Lust

Cars like this are the reason I know how to drive stick. I have an automatic, but DROOL. It goes against every thrifty impulse I have but I know I’d buy something like this in a heartbeat.

More performance than the Porsche for what? Two-thirds the price? Sure, you could only open it up on the track, but you just might do that if you had one.

Seems from the video (hi, Dr. Frist!) that there is an understeer issue here — the engine just overpowers the handling, perhaps. And it looks like it wants to be boxy, like a Mustang or a Challenger, but just gave up on the project.

@chicago bureau: AWD so likely understeer near the limit. When they first started development, the thing would literally peel off it’s own tires. Also an issue with it lunching its transmission. I’d get the extended warranty.

@blogenfreude:
Where on the UWS would you drive this? (I assume you’re not an UESer)

@SanFranLefty: Nowhere – I have no reason to even have a car on the UWS. But in an ideal world I’d have one in a second and go tearing around Germany and France.

Blasted down to Albuquerque at 95 yesterday in the 2000 Toyota Tacoma pick up. I love surprising the shit out of people in “performance” cars when my old white truck with an “I Fish and I Vote” bumper sticker comes out of nowhere to smoke they asses. It has a good rate of climb so I take a lot of them out on the hills.

Meh. Automobiles and sports…two of the bastions of straight guy discourse that I will never conquer….

@redmanlaw: I used to love cruising at an unconscionable speed in my Chevy S-10 and easily passing the sportscars, all while appearing completely oblivious to the fact I was burning them.

@nojo: An S10? Geeze, you’re lucky to be alive. Front suspension was first used on chariots.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a guy who said he wanted to get a Lexus 28ZX10* because he needed a “lawyer car.” I told him to buy a Camry and paint “I’m an asshole” on it. That would accomplish the same thing and save him ~$20K.

@Jamie Sommers: Hahaha oh man I just laughed so hard I snorted, and now all my coworkers are eyeing me suspiciously.

@blogenfreude: I lurved my S10, with the long bed and canopy. Bought it at 90k, the engine finally disintegrated around 130 — mainly because I kept driving it up and down the mountain to Riverside.

You want deathtraps, lemme show you my Pinto. Although it’s not the story it should be, since it was the model after they fixed the gas tank.

@Jamie Sommers:
Hee hee.

@nojo: Buddy of mine had one for his business – beige, so we called it The Spud. Pretty reliable other than a front suspension that kept falling apart. He replaced it when employees started refusing to drive it.

We need a category name here: Car Stalk?

@Jamie Sommers: Comment of the Day. Thanks for playing everyone!

TJ: Politico says Obama Hopey McUnicorn met with congressional republican leaders to listen to them whinge about his stimulus proposal and demand that the poor be allowed to starve and the rich be showered with tax cuts, and, says politico, Hopey told them “I won.”

Oh My. I think I am getting a chubby.

Audace, audace, toujours l’audace. Or something like that, no?

@Prommie: Hopey told the country “I won” in that speech — gnashing of teeth among the wingers complaining that he dissed his predecessor. Suck my mandate, y’all.

(Pause for comebacks from HF, OA, Benedick, Tommcatt…)

@Prommie:
I liked the “Me TOO!” yells from Pelosi and Reid.

@Jamie Sommers: I heart you and your ovaries to say something like that, Miss Jamie.

@nojo: Actually, Black Inches works better than Mandate in this case.

@nojo: It was quite pointed, wasn’t it? I wondered how many of them would be bright enough to see it, certainly not Bush, but I am sure someone has explained to him now, and told him that Obama was “discourteous,” and this being a new word for Bush, when he is next interviewed, he will use the word, pronouncing each syllable slowly and carefully, and when he is done he will smirk and bob up and down a little, so proud he used his new word.

@Prommie: The Obama Doctrine: Bring a gun to a knife fight.

