Tag: cars

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.

Every now and then, China gets it right

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

America could use these: China employs a suction-cup device that sticks to cars that implements fines for poor parking, and increases the fine based on how long it takes to pay the fine, fully aware of the societal embarrassment to violators

As the subject says, every now and then, China does manage to get it right.  In this case, they actually created something somewhat original in concept, and is something that I think more places than just China would benefit from.

Obviously, there’s no shortage of shit drivers all over America whom on purpose, or just their insufficient skill levels, park in manners that leave it up for debate on evolution, and whether or not these shit parkers’ genetic lines have all of the same makeup that of those who actually know how to park a car correctly.

So I’d be over the moon at the thought of devices like this being employed in America, and am a little bit envious that China seems to have these first, with the hopes that they would actively deter people from parking like unskilled invalids, or those who park terribly on purpose because they think their Nissan Maxima was manufactured by Bugatti and need to take up four parking spaces.

There’s a lot of gray area on these devices, mainly how they are retrieved once a violator has paid their fine, or what the next steps are if a person is not deterred through public shaming and accepts the fact that they’re to drive around with this big ass digital barnacle on their vehicle until the end of time, but just my knee-jerk reaction of these things is resoundingly positive.

The source video appears to already be gone, and I don’t want to hunt and search for anything from Chinese internets, but if the thumbnails are any indication, and the device is slapped on for merely having the tires overlapping the boundary line by just a few centimeters, it appears that China’s expectations for parking ability are quite, Asian in the sense that it doesn’t seem like it requires a lot of infraction to warrant getting one of these slapped on your ride.

All the same, the intent is to make people better drivers in general, and I wouldn’t even say that I’d be impervious to getting one of these, because I’m no stranger for looking for imbalanced parking spaces that give me a slight advantage of space wherever I can, and at one of my old jobs, I used to always park way over the line, to maximize the distance of an adjacent car’s ability to park next to me, but it was far away, so I didn’t think I was inconveniencing anyone.

But I love the logic behind this from the Chinese, because it’s undoubtedly a cash-grab of a device, but also, it’s a device of public shaming, because it’s not like a boot that immobilizes a car, but it’s instead a boot that you can drive around with, and everyone can see that you’re a shit parker.  And it’s insinuated that Chinese and other Asian cultures seem more susceptible to embarrassment than other countries (America) and that this idea might not work as well in other countries (America) as they might in a place like China.

But I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t want to see it piloted here anyway.  I’d love to see Chinese meter maids trolloping around a place like Atlantic Station or the West Paces Ferry shopping center where the worst parkers on the planet all parked like the wild west, in order to minimize how much they had to walk to Starbucks or Willy’s.  Every Mercedes, Kia Optima or BMW that parks like a douche gets one of these giant suction cup yellow discs slapped onto their door, and is stuck with them until they’re paid.  Every Dodge RAM mobile-insurrection chariot that is oblivious to just how much their cab is sticking out or over the lines gets one of these slapped on their door.

They might not be as embarrassed as the Chinese might be to have one of these one, but they’d definitely be pissed that something as ugly and unsightly would be stuck to their rides, and if they not going to outright just try and remove them illegally, it might just actually succeed at making some terrible drivers, slightly more conscientious of their decision-making when they’re behind the wheel.

As much as I love to clown on the Chinese as much as anyone of Korean descent does, gotta give credit where it’s due; they had a great idea with these things, and I can only fantasize about things like these being deployed in ‘Murica.