Archive for the ‘Automotive’ Category
Filed under: Automotive, Random Thoughts
Bruce Schneier is a smart guy. I only caught on to his existence a few months back, but I think almost everything so far of his that I have read I either completely agree with, or had never thought of.
Not like any of that matters, but he wrote an article today about how security through verifying a persons credentials means nothing if the people verifying them don’t know what the credentials look like.
Like this:
Imagine you’re on an airplane, and Man A starts attacking a flight attendant. Man B jumps out of his seat, announces that he’s a sky marshal, and that he’s taking control of the flight and the attacker. (Presumably, the rest of the plane has subdued Man A by now.) Man C then stands up and says: “Don’t believe Man B. He’s not a sky marshal. He’s one of Man A’s cohorts. I’m really the sky marshal.”
What do you do? You could ask Man B for his sky marshal identification card, but how do you know what an authentic one looks like? If sky marshals travel completely incognito, perhaps neither the pilots nor the flight attendants know what a sky marshal identification card looks like. It doesn’t matter if the identification card is hard to forge if person authenticating the credential doesn’t have any idea what a real card looks like.
The real scary part is that this whole conversation was brought up because of how there is a rise in the number of fake officers pulling people over. I have had quite my fair share of times being pulled over, and I don’t think I have even once thought to somehow verify if the officer pulling me over was even an officer.
You see some form of flashing lights, you pull over, and some guy comes to your window and yells at you for something. What if this guy is pretending to be an officer and steals your car, rapes you, mugs you, or kills you?
I think the thing that tops it off is that from my own experience, if you question an officer when they pull you over, they tend to not be happy about it. I got yelled at by a female officer once because when I pulled over, I shut my car off, turned the dome light one, and put my hands on the top of the steering wheel (in clear view). She started yelling at me saying completely insane unrelated things like “what, do you hate cops or something?”
In my mind, I was making a shaky situation a little more comfortable. If your an officer approaching an unkown person in an unknown dark car, at night none the less, and you are also on patrol by yourself, you approach the car with caution, and usually with your hand on the handle of your gun ready to pull it out on a moments notice.
I am not sure about most people, but I don’t like guns being pointed at me, just like I am sure most officers do not like that either. If I make the situation as comfortable as possible for the officer, the chances of an accident happening are much slimmer, it puts the officer at ease, and maybe, because of that you might also get a warning instead of a ticket. I did get a warning that particular time, but how do you even respond to insane comments like that from a person that can take away your license, or for that matter accidentally kill you. Sure, getting killed is a bit far fetched, but it happens. This officer was apparantly on edge that night, and for some reason me “setting the scene” in such a way set her off.
Another time I was driving home from a late night out. No drinking involved, just aimless driving around with 2 friends. It was like maybe 2am, and I missed my friends steet. I stopped in the middle of the street and debated just backing up the 20 feet or so and turning onto his street, or going around the block instead. In that few seconds I was stopped, a car came into site behind me which obviously made backing up a bad idea, so I drove away to go around the block instead.
The car behind me happened to be an officer, he decided I was acting suspiscious, pulled me over, and individually interrogated all 3 of us along with running all of our licenses and my registration to see if their where any warrants/problems. There wern’t any problems, so he hands us all our licenses back and tells me to get back in the car and leave. Me, being a bit upset about being pulled over and interrogated for 20 minutes without any reason calmly said something along the lines of “would you mind telling me why exactly you pulled me over?” the cop flipped out, snatched my license back, screamed at me and told me to get into the car, then called for backup, and they then when over the outside of my car looking for any reason to give me a ticket. Then eventually told me to leave and go home.
Yes, in both stories the officers were real officers, but what happens when someone is in a situation where the officer is a fake? The lesson I learned over my past experiences is not question anything they say, say as little as possible, take the ticket and if you feel you got it unjustly, appeal it and deal with it in court instead. If a cop starts yelling at me and tells me to get out of the car, even if he says it over the PA from inside his car, yes, I am going to get out of the car because I know what happens if you don’t. Now I have just completely exposed myself and left myself in a real vulnerable position.