Watching the Blago press conference now. Turns out he is simply a misunderstood defender of the Constitution, American values of fairness, presumption of innocence and due process. He is going to continue his good fight for the people of Illinois who in their collective wisdom elected him governor. He would be abrogating his oath to the people of Illinois by participating in this impeachment travesty. He simply wants to be able to defend himself by calling witnesses like Rahm, McCain, Jesse Jackson Jr., Obama, etc. I love this guy. This soap opera will never end.

@nojo: While some might not consider Hopey’s mandate overwhelming I think it’s pretty sizable. Certainly it’s big enough to get the job done, if you get my meaning. And that’s without any stimulus packages to enhance its effect.

@Prommie: But then he’ll forget and it’ll show up as discourtaneous or some such shit.

@Benedick: “Discurtsey.”

@Hose Manikin:

Otter: The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests; we did. (winks) But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few sick, perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? (the other Deltas cheer; Otter addresses the Student Council President directly) I put it to you, Greg! Isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? (the Deltas cheer again) Well, you can do what you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you bad-mouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!
(Otter packs his briefcase and leaves the room; the other Deltas follow, humming “The Star-Spangled Banner”)

Funny thing is, he looks almost exactly like Otter!

@Prommie: perfect.

@Hose Manikin: Today’s poem: Slouching Towards Springfield.

Prommie: Nothing’s over until he says it is! Was it over when Fitzy bombed Pearl Harbor?

@Prommie: @chicago bureau: Don’t make me haul out my I-Hate-Animal-House-Which-Was-Filmed-Around-the-Corner-from-My-Birthplace anecdotes again.

@chicago bureau: I found that on a site that contains an enormous collection of movie monologues, here is another, a perfect description of the Bush years:

Will: Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.? That’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot. Say I’m working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin’, “Send in the marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number was called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard. It’ll be some kid from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, ’cause he’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walking to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks ’cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he’s starvin’ ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure, fuck it, while I’m at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

@nojo: Understood, but still, ya gotta admit, thats Blogojavitch.

@nojo: We must be brothers from another mother; our second car was a ’72 or so Pinto which myour brother took with him after he bailed on college in 77. Blue with a white vinyl roof, trés chic. My buddy’s family had a brown one that we ran into a wall coming back from a Ramones concert, cerca 1980. The other guy’s fault.

@Prommie: My favorite bit of dialogue from that is far, far shorter. The Ben Affleck character is filling in for Will at an interview with a group of wealthy businessmen, shaking them down for money, when one guy asks if a check is ok, and he says, “You’re suspect!” Kills me every time.

@nabisco: Blue with a white vinyl roof, trés chic.

Okay. Now I’m scared.

But back to “I won” — that’s 99.44% pure awesome. To see Boehner’s face turn from orange to reddish-orange. Oh, how lovely.

Of course, the House GOP is going to whine and bitch about it, but that’s their deal.

UPDATE: Blago interview, per Politico has this bit:

“Did you at anytime suspect that they were tapping your phone?” host Don Wade asks Blagojevich.

He added: “I apologize for some of the profanity, but had I known they were listening I wouldn’t have used those words.”

But wait — he’s claiming that the charges against him are totes made up. And now he admits he had the conversations, claims he didn’t know he was being taped, and apologizes for the least-offensive part of them (being the profanities).

Nice work on claiming that you didn’t do it, Rod. FAIL.

@Prommie:
Stinquers can judge for themselves here.

This is screaming for a youtube mashup between the press conference and the clip. If no one else does it I may have to clear my evening calendar and throw something together. A guaranteed YouTube hit.

@Hose Manikin: I’ll post it if you do.

@Hose Manikin: I can’t tell you how many times I fell asleep in that classroom.

(Lawyer trivia: It’s 110 Fenton. Fenton Hall was the early building for the UO law school, which had long since moved to more contemporary digs when the movie was filmed.)

@Hose Manikin: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Kevin Bacon was in the Fishbowl food fight? I watched part of that being filmed. Does that make me a One Degree winner?

It looks like they are gonna produce Pedonator’s next car, the Jetsons-esque Aptera.

