Yesterday it was 20 degrees for the first time in ages. That can only mean one thing.

Summer’s here! And more importantly, Road Trip season is here!

The Rules Of The Road (Trip)

I love road trips. I try to take one a year, usually to the far off mystical city of Toronto, where the nearest other big Canadian fighting games community is. I made many new friends thanks to these trips, and got into hilarious misadventures thanks to the zany group of geeks I travel with.

Due to the large number of trips taken, and the many silly incidents that occurred, I’ve come up with a bunch of unofficial rules that I try to follow.

1. Seats rotate (divide trip in 4)
The annual Toronto trip is as follows: 5 hours to get there, 5 hours to come home. There’s one stop each time, at roughly the 2.5 hour mark, in or near Kingston. This effectively splits the trip into 4 parts, and each passenger will have a different seat per part. The key I’ve found is to shotgun the backseat middle as soon as possible, and get it out of the way while you’re still fresh, so you can grab the front seat or one of the sides when you’re tired.

2. Driver gets priority
Seriously, the guy is driving about 5 hours each way, he deserves whatever he wants. If the driver needs a piss break, then goddamn he’s getting one. If the driver wants to fart and rolls up the windows to hotbox the car, then it’s hilarious. Deal with it.

3. Junk food is de rigueur
Road trips aren’t quite the same if you don’t eat some really greasy stuff that makes you feel like a teenager. I personally go for the Wendy’s, but it’s also acceptable to share a bucket of KFC with the boys if they’re into it.

4. If you’re gonna buy a porn mag, buy a 5-pack
This one may require an explanation. The last time we took a road trip, we stopped at a small town somewhere near Kingston. After sharing a bucket of chicken, we walked over to a small corner store to purchase some beverages and quench our thirst. As I was browsing the magazines, I noticed a big green sticker that said “5-PACK!” on a porn magazine.
“They sell porn magazines in 5-packs?” I thought. “More importantly, who still buys porn magazines? Don’t these people have the internet?”
So I pulled it off the shelf. Sure enough, there were 5 magazines taped together: one for each of us. Perfect. As I got into the car, I distributed them amongst the geeks, and let me tell you, it was hilarious. Cougars, foot fetish, shaving… I must’ve hit the kink jackpot. I saved the best one for the driver, of course, and as we showed him a centerfold spread, we were rewarded with a very loud exclamation.
“Why the FUCK does mine have a chick with a GODDAMN A DICK IN IT?!”
Yep. That one’s going down in the history books.

5. Gas gets split
This one’s kinda obvious. 5 people in the car, the gas gets split 5 ways. There’s no escaping it. If you’re part of the trip, then you’re pitching in for gas.

6. Figure out the sleeping situation beforehand
It’s very easy to get caught up in the ride details, as well as what we’re going to do at our destination (play fighting games), and forget about where we’re spending the night. We usually like to double check with our Toronto fighting gamers to ensure we can crash at one of their houses, but we have slept in very strange places before. Notable places of the past include parents’ house, the car, the floor of an all girls dorm, and no sleep at all, we just drove back all night. Which leads me to my next point…

7. Night driving requires a wingman
Not to be confused with the other kind. Driving at night is super dangerous, especially if the driver’s exhausted. If it can’t be avoided, make sure the geek in the front seat is awake, chatty, and keeping the driver up. We’ve had scares in the past where the car started drifting off the highway. Thankfully it hit the bumpy noisemaker things on the sides, and my friend woke up and yelled “oh boss get back on the road or we’ll never play Tekken again!”
Seriously. You can’t make stuff like that up.

8. No smelly people
I can’t emphasize this one enough. If someone has really bad BO, it will spoil the mood of the trip. Shower, do your laundry, wear some deodorant. Whatever you do, DON’T STINK. Because you’re only going to get sweatier and smellier as the drive goes on.
This rule came out as a direct result of the Smelly incident of 2007. You see, at the time, one of our members bailed at the last minute. Wanting to help out, my good buddy Travis (names changed to protect the innocent) asked if he could bring his friend, also a gamer, to save money on gas. We unfortunately agreed.

Before our departure, he and his friend, henceforth referred to as Smelly, spent the night at Al’s house. Apparently, Smelly’s mild stink increased to mad BO overnight. To remedy this, Al suggested a shower in the morning. Alas, it was not enough, and Smelly continued to reek as the day wore on.
It got so bad that the driver said “No Smelly in the front seat,” and according to rule #2, the driver gets what the driver wants.

