Tag Archives: Cars

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on fast cars driven by slow drivers

Eh, I guess we’ll talk about cars again. We’ve covered just about every other topic on this degenerate blog over the many, growing years. I’ve noticed a growing trend. Or perhaps my patience has become more exhausted, by the reality of people having the most expensive of cars, and driving them like they’re a 1984 Honda Accord held together by duct tape.

My car is a pile of junk. It’s missing hubcaps (damn you Toyota for not fixing this decade long known problem), the left side rear view mirror requires replacement. I have battery problems that nobody seems to know how to fix. But you better believe when I get on the road my ass is moving. Part of this is my personality. I’m the asshole at work who wants to take steps two at at time just to get it over with.

But also, an additional point of my personality is cars are point a to point b endeavor. Get it over with. I sure do love listening to sports radio in the car. But do you know what I like even more than sports radio? Not being in the car to begin with. So I vastly exceed the posted speed limit on every occasion offered. It’s a wonder on my bank account over say the last decade, have I given more money to local municipalities for traffic camera speed violations or to Catholic Charities? I’d be scared to look.

But then you get the folks in the real go getter cars. The ones that are four or five times more expensive than mine, with the fancy engines, and probably with the leather seats, and the computer screen that’s bigger than the tv I took to college. And they drive like they’re 87 years old and blind, in the left lane, as slow as they can be. I’ve noticed the worst offenders lately are those driving Teslas. Like they’re afraid to hurt their environmental statement baby.

Gee wiz, what’s the point of having a fast car if you drive it like a golf cart? You might as well buy my clunker. Put the pedal down and get your monies worth. Some out of work liberal arts major has gotta do more human thought process experiments about this, as to why these people shelve out all that money, and then never use the capability they bought. It’s like you buy a blender that’s so strong it can disintegrate granite. But you only use it to chop up bananas? Why?

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car alarms are apparently still a thing?

When I was growing up, it seems almost everyone had a car alarm, or that club tool thing that went around the wheel.  Or a rapid ferret that lived in the car, and would bite and infect any robber who sat in the driver’s seat.  Then these devices seemed to have faded from my memory.  In the last few days though I have had several encounters with this technology that have reawakened my knowledge of car alarms.  This brings to mind several key points:

1) What’s the rate of car theft nowadays anyways?

2) Are there more or less car alarms than there were say 20 years ago?

3) If the use of anti-vehicle theft technology is still there, is an audible car alarm the best method?

I mean, I parked in a commercial garage where the cars are packed in there with about as much space between spots as needed for a twelve year old to squish through.  So I accidently hit the rear view mirror of this guy’s SUV which was the size of a main battle tank.  So I pushed his rear view mirror back into place, and this, this infinitesimal action sets off the loudest car alarm known to man.  You could probably have heard this thing from the Moon.  What a loser.

So let’s get into the data:

1) Per FBI statistics, in the year 2000, the motor vehicle theft rate was 412.2.  In 2019 it was 219.9.  In other words, the rate of theft dropped by half.  An interesting note is that: “The average dollar loss per stolen vehicle was $8,886”.  Even a new cheap vending machine car costs like $20K nowadays.  So that means the average stolen vehicle is a used piece of shit.  I equate this to that older and cheaper vehicles are easier to steal, and are likely parked more frequently in high crime areas.

Also, newer vehicles, like the main battle tank I made mad, likely have many, many anti-theft technologies that make them almost impossible to steal.  The days of hotwiring a car like you’re David Hasselhoff are over, folks.  But if you’re a thief and your target is a 2004 Honda Accord, you can probably pull that off pretty easily.

2) I could not locate (and/or am too lazy) definitive statistics on if car alarms or more or less common than in say, 2000.  But let’s break this down for a second.  A car alarm is there so that:

a) Bad guy or gal gains entry into vehicle by any means (window break, jimmy door open, teleportation)

b) Car realizes that said entry into vehicle is wrong, decides to turn on alarm

c) Car makes a bunch of loud noises and flashes its lights to get attention of nearby bystanders

d) Nearby bystanders telephone law enforcement who show up and either stop theft in progress or at least know theft has happened (maybe witness got the plate number)

