I Speed Silver & Black

Here it is, the first installment of what will become a very common occurrence on this blog. The cornerstone of my new blog. The license plate spotlight. This is my very first one, so comments are welcome, but here we go.

The perpetrator: a silver Dodge Magnum with black racing stripes. There it was sitting in the scalding hot parking lot of the Dublin Best Buy. In case I was unsure of the fanaticism of the vehicle, it was adorned with a back-window filling Oakland Raider's sticker. In seven characters this driver let it be known that he was the biggest Raiders fan this side of the Caldecott Tunnel.

"ALDAVIZ" on this California piece of stamped aluminum is what it said. That is a reference to Al Davis, the Oakland Raiders owner and overseer of operations. The aging and possibly senile captain of the Silver and Black has lost a majority of popularity among die-hard fans since the team's return to the Bay Area.

This would not phase this fanatic, since his car could not be older than the 2002 model, the year the ugly car was introduced. Seriously it looks like a sumo sat on a Dodge Durango.

In seven characters, this person decided to enshrine his team and their senile leader. Don't get me wrong, I love the Raiders and have season tickets, I just don't think it was the best choice for this person to put the slightly Hitler-like owner on his car. And to spell it with a "z" instead of an "s" makes me wonder if there is a bigger idiot out there (or maybe Al himself) who has claimed the original spelling.

Who knows? It could be Al's son, I know he lives in the area, but putting your Dad's name on your car would be a little strange. Like making a Michael Jackson joke now that the King of Pop has passed away. It is OK, Al Davis is better at collecting debt. I just am not sure about the motivations of a person who chooses to put the name of an NFL team owner on their car.

Do you think this use of seven characters on a license plate is worth the extra money each year you have to pay to keep it? I don't think so. The person with the plate could have spent the money on something more pertinent, like parking at the Coliseum's lot. $20 a game adds up.

Second Transformers, Twice As Nice

I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the other day and I thought it was fantastic. Megan Fox running around looking scandalous and Bumblebee kicking butt, it was awesome. So awesome, that it made me forget that I was watching a two-and-a-half hour Chevrolet advertisement. I am all for helping bail out a major corporation, but I have to say as a Chevy owner, that I was disappointed with a couple of the vehicle selections.

Bumblebee is the the Camaro Transformer, and like the last movie, I thought he was awesome. The other Autobot I was happy to see was Sideswipe (Movie version pictured). He originally was a Lamborghini in the cartoon version, but like Bumblebee switching from a Beetle to a Camaro, Sideswipe makes the transformation into the jaw-dropping Corvette Stingray Concept. Ratchet and Ironhide return as their original vehicles from the 2007 movie, a search and rescue Hummer H2 and a GMC Topkick.

The cars I was disappointed with were the twins, Mudflap a red Chevy Trax and and Skids a green Chevy Beat. The third disappointment was Jolt the Autobot who transforms into the blue Chevy Volt. The nature of these Autobots are small cars that work together to form a powerful combination. The twins ended up being a bunch of babbling idiots and Jolt ended up only doing one thing in the movie. The choices for their cars were what had me struggling to eat my popcorn. I loved the movie, but Chevy almost ruined it for me.

Other than my slight disappointment with a few of the vehicle choices for the Autobots I thought the movie was great and I can't wait for the next one to come out two years from now.

Box This Lap: Full Service

Hello everyone. I am back from my blogging break and I have decided (once again) to change the format of my blog. I tried for a while, while I was commuting via bus to campus, to try and write about my daily commute. While that plan didn't turn out to be a success, I found in its attempt my love for everything automotive. And the most common thing I come across on my daily driving (other than people who cannot drive) are those oh-so common vanity plates.

This is going to be the "new" shtick of my blog, while also talking about new vehicles, my own vehicle searches and professional motor sports. Sorry, no NASCAR here. I for one think it is not difficult to turn left for 500 miles.

