Yup. It's 21st September again. Let's talk about that for a moment....
Stephen King is fifty-seven today. Bill Murray is fifty-four. HG Wells is dead. Jeepers is mythical. Summer is over.
And I'm off the grid.
True story: I checked. Here's how this alarmingly idiotic, bureaucratic bullshit 'works'....
Once upon a time, I got a driver's licence. Which wasn't actually difficult, back then. This was at a time when the US still had a constitution, instead of Attorney General John Assloaf. So, getting a licence was basically a matter of taking a couple of tests in which you're able to prove, for that moment, that you can pay more attention to laws than to survival while operating a car. Also, in terms of being yourself [notwithstanding driving like a robot programmed by a moron], the otherwise self-evident truth of that factor could be ascertained by asking someone who also knew who you were. Which is to say that identity was the net result of someone saying that you were you, having already shown that they were they, regardless who'd previously shown that those were...um...were they.
That process worked, so they've ditched it in favour of eliminating all logic in this benighted country.
A year ago today, my licence expired. A fact which, for all it matters, I discovered on Friday afternoon. Which is to say that I'd suspected that it had expired long before last Friday, but the police-controlled licence scanner at the Comedy Club disagreed with my assessment of the licence's condition, so I deferred to its judgment, since computers never make mistakes. Or, they do; but only after cops make mistakes. And cops are, as far as I'm concerned, accountable for those mistakes, absolving me of blame after interest.
Anyway: my licence expired a year ago. On Friday, I got someone accountable to agree with me about that. By calling the Department of Transportation and asking about it.
Also, I asked how I might get my licence unexpired, in the event that the act might somehow appeal to me.
And there's the proverbial rub.
In order to unexpire my licence, I'll have to go in to the DoT [curiously, the DoT never mentioned whether I should drive there or not] with my expired licence which no longer counts as identification, and bring along a state-issued birth certificate which, having nothing on it resembling my visage, would serve as evidence of my identity.
Let's make sure we're all caught up on this issue before we move on.
The licence issued by the state is not evidence to the state of my identity, because the licence is expired, which means only that the state in existence a year ago was staffed by morons who are not to be trusted by the state extant in 2004. And yes, I confirmed this declaration with the DoT, explicitly and verbatim.
The shorthand is that the DoT are self-confessed morons. Let's move on.
In the event that I want to unexpire my licence, I'll want to do it before, say, Tuesday 21st September 2004; because, as of that magical instant, the licence which is no longer considered proof of my identity will no longer be considered proof of my identity. A declaration I additionally confirmed explicitly and verbatim with the drooling twerp by which my phone had been infected.
As of Tuesday, which is to say today, my useless licence becomes useless. Now, I need a state-issued birth certificate and proof of marriage.
I ascertained that explicitly and verbatim.
Also, I'm not married.
Additionally also, marriage has recently become a hot issue of civil rights and the fourteenth amendment, and the entire, bullshit, bronzeaged concept, if required by any governmental entity, therefore serves as evidence of theocracy.
I bounced that off the twerp; it confirmed my suspicions explicitly and verbatim.
But: it won't matter, since I've got Friday on which to get this all taken care of, thusly avoiding the whole fucking—
Strike that. The computers are down. Statewide. Friday's no good. But, they promise, I can do it on Monday, which falls before Tuesday, while my licence, expired, remains useless, but not utterly useless. Explicit and verbatim.
Monday.
I drive down to the DoT on Monday. Their computers are down. Statewide. Come back on Tuesday.
But, on Tuesday, coming back will do no good, because my licence will have evolved from expired to extinct. As mentioned explicitly and verbatim, intertwined with the contractual fraud on the part of the state regarding my ability to do this all on Monday.
This is known in more literate circles as an impasse.
No problem, they tell me explicitly and verbatim, once I've been transferred to their superiors, the president, the UN, and, finally, the head of the Colorado Department of Transportation—the flowchart not of actual power, but of satirical officiousness—since it's all their fault, I can come in on my birthday with a state-issued birth certificate and proof of marriage. Explicit and verbatim.
I'm not sure how in the living hell things got this silly, but they very much well did.
Bad news, Theocrats: I'm not married. In fact, granting that marriage requires a state-issued licence, which requires a state-imposed fee, I can promise that I'll never be fucking married, because I'll never pay these imbeciles a halfcent for anything more than synchronized suicide choreographed to the StarSpangled Banner.
