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kaigou(Now that I have an actual uninterrupted thirty minutes at the computer at the same time as I have energy to actually do something other than stare at it...)
The other night I ran out for errands. A few miles from home, I pulled up to a light, second in line, and watched the two front cars doing that rock-creep motion we all know and love, when the cars are doing an amateur's version of trying to get the jump on the light. A'course, in this city, that means doing the rock-crawl-vroom at about one-quarter speed (drag-racing in this city seems to consist of who can get to 35mph within the first mile, wooo, you go, people). The light turns green, and I speed up, expecting the two cars ahead of me to (however slowly and gradually) get up to the road's posted 50mph speed limit, then we'd unbunch and I could do the 2mi home with no significant thinking involved.
Except... maybe a hundred feet away from the light, and the right-lane car isn't doing more than 30; the car in front of me keeps tapping its brakes. Strange. I wondered if maybe the two cars know each other, and that's why the left-lane car appears to be purposefully rolling a roadblock. The car on the right is just regular speed, but the real problem is that I was accelerating into the expected 50mph and everytime the guy would flash his brakes, I was maybe a car-length behind him and would have to brake as well (I should note I prefer to just coast if I have room, rather than wear worse on the brakes).
By about a half-mile down the road, we're still doing 35, in a 50 zone. Cripes! The right-lane car appears to be pulling forward, so I move over to that lane, with the strangest suspicion... sure enough, count to two and the left-lane car gleefully pulls away. That asshole was just roadblocking for no reason other than being an asshole. Serious whisky-tango, people. Rather than keep going at 35 like the dinky corporate-clone-sedan in the right lane, I move to the left lane... and immediately! no hesitation! the wannabe-sportscar (some kind of generic coupe) is hitting its brakes just to slow down so the right-hand car can catch up, just to block me.
Hunh. Sometimes, people really annoy me.
And sometimes, I remember that I might be in a car that's 10yrs old, is missing a few rubber strips and has some decrepit spots where sun and snow-salt and general age has taken its toll... but in fifth gear at about 40mph and increasing, I can still kick it in and the car responds. This time, I dropped it into 4th, hit the gas, and while the left-lane asshole is slowing down, I sped up. I swear, I saw his brake lights flash off and his car did that little dip-swerve thing that showed his nerve gave way (probably as he's thinking I'm going to slam into his tail).
Four car lengths had been open between us, and I went from about 40 to eighty, passing him using the middle turn lane. 4th gear, engine roaring beautifully at about 4Krpm, and he's just standing still in comparison. Haha, asshole, I zoom on by and he tries to catch up! Moron, give it up, you suck, and I put up with you long enough. Then I took the turn into my neighborhood at about 45mph -- top that, buddy.
(I'm used to people slowing down to 5-10mph to take a corner, but in this city, they seem to believe you have to come to almost a rolling stop to take a corner -- but at least it doesn't require a full-stop like Oregon drivers. I appear to frequently give people minor heart attacks any time I take 90' corners at 30mph, just to keep myself and my car on edge. Woot.)
Back home, I chill for a bit and scan the latest in an ongoing RPG. Some scene, one of the characters refers to a snippet of music on the radio. No extra points for recognizing the song, except maybe to note you might lose points because I'll know you're probably in your thirties: here I go again, on my own... it's like CP's theory about directors and soundtracks, that there's always at least one song in any movie that dates from the director's HS years. What's that, a remake of Tainted Love? Ah, director must've graduated from HS around '81. Oi, a snippet of Buffalo Stance? Director was in HS around '89. Even with all other songs being brand-new, there's always at least one that's a throwback. (So you can guess my reaction upon reading that line: one of these RPGers is in his/her thirties.)
Except... my still-adrenaline-happy carfreak brain can't help it. I mean, I'm a member of the MTV generation, erm, back when it still played music videos, and I hear certain lines and I don't think of the song, I think of the video; the two are inextricably linked (and to a great degree because certain songs I only ever heard when I was also seeing them). So I hear Whitesnake and that atrociously cliche-laden, three-four-time, power-guitar crap, three-chord progression, pap of a song and I promptly think, "I hated that band."
