Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Uncle Ted


Ted fucking Nugent was in line in front of me at the coffee shack, and he was on my plane from Detroit to Dallas!!!


That is all.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

North Carolina and the Chevy Malibu


I headed to NC with a solid two days and approximately 600 miles of driving, and right off the bat I was a bit worried. At the rental car place, the guy told me I could take any vehicle I wanted from the entire row...which at first was a little exciting. My excitement quickly vanished when the row in question went Minivan-HHR-Minivan-HHR and so on. There was only one vehicle in the row that was different- a 2009 Chevy Malibu.

I was literally the first one to rent this vehicle, as it had a grand total of 2 miles on the odometer. And as far as rental cars go, it was fine. It had four wheels, a seat and when you stepped on the gas pedal it went. However, if you are looking at one of these to purchase, let me tell you why you shouldn't

1. For the first 200 miles, I thought the car was on fire. I literally had to pull over and pop the hood and make sure I wasn't about to die. There must have been some sort of protective coating sprayed around the engine somewhere that was burning off.

2. The interior sucks. Everything is made of plastic, and the fitment isn't the best. (Note to GM: Texturing plastic to look like leather grain isn't fooling anyone. We still know it's plastic). Plus all the Delco electronics that the domestics use just look dated. I mean, the displays are the same light blue color they were in the 80s. Even though they work great and have a bunch of pretty cool features, they just seem really dated.

3. The cruise control sucks. On level ground it works just fine, but going down hill it bucks like crazy trying to maintain the speed. I actually thought the engine was having issues until I played with it a bit.

4. The rear window is almost useless. It's very short and the rear seats have gigantic headrests that block half of it. Not to mention that when it rains, water sheets over the back window and you literally can't see a thing out of it. And the Malibu isn't fast enough to not need to see behind you.

5. The turn signal is the most annoying thing in a car I have ever experienced. Instead of subtle "click click", there is a tone that sounds like someone slowed down a German Techno backbeat. It literally sounds like it's from a Casio keyboard! Not too mention it's loud enough for Aunt Mable to hear even if the battery in her hearing aid goes. I used it once and that was it. If I got pulled over for not signalling, I would simply demonstrate the noise pollution created by the unholiest device ever- knowing that there would be no way he could give me a ticket and still sleep at night.

So in short, don't buy one.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Atlanta Gas Crisis of 2008


As you may have heard, there is a bit of a gas crisis in the Southeast this year. While there is a bit of a shortage, it isn't quite in the same league as the one in the 70s. At any rate, it is a little weird to drive around and pass station after station with baggies on the pump handles and no prices listed. But the weirdness didn't stop there...there were a couple other things that aren't quite sitting right with this whole situation.

First off, gas mysterious appears and is plentiful about 100 miles away from town. We took a road trip to Maryland this last weekend (We drove the diesel) and past South Carolina it was business as usual. Can't someone load up a tanker and bring some down the freeway a bit?

Second, gas prices are high....but not really high. When Ike was about to hit the Gulf but supply was still plentiful, prices spiked to over $5 a gallon. Yet when you can't find any gas for 20 miles, the price is still in the low $4 range. When there is no supply, and demand is as high as ever, price is supposed to increase. At least that's what my mediocre state college education told me.

But the most ironic event of the week happened on Tuesday. While in Maryland we had heard from a number of people that the "crisis" had gotten much worse while we were gone and that you really couldn't find it anywhere. We didn't panic since we had the diesel and that was still readily available everywhere, but I was a bit concerned knowing my car was sitting in the garage with fumes in the tank. We got back from our trip late Monday night, and just decided to share the diesel the next day, scouting stations on the way into work so I could find out where to fill up my car that night. So the typical Atlanta trek into work the next day had us cruising at around 10 miles per hour when a fairly large object flies out from under the vehicle in front of us. With no where to go, I took it right down the middle hoping to straddle it. But with the lowered suspension on the car...no such luck. Whatever it was, we were dragging it along underneath us. Fortunately we came to a stop light fairly shortly afterward and I got out to assess and rid us of our new passenger. You can imagine my surprise though when I looked under the car and saw a bright red gas can! Of course dragging it on the ground didn't help it's ability to hold it's contents much, so as I pulled it from under the car gas is pouring everywhere creating a biohazard. But as I stood there in the middle of the road, with a leaking gas can in my hand the irony of the situation hit me- We were looking for gas this morning and we literally ran into it!