Nevertheless: I should renew my licence. Giving me twenty-four hours to invent a state-issued birth certificate [no mean task, granting that hospitals issue those things] and to get married, and to get back to the DoT full of imbeciles who can't ascertain my identity through a state-issued, if expired, driver's licence. Explicit and verbatim.
Fine.
I look into the matter, and, a state-issued birth certificate would take seven to ten business years to be made up and snailmailed to me, in the event that it were already on file. That the name on my licence appears on no other state-issued documentation I've ever seen could add some time to that, while I crack into their system and invent it for them to find, print, and mail to me sometime in October.
So, I didn't bother with all that.
Curiosly, what I could actually use instead of a marriage certificate would be proof of name change, which is, in cases, pretty well the same thing. In other cases, of course, it's proof that you had one name, which was attached to an identity you were calling your own, though nothing in the birth certificate actually showed anyone what you looked like, and then modified the name on that birth certificate to something you wanted to have. Which is to say that, in order to prevent identity fraud at the DoT, the DoT have you steal a birth certificate, and then change its name to one you'd rather have on your licence. A process which I've, erm...never officially personally used...as far as I'd be willing to admit.
I ascertained that I was understanding that option, explicitly and verbatim. For the first time, the 'tard on the phone seemed to fully grok how stupid their system really was. This, again, was the actual head of the CDoT, who, prior to talking to me, whose identity it still doesn't actually know, had never worked out how easy they were making it for people to create new identities, while preventing people from using their real ones.
One more thing I ascertained, explicitly and verbatim: the CDoT lack the eighteenth-century technology of fingerprinting, which came as a shock to me, since, in 1993, I got a licence here in Denver, and they wanted my fingerprints [optionally, at the time] to serve as, what else, additional evidence of identity, presumably for later use. But, again: that was in 1993, back when the US had some actual reason to exist.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm fine with having a state-issued licence, provided they don't actually expect me to tell them where I live. I'm just not willing to do more than tell them to make it happen, granting that, in theory, I'm the one paying them. Which makes sense, since the State of Colorado can't afford me. Or, they could; but I'd have to add enough in hazard pay for subjecting me to drooling morons that...the settlement these idiots got from the Conglomerated Cigarette Manufacturing Martyrs would make a fair down payment, nonrefundable, while I think about calling them back. They're that fucking stupid.
Also, they're unnecessary, in fact.
By the letter of the law, a driver's licence is required only for operating a motor vehicle. By the letter of a different law, a motor vehicle is a mode of transport used in the pursuit of remuneration. Which differs from a commercial vehicle in that a motor vehicle isn't charging per unit of distance to convey ConsumerX from PointA to PointB, but instead conveys EmployeeX from Home to Office, in legal application.
Since I'm not registered anywhere as an employee, I can't be accused of driving anywhere in pursuit of monetary gain. Instead, I'm operating a Private Conveyance, which right is guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment. Yay for me.
Not that cops get that, being cops, and thusly being a subspecies, in application, of the DoT, whom are self-confessed morons. But lawyers and judges seem to get it, based on the precedents set by those few who have also happened across this fun little loophole and exploited it for all it was worth. Which is, in fact, roughly $0. In that it involves paying about $0 to the imbeciles in the State, whose services are, explicitly and verbatim, of no particular use to me.
So, I lack a licence. Which is to say that I lack an identity. At least until the State prove themselves dumber still by making any additional attempt to require me to get a licence, but also require me to prove my identity. At which point they can arrest me for attempted fraud, and either A) fail to prosecute me because I don't exist, or B) ascertain my identity, which was the very identity I attempted to defraud them into falling for, exonerating me of the charge of fraud, and allowing me to sue the State for 1) libel, 2) wrongful prosecution, and 3) existing.
We'll wait and see whether the State are actually that fucking stupid.
So, I drove off to the mall today. In my Private Conveyance. I like doing that. And I grabbed a few things. Like the Star Wars DVSet and the PS2 format of Battlefront. And some coffee. The coffee was good; I haven't worked out much about the other stuff, since I Privately Conveyed myself home and leapt over here to the computer to remind everyone that I'm surrounded by idiots. But I'll get to them in a moment.
Um...I guess I'll go get to them now. That's pretty well all I had for news today, really.
More later....
--Gremlin

Forgot to add tags for this stupid entry.