Not the song, which was forgettable then and still is, but the band, because clearly they were utter fail at any vehicular coolness. All flash, all gratuitous redhead draped in cheap danskin and flipping her hair but no real sense of style. I mean, really, people. First, it's two Jaguars with the hood ornaments removed -- those lines, it's got to be Jaguars, and the first time I saw the video I thought, "what the hell are those people on, get that chick off the hood of that car, do they realize that even 120lbs is enough to dent the hood and have they ever tried to tap out dents, and what if she scratches the paint?" ...and second thought is, "If those are Jaguars, they've been sitting in an auto-repair lot for the past three months anyway, so who cares about scratches and dents when the mechanics are shot, anyway."
Then I recall the scene where the guy's driving -- and it's either a stand-in for a Jaguar, or they managed to find a Jaguar whose three running-okay days in the year coincided with the video filming, with additional Jags standing in case this one konked out on the side of the road next to a partially-dismantled Triumph motorcycle -- and the chick's hanging out the window while flipping her hair about. What? Could they not spring for a convertible? If you absolutely must do the sedan thing, fine, go with BMW, there's a reason they're considered the ultimate driving machines (ignoring there are some sweetly-styled convertible Jaguars, too). Or a Porsche 911... if not a Carrera, at least a 911T would mean the chick could stand up in the seat rather than perch awkwardly in the open window like she's riding some european wannabe version of the General Lee.
(It's the lack of convertible-ness that made me wonder if these weren't the band's own cars, and right there, let me tell you, I knew this was a band that could release the bestest hairband song evah and I'd still refuse to give them a penny of my money let alone another second of my time. Because, hello, not even a lick of car-sense, and style don't count for much when the damn car don't move 90% of the time. Sheesh.)
On the other hand (I would think when I was trapped in a room with the video, and then did again upon forced to recollect the experience), Porsche hoods aren't exactly roomy if you're convinced that it's necessary to demonstrate that you must be sex gods all because you can get some gauzy tart to do mediocre acrobatics on your non-running vehicle. At which point, in my semi-late-night-car-rant, I recall my disgust and shock upon first seeing the video and that opening segment where she cartwheels, and lands on the second car: the car dips under her weight.
Oh, come on, look at those pathetic shocks. I bet they're still factory stock, Bilstein's that aren't even self-levelling -- if they had any real sense of cars and weren't just using some rented-for-the-day "we think it'll run, maybe, if we talk real sweet to it" Jaguars, there'd be a fine set of Konis under that hood, and with a few twists the suspension could've been tightened so well the car wouldn't even twitch when all 130lbs of gratuitous redhead landed on it. And what's with doing the splits across both cars, get that damn bimbo out of the way, I can't see jack.
This is why I don't like Easy Rider magazine. They always insist on putting some chick in the picture, and I can't see the damn bike. It's not that I mind chicks in skimpy outfits, far from it, but I do mind -- bigtime -- when the inflated boobs and airbrushed ass are in the way. Hello, get her out of the way, put her behind the bike or something, because I can't see anything of the bike!
Sigh.
And by this point, who knows what the RPG scene is doing, I'm too busy thinking, "someone would quote from this song? Clearly they've got no sense of decency when it comes to vehicular integrity, to publicly admit they'd actually listen to a band that so is totally the lack for car-fu..."
I ended up going back out and patting my car gratefully. It may not be a Jaguar but it does run consistently and well (especially for its age), and after ten years, I can still holler out the window at slow-moving morons to eat my German dust.
[I suspect it's possible the only person on my list who'd get every detail of this frothing moment would be Muffie. Oi, where has Muffie been? I'm wasting away without her wonderful rants...]