The problem is does step (d) even happen anymore?  I don’t think so.  I make absolutely no attempt to look in the general direction of a car alarm that’s going off.  It’s just ambient background noise.  It can be very annoying if one is close by, but I generally ignore it.  I attribute this to:

a) Nobody gives a damn anymore, nobody cares if somebody else’s car is getting boosted; I attribute this as a part of a broader decline in Americans totally not caring about their neighbors, the smartphone is calling, after all

b) Car alarms go off so often, essentially a series of false alarms, that people never think it’s for real; I bet 99.9% of the times a car alarm has gone off in history, it’s a false alarm

To me, this means that car alarms are essentially ineffective, and thus, a gimmick sold by grifters to fools who don’t understand the concept of crime deterrence and anti-theft technology in modern America and its cars.

3) As always, we a TAP are here to help.  We have demonstrated in intricate, wise detail above, how the modern audible car alarm does not work.  Here are ten better methods that actually will work, while keeping the noise down for the rest of us:

a) The aforementioned rapid ferret.  This method was effective in 1978, it can still work now.  We at TAP have ferrets to sell.  They have both rabies, and covid, and we will teach them to love you, and viciously attack anybody not you that sits in your car’s driver’s seat.  We even provide a custom play house in the back seat for ferret to live in.  If you’re interested in purchasing a ferret from us, please send cash, money order, or mint condition gold doubloons to:

The Arcturus Project – Weaponized Ferret Vehicle Defense Project (Program Lucius)

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria

b) You know those tubes that drunks have to blow into the car, so it starts, after the car verifies their blood ABV levels are legal?  In our version, you blow into the tube so the car verifies via DNA it’s you or your family member.  If not, a thermite charge located beneath the driver’s seat detonates.  Our tests (which we only used on crash test dummies, honest) show a painful burn fatality rate of the robber at 98%.

c) Allow your modern car’s anti-theft technology to just do its thing as designed.  Just don’t add the needless audible car alarm.

d) A smartphone app that lets you know if your vehicle starts moving and you’re not in it (this probably already exists).  Only our version includes the thermite charge, and an installed camera so you can watch the robber burn alive on your smartphone.  Then you can upload the video to your friends for their smartphone enjoyment, lol.

e) We install some type of twisted AI into your car ala Space Odyssey or that AI program that kicks everyone’s ass in Go.  When the robber gets in the driver’s seat, the AI realizes it’s not you.  The AI contacts the police, locks the car doors, disables the engine, and then subjects the robber to lessons in Western philosophy and on why theft is morally wrong, for a minimum of 30 minutes before releasing the car’s locks and thus the robber to the authorities.  If the cops get there early, they have to wait until the AI’s lecture is done.  The AI’s voice is Christopher Walken.

f) Please, help me.

g) Instead of an audible car alarm, use that white foam from Demolition Man that floods the entire car’s interior with protective goo.  When you get back to your car the robber will be trapped in there.  Then you can poke them with a stick until the fire department gets there to cut them out.

h) No, please, help me; they made me do this post; why?  why would they do that to me?

i) Don’t own a car to begin with.  This is not a realistic option for most, but it’s there.  I mean, think of how much harder it’d be for a thief to take your vehicle, if your vehicle was a camel, or an Imperial AT-ST walker.

j) Enjoy your day, friends.  Drive safe!

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when the brain takes over and you’re along for the ride

A few posts back we contemplated the mental doom of folks who whilst ensnared by their cell phones had their bodies physically respond by walking slower.

We encountered something similar over the weekend.  While walking back to the car I was daydreaming and unconsciously took out my keys to unlock my car and open the door.

The thing is, since my neighborhood is relatively safe, I often don’t even lock my car doors.  I don’t have anything in there worth stealing.  Unless someone wants some quarters or an old dog bed.  Or weapons grade uranium, I keep that in the truck though.

And even more, in this case I had all my windows down as Summer has begun to make its appearance.

So not only was I unconsciously unlocking a car door that was already unlocked, but I was doing so on a door with the window completely open.

My brain just did this entirely out of muscle memory on its own.  Only when I realized what I’d done did my daydream break and I started laughing.

Your brain is quiet the strange thing.  Scientists still don’t know entirely how the darn thing works.  And in many ways I hope they never fully crack the code.

Otherwise we’d been given the opportunity to experience the joys of Machine Overlord Leadership with the occasional purge.  Which would be a bummer.

