Tag: cars

The trolliest car on the road

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

You want to get over a lane, and the car you’re planning on getting in front of speeds up and prevents you from doing so.  Never mind the fact that there is nobody behind them, you’re just not getting in front of them.

You want to merge onto the interstate, and the car in the lane you’re trying to merge onto doesn’t speed up or slow down and makes you have to adjust your speed for them to wait for them.  Never mind the fact that there is nobody in the adjacent lane for them to have made the courtesy move into, you’re the one who’s going to have to adapt.

You are in a parking lot that flows one way, and around the corner comes the car going in the opposite direction.  Whether they realize their folly or not, they still own it and act as if you are inconveniencing them, when they inevitably glare at you as they pass going in the wrong direction.

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Oh, Georgia #96

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: Woman can’t parallel park near courthouse, asks complete stranger to parallel park for her.  Is surprised when complete stranger drives off in her car.  Woman’s sister was still in car when thief takes off.  Startles thief, who not only walks away scot-free, but also steals both the woman and her sister’s purses.  Bonus: woman’s car gets ticketed after being abandoned by thief.

You know what’s the most ironic thing about this whole thing?  The carjacker is probably the one party in this whole scenario that comes out looking the cleanest.  I mean sure, he’s still criminal scum and shouldn’t be on the streets, but he was pretty much gifted a free car.  Was he supposed to not slam down the alley-oop when lobbed one?

If you leave the door to your house open and tell the guy in a ski mask out front to not rob you, what do you think is going to happen?

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Virginia is the worst place in the country to drive

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
Whatever a traffic sign estimates in Virginia, assume it to be double, for accuracy.

Typically, whenever I visit my old stomping grounds, I fly into whichever Northern Virginia airport has the most availability (usually DCA), and then I’m at the mercy of whomever is willing to give me rides or let me borrow cars, in order to do my business or get from point A to B on my own volition.

Over the span of the last year or so, be it for a myriad of circumstances, I’ve grown really weary over the notion of traveling in and out of the greater Washington D.C. area airports.  Old convention doesn’t seem to apply like it used to.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a trip where I didn’t get tragically locked in place in some leg of my trip.  Demand to or from D.C. is unpredictable and completely without logic, and I’ve had flights that looked open fill up at the drop of a hat due to weather, or some giant student group being unaccounted for until it was time to board the plane.

Needless to say, I took an opportunity to try something new during my last visit up to Virginia, because in theory it seemed like a very good idea: fly into Richmond, pick up rental car, drive to NOVA, Charlottesville, NOVA, Richmond, and leave from Richmond.  Richmond has direct flights to and from Atlanta, is a smaller airport with a smaller demand to and from Atlanta, and with a rental car, I wouldn’t have to inconvenience anyone for rides, or take time away from them.

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The answer is always yes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In moments of frustration, have you ever asked the types of rhetorical questions that are directed to people responsible for said frustration, regardless of if they can even hear you or not?

“Is _____ really that difficult?”
“Is your job really that difficult?”
“Is driving a car really that hard?”
“Is it really that difficult to use your turn signal?”
“Is it really that difficult to re-rack your weights?”
“Is it really that hard to wipe down that bench?”
“Is parallel parking really that hard?”
“Is parking really that difficult?”
“Is it really that hard to check your email?”
“Are you really that stupid?”
“Are you really that dense?”
“Are you really that oblivious?”

And the list goes on and on.  I ask these kinds of things often.  Sadly, it’s taken me longer than it probably takes other people to realize that in 100% of these inquiries, the answer is always yes.

So lately, whenever I reflexively blurt out these questions, or ask these things in my head, I actually have to consciously remind myself that the answer yes.

When it comes to the rhetorical questions, inquiring about the difficulty of common human behaviors, the answer is always yes.

That being said, I am apparently very good at many, many, many difficult things.

Knowledge is horsepower

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Conversely, that means a lack of knowledge means your car might be slower than it should be.

Long gone are the days when I used to relish in the occasional red light skirmish; trying to get to point B from the green light faster than a car in an adjacent lane.  But nowadays I’m older, I just don’t really care about it anymore, and frankly the cost of fuel is more than justifiable enough to not hit 6,000 rpm in first gear and second gear, just to prove that my car is faster than another.

But when a 3rd generation Mitsubishi Eclipse deliberately pulls up next to me with the intent of attempting to pass me on an upcoming merge point, so that they don’t have to wait behind the three cars behind me, I decided that could turn the clock back a little bit.

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We’re number two!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Source: Atlanta drivers are the second-least courteous drivers in the United States. Such assessment based on a survey claiming statistics of “road rage” characteristics.

Although I don’t refute that Atlanta is a city that most certainly fits the bill of being full of discourteous drivers, and its share of bad and/or idiot drivers, I don’t necessarily agree with AutoVantage’s criteria of what is considered road rage. When I hear the term “road rage,” I’m picturing people demonstrating acts of retaliation when they’re cut off, or people getting so angry with one another that they mutually seem to agree to pull off to the side of the road, and get into an actual physical altercation. Some of the things that AutoVantage surveyed people on, well, aggravating or foolish as they may be, not all of them I’d agree are necessarily acts of road rage. Rage-inducing, sure, to some capacity, but definitely not contextually correct.

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I enjoy reading about car restorations

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A long time ago, when I was way into Initial D and import cars in general, I often dreamed about getting a Nissan 240SX, and doing everything necessary to it to essentially turn it into a Nissan Sil-Eighty, a Frankenstein of a drift car that merged the front end of a Nissan Silvia with the body of a Nissan 180SX.

I thought, and still kind of do think, that it’s an awesome car, and that it would be real peachy if I could ever get my hands on one at any point in my lifetime.

Long gone are those boyhood racer dreams for the most part, although I wouldn’t not entertain the idea of still getting an old Nissan 240SX and restoring it to some degree of hotness, but perhaps without the need for an SR20 turbo engine, or any major super-expensive part that needed to be imported internationally.  Regardless, it’s safe to assume that those dreams of becoming a legendary drifter are long in the past.

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