Had to do some field work near Zurich yesterday, and it was way snowy. Only by having the world’s longest serial cable could I stay warm inside the truck while I did diagnostics.
Archive for the ‘cars suck’ Category
How to stay warm, #1: The World’s Longest Serial Cable
Friday, December 16th, 2005london’s mean trick
Wednesday, December 14th, 2005I was stranded in London (Ontario, that is) last week due to a fuel pump failure in an elderly Subaru. Looking for some breakfast, I followed my nose to the most amazing smell of fruit pastries.
… and wound up next to the Kellogg’s factory. I suspect Pop Tarts. A low trick.
corvettesnowmobile
Wednesday, December 14th, 2005A yellow Chevrolet Corvette soft-top was having a really hard time going up Kennedy Road this morning. It was moving no faster than walking pace, and the back end was fishtailing out at every possible opportunity.
hitting the 400k-clicks
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005
Paul’s Subaru hit 400,000km today. This, according to Nick — who is also a car mechanic — is quite something considering it’s on its original engine and transmission, and hasn’t had significant engine work done to it.
i didn’t throw the pebble
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005I walk through a Ford dealership every day to and from work. Last Thursday, going home, my eye was caught by a tiny round black pebble dropping onto the hood (= bonnet) of a nearby car.
A salesman was near, and saw the pebble. He yelled at me, asking if I’d thrown it. I said that I didn’t. He didn’t seem mollified. I better watch out for him.
all around the lakes
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005Had an impromptu visit to Port Burwell today to fix a cranky cell modem. It was also my first experience of driving a stick shift — and not just any stick shift, one with 400Kclicks on it — on the wrong side of the road. It was weird, but since I neither wrecked the car nor hit anything, I think I got the hang of it.
Anyway, no trip to Burwell is complete without a visit to the Lighthouse Restaurant for fresh fried lake perch. While I was there, I got chatting to a couple from Chicago who were working on their plan to cycle round a Great lake each summer. By doing this, they were hoping to appreciate the scale of these huge bodies of water. Neat plan.
One day, when I’m a Celebrity Windfarm Designer with my own television show, I’ll take a summer off to go round Lake Erie.
crossing sonar
Thursday, September 15th, 2005They’ve just installed a new crossing system at Kennedy & Eglinton. The crossing buttons emit a loud ping every second or so. I think this is supposed to help partially-sighted people find the crossing buttons to activate the signal.
This would be a good idea if the things weren’t so loud. I could hear the things a block south of the crossing, over the traffic noise of Kennedy, and the lunchtime playground at the school.
I wonder what Spacing would say? Noise pollution makes a huge dent in the amenity of public space.
Rolser shopping cart
Monday, September 5th, 2005My late grandmother’s intense dislike of them notwithstanding, it looks like a shopping cart from Rolser Canada could be just the thing for the carfree-about-town. Lugging shopping bags about is teh suk.
The intensely tony Pepper Mill in Hazelton Lanes seems to be the stockist for Toronto.
Smog City TO
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005According to Toronto Public Health, we’ve had more than double the number of smog days in 2005 than the previous record year — and the year’s nowhere done yet!
We had more smog days in June 2005 alone than we had in all of 2004! And it’s all because of Margaret’s right to drive an SUV.
raw spirit, it rips war
Sunday, July 17th, 2005Wendy sent me Iain Banks’s Raw Spirit for my birthday, and I’ve just finished it. I very much enjoyed it; it’s more of an autobiography by way of some whisky distilleries. We have favourite drams in common — Laphroaig and Balvenie being a couple — and we both have a failing for Mull Cheddar, the potency of which can only be described as sinus-clearing. It’s an amusing read, and you don’t have to be a whisky nerd or Banks geek to enjoy it.
I applaud Iain Banks’s stand on the Iraq war, but I do wonder if he’s thought very hard about the the cause of the war. Banks witters on (sorry, but he does so, incessantly) about being a “petrolhead”, and describes his cars in intricate detail: LandRover TD5, BMW M5, Porsche 964 Carrera 4, Porsche 911, Jaguar MkII 3.8l. None of these have sane fuel economy, and fewer of these on the road might’ve meant we wouldn’t have needed to get palsy with the odious Hussein, then need to oust him later. Maybe the fumes — whisky, weed or petrol — went to Banksie’s head.
lone go
Friday, June 3rd, 2005Again, I was the sole passenger to get on at Kennedy Go station. A few folks got off, which makes a change.
Since it’s bike to work week, I felt very subversive taking my Brompton on board. GO Transit doesn’t like bikes on weekday trains, so basically you’re SOL if you have intermodal commuting needs.