Love it in all of its curvalicious, electric detail:

http://www.motorcities.com/vehicle/09ALC520031880.html

(Click on the photos for larger detail).

@Original Andrew: Pfff. You know they’ve missed every deadline they’ve mentioned, right OA? Aptera looks cool, but I’d take any dates with 3d6 tablespoons of salt. That said, if they actually get production running, I really want to see/test drive one.

@IanJ:

I really like the new Prius…

http://www.motorcities.com/vehicle/09ACB015505067.html

…but I’d have to sell my soul to seitan in order to afford one.

@bloggie: The performance of that car is spectacular. So, how come it looks like someone welded the ass end of a Chevy Cobalt to the front end of a Mitsubishi, then dropped a Mustang roof onto it? I dunno, the lines of cars these days just don’t get to me like, say, the Shelby AC Cobra, which despite its humble scrawny Brit body origins, filled out to become Gina Lollobrigida on wheels.

Why can’t they make a hybrid with sexxx-appeal, like a hybrid 2010 Camaro?

That thing’s a total dick magnet.

(And yes, it is white-trash glory, but gimme a break I’m from teh South.)

@nojo: Don’t stop him. chicago bureau is on a roll.

@nojo: I say yes, but then I tell people I’m two degrees from Steven Spielberg and Goldie Hawn because my grandfather was an extra on Sugarland Express so I obviously grade on a curve.

@Prommie: he looks almost exactly like Otter!
Blasphemy! Gov. Blechoyavomit looks nothing like my boy Tim.

@drinkyclown: @ManchuCandidate: @SanFranLefty: @redmanlaw: Aw shucks.

@Original Andrew: Two words: DEATH. TRAP.
@Ewalda: I like the chunky looks of it – can’t explain why.

@blogenfreude:

Tha Aptera, Prius or tha Camaro? Or all three?

@Original Andrew: Prob the Aptera. It looks like it wouldn’t survive a tap by some small peened dillweed driving an Expedition.

Which is why I don’t seriously consider buying one of those mini coopers or smart cars. Too many assholes in SUVs and Hummers, especially in Scottsdale.

@Jamie Sommers: If we believe Aptera’s line, it’s full of roll cages and crumple zones. I’ll believe it after I see the crash tests, just like the rest of Aptera’s claims (and there will be no crash tests, since it’s a three-wheeler and therefore exempt).

They say they’ve done “simulated crash tests” that they insist are good enough.

Full disclosure: Like any good SEA-town Libtard, my current car is a Volvo wagon named “Swedish Magic.” It has a turbo 5 that really romps, yet it’s invisible to tha Po-leece. Love its boxy good-looks much better than the jelly bean car eruption in the 90s, but she’s not gonna be hanging on forever.

@Original Andrew: the jelly bean car eruption in the 90s

Friend called those rolling suppositories.

@Jamie Sommers:

My take is that if you’re comfortable riding on a motorcycle, then you should feel fine in a Miata-size car. And I dunno about the traffic in AZ, but here the 5 mph bumpers are probs all the protection you’d ever need.

Whenever I hear about a high-speed freeway chase, I’m wondering “where double-eff are they that they’re driving over 20?”

@nojo:

Yeah, that’s my only problem with the Prius; it looks like a four-wheeled dildo.

@Original Andrew: The Aptera. Of course if I got a GT-R and didn’t get some racing lessons before taking it to the Ring, it could be a death trap as well.

@Original Andrew: Oh, in Philly and South Joisey we had plenty of Camaros and, um, those other cars that people drove that rivaled Camaros. What were those things? God! I can’t believe I forgot what those cars are called.

@Jamie Sommers: Amen. I’d love to have a Smart Car if I didn’t fear I’d end up like a fly on a windscreen of some SUV.

@JNOV:

Ahh! JNOV!

Mustangs?

Totes T-Birds.

ADD: Also, possibly Corvettes.

In the South, it was all about the Firebirds and the pick-up trucks and the Grand Ams.

@JNOV: And don’t forget the Fireturd.

@blogenfreude:

Too true. The entire car was a crumple-zone.

