Once again I’ve been doing nothing. Though I have finally got my semester marks today. Always a sign of the beginning of the end… I like getting results… A generally scatterbrained perfectionist I don’t keep track of things like individual results and I generally belittle my own capabilities so all in all its a pleasant surprise to get results. I wouldn’t have given myself such a good mark in language (the equivalent of an a B, HA, Distinction, 6… I’ve run out of equivalent marking systems) but hey… Maybe my partner really was that bad – made me look good :). But anyway… enough of my gloating over marks with are only cool for the next… oh 4 days until next semester starts on Monday. DARN… That just keeps coming up… the end of all my freedom.
On to something I can talk about without mourning the end of the holidays any more. I couldn’t come up with anything within the confines of my mind (which IS still on holidays) to talk about but I wanted to type for a bit. Sooo… I’m going to talk about personalised plates. If there is anybody in the world who is yet to know what exactly these are. Car registration number plates – used to identify cars by people and police alike. Only personalised plates are of course not the standard ones given out with car registration but plates bought by people to display specific letter – number configurations.
I don’t happen to think there is anything wrong with the progressively more outdated style of going with the standard issue plates. Perhaps it another old hat sort of thing this being the age of dvd players with screens on the back of seats but hours in the car were often whiled away counting cars. Kids today would probably find car counting quite a boring sort of thing to do. I loved it… As I got older the game didn’t so much die as become more elaborate. Tracking cars, trucks, buses, caravans, motorbikes simultaneously on long road trips (on admittedly empty Australian rural highways) provided a challenge at any age. Try it some time.
However the number plate game… It is much more my mother’s game. The word game rather than the number game. It involves reading number plates of passing cars. Coming up with entertaining meanings for the all-caps acronyms presented by the car plates. Plates like ‘--- ILE’ become I like elephants at the easy end of the scale. Some of the more complex ones come in OXS and the like… Other Xylophone Symphonies? The true entertainment value comes in the speed of the answer. The faster a completely ridiculous answer is pulled from the nether regions of one’s brain the greater the insinuation of ones insanity :P. As a note that is NOT where the insanity of the title comes in… Just proof there is ‘insanity’ lurking at the edges of everything a person does… If it isn’t their still insane… I love a good Catch 22.
The number plate game loses its appeal with plates like JIM 89 or SOCCA. You can see exactly what they are intended to be. There can’t really be much of a hidden message to discover because they obviously aren’t acronyms. Though there is a new version of the game developed attempting to decode the more unspecific personalised plates. Plates that feel like initials or perhaps favourite things. Putting names to cars is pretty good though I still prefer the old fashion acronym game myself. Though names I’m going to admit are a soft spot of mine… I love the old classics but names of all kinds interest me.
But during the game you do more than just see a persons name. In plates like SOCCA or 10 SMUM (tennis mum) you see a little of the person’s personality. However some times I’m going to say I wonder if you really want to be sharing that with the world. Its rather like a tattoo… You keep a personal plate for a long time. Do you want to be DEVIL forever? As one of the plates many names says ‘vanity plates’ are all about showing how cool you are for being you. Or something like that. Plates are one off a kind… the kind of money 21 and F1 have gone for is simply ridiculous.
However the plate that started it all today was ‘SUE EM’. Not having any numbers its obviously not a cheap number plate. The fact that it was on a high end Volvo sedan added to the overall theme of the matter. I’m guessing the car belongs to a lawyer… But that’s just a guess :). It certainly has an initial funny about it. And there is certainly a strong hint which leaves everybody pretty certain they know you are a lawyer. Still ‘SUE EM’ is a little bit of an aggressive sort of a statement. To me I see it as a rather unprofessional sort of a statement to have plastered on your car that your clients may see. But hey that is just me.
People… naturally inclined to build up stories and rely on stereotypes… take a lot more away from a personalised plate than just the word logo. All sorts of things are decided about the person in the car… Some good and some bad and many completely without basis. What I just did up there is entirely that. I’m certainly not beyond using stereotype to fill in the blanks about people I haven’t met. The trick comes in not holding it against them when you do meet them. Or being upset by similar opinions decided in other people. Just the same in the case of the lawyer… Particularly in that profession they’d know a lot about public personas and the effect of reputation. All in all vanity plates well… there was nothing wrong with the old way of things but the vanity plates certainly spice things up and makes it easier perhaps to remember your own registration?
Your writing is more padogical than anything else. At this early age you are writing like an expert.
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