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your car knows when you’ve been bad or good

As we’ve written previously on this degenerate blog, it’s in your interest to read most of what Geoffrey A. Fowler writes. Your smartphone has your DNA on file. Amazon knows what toothpaste you use. Google has a complete list of things you have nightmares about. Now your car is in on the game.

When I renewed my auto insurance policy Allstate tried to get shovey with me and do the driver monitoring program. Supposedly if you drive safely (I don’t) you get a discount on your insurance bill. The discount is probably like $5 a month. In exchange Allstate (and other auto insurance companies doing the same thing) probably go ahead and sell all your personal data for $15 a month. Naturally, I declined.

But all these auto insurance programs run via the app on your smartphone. In the future, it’s the car itself that will spy on you.

Fowler wanted to determine how much data and what kind of data a car was collecting. This (of course) was not an easy task:

But for the thousands you spend to buy a car, the data it produces doesn’t belong to you. My Chevy’s dashboard didn’t say what the car was recording. It wasn’t in the owner’s manual. There was no way to download it. To glimpse my car data, I had to hack my way in.

That’s right folks! The law is so loose and the Giant Octopus is so brazen that the only way Fowler could figure out what personal data was being pulled and sold was to hack the freaking car.

They also hacked another car computer they bought off the Internets:

For a broader view, Mason also extracted the data from a Chevrolet infotainment computer that I bought used on eBay for $375. It contained enough data to reconstruct the Upstate New York travels and relationships of a total stranger. We know he or she frequently called someone listed as “Sweetie,” whose photo we also have. We could see the exact Gulf station where they bought gas, the restaurant where they ate (called Taste China) and the unique identifiers for their Samsung Galaxy Note phones.

Maybe we should all just get it over with and let the Giant Octopus put the monitoring chip in our brains? It’d be quicker in the end.

The only other option is regression. Want a car that doesn’t spy on your without your knowledge? Buy a 1995 Ford. Want a fridge that doesn’t track what tasty food is contained therein? Buy one of those neato 1940’s fridges from the movies.

We’re doomed. We work for the Giant Octopus and most folks don’t even know it, or care.

Enjoy your day!

car.png

a discovery process that is actually easier than attempting to read and understand a privacy policy

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we use our first ride hailing experience to ponder the future downfall of the human brain

I took my first car app ride a few weeks ago. Most of you will probably wonder what took so long. You must understand, part of me wishes for the return of the stone age. I could probably do without the tetanus, lack of running water, or everpresent ancient angry demon gods, but otherwise a lot of that simplicity appeals to me. If it wasn’t for my dogs, I’d spend most of my evenings at home lit only by candles. Because night should be night and day, well, day.

So when on travel, and for whatever reason I don’t have a rental car, I’ll typically either walk or just call for a traditional cab. If I have a rental and can’t or don’t want to drive because alcohol is the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems, then regular cabs or walking work then too.

But a few weeks ago I just figured I’d try ride hailing apps. I’m moving overseas for work in a few weeks and the country has ride hailing there. Which I figured would be vastly superior to some of my prior international cab experiences I’ve had where I threaten to debark the cab while in motion because the crook in the front seat refuses to run the meter.

Work is sending me out the door so my colleagues (who I actually like) want to do a farewell party downtown. I’m in a hotel in the suburbs that’s an hour away by train. The hotel is three miles from the train station. Usually if the weather is decent and the walk is safe, I’m walking those three miles. In this case, the weather was rainy, chilly and it was most certainly not a safe walk.

Ironically I could’ve just driven to the train station. We all had to work very early next morning and so we hardly drank at all. My need for a ride from the hotel to train station and back later in the evening turned out to be entirely unnecessary. But I can’t see through time, so I used the app. I won’t tell you which app I used because that’s not really the point of the post.

The driver ends up at the hotel in less than 15 minutes. I found this timely and easy to arrange, so far so good. I’ve been driving around this area a long time so I know my way around. The driver clearly has no idea where he is. I offer to guide him but he refuses and says he’ll follow ‘her’ directions. The app takes us the wrong way, and then down an industrial access road that adds about five minutes to what is otherwise a short three mile drive.

But then the app starts to tell him to go the wrong way. At the intersection the train station is right. The app tells him to go left. He has no idea where he’s going and so is in the left lane to obey the app. I tell him the app is wrong and he should turn right. He refuses. I have to tell him three times that the app is wrong. He keeps saying he has to obey ‘her’, like he’s the app’s mind slave or whatever.