Since I have changed the blog format, the URL and my blog name, I am hoping that you will hang in with me while I change around the settings and try to come up with a custom blog design that fits the new format. I have sort of a backlog on vanity plates that I am itching to get up on this thing and some will come real soon.

So make sure to drop in regularly and also add/comment about the absurd, funny, freaky and confusing vanity plates you see out there on the roads.

Only in the A.M.

I woke up early for the first time in a while, and I couldn't go back to sleep. So I decided to go on campus early. How early. I think I beat most of the students on campus for their 7 a.m. classes. Other than my sheer absurdness for choosing to go to campus so early, especially when my class doesn't start until 10:30, I kind of like the morning ambiance.

All the crazy people are here, drinking their coffee and studying what seems to be molecular biology. I can't understand what they are talking about, but I read the cover on the test book. I don't know why I decided to adventure out so early this morning, but I like it. Well, I like it because today it is supposed to be 90+ again and it isn't hot out right now.

I also have a ton of work to do today and maybe I can convince myself that getting such an early start to day will help me complete my tasks. But we will see. I am the self-proclaimed king of procrastination after all.

As for what I am going to do for the next three hours, I don't know. I am just having breakfast at a reasonable time and maybe I will have a "Late" lunch, according to my roommate. That would be at about noon. That is a whole other story. All this brain power sitting around me makes me want to study. So in preparation for my mid-term tomorrow and on Wednesday, I will do just that.

'Till next time. Oh and the student cafeteria plays good music in the morning — The Who, The Animals, the Beatles and WHAM.

Update: I have collected a decent amount of license plate evidence for the blog I wanted to write, so expect that later this week.

A Slight Change In Content

I know it has been a while, you and I. It seems ironic that not too long ago I said I was back for good, just to throw you for a loop and be gone for multiple weeks.

But now that the countless pages of research papers and the endless amounts of poem analysis are over. I am, well ... I won't use the "B" word, but I am anticipating getting back into my blogging habits.

As far as the "Bus Ride of the Week" or BRW goes. I am going to can the idea. I have been getting to school earlier and earlier with each growing week and have, out of my own determination, eliminated the bus out of my commute.

Instead, I will take on new ideas stemming from one of the things I love most. Automobiles. I have found myself shuffling up and down the highways of the Bay Area for the last few weeks and I figured, "why not write about that?"

So here is my new idea. I will write more often if you keep checking in, and as often as I can, I will write about my love and some of things I hate about driving and inevitably the roads of a few East and South Bay communities.

So look out, you might see me snapping a photo of you driving with your cellphone, or my car traveling up and down your street ... if it reminds me of a famous race-track corner. The first topic I am going to tackle is specialty license plates. I have been gathering photos and debating whether I like them or not.

Until next time.

Clarkson's Doppelganger

Yes, I know, I am not British, but each day I find one more thing I have in common with the esteemed Jeremy Clarkson. His latest review of the Alfa Romeo MiTo explains it all. You can read it here, or you can read the excerpt below. I will put in bold the things we have in common.

"I suppose that in the days when your fishmonger knew your name and what sort of cod you liked on a Friday, “brand loyalty” made sense. Now we live in a world of supermarkets and corporations, it is the most ridiculous thing on all of God’s green earth. No matter how many loyalty cards you have in your wallet.

That said, I am the worst offender. Even though I know Virgin is the best airline, I always try to fly BA. Even though I know HSBC is in fairly good shape, I bank at Barclays. Even though I know the new style of Levi’s reveals my butt crack when I bend over, I would still never buy a pair of Wranglers.

And this brings me neatly onto the question of watches. For some time now I’ve been on the hunt for a new one but the choice is tricky. I couldn’t have a Breitling because I don’t own an Audi. I couldn’t have a Calvin Klein because they are pants, I couldn’t have a Gucci because I’m not a footballist’s wife, I couldn’t have a TW Steel because my wrist isn’t big enough to sport something that can be seen from space, I couldn’t have a Tissot because I’m not eight and the only thing in the world worse than a fake Rolex is a real one.