In contrast, in SEA-town there’s a bitter rivalry between the rice-rocket and the SUV for King of the Road.

@Original Andrew: No, they looked just like Camaros but weren’t. Like you know how GM (?) releases two almost identical cars with different brand and model names. It’s like that.

@blogenfreude: THAT’S IT! The Firebird! Jesus, this place was crawling with those things at one point.

When I moved to SoCal in the late 80s, everybody had those small Toyota trucks where they’d modified the tailgate to read: YO. I never saw so many trucks in my life. Folks who made and repaired stuff, worked with their hands to create, they owned trucks, but your everyday person in the Delaware Valley drove a car. I drove one of those Pups when I delivered pizza for Domino’s. I was 19, the only female driver, and Penn’s campus was in my zone. I did very well tips wise. And one day some dude reached in the passenger side window and stole my pizzas! I chased his ass down, retrieved the pizzas and got some $ out of that punk. What a jerk.

@Jamie Sommers: “Dillweed,” I love it, the lost lame white curses of our youth, ever since Richard Pryor did that devastating imitation of a white guy calling someone a “peckerhead,” we have stopped using those old classics, dipshit, dickweed, peckerhead, and the even lamer things like “sit on it,” with or without “and rotate,” and “bite me.” No, after pryor, after “fucking motherfucker,” those lame cusswords died out. I miss them.

@nojo: The Chevrolet Caprice in full suppository mode, was known as a “tylenol” around where I was at the time.

@Original Andrew: After Smokey and the Bandit, every redneck that didn’t have a 4-wheel drive pickup had a Firebird, specifically, the Trans-Am, with the ridiculous bird on the hood.

The fastest I have ever driven a car was when I drove a freind’s car, a Trans Am, at 140 mph, on a lonely old rural section road in Florida, with big drainage canals on either side of that road, several of my high school classmates died doing similarly stupid things, they wound up in the canals and drowned.

@Promnight: When I moved back north during this same period of time, I noticed a major shift in taste, where Trans Ams ruled the south, the IROC Camaro ruled the north. In New Jersey, it was understood that the acronym IROC stood for “Italian Retards Out Cruising.”

@Promnight: One day as a reporter, I was on my way to the landing of a large passenger plane in distress with my crazed photographer buddy on the Interstate through Albuquerque at 120 mph. I accepted that I would die if we crashed.

When I was on the road with this guy over an 18 month period working on special projects, we found a ripple of asphalt we came to call the “Carrizozo Proving Grounds” on the way to the Mescalero Apache Reservation that we could hit at 110 + while going downhill/southbound and catch air. The Photo Desk car we used was some king of Chevrolet (?) subcompact.

Everybody’s watching “Miss America: Countdown to the Crown”, right? (Mrs RML has seized control of the TV).

@IanJ: Oh lord, “simulated crash tests”? I feel safer already knowing some technogeek worked out all the kinks on his Mac.

@Original Andrew: We clearly live in different worlds. Until last month, you couldn’t go any slower than 10 miles above the speed limit without some jerk riding your ass (and not in a good way) and honking at you to get out of the way. Things have improved since they installed speed cameras on the freeways and increased the in-town speed limit to 65mph but those cameras are probably going to come down in the coming months because they’re not popular with the libratarians or the bathtub Republicans.

@Promnight: Lost expressions? I don’t know what you mean. I still say “sit on it” and “aaaaaaay” on a daily basis and damn it, my leather jacket and I are still cool.

@redmanlaw: Motherfucking Miss America idiots. RML, I lived or worked in Atlantic City for about 10 years, and the Miss America Pageant was always the biggest thing in this town, an old tradition, the head of my first law firm was the CEO of the pageant. Many people in the firm would volunteer to work the events, even escort the contestants, I never did.

But as the pageant was dying, 10 years ago, lower and lower ratings, finally losing the TV contract, I remember drunkenly screaming at people, “they need to lose this ridiculous old fake romanticization of the pageant, and turn it into a reality show. Dumb fucks, it could have been bigger than american idol.