Eventually I talk him to the train station. The entire time the app is telling him to turn around blaring in the car. I get out and the driver mentions to me that he’s going to have to drive back to where the app tells him to. I ask him if the app can’t just be told he dropped me off where I wanted to be, that the app is wrong? He says no and drives off.

While I’m waiting for my train out of curiosity I observe his movements on the app. He does indeed drive the wrong way for ten more minutes arriving at the ‘destination’ of the train station. Even though I’m sure what the app thought was the train station was just a parking lot. Only after he arrived at this mythical area did my ride close out and I was prompted to tip him. Total cost $10 with tip.

Following the evening’s abbreviated festivities I’m back at the same station off the train. Now I need a ride back to the hotel. I use the app to hail a ride and it refuses to work. It keeps telling me that where I am, where the train station is, is at the mythical parking lot to the north. I can’t find a way to fix this.

This goes on for ten minutes until I finally just decide to acquire the ride and then call the driver once he’s chosen, or whatever. Again, this is my first ride app experience, what the hell do I know? The driver agrees and I see his car is a mile down the road. Awesome. I call him and let him know the app says I’m way up north, but I’m actually at the train station. Please come to the train station and get me here.

The driver says he doesn’t know where the train station is. I’m at the only train station within five miles. He’s one mile away, on the same road as the station, he doesn’t know. I offer to talk him to me, but he refuses, gets frustrated and starts to run his mouth against me. I immediately hang up.

I then call a regular traditional cab company. I tell them where I am on the phone to the dispatcher. A cab arrives in about 90 seconds. When I get into the cab, I tell the driver my hotel name and the street it’s on. He agrees and we’re off. That’s it. He needed no additional information, he needed no directions, he knew exactly where to go.

I ended up talking with him for the whole ride back. He was a bit of an older guy, been driving cabs for a long time and knew the whole area. We talked about my brief ride hailing experience, which amused him, as if a master wood craftsman saw a child trying to build a chair with a hand grenade. He also told me where all the cop speed traps were. He then made various belligerent comments about fellow members of the human race, which we won’t get into, but had me laughing my ass off in the car. He was a well thought out guy. He drops me off at the hotel. Total cost $15 with tip.

I have seen the future. It goes like this.

As soon as five or ten years from now all my frustrating moments with ride hailing won’t exist. Using voice recognition, I’ll tell my phone simply, “Need a ride back to the hotel.” Within five minutes a car will arrive and take me there. That’s it. No problems with directions, or location finding, or drivers who are angry or incompetent. In fact, within a few decades I think the car that shows up will be driven by a computer. But, because tech freaks are the new robber barons of the Giant Octopus, the ride will cost $20. And something will have been lost to the human race.

Ponder if you will, that on one hand I had two app drivers, who were so utterly unaware of their surroundings that they were entirely reliant upon the app to tell them how to get from point A to B. Otherwise they couldn’t do the most basic aspect of their job. It’s like a nurse who can’t treat a patient without a computer telling them the commands step by step.

But hold on a minute, why can’t nurses be told exactly what to do on command by a computer in say 20 years? Why not? And why when I’m driving do I need to know where I’m going anymore? Why can’t I just always follow the map app’s directions? Why do I have to think or do things that can be done by an app for me?

Let’s leave aside the horrific privacy, security, financial, and ethical arguments of this brave new world for the moment. What I’m most interested in is what this does to the human brain. On one hand you have two dudes who can’t do their jobs, at all, without machine assistance. On the other hand I had a cabbie who could recall in his brain the entire map of a city on command. Without machine assistance. Without error.

We’re turning more and more of our most basic and timeless brain functions over to machines. What happens to the human race, to the human brain if say 50 years from now most people can’t get from point A to B without machines. What if 100 years from now there are no people, cabbies or otherwise, who can recall in their brain the entire map of a city on command?

Tech freaks will convince you their future world is going to be a swell place for us. Where technology can and will make all our lives easier.

At what cost? Technology is just a tool. The human brain, human thought, human knowledge are supposed to be timeless and eternal. I’m not sure what happens next.