Have you noticed something odd about Rolexes? Especially the modern ones that wind automatically when you move your wrist about? A great many owners wear them on their right hand. I jump to no conclusions here but you can feel free. (I agree)

Mostly, though, I cannot wear any of these watches because I am an Omega man. I have worn a Seamaster for years, not because James Bond has one and not because Neil Armstrong wore something by the same maker on the moon but because on the day I went away to school my parents gave me a Genève Dynamic.

The trouble is that for the past few years Omega has been the Pillsbury dough of Swiss watches. The Terry and June. Omegas were dreary. They were boring to behold. They were Vectras in a world of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. The De Ville Prestige, for example, was plainly designed by someone who had a black-and-white telly.

This filled me with despair. I wanted a watch. For the same reasons that I bank at Barclays and wear Levi’s, it had to be an Omega, and it just wasn’t coming up with the goods. It was like Leeds United. Once the home of Peter Lorimer and Gary Sprake but now an also-ran bunch of unimaginative clod-hopping no-hopers.

And then one day, in Hong Kong, I saw it. A new Omega. It’s called the Railmaster and it is a thing of unparalleled beauty. There is no button that owners think will call for help if they find themselves in a crashing helicopter on Kilimanjaro, it is not waterproof to 8,000 metres, there is no stopwatch, there is no swivelling bezel to tell you how much air you have left in your tanks and you even have to wind it up every morning or it will stop. Plainly this is a watch for the sedentary soul. The man with no hang glider or mini sub in his garage. I bought it in an instant.

And so it goes with Alfa Romeo. My loyalty to the brand began when I had an old GTV6. It let the air out of its tyres most nights. It would weld its twin-plate clutch to the flywheel if you didn’t drive it for a day or two. And once, it dumped its gear linkage onto the propshaft when I was doing about 60mph. The noise that resulted was extraordinary: a bit like Brian Blessed being raped. (Sounds like my Camaro)

Even the design was silly. It was a hatchback but the rear seat couldn’t be folded down because someone who’d had too much wine had put the petrol tank between the cabin and the boot. And the driving position had to be experienced to be believed. The only way you could get comfortable was if you had arms that were 6ft long, a compressed spine and feet attached directly to your knees.

You might expect me to say that I forgave it all these trespasses because it was so glorious to drive. But it wasn’t. In fact, not since the Alfasud has there been an Alfa which is demonstrably better than the competition. And now, of course, Alfa is just a division of Fiat.

However . . . I have argued many times that owning an Alfa is a portal through which all petrolheads must pass if they genuinely want to know what it is that differentiates a car from a toaster or a washing machine."

To read the rest of the review, go here.

Learn To Speak French

As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of Top Gear, and if you have been around me blabber on about how much I wish I had Jeremy Clarkson's career, you know I am obsessed. So I can't help but post funny things about the show when I see them. This is a post from AutoBlog.com (they are also in my blog roll). Begins now!

Will Pierce has gotten it backwards. The goal is to get paid for watching Top Gear; instead, Pierce earned himself a hefty bill for catching up on the Best. Car. Show. Ever.

Pierce and his son were on a ski trip in France, where there happens to be a paucity of English-language television. To stave off the boredom, out came the laptop and its Vodafone data card. Vacation saved by Internet downloads of Clarkson and friends, father and son returned home to a £21,716 ($30,334.40) Internet service bill. Needless to say, the humongous charge was something of a surprise. Thankfully, Vodafone kindly waived Pierce's fees with an admonition to check his plan and whether it covers massive data downloads while in other countries. So, the next time you find yourself in foreign lands with time to burn and a hankering for some quality Stigtime, well... consider yourselves warned.

The Webs We Weave

I put on my headphone to escape the sounds of my roommates. The Street Fighter II Turbo, the constant and never ending whistling from down the hall. Of which is the chorus from the same song for the last three weeks.