Sure I kind of veered way off course from Bruce Schneiers story, but he raises a real good point, and it is a legitimate real problem. People who look and claim to have authority normally are assumed to actually have authority. If they are faking it, you’re not going to realize it until it is too late.
So how are we any safer? Either on a plane or anywhere else?
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Jan 13, 2006
Filed under: Automotive
A while back, i wrote about all the wierd camera like devices evenly spaced along route 3, along with sporadically placed along 495, 95, and 93. After getting a look at the side of one of them with a pair of bincolulars. They say “EIS” on the side of them, and a quick search on google showed that they are called “Elevated Imaging Systems” they are part of a suite of products for monitoring traffic, either through camera surveillance or microwave. The majority of the devices along the highway are called RTMS’s (Remote Traffic Microwave Sensor). Route 3, since it was recently remodeled, had them all hardwired into the road system, and have use what appears to be this sensor:
It detects the presence of traffic and measures specific parameters in multiple independent lanes. It looks like Route 3 might be using this whole Freeway Traffic Management System, but from my rough measurements, all the sensors are spaced a little over 2 miles apart, and these claim they need to be 300-500 meters apart, but they might be diagonally spaced on each side of the freeway instead. Route 3 also uses video surveillance, however given the height and angle of the cameras, it looks like it is just to view the traffic, although The Traffic Group, Inc. claims it can scan license plates in high volumes, but according to their website, they seem to only be doing that as a pilot program on I-83 for traffic studies
The other roads, (495, 93, and 95) all being much older, have these temporary installs instead:
These are pretty much the same deal as the hardwired ones, but they are made to be put anywhere and can store data to be retrieved at a later date, along with being solar powered.
Permalink Comments (2) emjaydee Nov 28, 2005
Filed under: Automotive
It seems every day I come across some article on some random site that says “How to save money at the pump” or “How to get better gas mileage” yet once you go to read the waste of time advice, most of the tips are things like:
- Consolidate trips and errands
- Ride a bike
- don’t go over the speed limit
- sit in the car with the windows up and the A/C off.
- push your car
How is that good advise? you were reading the article to get better gas mileage. Not driving is not better gas mileage, it’s worse gas mileage. 0 miles to the gallon is not good. So instead, I am going to make my own list of ways to “save at the pump”.
1. Put Acetone in the gas tank
I’ve read a bunch of sites on this one, and people claim to get up to 30% better fuel economy, along with the engine running better, slightly cleaner emissions, and can also use lower grades of gas without the engine pinging. Supposedly the acetone doesn’t damage any engine parts, and this one guy claims to have soaked various engine parts in containers of acetone for months to see if they deteriorate at all and he reported no damages. You have to be careful about spilling the acetone on any painted surface though, because it will eat right through the paint. Also, you have to put the right quantity in your gas tank. Too much or too little doesn’t help.
Check out this article, and then go look around on google if you want more proof
2. Create an ozone in the distributor.
I am not sure I buy this one, but a bunch of people are doing it. It pretty much involves drilling a hole in the top of the distributor cap and splicing one of the engines vacuum lines into the new hole in the distributor. Since most new cars have pointless ignitions (no distributor), this might be harder to accomplish. This article goes into a lot more detail
3. Make sure the tires are properly inflated
It sounds stupid, but it does make a differance. Supposedly if your tires are even as little as 5 pounds underinflated, you could see a 10% decrease in fuel economy. Also, a lot of people are filling their tires with nitrogen instead of regular air now. A bunch of automotive service centers are offering this, and it costs something like $5 a tire for the changeover, but there are a lot of benefits, like more stable, consistent tire pressure, cooler running tires, improved fuel economy, longer tread life, less oxidation of tire components and reduced rim and wheel corrosion. Nitrogen molecules are bigger than air molecules so a significantly smaller amount of nitrogen leaks out of the tires than when you have them filled with regular air.