I like telling stories where I was the prescient genius, and if only people listened to me, history would have been made. Its happened in my life so many times!

@Promnight: Actually, this “Countdown” dogshit is like a reality show.

/off to get ready for Son of RML’s school interviews and admission tests in the morning.

@redmanlaw: I got my wife’s Prius up to 90 mph. Took a while.

@Dodgerblue: Mrs RML once tried to get out of a speeding ticket on grounds that her Geo Metro could not have possibly achieved the speed stated on the ticket in the distance from the turn off on to the highway from her folks’ place.

@JNOV:

JNOV!!! My darling JNOV! So happy to see you and three posts in a row from you! I’m so bummed I missed you last week – Prommie and Mrs. Prom and I had a lovely lunch but it wasn’t the same without you. How are you feeling, my dear? We have missed you so much.

@Dodgerblue: A week?
@redmanlaw: Did Mrs RML prevail?

OK, this is the 2010 Fisker Karma, and it’s about the most boner-inducing hybrid I’ve ever seen:

http://www.motorcities.com/photo/full_size_viewer/09ABN175617539AQ

Brother can ya spare $80,000.00?

@SanFranLefty: Hell, no. She should have let her mom fix it with the local magistrate court.

@SanFranLefty: I’m sorry I missed lunch with you and The Proms. I’m still adjusting to the new meds (it seems like I’m on new meds each quarter), and while my mood is improving daily, I’m still dealing with issues like sedation. I’m back at work (yay, still have a job), and I’m dealing with Jr’s own mood issues and his med changes. He had an adverse reaction to a med he was on, and I had to take him to the ER to be treated. All in the middle of the night, of course. He’s better now but also going through his own adjustment. So yeah. And I think I wrote here (maybe) that the dr I had at my latest stint in the hospital thinks I’ve been misdiagnosed with bipolar when I actually have major depressive disorder, so, YAY! Those 75 lbs I gained, thousands of dollars I spent and who knows what else long term side effects from unneeded meds has me a little miffed. This latest depression started when that Republican head doctor took me off antidepressants in September. Well, I’m not seeing him anymore, and I’m on some heavy duty stuff. Hopefully we’ve finally found the solution although we’ll never find a cure, I’m afraid.

@JNOV:
Honey, I’m sorry to hear that you and JNOV Jr. are going through this, I’m sorry you missed lunch with me and the Proms in Filthadelphia, but the most important thing is that you and JNOV Jr. are figuring out what is going on, getting yourselves feeling better, and are still employed and insurance covered. Sorry to hear the head shrinks in CA may have misdiagnosed you way back in the day but the important thing is to get you feeling like you’re living again.

And we have missed you around here so much. Please don’t be a stranger. And you don’t have to try to impress us with your wit and sarcasm. Just check in and say you’re around here, occassionally laughing. We miss you my darling JNOV.

@SanFranLefty: What she said. We love you, girl.

@JNOV:
Don’t be a stranger. Friday night Perstorkings aren’t the same without you.

@ManchuCandidate: By the time the Friday night perstorking post appears, I’ve been asleep for about two hours. Ugh.

@SanFranLefty: But the witty bar is set so high here, I feel teh stupid not adding to the funny.

@redmanlaw: Love you, too, Dearheart.

@JNOV:
darling JNOV, you know i worry. soo glad to see you. i’m in the same place. lost in transition. still in turks, we moved out of our house into a motel room for 2 weeks yesterday. i go to miami today for a few days, then it’s jerusalem 2 weeks from yesterday. i’ve been disconnected, discombobulated and depressed. there are 4 animal cages, including live animals. we are barnum and baily and ringling bros. i swear i heard natives chanting and elephant wails when we checked in with 9 huge bags, 2 cats, an ancient blind shih tzu, and then there’sergio, center ring star. everything else in storage. i’m exhausted mentally and physicaly, and so i tell you this JNOV, you are not alone. i’m spinning too.
miss you stinquers sooo much, hi everyone! xoxo