The sound of the blender at 6 a.m., the never-ending laughter when I am trying to go to sleep. The feeling of waking up in a freezing room. The paying for food I never see, or get to eat. The preparation of meals without gratitude. The few of many things I will not miss when I move out of my current living situation.

I used celery sticks for spoons in my peanut butter because all the other utensils are in the dishwasher, still dirty from the last three dinners. The bleeding of my ears from the music turned up so loud to drown out the annoying existence of roommates. The desire to stay on campus until late hours to avoid it all. Their lack of understanding of common sense — my declining level of patience.

The sound my car makes when I turn it on and it isn't the perfect operating temperature. The way it feels when running for more than five minutes. The way it dies in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The way I am treated by my peers, the ignorance, the back stabbing, the undermining of intelligence. Who needs that now? I have the rest of my life for people to tell me what I am not made of. No more guilt trips from teachers on a bid for power. No more lugging 50+ pounds of books around and never using them even though they are "required."

No more ... no more interest in writing this anymore.

Gearing Up For St. Patty's Day

St. Patrick's Day is coming up and everyone will want to drink some green beer. Ya? So what better to put it in than a St. Patrick's Day commemorative NHL pint glass? My girlfriend got me an NHL Shops gift card for Valentine's Day and I couldn't wait to go to the website to see what I could get.

If the San Jose Shark's merchandise store accepted the NHL Shops gift card I might have gone in person to get something else, but with shipping, it took care of any extra spending I could do. But I ordered my Sharks pint glass, and it arrived today and look at it! It is just stupendous. Beer, hockey and St. Patty's day, all rolled up into one. I couldn't think of a better gift.

Now if only I didn't have a night class on "Kiss me I'm Irish" day. Oh well. I can always have a pint in this awesome glass whenever I choose.

Check NHL Shops to find similar glassware and other "Green" merchandise in for your favorite team.

Speed 4: Life On The Highway

I have an update on my Bus Ride of the Week story from last time. I thought my bus rides were bad from the park and ride lot to campus, but it seems my school's drivers have been outdone by the great folks at the Valley Transportation Authority.

What you can't see in the photo is my speedometer. If I could get it in my photo from my iphone, it would show you that I was doing above the speed limit and was passed by a city bus. I am not trying to get anyone in trouble, but come on? How fast does an in (or out) of service bus need to be going? Not that fast, unless it is trying to keep above 65 miles per hour, which on most California freeways is only possible in the two left lanes (if there are six available lanes).

I had my music up pretty loud when this happen and I was scared that I was in the filming of a movie (or possibly being chased by police). I quickly checked my surroundings and grabbed my trusty iphone to snap the photo. No motorists were harmed in the taking of this photo.

BRW: Who Drives The Bus You Are On?

Today was a typical day, wake up, get ready and head out to the park-and-ride lot to go to school. What wasn't so typical about my morning was the way the guy drove the bus. Normally it is smooth with extra long distances given to stoplights turning red.

This morning? Three times I was misplaced from my seat due to a sudden stop. If people are falling out of their seats, you probably weren't paying attention to the traffic lights. Not to mention, shouldn't it be your priority to provide a safe mode of transportation to your passengers?

Seems like it should be an obvious answer, but unfortunately there are only three bus drivers that are any good, and two of them are ladies. They are nice, and appreciate when you thank them when disembarking. These are the people that make using the inconvenient park-and-ride lot not such a terrible part of the morning commute.

I normally don't pay attention to the driving techniques of the bus drivers, but this was unmistakably bad driving and it just made me wonder what the hiring process is for university drivers. It seems like you would have to be pretty qualified to drive around a bunch of students all day, but it doesn't seem like they interview of look for qualified applicants. But who knows, maybe transportation is part of the school's budget that is being cut back on.

I know this isn't that exciting, but this week was a very rainy and so a lot of the normal things that I might be able to see were hindered by the weather. And the rain really tore up the fatherhood billboard and now it has been replaced with some add for a local grocery store. But I am hoping that there will be something more interesting in the weeks to come, before I start dipping into my reserve material for Bus Ride Weekly.