4. Get a tune up.
Make sure your spark plug wires, spark plugs, and distributer parts are all clean and in good shape. Gunked up spark plugs can’t create as good a spark, which leaves more unburnt fuel in the engine cylinders. Same goes for if the spark plug wires have cracks, or if the rotor in the distributor, or the distributor cap are rusted or covered in any form of buildup. Replace the air filter if it looks real dirty, or better yet, replace it with a high air flow filter, like the ones made by K&N. K&N claims to make up to a 20% difference in fuel economy, but unless your old filter is nothing but a pile of dirt, I would say the fuel savings is more like 7%. To a lesser extent replace things like the PCV valve and the fuel filter periodically. Replacing the PCV valve is a 10 minute job you can do in your driveway for like $5 in parts.
5. Adjust the settings in your cars computer.
Like changing the transmissions shift points. If you have an older car, get a shift kit from a automotive parts store, or if you have a newer car, you can buy a programmer for your cars computer that will reprogram the shift points in seconds. It doesn’t harm the engine or the transmission at all (actually it is better for the transmission) and you will get better performance and gas mileage. The factory sets the shift points more prolonged, which gives you a smoother ride, but effiency and performance suffer. These reprogrammers/modified chips are pretty pricy, but there are many performance gains, along with fuel economy gains depending on the modifications you choose.
Some manufacturers are
6. Install a velocity stack/vortec generator on the air intake.
This sounds a lot more complex than it actually is, but supposedly you can get up to a 31% increase in fuel economy, as well as up to 35 more horsepower. These are sold in most automotive stores and online. Two of the more popular brands are Turbonator and SpiralMax Its a little cylinder shaped baffle that you drop in behind the air filter. In most cars this would be right in front of the throttle body. It takes a couple minutes to install, but the one downside is that they cost between $60-$100.
Permalink Comments (1) emjaydee Nov 17, 2005
Filed under: Automotive
Apparantly the penalty for “wreckless driving” in New Hampshire is:
$200-$1000 fine, and your license gets revoked for 60 days.
I am beginning to wonder if maybe I should get a lawyer for whatever this court date is about. There is no way I was going that 103mph. Taking into account the details I put in my earlier post about getting pulled over, it seems even more unlikely.
If I go by myself, say my piece and hope for the best, I suppose there is a good possibility I could avoid the 60 day suspension part, and possibly some portion of the fine as well, but it seems like a pretty big gamble.
Then again, I think showing up with a lawyer automatically would piss off the Judge and everyone else involved, and that might kill any sympathy chance I had.
All I can say is that I can’t go 60 days without a license again. It was torture the first time it happened, and I was living in MA near a bus stop, now I will just be fucked. I think I will just have to go find a 6 foot length of rope and a chair.
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Jun 7, 2005
Filed under: Automotive, ranting
So I think I officially dislike the NH state police more than the MA ones. This saturday I was driving up to UNH with Aimee to watch her sister in some dance recital. I am driving along in the left lane, and there is a decent amount of traffic on the road, then all of a sudden, a cop pops out from next to his car, almost steps into the left lane, and makes big arm gestures for me to pull over.
I slowly pull over, right behind the other cop car that was pulling over everyone else. I would say it was maybe a couple hundred feet away from the first cop. Now the first cop gets into his car and pulls up behind me, comes over, and claims he “clocked me going 103mph 70 yards from his car” then he takes my license and registration, comes back, and gives me a notice saying I have to appear in court on july 18th for “reckless driving”.
1) I was going with the flow of traffic, I seriously doubt the rest of the highway was also going 103
2) if I was in fact going that fast, wouldn’t I need to at some point start weaving from lane to lane? going at that speed, without ever changing lanes would mean at some point I would smash into a car going much slower in front of me.
