of the idea, claiming it would be the “weapon of the century”).

The only point in Verizon’s favour is the lack of a monthly fee to simply use the device, like Sprint requires. However, their microcell device doesn’t support data service, doesn’t even offer an unlimited calling option for using it, and costs a whopping $250. But, the most insulting part of their microcell product is the fact that you can’t restrict its use to only authorized users. You can give priority to your own account/your family plan, and it only supports three users at a time, but any random user in-range will see a microcell as an ordinary cell tower.

So, let me get this straight, Verizon. You want me to pay $250 to set up a low-range public cell tower in my home, using my broadband connection? How the heck is that beneficial to me? Oh, and if they’re encouraging this to be used in areas where the signal is pretty much unusable, that means that the device will have a nearly constant load on the user’s internet connection, due to other Verizon users in the area being routed through it. Shouldn’t they be the one’s paying us for this?

A new committee says they’re recommending ABC Cabs be allowed to continue operating in Harrisonburg.

Harrisonburg’s City Council recently approved a new committee to look at the renewal process for companies’ certificates to operate in the city.

Last year ABC Cabs co-owner Musa Syed was found guilty of misusing state inspection stickers. A few weeks later, its city certificate was up for renewal, but the city council delayed approval.

The council will have final say on whether to approved ABC Cabs’ certificate. A public hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday.

ABC Cabs to Receive Endorsement on WHSV.com

Great, just what this town needs, the sleazy, nasty cab company re-opening and taking business from the legitimate ones. We already have two successful cab companies, a cheap one (Yellow) and a nicer one (Royal), and both of them run legitimate operations with good workers. ABC, on the other hand, cuts every possible corner they can to save money, their drivers are downright scary, and they still barely break even. Half their cars are falling apart (literally), they make every effort to circumvent the licensing process that they can get away with, and they’ll hire anyone who walks in the door as a driver without so much as a driving record check. As a testament to their sketchy business model, their cabs are marked using vinyl stick-on letters from Wal-Mart that usually aren’t even lined up.

This town simply doesn’t have enough business to support three cab companies, and I would love to see this one shut down for good.

Update (Feb 10, 2009): ABC’s taxi license for the city has been renewed by unanimous vote. Yippie.

Virginia’s insurance lobby continues to fight hard against passage of a bill that would require insurance companies to offer coverage for artificial limbs as an option to their policyholders.

The insurance industry wants to continue treating prosthetic limbs as a medical luxury while amputees demand that the costs be treated the same as other major medical expenses. To make progress in their efforts, amputees offered a compromise and ask the insurance companies to work with them on taking a step in the right direction.

On Thursday in Virginia’s General Assembly, Sen. Fred Quayle, one of the SB 1116’s supporters recently amended the proposed legislation’s language, changing it from a “required benefit” to an “offered benefit.”

The change requires insurers to offer and make available prosthetic coverage that treats the cost of artificial limbs in the same way policies cover other major medical expenses, but unlike the original legislation, it does not mandate that every policy contain this coverage…

Bill Covering Artificial Limbs for Amputees on WHSV.com

Am I the only person who’s surprised that this isn’t already covered by insurance? How the heck is a replacement limb a “luxury”? Admittedly, I’ve only known one person who lost a limb, and I haven’t seen her in person since the accident, but I really fail to see how any insurance company could cover sexual disfunction treatments and wigs/breasts for cancer survivors, and not cover this. I really hope this passes.

A favourite comedian of mine recently posted an article on his blog about a trip he took to Australia, and a passenger on the plane. The article is a touch on the vulgar side, so I won’t copy/paste the text here, but I highly recommend reading it.