Kennedy Go Station works
Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
It finally opened, with a big free breakfast bash (which I didn’t know about) and much Transport Minister appearances/festive atmosphere. Amidst all of the party, the GO staff at the station were a bit surprised that a) I wanted to get on the train, and b) that I actually had a valid ticket.
So the train arrived a couple of minutes early, and I got on — the only person to do so. We grumbled off down the line (the Stouffville regulars saying hi, in a friendly way) and got into Union with just enough time for me to pick up a coffee and make the Burlington train. There was actually very little time or money saved, but there’s virtually no hassle.
And just to prove I really did get that train:
broken bird
Monday, May 23rd, 2005Walked by two agitated starlings. A third starling was on its back in the road, legs kicking. It looked like a fledgling, maybe fallen and couldn’t get up. I went over to pick it up. Red stuff had come out its head. A vehicle had hit it. The parents were hopping about, screaming. There was nothing I could do; nothing to pick it up with. Couldn’t dispatch it with sandals.
I walked back to the verge. There was another starling fledgling hiding in the grass, a sibling maybe. It had soft grey nest-fuzz among its feathers, the wide yellow slash of a nestling’s beak. It ran close to me for comfort, then stopped. Not all moving things might be friends. We watched one another, the parents still screaming. I had to leave.
kennedy a go go
Thursday, May 12th, 2005Kennedy Go Station opens June 6. Only almost a year late, but it’ll be welcome.
o o ==== o o
Wednesday, April 27th, 2005A wrecker’s in Oakville brought waves of 70s nostalgia. Amidst the other junk, I caught a glimpse of a Jensen Interceptor, the car that — when I was five — was quite the acme of motoring. Wide grille, double headlights. Absurdly long bonnet hiding a vast engine from the US, sweet rounded rear window. Slung low, fast; but refined — an Oxbridge sprinter toff on wheels. You drove this car, you were Ian Ogilvy; you knew he was slumming it in The Saint’s P1800.
This Interceptor looked, well, intercepted. Its signature rear glass was broken. Its huge heart infarcted, rusted up like Flint. Sad, but like the other dinosaurs, time moved away from it.
Toronto transit workers to strike Monday
Friday, April 8th, 2005TTC strike set for Monday. Guess I’ll be using the Brompton.
a sensible bike from a car company?
Saturday, April 2nd, 2005Flipping through the Hedonics fallout (you know, the slick catalogue selling semi-useful battery-operated tat that falls out of your weekend newspaper; cf Sharper Image, Innovations and — for both of you that remember it — Scotcade) I see the Cadillac Bicycles AV8.0i. It’s the first time I’ve seen hub gears, hub brakes and a full chainguard on a featured bike.
Sure, I could swap the full suspension and back rest (which looks more like legal means to prevent the Enormous Midwestern Arse from subsuming the saddle, akin to lawyer lips) for mudguards and a carrier rack, but it’s heading towards the sensible bicycle. And I know it’s not really a product of General Motors (whose company slogan currently appears to be losing money, hand over fist), but a licensed product of Kent Bicycles. But if car companies feel they need to license their premium brands to anonymous Taiwanese-built roadsters, maybe something good is happening after all?
ugly-ass car
Friday, April 1st, 2005
We saw lots of these when we were down south: the Scion xB. Thankfully, they haven’t made it to Canada yet.
I thought at first it was a special-needs vehicle; with low sills and high door tops, it seems pretty accessible. But then again, such a vehicle needn’t be quite so horrible (like the old Invacar).
But now I discover that this car is being marketed to the ‘youth’ segment. What!? I used to draw things like this when I was three years old.
my car karma, shot
Thursday, March 31st, 2005We looked a bit bemused when the Hertz guy gave us a free upgrade last week to a Ford Escape XLT SUV. It’s almost exactly not the car you’d want for long freeway driving.
I just did the fuel economy for our trip. It’s not pretty. For the whole trip, we averaged 11.7 l/100km, or 20 mpg (US — that’s 24.1 mpg for UK readers). That means we used over half a cubic metre of petrol. Eek! We’re all gonna die and it’s my fault!
Litres / 100 km is a strange unit. If you do a dimensional analysis (L3/L), it ends up being a unit of area. So I’d be quite correct — if a little weird — to say I got a fuel consumption of 1.17×10-7 m2.
where are the hybrids for hire?
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005We’re about to hire a car. I’d like to price a hybrid. So I go looking for hybrid rentals. Nada. Well, not quite; Discount said they’d added a bunch of hybrids to their fleet, but they can’t be found on their fleet page.
I walk through a Ford dealership every day. When the Escape Hybrid came out, there were a couple in the lot. They seemed to hang around for a while, but now there are none. I guess it was all greenwash after all, ‘cos I see a lot more Mustangs and trucks selling than hybrids.
In short, we’re all going to die, and it’s your fault.