3) If I was going that fast, how would I be able to pull over casually in such a short distance between the 2 cop cars?
4) The cop was using his radar gun in medium traffic from “70 yards away” how can he even prove the reading he got was even my car?
maybe if I am really lucky, I will lose my license again. Its not like I need it or anything…or that I was doing anything wrong
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Jun 6, 2005
Filed under: Automotive
So before work today, I had to bring my dog for his monthly percoten-v shot, which means I got to pay $3 for the luxury of going over the fabulous tobin bridge.
When I get to the toll booth, a statey pulls in behind me. Now, due to my “somewhat tarnished” driving record, when a cop car pulls up behind me, I instantly panic.
No matter what, where or when it happens, I see a cop, and I instantly have to do a quick inventory in my head. The same questions always run through my mind.
a) is there anything that shouldn’t be in the car? (weapons, alcohol, tied up children…etc)
b) does the car have anything wrong with it (broken lights, expired sticker…etc)
c) is your seat belt on?
d) are you acting weird, or where you driving too fast?
now this is where the cache-22 comes in. Now I know a cop is behind me, so now your stuck over compensating and end up probably acting more guilty just because you too busy trying to seem as legal and innocent as possible.
and that is the problem all together. How does it get to the point where I almost have a stroke if a cop pulls up behind me? I feel like a rape victim, all vulnerable and scared.
So now this cop though, he did was most cops I see do. A little thing called abusing your power. This guy slams on the gas after the toll booth, and rode my ass like a black guy in prison. He did that the entire ride up until I almost hit the waste-of-my-money tunnel, then he switches lanes when he finds an opening, and speeds off…way over the speed limit. Who watches those assholes? who pulls them over? What kind of message does that send? its okay to speed as long as I am a fat ass shit head with a over inflated ego and a superiority complex?
I am wondering when I will meet a “good cop”. If anyone knows of one, tell me
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Apr 23, 2005
Filed under: Automotive
So I have been really trying to finally budget my finances. I think part of it is because I am stubborn, and since I moved out of my parents house, I can do what I want, and now I can budget because I want to, instead of because I was being told to. But thats a side note.
I decided my Lincoln LS was a horribly bad decision to have purchased, and on top of that, it was starting to get old. Yes, I know its only a 2000, but when its a “fake american car” and every time I need to fix something……from suspension parts to headlights….the only place that even knows what I am talking about is the dealership, at which point they happily bend me over and proceed to rape me.
Also, the parts are more expensive than they should be. Part of the reason why I like american cars is because the parts are supposed to be dirt cheap, but this one, being 1) a lincoln, and 2) partially made by jaguar, makes the everything way more expensive than it should be. The bastards claim I am supposed to only put 91+ octane gas in the car. And on top of that, although it had the smallest V8 engine in the world on it (3.9L I believe), the car wasnt the best on gas. I think on average I would get 17mpg on the highway, and probably like 10 city.
So…. I traded the car in before it was too late, and got a 2005 grand am. It was a demo car with about 2,000 miles on it, and with all the “rebates” and shit, it was about $4,000 under retail. So I decided to do it.
This is where typical “Mike Luck” comes into full swing
For starters, I got the car from the GM Dealer on Rt-114 in Danvers. I believe it is called David Farraez Chevrolet. So , we start the whole fun bargaining process. They gave me about $7,000 for my car, and where going to roll the remainder of my car loan on the lincoln onto the new cars loan. (I owed a total of $13,000). I told the dealer that I wanted to finance it, put no money down, trade in my car, and that I wanted the financing to be equal to, or better than, my current financing deal on my car, which was 7.9%, and like $430 a month (I was paying $470 a month though). After he did the whole, i gotta go talk to people back and forth bit..he comes back after a couple tries with a reasonable deal, which was that it would be 8.7% for 72 months, for like $469/month. So I think what the hell, I will just refinance the car in 6 months to a year and get like 6% instead, and I start signing papers.
