Tag: cars

Oh, Decatur, #35

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure this will have no negative effects: City of Decatur launches “pace car” program to try to slow down motorists and reduce accidents

Let my start off by saying that I’m a fan of Decatur.  Decatur is the small town in the big city that has lots of character, good bars and restaurants.  The Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market.

More importantly, Decatur will always have a permanent impact on my life, as it is where I got married, at our courthouse wedding.

Needless to say, the City of Decatur will always hold a special place in my heart, regardless of the words that are going to come flying out of my fingertips in the ensuing paragraphs.

Although good intentioned, I can’t imagine any reality where Decatur’s pace car program isn’t going to be met with massive resistance, ridicule, and a general sentiment of resentment.  Cars being driven by people who are declaring their intention of doing one of the few things every motorist on the planet doesn’t like, in slowing them down, there’s no way that this goes in the direction that the city really hopes it will go in.

As much as I do love Decatur, the reality remains that the whole place really is a nightmare region to drive around in.  Whether it’s on Ponce, Candler, Dekalb, Scott Blvd., or any of the other main thoroughfares through the city, the roads and lanes are narrow, there’s large swaths of street with crumbled, dirt or just plain no sidewalks, and the quality of said roads and sidewalks are often as deteriorated as if the taxes were drained from their funds in Sim City, so they just start falling apart.

Combine perilous infrastructure with the general aggressive nature of Atlanta drivers, and you have the recipe that makes driving around in Decatur as generally risky to the point where they’re always looking for ways to improve safety around the roads of the city, whether from the city itself, or citizens who are trying to take matters into their own hands.

I mean, it’s really kind of their own sword that they’re falling on; as much as I like Decatur, the people within the city are this eclectic mass that takes a tremendous amount of pride in their small town feel, but want to enjoy all the luxuries and benefits that come with living close to a massive market like Atlanta, and there’s a large sense of resentment and us versus everyone from those who live there.

Getting back to the original point of this post, I can’t imagine that people who are taking it upon themselves to be the enforcers of the road; going exactly the speed limit, stopping at yellow lights, coming to complete stops and looking all directions at stop signs, aren’t going to regret it in time.  As much as Decatur-ites might not like day-traders and tourists, their little hamlet goes broke in ten seconds without their money.  Drivers from Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Tucker, Stone Mountain and Conyers are going to be going to or through Decatur, and there’s little anyone there can do about it.

I imagine that aggro driver A will be aggro-ing down Ponce, and they see the car in front of them with a pace car sticker on their windshield; they now have visual confirmation of a car that must be passed, and has pledged to go the speed limit or less to the griefing of others, and they are undoubtedly going to exorcise their ability to do so.

Road rager B is having a bad day, and they’re sitting through three cycles of lights at Scott and Claremont, and they inch their way up to find out that some dork with a pace car sticker is the one not taking the right on red, and they go ballistic at seeing someone whom they believe is really just using the pace car designation as a means to troll others on the road.  Words are exchanged, and because Georgia has looser gun rights than abortion rights, ammunition is exchanged next, and we’ve got our top story on My Fox 5 Atlanta for the evening.

Or my favorite hypothetical, Decatur White Knight C pledges to the pace car program, and although they do god’s work while within city proper, once they’re outside of Decatur, they themselves are driving around like a dick, unleashing all the aggression they suppress while cockblocking motorists on their home turf.  Be it through getting into an altercation on their own, or pissed off rager D sees a pace car outside of Decatur and wants to start shit, they get in a massive accident, footage of a demolished car on I-285 is on WSB-TV, but with the City of Decatur pace car sticker still intact and in plain sight.

The point is, Decatur-ites who think it’s their place to be heroes and saviors and enforcers of their fair city’s streets, really are putting their own lives at risk.  It’s pretty bold of the city to be willing to throw their own citizens into the fire by basically allowing anyone to volunteer, and I just don’t see a long game where this turns out to be successful.

The intentions are good, but the program doesn’t seem to have been well thought out thoroughly enough, and I don’t have a lot of high hopes for this program not blowing up their face in some fashion(s).  And for that, I simply say, oh Decatur.