Saunas Spotted On Campus

No the headline doesn't lie. There are saunas on my college campus. All you have to do is go into a business building classroom. I have a 10:30 class in one, and although I usually get a decent amount of sleep the night before, the awkwardly warm temperature in the room resembles that of a warm bed in the morning — the kind you don't want to get out of .

It is sad because the class is not boring at all, instead the entire group of students spends more time fighting off the yawns and losing the battle with their eyelids, rather than being able to pay attention to the lectures.

I guess this is blog worthy because I feel bad for the teacher. On average, two people (one person is always the same guy) fall asleep in the class, being overcome by the friendly, sleep inviting warmth. I see the look on the prof's face when she sees him doze off, but what can you do when the heat is that overwhelming.

On the other hand, other classrooms are refrigerator and freezer-like. All the rain that we got the last couple of days seemed to amplify the drastic differences in temperature. Not to mention, excess rain water seeped into the underground storage for heating pipes and caused large amounts of steam to rise out from the drains and manhole covers. Also making the central heating system work overtime to keep the water pumping through those pipes warmer than the cooling rain water hitting the pipes.

All this adds up to our campus being too old and the administration having to cut funding to replace heating and air conditioning units. Which means, when the warmer months roll around, the heaters will still be on, and they will be switched over to A/C just in time for the heaters to be turned back on.

BRW: When A Man Loves A Billboard

There are great advertising campaigns, making you laugh as you drive by, maybe go to the company Web site to learn more about their advertised product. But lately companies have been trying another method, trying to motivate people to become better people.

The folks at the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse and their website fatherhood.org have just that in mind, reminding parents, especially fathers, that your kids appreciate it more when you spend time to be a parent. They have made, in my opinion one of the funniest TV commercials in a while, and it sends a great message. Watch this.



And this type of advertising is working, it sends the message and people get a laugh out of it. But the companies other form of advertising that I have seen is billboard use, and quite frankly, I think they should have used a different photo for their billboard in down-town San Jose on 7th street.

(I need to take a picture of this so you can see it.)

The image shows a father chasing his "son" in a spirited game of tag or something. When I first saw it, I thought that the man was chasing a young boy and he is fleeing in horror. The look on the boys face is priceless. He looks terrified that this man is chasing after him.

I just think that if anyone in the advertising department took a second look at the photo this strange, awkward photo could have been replaced with better suited photo, like them walking hand in hand. But I guess you can look at it any way and make it a case for being predatory, especially when the main focus is supposed to be an older man interacting with a child.

I'm Back, I Swear!

My absence from the blogging world is inexcusable. I finish my school semester and took a longer break blogging than I did away from educational institutions. But I have my feet planted and I am pushing through my last semester.

Last semester I was super busy, but I came up with a sort of weekly idea due to the monotonous schedule I had put myself into. On two of the four days I drive to campus I have to park in an overflow lot. And I found that a lot of funny tidbits about my day came from riding on the bus between that lot and campus. So I will be sort of doing a "Bus Ride Weekly" where I highlight some sort of hilarity I see on my five minute red-light infested travel to campus. Either on the bus or outside its windows.

I have a few things backlogged that I conveniently jotted down on my phone that I will use until I start hunting for more material, but I am thinking that this will be an "every Thursday" kind of thing, as I am done with the school week and have the most time to blog. But I am going to try every day to share something about what is going on in my world, especially highlighting the procrastination. But don't get your hopes up, I am already reading ahead for classes. I know, not my style, but we will see where things go.

Along with my bus ride weekly, I will try to take more picture of the things I see through the day and provide them with funny context as much situations present themselves.

So from now on, expect more from your procrastinator, I somewhat promise not to slack off. I just have to get into the whole rhythm of blogging again. Just a note, I don't have a weekly column anymore, so I will try to write a more drawn out post about something I am thinking about once a week, so look for those.

Oh yeah, I put the comic strip in there, because I thought it was a stroke of genius.