Then its time to go talk to the finance officer dude. This guy got all pissy with me because I wouldn’t but the gap insurance or the stupid extended warranty, and didn’t want to try bargaining anymore, so I just went with it. He prints out all the crap, is ready to hand the keys over, then remembers that I am registering the car in NH, and then its starts raining fire and brimstone.
They are only “hooked up” to the MA RMV, so I can’t take the car home until I go to NH and get temporary plates, because its also against the dealerships policy to let me leave with the title.
Of course Nashuas town hall is closed on saturday, so monday morning I head over there, and the lady says that since I dont have the title, I have to go to the RMV in Manchester instead, so I head up there. I get my snazzy temporary plate (a piece of cardboard) and drive back down to Danvers. I get there, and the finance guy is like Mike…..I have been trying to reach you all morning! (he called my house once). So he tells me that they couldn’t get me the financing rates i SIGNED on friday. Apparantly they neglected to tell me that on fridays and saturdays, they can’t talk directly to the banks, so they can only get preliminary numbers that are subject to change.
So then he tells me “the best the bank will give us”, because apparantly he is buying the car with me, is 12% interest, and like $490/month.
So I say wait a minute. I told you I was trading in the car to put myself in a better financial position. Why would I go from paying 7.9% interest, for $430 a month, to paying 12% interest at $490 a month? he tries throwing so crap out that its pennies a day and some other bullshit. So I start getting a little agitated, and try explaining to him that I would end up paying like $40,000 for a car that lists for $25,000, and that makes no sense at all, so he says “what if I try and knock a point off?” wait a second. First, you just said that was the best you could do for “us”. Second, how is 10.9% anywhere near 7.9%? I tell him there is no way I could go for that….blah blah blah..
he then says umm….hold on a second, I’ll be right back. He leaves his own office, goes and jerks off in the mens room or something, and then comes back in and says what about 9% at $416 a month? thats the absolute best I can do?
what the hell? mother fucker! he was just fucking with me for the fun of it or something. Their math doesn’t even make sense. So I say fine, and he retypes all the paperwork and then I figure its all set….but wait…..there’s more!
then the moron Finance guy says he needs me to get an insurance binder from my insurance company. Isn’t that his job?
So I call my insurance company, which is Giganti Insurance in Everett, and tell them the deal, they then tell me….whoa…wait a second….NH? we didn’t know anything about that! you can’t have a NH policy from us! They must have never noticed that all the bills and mail they send me say “Nashua, NH” on them.
So at this point my options are register the car at my parents house, which seems illegal to me, and then waste more money to transfer it up to NH later on, or find a new insurance company in NH damn quick.
Then the Geico commerical comes to mind. I could save like 20% on my car insurance! what a load of crap that is.
I call their 800 number, and they are more than happy to instantly setup my insurance policy. They then put me on hold, look up my MA, and NH driving record, come back and say I have a lot of stuff on there.
Oh really? I didn’t know about my extensive driving record that I have been paying dearly for since like 1997.
So she says that putting all that into consideration, my policy would cost a low low price of $3,497 a year, and I only had to make an initial down payment of $800.
wait a second, but what about the commercials! I could save a bundle right? At this point, I am hours late for work, and I just want to leave this dealership, so I say fine, I figure I can work it out later. So I give them the dealerships fax number, and they say they will fax the insurance binder over in 5-10 minutes.
a half hour goes by, and nothing is coming out of the fax machine
so I call back, I get some other lady, she says they might be having problems with their “Fax Gateway” and will try it again, and I should get it in 5-10 minutes
another half hour goes by.
I call back and tell them I have been at this dealership all day waiting, and I need the damn binder so I can leave. This new lady says that the “Fax Gateway” is running an hour behind, and she will have to type the binder up manually an fax it over herself.