Oh, Atlanta #285

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB-TV: Georgia Department of Transportation wants to hear from the pleebs about something that they’re probably 20% already initiated into the project, adding express (read: pay) lanes to the top half of I-285

Shade aside, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about the way the world works, is that when a big entity, be it a company, agency or local or even national government tries to look democratic and get feedback from the people in regards to a proposed project, it’s all just a formality and done for optics, photo-ops and public appearance.  I’d say probably 80% of the time, the projects are already underway, and the public is being tapped to hopefully identify and shortcomings or oversights, but with the guise of pretending like they care about the opinions of the rest of the poors.

That being said, nobody’s going to convince me that GDOT hasn’t already gotten the ball rolling in regards to adding Peach Pass lanes to the top half of 285, and that they’re tapping into the public at this juncture just to get a feel for public sentiment, with the idea of pivoting or adjusting the direction of the new lanes based on public opinion.

I’m just curious to know where the fuck these magical extra lanes are going to be built, or if they’ll just cannibalize the far-left lanes of existing I-285 and make them Peach Pass only.  It doesn’t take a genius to identify that there’s basically zero space in between the two directions of I-285, so adding extra lanes on the left doesn’t really seem realistic, unless they add them onto the right, and shift everything down, but that would basically necessitate colossal road work to probably 34 miles worth of highway, feeding the narrative that GDOT is completely incapable of leaving well enough alone, and is always working on something at any given time to all but guarantee that Atlanta’s traffic is among the worst in the nation.

Either way, regardless of if the project is or isn’t actually already started, it’s definitely going to happen if it’s already gotten this far, to ask for public opinion, and I think it’s a dumb one all the same.  It’s like city planners or GDOT schmucks have never played an iteration of Sim City at any point in their careers, and never learned that adding moar lanes of roads is never the solution, and only investing in rail or alternative means of infrastructure do cities really grow, flourish and liberate themselves from the rat race of cars and roads.

Besides, even if and when moar Peach Pass lanes are added, it’s not like the city will actually do anything about the inevitable legions of violators that use them without tags.  Last time I heard about the problem with violators is that there were well over six figures worth of violations that were left unpaid, and that was many moons ago, so I would wager that there are probably well over a million dollars by now in Peach Pass violations that will go uncollected.  So that’s kind of like a double fail that will result if and when Peach Pass lanes are added to I-285, but hey, maybe one more lane is what the City of Atlanta really needs in order to unlock the gridlock that many of us suffer on a regular basis.

Zuck may be a tool, but I respect what he’s doing with his physical life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know where or why I was shown it, but I saw a picture of Zuck without a shirt on at some MMA event, and I had a wtf moment at just how jacked the dorky motherfucker now is.  Whenever his name pops up somewhere, my mind automatically fills in the visual of Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of him in The Social Network, but with his doofy looking head with his buggy-looking eyes instead.

But in reality now, we’ve got a pretty athletic looking guy with budding muscle definition and a growing amount of jiu-jitsu training, because from what I understand it’s pretty much the only thing he does when he’s not being a corporate stooge these days.  Zuck is absolutely becoming a problem in that he’s a rich go-zillionaire, but is also developing the physique and the skillset to be able to fight, and that automatically knocks about 85% of the people who hate him for being who is off their pedestals of wishing they could bully him or intimidate him in a real-life fantasy altercation.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly care much for the guy, but I will freely admit that I respect what he’s doing with his body.  Think about all the billionaires and millionaires out there that are fat, soft and doughy, and all shaped like pears.  Because of their wealth, they’ve simply given up on trying at all when it comes to their bodies, because they can just continuously throw money at things until they get a positive result.

But Zuck, it’s like he revolves his day around his working out and BJJ training, and that running theFacebook or Meta or whatever the fuck company is making him infinite money is basically a nuisance of a day job that is interfering with his ability to train.  When he’s not practicing grappling, he’s most definitely got a nutritionist and personal trainers who ensure that his body becomes sculpted and is in optimal shape, and I have to give props that the man is actually investing a little bit of his wealth into his own physical well-being, because there are so many in similar positions to him that absolutely do not.

I mean, it’s exactly what I would do if I were infinitely rich and didn’t have to work anymore.  I’d have both a personal chef as well as a personal trainer to make sure I got adequate exercise with physical goals in mind, as well as being fed healthy food that doesn’t suck or get exhausted with.

And then I’d get hardcore into wood working or restoring cars, and building my Nissan Sil-Eighty because that is still something that I really would like to do in my life, and when I hit the points of progress where I can humblebrag about the things I’m working on, I won’t look like a fat fucking slob that people would look at and overshadow the quality of my work because they’re too busy laughing at me.  I guarantee, that the more jacked and competent that Zuck gets with his training, the less fuel the troglodytes of the internet have to clown on him whenever his name pops up in the future.