The other night I ran out for errands. A few miles from home, I pulled up to a light, second in line, and watched the two front cars doing that rock-creep motion we all know and love, when the cars are doing an amateur's version of trying to get the jump on the light. A'course, in this city, that means doing the rock-crawl-vroom at about one-quarter speed (drag-racing in this city seems to consist of who can get to 35mph within the first mile, wooo, you go, people). The light turns green, and I speed up, expecting the two cars ahead of me to (however slowly and gradually) get up to the road's posted 50mph speed limit, then we'd unbunch and I could do the 2mi home with no significant thinking involved.
Except... maybe a hundred feet away from the light, and the right-lane car isn't doing more than 30; the car in front of me keeps tapping its brakes. Strange. I wondered if maybe the two cars know each other, and that's why the left-lane car appears to be purposefully rolling a roadblock. The car on the right is just regular speed, but the real problem is that I was accelerating into the expected 50mph and everytime the guy would flash his brakes, I was maybe a car-length behind him and would have to brake as well (I should note I prefer to just coast if I have room, rather than wear worse on the brakes).
By about a half-mile down the road, we're still doing 35, in a 50 zone. Cripes! The right-lane car appears to be pulling forward, so I move over to that lane, with the strangest suspicion... sure enough, count to two and the left-lane car gleefully pulls away. That asshole was just roadblocking for no reason other than being an asshole. Serious whisky-tango, people. Rather than keep going at 35 like the dinky corporate-clone-sedan in the right lane, I move to the left lane... and immediately! no hesitation! the wannabe-sportscar (some kind of generic coupe) is hitting its brakes just to slow down so the right-hand car can catch up, just to block me.
Hunh. Sometimes, people really annoy me.
And sometimes, I remember that I might be in a car that's 10yrs old, is missing a few rubber strips and has some decrepit spots where sun and snow-salt and general age has taken its toll... but in fifth gear at about 40mph and increasing, I can still kick it in and the car responds. This time, I dropped it into 4th, hit the gas, and while the left-lane asshole is slowing down, I sped up. I swear, I saw his brake lights flash off and his car did that little dip-swerve thing that showed his nerve gave way (probably as he's thinking I'm going to slam into his tail).
Four car lengths had been open between us, and I went from about 40 to eighty, passing him using the middle turn lane. 4th gear, engine roaring beautifully at about 4Krpm, and he's just standing still in comparison. Haha, asshole, I zoom on by and he tries to catch up! Moron, give it up, you suck, and I put up with you long enough. Then I took the turn into my neighborhood at about 45mph -- top that, buddy.
(I'm used to people slowing down to 5-10mph to take a corner, but in this city, they seem to believe you have to come to almost a rolling stop to take a corner -- but at least it doesn't require a full-stop like Oregon drivers. I appear to frequently give people minor heart attacks any time I take 90' corners at 30mph, just to keep myself and my car on edge. Woot.)
Back home, I chill for a bit and scan the latest in an ongoing RPG. Some scene, one of the characters refers to a snippet of music on the radio. No extra points for recognizing the song, except maybe to note you might lose points because I'll know you're probably in your thirties: here I go again, on my own... it's like CP's theory about directors and soundtracks, that there's always at least one song in any movie that dates from the director's HS years. What's that, a remake of Tainted Love? Ah, director must've graduated from HS around '81. Oi, a snippet of Buffalo Stance? Director was in HS around '89. Even with all other songs being brand-new, there's always at least one that's a throwback. (So you can guess my reaction upon reading that line: one of these RPGers is in his/her thirties.)
Except... my still-adrenaline-happy carfreak brain can't help it. I mean, I'm a member of the MTV generation, erm, back when it still played music videos, and I hear certain lines and I don't think of the song, I think of the video; the two are inextricably linked (and to a great degree because certain songs I only ever heard when I was also seeing them). So I hear Whitesnake and that atrociously cliche-laden, three-four-time, power-guitar crap, three-chord progression, pap of a song and I promptly think, "I hated that band."