Okay great, I don’t really care what you do, just fax it over, so she goes and does her thing, and I finally get the binder.
So now I can FINALLY leave with my new car. But, because of the dealerships policy of not letting me leave with the title, when I go to Nashua town hall to get my real plates and register the car, I need to call the salesman I bought the car from, and he has to drive up to Nashua with the title and such to meet me.
Those cocksuckers! oh well, its his time wasted, not mine. So he drives up wednesday morning and meets me in Nashua at the 7-11, and follows me to the town hall. stands there, and watches me do my thing, then leaves.
They really couldn’t have had just a tiny bit of trust, and let me bring the title up there myself? I dont get to keep anything anyway, because Nashua just mails the real title to the bank I got my loan from. And on top of that, the dealership knows where I live….my social security number, my employer…etc
They could find me in a second.
Then the salesperson tells me I should be getting a survey in the mail soon, and to make sure I rate their service as excellant, because it is real important to them. Yeah…how about fuck you? The salesperson was nice, he did his job, he was stuck with me all day (I left the dealership at 4pm. I got there at like 12) and he had to drive up to Nashua. I’ll give him credit, but fuck his dealership.
Anyway, here is a picture of the car. Also, remember the little accident I was in on the way to work in the tunnel in Boston a couple weeks ago? after the deductable I got a $900 check, which I decided to not give to the dealership when I traded in the car, screw them.
So the next day, I call my old insurance company, and ask how much the policy on the new car would have cost if I stayed in Massachusetts. She tells me it would have been $2,100. Geico was charging me like $1400 more! so I call Geico, and yell at the lady for a half hour trying to get her to explain how they arrive at their rates. The best she could tell me is that they “feed my driving record into the computer, and the computer gives them a rate” so I hang up, look for a local insurance company in Nashua, call them and setup a policy. I guess they go through Progressive insurance, and they ended up being about $2,050 a year, AND I have more coverage on my policy
So whats the moral of the story?
1) Geico sucks, they are a bunch of liars, and their rates suck
2) Apparantly all car dealerships suck
3) I realized yet again why I hate buying cars
4) I still like to complain a real lot
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Apr 2, 2005
Filed under: Automotive
I decided officially today that Massachusetts is full of assholes. I’ll admit it, I am one of them, but apparently it starts to slowly go away once you move.
Today I went to the RMV in New Hampshire to finally get my NH drivers license. The way things work in New Hampshire is that many things, like getting a new title, new car registration, transferring plates…etc are all done in the City Hall of the City you live in, so basically all you go to the RMV for is to get your drivers license. With the exception of the main RMV in Concord, all the other ones almost look like the little mall “mini-rmv’s” that Massachusetts has in some places.
Anyway, I head over to the RMV in Merrimack, and as my luck would have it, almost all the people that should have been working their were either sick or on vacation, and this one poor lady was stuck running the whole show.
Now before I get into it, I am a seasoned RMV goer. I have been to way more RMVs in Massachusetts than anyone ever should, and I have been there way too often. Every time I go, the person behind the counter is some miserable person that gives you attitude no matter what you are asking or how nice you are. There has been at least 3 times that I have gone into the Melrose RMV at like 8:30am, minutes after they opened for the day, and got attitude from the people behind the counter, and that is at the VERY BEGINNING of their day.
Also, Massachusetts has its shit together as far as running an RMV goes. They have that crazy automated ticketing system to handle your placement in line, and they have like 4-8 people working at once to get you in and out of the place in like 10 minutes.
Now back to Merrimack..
So this one lady is stuck working by herself all day, and the line was going out the door. Yet every once in a while, she would get up from her desk and tell everyone she apologizes for the wait, but she is the only one working today and Concord wouldn’t send anyone else down to help out, so if everyone could bear with her…blah blah blah…She would try to get to people as fast as she could.
Also, this lady was nice and courteous to each person that came to her counter, and what was even more odd, was that everyone that she helped was the same way. I felt like I was in some alternate universe. Everything from everyone was all please and thank you’s.
