Tag: cars

Only three more days

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was naive of me to be optimistic, driving down I-285 at 55 mph exactly on cruise control as irate drivers and semis raced past me, that I wouldn’t have to do this again under such circumstances.  After all, the shop had called me to let me know that my new wheel had arrived, and that as long as I arrived before 5:00 p.m., the new wheel could be installed.  So I left BBC three hours short of a full day despite the fact that I need the hours and I need the money, because having a safe car to drive is slightly higher priority in order to facilitate the pursuit of the hours and money in the future.  Only to be told after waiting for 90 minutes that the wheel they received was not the correct fucking wheel for my fucking vehicle and that I would not be leaving the shop with a new fucking wheel but instead still on the fucking donut that I fucking drove in fucking on.

I like to tell myself that I’m a fairly even-keeled person, but I’m not going to sugarcoat the fact that right now, I’m boiling-over livid.  Under these circumstances, I don’t care if it was the shop, or Mazda, but the bottom line is that there was a mistake somewhere in the process, and I’m the only fucking party that is going to suffer as a result of it. And not just the $450 it’s going to cost me to replace the fucking wheel, but now the fact that I’m going to have to forfeit even more hours at a place that actually pays a good rate, because someone, somewhere, fucked up, due to incompetence, stupidity, or both, and there is going to be no accountability for the situation, and the only one who loses money is fucking me.  Some warehouse idiot motherfucker isn’t going to lose his job over a careless error, and certainly someone at the shop who may or may not have fed Mazda incorrect information isn’t going to lose their job over a potential careless error.  But I have to miss more hours of work in order to take my fucking lemon of a fucking car back to the fucking shop, so that I can get a new fucking wheel put on this piece of shit.  How is this even fair?  I’m not the one who made any mistakes in this situation.  The people who did aren’t going to get their pay docked, and I’m going to not make as much money as I need to, because of them.  I know I’m not fucking perfect, and I make mistakes too, in my profession.  But often times, there are paid proofreaders to ensure that my mistakes don’t go on to cost the end clients a lot of money.  I’m beginning to wonder why other lines of work don’t have proofreaders; it’s becoming transparently apparent that other occupations could use some fuck-up prevention in their process, and the country certainly needs jobs.

I’m a very naive person, apparently.  I give the benefit of the doubt to people far too often, and as a result, I’m often disappointed at the results.  Here’s a New Year’s Resolution for 2011: start assuming more people are fucking idiot retards until proven differently.  Because when the world of strangers inevitably disappoints me, at least I won’t be upset as a result of surprise.

I really want to like my car, but

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s trying its very hardest to really make me hate it.  I know that there are issues with either the front CV axel, or the CV joint or both (~$700-1,400), and my brakes are starting to chirp, which is indicative of the brake pads starting to wear down to critical levels (~$99-179).  My rear passenger tire has been leaking air for a while, and I suspected a nail in it likely (~$discretionary).  The oil hadn’t been changed in a while (~$24).  I’d put all of the above off for as long as I could tolerate, because I knew that taking my car into any garage was going to result in a “hey wait, look at this, guess how much this is going to cost” situation (~$more than what I have), but today, with impending work tomorrow that will necessitate some lengthy driving, I took my car in to get the oil changed, and address the leaking tire.  Naturally, my hypothesis of what was going to happen, was accurate.

Unfortunately, the costly problem was not one of the aforementioned issues that I figured it was going to be.  There’s a crack in my rear passenger rim itself, so therefore, the shop will not remove the tire to apply the patch job to the nail that was predictably there.  The wheel itself needs to be replaced entirely, which is going to run me about $475, when it’s all said and done.  The best (worst) part is that even after this expense is dealt with, the laundry list of issues above still haven’t been addressed yet.

I’d like to introduce you all to a friend I secretly hate, who I haven’t seen a very long, long while: credit card debt.

Perils of Atlanta winters

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is very similar to what my drive home from trivia looked like tonight.  The only real difference is that it was dark out.  But the visuals were otherwise the same, with cars sitting in ditches, wrecked, flipped over, or stalled on the shoulder.  Whether or not there was anyone hurt or injured is unknown, but there were most certainly plenty of abandoned wrecks on the side of the road tonight.  All because it rained today, and compounded with the week of arctic weather we’ve had, led to, predictably, lots of ice on the streets.  And naturally, Atlanta, being in a Southern state, is ill-prepared for such circumstances, and there are no trucks to ice the roads, leading to lots of accidents, closed roads and highways, and worst of all, an epidemic called “more retarded than usual drivers.”

Seriously, the ice on the roads don’t scare me the least bit, but the other people “driving” in their cars worry the ever living shit out of me.  On empty roads, I’m 100% confident in my ability to get home, but having to dodge cars on the Connector and I-285 that slam their brakes when they think they see ice, are about to go over bridges, or are generally traveling at 35 mph speeds on highways that require deft maneuvering around creates very unsafe driving conditions.  It also didn’t help that the cops and DOT started blocking off ramps and exits that had any sort of bridge and/or curve involved, because people are just fucking retarded.  What is normally a 30 minute drive took me 50, due to all circumstances noted.  The fascinating thing is that at first, with all the cars wrecked and abandoned all over the streets, it looked a lot like The Walking Dead, and I was almost expecting to see zombies emerging from the ditches a quarter mile later.

Grumble grumble

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It cost me $41.82 to fill my gas tank today.  I haven’t seen a $40+ gas fill up since the gas crisis of ’08.  But I guess I should be fortunate that I didn’t have to covertly go out at midnight to get the fuel, so I didn’t have to wait in any egregious lines.  But still, in a time when I’m literally scraping by, feeling the noose tightening at all times, and struggling to make ends meet, such a sight is kind of mortifying.

I like cold weather

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not a lot of people do, which is puzzling to me.  I hate being hot, which is ironic, considering my love of baseball makes me have to endure 100 degree weather from time to time.  But I love that this time of the year, temperatures appropriately drop, and I don’t mind being outside so much.  I like the feeling of long sleeves and warm clothing, and the instantaneous warming of stepping inside from the cold.  The same cannot be said when we’re all hot, sweaty and miserable feeling going into an air-conditioned structure.  But most importantly, one thing I really love about this time of year is when I get to utilize the heated seats in my car, which does an excellent job of fighting off the morning chill.

All the right moves

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In Inception, there is a car chase scene.  This does not spoil anything at all.  But the most interesting thing about the chase scene as a whole is that the protagonist vehicle is none other than a Hyundai Genesis.  Yeah, a Hyundai.  A Hyundai. It’s not really news, the growth of the once-little Korean car maker, but it’s moments like this that really make me realize of just how big they’ve grown, and that they’re playing in the big leagues now.

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