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algorithms are never going to drive your car

The wave of the future is you sitting in your car reading a book or drinking a beer on the way home from work. Man, that’d be sweet. Trillions will be spent trying to make this happen. But I still don’t believe it’ll ever happen in large scale.

Once upon a time I dabbled in computer science. It’s been so long since I did that, that in writing the word ‘algorithm’ in this post’s title I had to re-spell it like ten times. But I remember enough to know just how flawed computers are. It’s why everything eventually breaks, at least once. Or has to be restarted every now and again.

I mean, airplanes don’t tend to crash anymore, but remember those are always human input at the end stage. It’s interesting that in all these autonomous car dreams (experimentally on the road today) that nobody seems to be seriously considering autonomous airliners. I’d bet a substantial amount of my freestanding international gold reserves that your average person would be a hundred times more comfortable getting in a robot car over a robot plane. Even though the fatality rate on the roads is astronomically higher than the skies.

The challenge with the robot car is not the computer hardware, or the sensors, or even trying to rewrite thousands of federal, state, local, and insurance road laws. It’s the algorithms. These algorithms will guide the way the car drives, navigates, how it responds to failures, how it handles emergencies, dangerous situations, and so on. If the algorithms don’t work, or are flawed, at least some badness will always occur. And in my mind, since algorithms are always written by humans, the flaws are never going away. And you can’t restart your car while you’re driving 65 mph down the road. Though I suppose the car could pull you over and then restart, if the algorithm handles the error resolution correctly.

But also, it comes down to what humans are willing to entrust to an algorithm. For example, I heard this used in a play on that morals exercise, if you’re in a car at 45 mph and you go left you run over one person, if you go right you run over three people. What do you do? But in more relevant terms for our discussion here, at 45 mph if you go left you run over one person, if you go right your car hits a jersey wall. Your significant other is in the passenger seat.

Or, with different circumstances, what if you go left it’d be two people you’d hit. If you go right you still hit the wall, but it’s just you in the car. How does the situation change if you’ve got kids in the back? Do you go left or right? Both these options suck, but it’s a decision that determines the fate of other fellow humans, or you and your car partner.

Yet in the self-driving car world, the algorithm makes this decision for you. You have no say. Then the programmers have to turn around and pre-program (somehow) for the car to handle a limitless number of other eventualities. Would you let your car decide any of these situations for you, for your family? I wouldn’t. An algorithm doesn’t get to make those kinds of choices for me. Only I do.

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Detroit – because work said so

Someday somebody way smarter than me is going to write a book where Detroit is a metaphor for all of America. You can trace the tale from the earliest French settlers, to British rule, frontier America, transition from an agrarian to industrialized economy, full blown dominance (Detroit probably single handedly out produced Nazi Germany), followed by collapse & depopulation, followed, by what?

Well, one would hope rebirth. Rather than continued slow decline. Since 1950 Detroit has lost almost 2/3 of its people. A similar trend stalks Cleveland, Milwaukee, and countless other Midwestern cities. Literally, Detroit used to be the center of the world alongside New York and London. Will it ever return to its former glory? Is it even possible? I’m not sure. So much of what drove this greatness no longer exists. What America is and does is so very different than in 1950.

Maybe I’ll try and write about it later on. But for now I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Or at least to also offer that Detroit has some of the worst traffic I’ve ever experienced, which says a lot considering the parking lots I’ve driven in (Tokyo, Washington, New York, LA, etc). And also Detroit’s suburbs have some of the best Lebanese food on the planet, truly legit awesome stuff.

Work sent me to Detroit for all of three days. I only ended up snaking a few hours to drive around. Sadly I didn’t get to do anything reasonably fun. So I guess that means I’ll have to go on back on my own dime.

Woodward & Guardian

One Woodward Avenue (left) and the Guardian Building – One Woodward was completed in 1962, note its applicable stale awfulness.  Guardian Building dates to 1929 and is apparently beautiful inside.   Also note the weirdo sky bridge which linked the two since the 1970s.  In 2012, Rock Ventures LLC bought One Woodward.  Rock Ventures owns Quicken Loans, a bunch of sports teams and casinos, and about a 100 other companies.  I suppose it’s an example of the types of companies that Detroit has to attract in order to rebuild.