If that situation happened anywhere in Massachusetts, the person stuck working would have pulled the old Postal Worker routine and pulled out an Uzi or something and would have opened fire.
When my turn finally came, I said to the lady “you know, even though your stuck working by yourself today, and this place is packed, your still about 40 times nicer than the RMV’s in Massachusetts”
Since when do I talk to people? ahhhhh.
Oh, and get this, you know how in Massachusetts when you get your license, even if you go in to renew your old one, they give your one of those temporary learners permit style paper licenses? And they mail you your real credit card style license in the mail in a couple weeks?
New Hampshire prints the fucker out on the spot and hands it to you 2 minutes later.
The moral of the story is that I think Massachusetts is an septic tank that emits fumes of evil.
I bet Ted Kennedy has something to do with it.
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Mar 22, 2005
Filed under: Automotive, Random Thoughts
This is how today went. I woke up way to early, polished off a box of cereal, and went back to bed. Why? I don’t know, because I didnt wake up until about 10:30, thats right, an hour and a half after I was supposed to be at work. So, I rush and get ready, make my sandwich, down my protein drink, and rush out the door.
Today I decided to sport a hoodie, and decided to screw wearing a jacket. Rocky wouldn’t wear one I bet. So I get to my car, put the key in the ignition, turn it, and nothing…not even an attempt to start. This happened Monday as well. On monday I managed to drive my sisters car, covered in snow onto the street without being able to see anything out the window. I was proud of that.. I had to jump start it yesterday with her car, and again today, so I figured the battery was on its way out. But, being as late as I was, I figured I would deal with it later.
To top things off, I was also low on gas, so I go to the mobil station on Rt 1. I thought about leaving the car running while I pumped the gas, but the old ladies that run the joint are like the soup nazi on seinfeld, and yell at you over the PA if you do anything wrong, so I shut my car off.
It was a fatal mistake.
After I fill my tank, I go to start it, and sure enough, its completely dead the power locks didnt even work, So I figured I would wait for someone to pull up to the pump behind me, and I would ask them to jump my car. In the meantime, I emptied my trunk (except for my subwoofer) so that it would be easier to get at the battery, since “Lincoln” (really those assholes at Jaguar) decided to put the battery in the trunk under the mat. As I am clearing things out, some dude comes up to me and says “hey, do you have any jumper cables” I at first thought, oh he must have seen something was up, and he is going to help out. Then I thought about it for a second, and realized he was asking ME if I had jumper cables.
he needed a jump too! hahaha
So I laughed at him and said, yeah, I have jumper cables, but I actually need a jump right now too, so good luck. So we both wait in our cars for someone to pull up. He wins the bet, comes over and borrows my cables, gets his car jump started, then comes over to my car, and we jump start mine. Then I head over to Sears. I figured they could hook me up with a new battery quick.
Oh how wrong I was.
At this point, I know I can’t shut my car off or the battery will die, so I take my keyless entry thing off my keychain, lock the doors, and leave the car running while I go into the automotive shitfest at Sears. I go up to the counter and tell the moron I need a battery. He says “oh, just pull your car around back to the express battery lane, and someone will help you as soon as your turn comes up” So I (having already checked that lane out, because I am not a jackass, and saw like 5 cars waiting) asked how long the wait was. He said 30 minutes, the guy next to him said 2 hours, so he went with one hour.
Now I am thinking, what the hell, its a battery, I am not waiting in line for maybe an hour or so to get ripped off getting a battery, so I tell him, “what about if I just want to buy the battery?” he says fine, asks me what kind of car I drive, looks it up on the computer, and then says “oh sorry, we actually don’t have any batteries in stock for your car” what a shithead! he was going to make me wait an hour in line so I would find out there was no battery for me?
ahhhhhhhh!