Not the song, which was forgettable then and still is, but the band, because clearly they were utter fail at any vehicular coolness. All flash, all gratuitous redhead draped in cheap danskin and flipping her hair but no real sense of style. I mean, really, people. First, it's two Jaguars with the hood ornaments removed -- those lines, it's got to be Jaguars, and the first time I saw the video I thought, "what the hell are those people on, get that chick off the hood of that car, do they realize that even 120lbs is enough to dent the hood and have they ever tried to tap out dents, and what if she scratches the paint?" ...and second thought is, "If those are Jaguars, they've been sitting in an auto-repair lot for the past three months anyway, so who cares about scratches and dents when the mechanics are shot, anyway."
Then I recall the scene where the guy's driving -- and it's either a stand-in for a Jaguar, or they managed to find a Jaguar whose three running-okay days in the year coincided with the video filming, with additional Jags standing in case this one konked out on the side of the road next to a partially-dismantled Triumph motorcycle -- and the chick's hanging out the window while flipping her hair about. What? Could they not spring for a convertible? If you absolutely must do the sedan thing, fine, go with BMW, there's a reason they're considered the ultimate driving machines (ignoring there are some sweetly-styled convertible Jaguars, too). Or a Porsche 911... if not a Carrera, at least a 911T would mean the chick could stand up in the seat rather than perch awkwardly in the open window like she's riding some european wannabe version of the General Lee.
(It's the lack of convertible-ness that made me wonder if these weren't the band's own cars, and right there, let me tell you, I knew this was a band that could release the bestest hairband song evah and I'd still refuse to give them a penny of my money let alone another second of my time. Because, hello, not even a lick of car-sense, and style don't count for much when the damn car don't move 90% of the time. Sheesh.)
On the other hand (I would think when I was trapped in a room with the video, and then did again upon forced to recollect the experience), Porsche hoods aren't exactly roomy if you're convinced that it's necessary to demonstrate that you must be sex gods all because you can get some gauzy tart to do mediocre acrobatics on your non-running vehicle. At which point, in my semi-late-night-car-rant, I recall my disgust and shock upon first seeing the video and that opening segment where she cartwheels, and lands on the second car: the car dips under her weight.
Oh, come on, look at those pathetic shocks. I bet they're still factory stock, Bilstein's that aren't even self-levelling -- if they had any real sense of cars and weren't just using some rented-for-the-day "we think it'll run, maybe, if we talk real sweet to it" Jaguars, there'd be a fine set of Konis under that hood, and with a few twists the suspension could've been tightened so well the car wouldn't even twitch when all 130lbs of gratuitous redhead landed on it. And what's with doing the splits across both cars, get that damn bimbo out of the way, I can't see jack.
This is why I don't like Easy Rider magazine. They always insist on putting some chick in the picture, and I can't see the damn bike. It's not that I mind chicks in skimpy outfits, far from it, but I do mind -- bigtime -- when the inflated boobs and airbrushed ass are in the way. Hello, get her out of the way, put her behind the bike or something, because I can't see anything of the bike!
Sigh.
And by this point, who knows what the RPG scene is doing, I'm too busy thinking, "someone would quote from this song? Clearly they've got no sense of decency when it comes to vehicular integrity, to publicly admit they'd actually listen to a band that so is totally the lack for car-fu..."
I ended up going back out and patting my car gratefully. It may not be a Jaguar but it does run consistently and well (especially for its age), and after ten years, I can still holler out the window at slow-moving morons to eat my German dust.
[I suspect it's possible the only person on my list who'd get every detail of this frothing moment would be Muffie. Oi, where has Muffie been? I'm wasting away without her wonderful rants...]
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Date: 19 Oct 2007 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Oct 2007 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Oct 2007 11:59 pm (UTC)Oh, only you. ♥
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Date: 20 Oct 2007 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Oct 2007 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Oct 2007 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Oct 2007 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Oct 2007 04:43 pm (UTC)Nada.
Or, at most, this kind of bemused expression. I can almost see the speech bubbles, in slow Texas drawl: "Oh, looook, Buuuuford, it's roooaaaaahhhd raaaaaaaaage." I suspect the aggressive drivers must sometimes feel like bad scientists, poking the frog with the electrical prod and getting no kicks, and wondering what's gone wrong with the world.
no subject
Date: 25 Oct 2007 10:11 pm (UTC)