It was time to get my car, grumble, to the inspection station. New Jersey used to have tight inspection routines, including twice a year, as seen in the classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 short X Marks The Spot, but long ago they loosened things up to one a year, and fairly recently they went to one inspection every other year, and decoupled it entirely from car registrations, which seems incredibly lax and vaguely immoral. And with an abundant sixty days to get whatever it failed on repaired I had motivation to wait as long as I could in the month before eating into my repair-time margin.
So the wait at the inspection station today (Saturdays they close at noon, and Monday who knows what hours they would have thanks to the New Year) the sign up front warned correctly would be about 34 minutes long. I also discovered what I sort of expected, that I couldn't really listen to a book-on-tape at the same time I read a book-on-paper and get much material from either.
Something I don't suppose I'll ever quite get are the people who wait through the lines at inspection and then, when they're next in their lane, drive out and away, un-inspected. Maybe they're missing paperwork, but since the papers needed are your driver's license, the car's registration, and proof of insurance, there's not much reason for about one car in twelve to discover they're missing. Maybe some people like sitting in inspection lines. It does bring joy to the people who were behind to now be one car closer to done.
After being separated from my car the inspection folks went at it, and I braced myself for the roster of failures. Emissions and maybe the fact the rear view mirrors don't respond to the controls were my bets. So I was stunned when the guy scraped off the old sticker and put on one expiring December 2009: the car passed. ``Seriously?'' was my response. Maybe they just let every thousandth car through.
On my way out the emergency brake light started flickering, though the brake was fully off.
Trivia: Pisa was sacked by Vikings in 860. Source: Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa, Nicholas Shrady.
Currently Reading: Croyd, Ian Wallace. The cover promises it's A brilliant new SF novel about the world of ``downtiming'' and ``uptiming'', so finally I'll have no more excuse to make ignorant comments about this world or the importance of its down- and up-timing.