So I left, and drive over to Autozone, meanwhile, I called NTB (the B stands for battery right?) after like 10 rings some kid picks up, I tell him I am looking for a battery for a 2000 Lincoln LS, he says okay, then instead of just looking it up on the computer 6 inches from his head, he says can I take down your name and number and call you back? it takes longer to write that down! So I say fine, and give him my info, then walk into Autozone
Autozone is packed, only 2 guys were working then, and every customer thought that they were the shit, and deserved special treatment.
Now the thing to keep in mind during this, is that any other time anything remotely like this happens to me, I go nuts, and my head almost explodes and I probably form 3 ulcers in my stomache, but today it was almost comical to me. I am waiting in line in autozone, and I just felt bad for the dudes behind the counter, and the customers were all dicks. One guy goes “what do I have to do to get service around here” and the guy behind the counter says, you can go to the register and pay, otherwise you have to wait “then the guy says, oh, I figured I had to do a little dance or something!” then laughs like he is a funny shit. I punched him in the kidney, and flying spin kicked him in the head while he was keeled over.
So, I get to the front, I tell the guy I need a battery, he gets me a battery, and I buy a $5 40 piece socket wrench set, and walk out the door. Meanwhile, NTB calls me back and leaves me a message saying they don’t have my battery. They are a tire and battery store!
So in the autozone parking lot, I rip out my battery (literally) because it was locked in using some metal screw thing that snapped in half due to my he-man like strength (or crappy aluminum) Then I go back inside with my crappy old batter to get my $8 core charge back.
Now I drive into work. The exit for my work was backed up a good half a mile. It took maybe 30-45 minutes to get out of the tunnel, and push comes to shove. I walked into work at 2:00
just to immediately leave to go to NESN (they are attached to fenway park) to look at the computer they use to put video onto boston.com.
Now its 6:00, and its time to have a lovely dinner with “fly boy” puccia, john, and janelle. I have to somehow go to the gym, or that dude is going to come and punch me in the face for slacking off.
However, for some reason, I am not at all angry. Maybe I should try to do that more often, just look at the funny side of everything. I mean come on, how often do you need a jump, and someone comes over asking you to give him a jump?
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Dec 21, 2004
Filed under: Automotive
I hear this debate come up quite often, and figured I would get some articles to back up the stance I have always had.
Rear Wheel Drive is my favorite, hands down. I don’t like the concept of front wheel drive at all. I dont like how the engine has to be installed sideways, and how they then have to cram the transmission plus some other mechanical parts all into the engine bay, where there already isn’t any room. Front Wheel Drive only came into existance because of the gas crisis in the lat 70’s/early 80’s, and all it has managed to accomplish is add to the growing list of reasons why people can’t work on their own cars anymore, and give the fact that ALL cars (foreign or american) are basically made to eventually break, not having to spent a shitload of money going to the dealership or some crack head mechanic to remove your engine to change the oil is a big plus.
To date so far, I have had (not counting my truck) 2 front wheel drive cars, and 4 rear wheel drive cars, and I have experienced more problems with the front wheel drive cars, both mechanical problems, and driving condition problems. My worst accident was in my front wheel drive monte carlo, in the snow, and that car had close to brand new tires. My 2nd worse accident was in my current car (rear-wheel lincoln ls) and it was in the rain, and was completely because of the snow tires I still had on the car (i’ll fight you on that one John. I have about 15 poland springs bottles) In the snow, I have always found that both types kinda suck, but I would much rather not have my steering wheels being the ones that are spinning, which is the case in front wheel drive, and, as both of the articles point out (I can find plenty more) Rear-Wheel drive cars, when they do lose traction, tend to over-steer (fishtail) which generally is recoverable, whereas in a front wheel drive car, when the tires lose traction, you understeer, and your screwed.
Vive le 80’s!
here are the articles:
Popular Mechanics
Canadian Driver
Permalink Comments (0) emjaydee Dec 6, 2004
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