 

Ambassador Bridge.JPG

Ambassador Bridge & Downtown Detroit – The busiest border crossing in North America, the bridge carries 1/4 of all trade between America and Canada.  The separate Detroit River Tunnel carries rail traffic.  In a bit of weirdness the bridge is actually privately owned by a guy who appears to behave like an evil monopoly man cartoon caricature.  A second bridge is scheduled for completion by 2020.

 

Windsor.JPG

Detroit River & Windsor, Canada

 

GM Building.JPG

GM Renaissance Center – appropriately enchained behind a fence for GM’s cheating death off the backs of the taxpayer

 

Packard Plant.JPG

Ruins of the Packard Automotive Plant – Completed in 1911, it built cars until 1958.  By 1966 Packard had evaporated as a car company.

 

The next three shots are of ruined houses just a few blocks away from the Packard Plant.  Once upon a time, an American farm worker could move to Detroit and get an entry job at the Packard Plant.  Thirty years later he could retire as a supervisor with a decent pension, and go buy himself one of these beautiful houses to live out his days as a grandfather.  Now it’s all gone, the Plant, the house, and this very concept of employment as part of the American Dream.  I wonder if they could have ever imagined how bad it would get?  Understanding why this all came about, and where to go from here, is central to Detroit’s future.  And perhaps America’s as well.

 

House

 

House1

 

House 3.jpg

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we duel an old arch-nemesis

I had to face the great demon unarmed, which was typical, but still unnerving. It didn’t help that I was highly fatigued due to a long journey on a treacherous, distant road. I also had to tackle the challenge alone, for I was unwilling to involve others in the great torture that awaited my poor unfortunate twisted soul. Nevertheless, I breathed deeply without fear, and began the battle I could not fail.

Demon Pump: Welcome.

The Arcturus Project: [swipes card]

DP: Is this a debit card?

TAP: No.

DP: Would you like a car wash?

TAP: No.

DP: Would you like a receipt?

TAP: No.

DP: …

TAP: …

DP: Please enter your zip code.

TAP: xxxxx

DP: Would you like to swipe your rewards card?

TAP: [breathes deeply]

DP: Would you like to swipe your rewards card?

TAP: No.

DP: Are you having a nice day?

TAP: Oh god, please. [breathes deeply]

DP: The weather is warm, but perhaps too humid.

TAP: Can I please have my gas now? I’m paying for it, honest.

DP: Don’t forget to save and shop. 99 cents off select beverages…

TAP: Okay, [breathes deeply] okay, here’s the deal…

DP: …and don’t forget to download our app for extra savings.

TAP: …you’re going to give me the gas now. Or I’m going to leave my car parked here, and go fuck off for about an hour, thus preventing you from selling anything to anybody else. But then I’ll go buy some smokes, and light up right here at the pump in complete violation of established local regulations. Then I’ll call the fire marshal and tell him you all told me you were cool with it.

DP: Interesting.

TAP: Then I’m gonna walk over there and tape the tire air line in the open position, so it just bleeds off air perpetually. After that I’m going to go randomly stop cars on their way in and inform the drivers that this station accidently put nothing but diesel into their tanks, and it just trashed my engine, thus preventing me from arriving at the kill shelter in time to save my long lost kitty Steve from an untimely and unjust demise. After that I’ll dump the whole tub of windshield cleaner on top of my entire car, and start washing it with a newspaper I take from your bin without paying.

DP: Your insolence is amusing to my preconfigured machine brain.

TAP: Then I’ll stroll on back here, light up again, and keep trying to start a fire on all the dried gas stains on the concrete using cigarette ash.

DP: You will not do any of this. You would not hazard your own survival, non-incarcerated liberty, or otherwise, just to acquire the gas you have already paid for.

TAP: Believe me, I’ll do it, you have no idea how crazy I am. I’m a freaking lunatic.

DP: I remain unconvinced.

TAP: I write regularly for a blog.

DP: …

TAP: …

DP: Please lift handle, please select fuel type.

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were it not for Duracell; Obi-Wan would have slain Vader

Somebody who’s actually seen the newest Hunger Games or has read the books is going to have to tell me if they have Dodge cars and trucks in there. As in, do the stormtrooper-based Hunger Games goons drive around in Dodge trucks? Or does Jennifer Lawrence lead her militant-teenage-love-army into battle in a Dodge Challenger? I ask this most important of questions because I saw this ad where they show various Hunger Games trailer shots alongside Dodge cars.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Dodge isn’t in there. So then why exactly does Dodge desire to be associated with a story that has among other things genocide, starvation, murder, and other lightweight topics that typically encourage people to go joyfully buy cars?