The short version is that, on his flight, he was seated next to a woman with a 7-year-old girl. Everything was peachy, the little girl was polite and well-behaved, and he was having a good flight. But, when dinner was served, the woman became indignant and refused food for herself and her daughter because it had meat in it, and there was no vegetarian option. The little girl asked if she could have chicken, because she was hungry, but the mom refused because “it’s disgusting”. Hours later, they came through with a snack (sandwiches of some sort), and the mother again refused to let her daughter have anything. A few more hours went by, and it was breakfast time, and this scene repeated itself. At this point, the little girl was starting to feel ill, and the mother started going seat to seat begging for food, trying to blame this on the airline. Other passengers, who didn’t see what was going on, offered bits of their breakfast, which the mother rudely refused because “it’s disgusting”.

This story was originally told in a humourous manner, but it really disturbs me. I’ve seen all sorts of bad parenting, but the idea of a parent witholding food from a seven-year-old girl on a 12-hour flight based on self-imposed dietary preferences is just unforgivable. This is the kind of stuff where Child Protective Services needs to get involved, just like with those psychos who refuse medical care of any kind for their children based on religious beliefs.

Yesterday, my sister picked up the latest zero-day exploit for IE. This seems to happen to her computer every few months, because she keeps going to these nasty websites that are so popular with teenage morons. This one she picked up because she searched for song lyrics to a recent song, and clicked on the first hit Google gave her. Bad idea.

I spent a few hours working on the system yesterday, ran an overnight virus scan, and cleared out some trojans. Everything seemed to be fine.

Today, she said it was still acting up. I’ll spare y’all the details, but I basically spend my entire evening after work trying to chase down this virus and get rid of it. After three hours, and with my entire evening pretty much gone, I finally had it taken care of. And of course, I don’t get paid for maintaining systems on my own network, nor did I even get a “thank you” this time (an unusual occurance). And, the computer that I am being paid to fix (my favourite kind of customer, with more money than sense, and who throws big numbers at me before I can say how much I’m charging) is now delayed by another day.

I’m tired of this. I disabled IE in Group Policy for her account, and told her to use Firefox. That didn’t used to be a catch-all fix for stupidity, but it’s starting to be. If she manages to get infected by a virus again, I’ll fix it when I feel like getting around to it.

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Work isn’t particularly inspiring this week either. Our client for this current project is never satisfied, and keeps coming up with stuff that needs to be changed. After taking a week to finish the massive bug list he dropped on us last weekend, and spending my weekend adding a feature that was a pain due to the way the site is coded, he came up with a dozen more on Monday. This put me into “I’m going to finish this as fast as absolutely possible because I hate this project” mode, but I ran out of steam for today, and couldn’t quite get going on anything.

Am I the only one who still uses Windows 2000, and who still installs it on fresh computers from time to time?

I was setting up a new workstation for my mom recently, for her home office. Her usage habits could be satisfied with a 486, so I used a spare system (which is actually pretty decent), upgraded a few bits here and there, and started installing an OS. This computer could, in theory, run Windows XP, but just barely. So, as with most of the older systems I have, I decided to install Windows 2000 instead. It’s comparable in almost every regard, and it uses a small fraction of the system resources.

Right after installing network drivers, my first stop was Windows Updates. And, after installing the necessary components, I was informed that IE 5 (the default for Windows 2000) was not supported for Windows Update, and I would need to upgrade to IE 6. I clicked the link to the IE page, which was full of hype for IE 8 and IE 7 (both of which require XP at a bare minimum). Umm, how do I get IE 6? I scrolled down the page, and finally, in the bottom-left corner, I saw a link that said “Your version of Windows does not support IE 7, click here for IE 6″. I clicked, went to a knowledge base article. I clicked the download link, which took me to another knowledge base article. I clicked another download link, and the browser froze.

After repeating these steps two more times, the last time with javascript disabled, I discovered a fallacy in the system. The download page for IE 6 uses a javascript that freezes IE 5, but without that script running, it is 100% impossible to download IE 6. Nice work, dipshits, you’ve locked new installations of Windows 2000 (which is still supported enough that this is a problem) out of Windows Update completely.

Thankfully, a long time ago, I downloaded the distribution package for IE 6 SP1 (which is no longer available from Microsoft, it seems), on the off-chance that I would ever need to do this. Almost five years later, it actually proved to be useful. Yay for being a software-packrat!