Dad Brog (#133): Separation anxiety

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was unloading my car after our trip, I noticed that my Baby On Board placard had fallen off.  Presumably in part due to the nuclear heat wave Georgia is going through because global warming is fake news, but there it was, no longer stuck to the windshield, letting other motorists to get off my tits because my kids are more important than your bullshit aggressive driving.

During the trip, the thought actually crossed my mind that I still had it on the window, and how that 4 and 2, my kids aren’t really babies anymore, regardless of the fact that I’m always going to see them as my little babies no matter what their age is in life. 

For two years, during the rise of #2, we didn’t encounter a whole lot of the impending separation anxiety with #1’s belongings, because we knew that just about everything we ever bought for #1 would get a second life with a younger sibling that was for all intents and purposes pretty close in age.  So instead of getting sad, mopey and melancholy that a material object was nearing the end of the line, just about everything got to be used again, and really get its money’s worth.

But now though, is a different story, as #2 continues to outgrow and retire clothes, shoes and other things here and there, comes the reality of having to say goodbye to things, which I’m normally pretty good about tossing things, or donating or getting them out of our home by whatever means, but when it comes to the things that belonged to my children, that’s a different story.

Which is why we still have tubs full of infant clothing, a disassembled crib that we have no use for, car seats, strollers and boxes of shoes, toys and other crap we want gone, but are still struggling to actually remove from the premises.  Like, I want the space back in my dining room, garage and sunroom something fierce, but at the same time, it’s sad to say goodbye to all these random crap and clothing that basically had notable contributions in raising my children.

As for the window placard, I thought about keeping it off the window because my kids aren’t technically babies anymore, but then I was like fuck that, and slapped it back up on the window.  Even if my kids aren’t crawling around in diapers, I would still appreciate if shitty aggressive drivers would have a little bit of understanding maybe at why I might not drive like an asshole when I don’t have to.

When news ≠ reality

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

News: Hulk Hogan channels the power of Hulkamania, lifts wrecked car, rescues teenage driver, cures cancer while he’s at it, completely by himself

Reality: Hulk Hogan present at the scene of an accident while most likely his friend more than likely did the actual work of pulling a teenage driver out of a flipped vehicle

You’d think a story like this would get me out of my seat and prepare to strap in and mark out about how amazing and wonderful the power of Hulkamania is and how great Hulk Hogan is, but let’s not kid ourselves anymore.  As much as I love the idea of Hulk Hogan and Hulkamania living forever, the guy himself, Terry Bollea is far from a perfect human being in his own right; made no more prevalent then the NYPost giving him the professional athlete treatment, and inserting this snippet into the footer, much like a baseball player’s statistics in any story that has nothing to do with sport:

WWE released Hogan from his contract in 2015 after audio from a sex tape revealed him uttering the n-word and saying he was “racist, to a point.” He apologized for his remarks.“

I’m not sure how any of that has anything to do with being a Good Samaritan and stopping at the scene of an accident, but in the grand spectrum of things, it was still pretty cool of Hulk Hogan to stop and give a degree of assistance, up for interpretation.

I think the funniest thing is that Hogan hogs the tagline, as if he himself did a completely selfless and heroic act, and that he and only he, lifted the vehicle with his 28” pythons and the power of Hulkamania coursing through his veins, and rescued a damsel in distress.  Obviously this isn’t necessarily by any fault of Hogan himself, a rag like the Post knows what they have to do in order to draw page views.

I have to imagine the actual reality is more along the lines of his friend, who supposedly is a veteran, along for the ride, sees the accident occur, and his protect instinct kicked in and he wanted to act.  And Hogan, always the politician and puppeteer and his (third) wife probably immediately seeing an opportunity to soak up some positive press and get the Hogan name back out into the public eye didn’t hesitate to be on board.

But then you see the few photos of the scene, and it looks pretty clear that Hulk Hogan himself, in an nWo shirt no less, is just kind of standing around and watching.  The friend, who looks younger and fitter, probably is the one who did all of the work, but solely by being the celebrity in the scene, Hulk Hogan gets to absorb the lion’s share of the credit for the act of heroism.