Unfortunately, this meant that everyone in the back had to deal with Smelly, who by this point had moved on from his original wet dog smell and mutated into a dead fish odor. To compensate for this, we put Travis in the middle forever, so he’d constantly act as a buffer between us and his stinky friend. It still wasn’t enough. We rolled down the windows. Nope. People smoked to cover the smell. Shake head sadface.

After we arrived in Toronto, and spent the day playing games, we realized how awesome it was to breathe real air again. As the time neared to return home, Al went up to Smelly, handed him a freshly bought deodorant stick, and asked him to put it on. Smelly began applying it under his arms, when Al shook his head.

“No man, ALL OVER.”

We all silently applauded Al’s valor, but it was to no avail. The ride home smelled like a decomposing corpse and deodorant stick.

9. Music is videogames related, or Michael Jackson
In all the years we’ve road tripped together, there have only been only two occasions where the music was to everyone’s satisfaction.

The first was when we played the Final Fantasy VII official 4-CD soundtrack. It’s about 4.5 hours of music, which covers nearly the whole trip. And it’s amazing. I mean come on, who doesn’t like the FFVII soundtrack? Since then, it’s become a staple, and along with videogame related chiptune music, makes sweet love to everyone’s ears.

The second occasion was when someone put on the classic Michael Jackson Thriller album. Because no one argues with Thriller.

10. Kick ass! We’re going on a road trip!
Bags are packed, controllers are ready, tank is full, friends are together, fun has just begun, hurray!

Do you have any road trip rules? When was the last time you took one, and was it awesome?

This last two months have been a big fail. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve been failing a lot lately.

Since I returned home to Montreal nearly two months ago, I’ve been stuck at home for a total of three weeks thanks to some crazy diseases: pneumonia in April, and gastroenteritis right now.

I’ve been hit by a wave of failure with the women I’ve been approaching, getting blown out by nearly every girl for the past two weeks.

My work productivity hasn’t increased at all. In fact, I haven’t met a single one of my blog goals for April and May.

I didn’t cook as regularly as I promised myself I would, and have been eating out a lot, adding to my unhealthy regimen.

I’ve been losing at fighting games lately much more frequently than I usually do.

Finally, in part thanks to the two freaky diseases I caught, I haven’t built up the stamina I desired at the gym, nor have I reached the weight goal I set myself to be ready for the Spartan Race in June.

It feels like everything’s in a big downward spiral.

Why Failure Is Important

It seems almost cyclical, that things really go my way, and I’m on fire for a few months, then all of a sudden, everything unravels and goes to hell.

November to January seemed so full of promise, with the end of my TV work. February to March was a state of limbo, where things were uncertain. And April and May have so far been one big shit show.

As I took a night off to wallow in self-pity, I went through some old notes that I took when I interviewed a friend about his success. I found a quote that is nothing short of brilliant:

“If you never fail, you’re a fucking coward.”

I paused for a second, and remembered the conversation that spawned it.

“It’s like this: if you always succeed, it’s because you’re staying in your comfort zone and only doing the things you know you’re good at. Take the stable easy job that you know you can do, pick up the girl you don’t find attractive, win at the game you’ve played a thousand times before. But know in your heart that you’re still a goddamn coward for not pushing any boundaries.”

Whoa. Holy epic flashback Batman!

Pretty timely too.

A Bunch Of Solutions

It’s so easy to sit around and beat ourselves up over failures. It eats time, requires very little effort, and is probably more pleasurable short term than analyzing what’s wrong, changing the approach, and putting in extra work.

In my case, I realized I’m actually pushing all my boundaries at once, hence all the failures. The only things I couldn’t really control were the two illnesses I picked up: everything else is a result of a conscious decision I made.

Since getting nervous around a woman for the first time in ages, I’ve been only approaching women that make me nervous. Makes sense that I fail a lot, I have to work on my confidence and approach.

I’ve been losing at fighting games a lot because I’m learning King of Fighters XIII, a totally new game to me. And my cockiness was preventing me from seeing my mistakes.

My blog goals haven’t been met. This one’s hard to admit, but I’ve been lazy. Gotta suck it up and get to work.

Haven’t been cooking as much as I should. I think we’re all guilty of this one, so I’ll use the same method I did when I got in shape last year, and create a precise meal plan, which I then follow to the letter.

Finally, my gym goals. You know what? I was sick. I’ll give myself a pass on this guy. Hopefully by being more gentle with myself and eating better, my immune system will take care of everything except for the workout. I can handle those myself.