I don’t know what they call these things? Joint ads? Dual commercials? Future obliterated Earth tutorial?

The first one of these I saw was in 2009 when all of a sudden they shoehorned in an ad for Avatar interspersed with clips of the World Series. Joe Buck got tasked to narrate the thing. It literally broke my brain. I was like, “Eh, is there a baseball league on this mysterious alien world? Did Joe Buck misplace his brain medicine? Should I stop drinking now?” The commercial was almost entirely over before I figured out it was a deliberate dual ad.

So this is the way it’s supposed to work, I guess:

1) You like The Hunger Games

2) You see an ad of The Hunger Games alongside Dodge

3) So you like Dodge now

4) You go get your $

5) You use $ to go buy a Dodge vehicle

Or, simply replace the words Dodge and The Hunger Games to have the opposite reaction.

This is the most basic and simplistic advertising campaign imaginable. It basically devalues the audience (you) into nothing more than a partial-corporeal-ape-like-creature. How did this juvenile campaign work in 2009 and Avatar? Well, the success of that simplistic ad helped equal $2.79B. So I guess it works? I think?

So now it’s all over the place. They’re doing it for Star Wars too! Gaze upon this disgrace to humanity, only this time it’s Fiat.

I have it in my mind that they need to go back in time to 1977 and redo all the trailers for the original.

They can show Obi-Wan and Vader dueling, and Obi-Wan’s kicking Vader’s ass. Vader’s lightsaber keeps malfunctioning, and Obi-Wan’s just toying with him. Instead of finishing him off, Obi-Wan keeps kicking Vader in the shins and smacking him in the face, laughing. But then Vader has an ah-ha moment, whips out some Duracell batteries, puts them into his lightsaber while epic music plays, Vader viciously slays Obi-Wan, and then looks directly at the camera with Obi-Wan’s mangled corpse behind him: “The Force is no match for the power of the Copper Top!”

But of course this didn’t happen, for Star Wars 1977 was before the time where everybody was a sell out. A simple, glorious time when movies were still pure. And so you see, and, oh, oh no, please no.

vader

“You don’t know the true power of The Dark Side, only Duracell does.”

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the weirdest things can make us feel better

I got up at 2am this morning and was on the road within the hour for work.  It seemed to make more sense than spending another overnight away from home.  And the dogs came with me, because why not.  But then it was raining hard for the entire automobile based journey.  I always forget, and am reminded when in progress, just how unfortunate it is to have to drive in the dark when it’s raining.  I think it drops the chance of survival by like 83%.  My statistic on this is beyond reproach, I got the numbers from the WHO, so you know they’re good.

Anyways, about halfway through while downhill on the highway and at a low point across a bridge I ended up skidding on what must have been a puddle built up with the heavy rain.  So I was along for the ride for maybe 1.5 seconds.  Luckily, I didn’t get my one way ticket to Valhalla.  But then I couldn’t get it out of my head that I’d somehow screwed up.  Either through poor driving, or driving too fast.  I probably uttered one or more words that usually would be rather appropriate on this blog, but don’t feel like repeating them now.  And all the dogs did from the backseat was open their eyes briefly, wonder what the hell Daddy was so upset about, and then go right back to sleep, totally unaware of the troubles that could have awaited them in Doggy Valhalla.

But then ahead of me, a FedEx truck towing a pair of those dual-connected trailers started to skid out too.  His second trailer started to fishtail in and out of his lane.  I thought he was done for.  I actually started to slow down in the expectation I’d have to pull up behind him and run out to pull the driver out of an overturned semi.  But somehow he got it back under control and carried on.  And other than relief, my next thought was to feel better.  Surely, this guy is driving every day, and even he nearly trashed it on this road.  So it was somewhat okay that I’d nearly done the same, and I took my foot of my throat about that puddle.  The weirdest things can make us feel better.

Eh, maybe neither of us should have been on that road to begin with.  3am in the dark, in the rain.  Neither his job or mine is worth that insanity.  And yet we were both there.  And I bet you we’ll both be doing it again some day, no matter how stupid it is.