I’m not going to shit on the Hulkster any more than this, but it’s just funny how Hogan, whether he’s trying to or not, still somehow manages to always stay relevant in some way shape or fashion, and this is a good example of it.  All things considered, it was cool that he stopped at all, because I can’t imagine that most people these days want to get involved, and are more apt to drive off and feign ignorance rather than help out.

This is my new dream ride

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sauce: Florida hoons with too much time and money on their hands rig the body of a Honda Odyssey onto the chassis of a Tesla Model S Plaid

Throughout my life of being interested in cars, I’ve always been fascinated by sleeper cars.  Cars that look unsuspecting and basically invisible, but really are high-performance monsters underneath the hood.  There have been a few noteworthy sleepers out of the box, like the 90’s Ford Taurus SHO, but in most cases all it really takes is slapping a turbo or swapping a motor onto a nondescript automobile, and you’ve got a reliable sleeper.

However, over the last few years, I’ve become enthusiastic about having become a Tesla owner, and having an EV, that doesn’t rely on the gas that always demoralizes me when I have to fill up my gas-powered vehicles.  And given the price points and the general unwillingness to fuck around with and tinker with mine or any EV, the reality of having a sleeper car in the immediate future doesn’t seem very likely.

So this particular story about a bunch of car dudes out in Florida who clearly have too much time and money on their hands, who Frankenstein together the body of a Honda Odyssey minivan, onto the body of a Tesla Model S Plaid, one of the fastest cars in the world off the line, gets my attention because it is quite literally smashing together two things that I’m interested in, Teslas and sleepers, and making something that I didn’t think really was possible, a sleeper Tesla.

It’s just hilarious to see the dumpy turd on wheels that is the Honda Odyssey, and I wish that these bros went a little longer before making a video to actually refine and try to meld the two cars together, because as it is, it felt very raw and rushed, where they leave off.  But at least they have a relatively driveable ride, and I found it hilarious whenever they punched it, and the sheer torque of the Tesla’s electric motor would wrench and yank so hard that all you could hear was the metal-on-metal smashing of a jerry-rigged chassis trying to keep two pieces together.

But overall, this is a potential dream car: Tesla power and no reliance on gasoline, but the invisible obscurity of the penultimate soccer mom van of the 2000’s.  I for one, would definitely be all about riding around in one of these as my primary ride if it were remotely cleaned up, functional, and didn’t sound like the body would rip off when I pushed the accelerator.

The manufacturing rights to the Batmobile go to Nissan??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, it happened nearly a month ago, but because I live under a rock, I obviously missed out on it until it was spoon-fed to me from a targeted ad; but there was some car show out in Japan where all the manufacturers unveil new shit, and among all the general noise, emerged the fact that Nissan is basically making, the Batmobile.

They’re calling it the Nissan Hyper Force, which sounds more like it should be a Power Rangers Zord, but from the looks of the concept, come on, it’s the goddamn Batmobile.  The sharp lines, the design meant for optimal aerodynamics, that every flare and angle, basically looks like Lucius Fox himself designed it.

I don’t care enough to deep dive into reading everything about it, but this snippet I saw basically encapsulates the vehicle as a whole:

The Nissan Hyper Force is designed for racing enthusiasts and gamers who crave the adrenaline rush of the racetrack but are also eco-concious.

There are a lot of assumptions being made here, like assuming mutual exclusivity between being gamers and those who have the balls and means to get out onto the racetrack and I feel like such couldn’t be any more incorrect, but in the land of marketing, people will say whatever the fuck sounds like it can capture the imagination of some gullible saps into thinking that they can not only tackle Akina, but also do it green.

But not likely to be in the brochure are that drivers will feel compelled to tap into their inner vigilante and go out and fight crime.  Also, hack their car and find out ways to install sophisticated self-drive mechanisms to drive to you on command, as well as have hidden compartments for smoke bombs, gatling guns, and my favorite Batmobile gizmo, the grappling hook to make the smoothest 90 degree turn without having to slow down in history.

Either way, kudos to Nissan for being the car maker who decided to have the stones to take on the Batmobile, and all the tryhards in the future who will get one for absolutely no other reason than that it’s unofficially, the Batmobile.  I think if I don’t get another Tesla outright, I’m leaning towards something a little more conservative and subtle, like the re-release of the Honda Prelude, the updated Fairlady Z, and much to my own surprise, even the new Prius is looking pretty alright these days.