I don’t have a real solution for you folks today. What I do have are two questions you can ask yourself:

Have I failed lately? And is it because I’m pushing too hard, or not hard enough?

So there I was, sitting in front of the examination computer at the SAAQ, Montreal’s equivalent of the DMV. I was staring at question 13 of the multiple choice knowledge test I had to pass. And I was nervous as hell. I had answered 12 of the 14 questions, and gotten 4 wrong. That meant if I made one more mistake on either of the remaining questions, I was done.

My finger hovered over the answer. What if I hit the wrong one? I’d have to wait 28 days before being allowed to take this again. I’d also be a laughingstock, and take a walk of shame home. I kept hesitating and licking my lips, mulling over the terrible possibilities.

Finally, I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “Here goes nothing,” I though, and tapped on one of the answers.

The Origin Of My Plight

Question: how many 28-year-old men do you know that don’t have a driver’s license?

Answer: probably just me.

It’s a funny thing, a driver’s license. Seems like such a necessity to most adults I know, yet it’s never been urgent for me. I’ve been living in Montreal for about ten years now, and haven’t needed a car well, ever.

If I’m running errands or heading to work, it’s easier to take the metro. If I’m going out to party or dinner, it’s easier to catch a cab. In fact, the average cab ride in Montreal only comes up to about $10 with tip included. In comparison, if you factor in the cost of insurance, gasoline, maintenance, and whatever monthly payments you need to make on your car, it’s actually cheaper to take a taxi 1.5-2 times a day, every day of the month, than to own a vehicle.

That being said, about two years ago, I realized that a lot of jobs were inaccessible to me because I couldn’t drive.

In the interest of my career, I signed up for classes at a driving school in September 2010. That’s when the problems began.

How To Survive A Crisis

“Beep!”

The screen flashed a big sign that said “you have passed”!

Phew. Crisis averted. I could go home and laugh with my friends about almost failing the 14 question exam that… wait. What the hell?!

“Section 2: 16 questions. 5 wrong= fail. Please press to continue.”

Dammit. I knew that 14 questions sounded fishy. I began working on the next part of the exam, and before I knew it, I was at question 15, with 3 wrong answers. No problem, what are the odds I get the last two wrong?

“BEEP! WRONG! The correct answer was C,” the screen flashed.

Me and my big mouth. I was back in the same situation: last question, get one wrong and go home. Here goes nothing…

Why Driving Exams Now Suck

In the olden days of pre-2009, you would sign up at a driving school, do a month’s worth of lessons, and pass your exam. Done deal, driver’s license in 30 days.

In January 2010, a new law came into play, stating that to get a license in Quebec now required a minimum of 8 months wait. It also required 15 hours of driving courses, and a whopping 24 hours of in-class theory. Holy baby jeebus.

When I signed up on that fateful day in September, I was rewarded with 4 months’ worth of ridiculous classes, filled to the brim with texting teenagers and bored adults. Everything we were told in that class was a waste of time, and we were bombarded by brilliant questions such as “can anyone tell me what the head rest is for?” and “can anyone tell me what the lights on the back of the car are for?”

Yep.

I did the classes, and obtained my probationary license. I then began working in television, and couldn’t attend a single theory or driving class for almost 11 months, due to my crazy hours, and then moving to Toronto (turns out the credits aren’t transferrable between provinces).

Once I returned to Montreal in November, I signed up for as many courses and driving hours as was allowed. Given my insane travel schedule over the last few months, I was finally allowed to do the exam yesterday, and am finishing up the last course this week.

Can you believe it? 1 year, 9 months after signing up, I was done. Well, assuming I passed. Which brings us back to…

And The Verdict Is…

“BEEP! You’ve passed!”

I waited, suspecting a trap.

“BEEP! Next section: 36 questions, 9 wrong = fail.”

I knew it. Here we go again…

Question 1: correct. Question 2: correct. Question 3: WRONG! Question 4: correct…

32 questions and 4 wrong answers later, the screen flashed again.

“The exam is over!”

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed. “I still had 5 wrong answers I was allowed to have, why did the exam end? They can’t fail me yet, I…”

And then I paused, and read the rest of the page.

“The exam is over!

You’ve passed. Please see the attendant.”

Woo! I did it! I’m the best!

I got up, and swaggered out of there feeling like Spaceman Spiff. That exam was too easy.

After a hard fought battle in which he nearly succumbs to the dark powers of the exam, our hero rises up to the challenge and vanquishes all odds to save the day.

Got any hilarious driving stories you wanna share?