Rants

Picking a Rant subject about politics & current events is easy, just watch the news or read the paper. I usually do neither, so my rants usually come from other aspects of my pitiful life. Today while traveling in the car I finished my last trashy mystery novel and with nothing else to read I glanced at the Roanoke Times we had. There was this story about 4 terrorists who were living in Detroit, MI. Holy Crap! Something needs to be done about this. Michigan is harboring terrorists. Does George Bush & company know of this? He wants to invade Iraq for similar reasons, maybe we should practice first on someplace a little closer, let’s bomb Detroit. I’m sure Illinois, Indiana or Ohio would give us permission to fly over them on the way….

Time to pick on the rent-a-car. All of these items are minor gripes and I’m sure if you actually owned a Taurus, you could get used to them. The radio volume knob is too close the shift lever. At least ten times in the past 6 days I have inadvertently turned the radio volume down when shifting into Drive from Park. (I will give Ford points for actually having a round knob for volume instead of the usual up or down buttons.) The car had an in-dash CD player which was nice and about 2 days into the trip I noticed a button for selecting a disc number. Ooh, maybe this car has one of those multi-disc players that is right in the dash. Nope, would take the second CD I tried to feed it. Why, if you don’t have that option, is there a button for it? There is a big hesitation when the transmission shifts from first to second that is disconcerting. Kinda like riding in a manual transmission car with an inept driver. The power window lock out switch is in the wrong spot or it is sitting too high. It is right below the four window switches and it is easily turned off or on when used the other switches. How come the driver and passenger floor wells are not flat all over? This is a front wheel drive car right? The back quarter of each foot well is raised an inch or so near the transmission tunnel. Feels kinda funny when using the cruise control and you put your feet flat on the floor, one is higher than the other.

Caught the latest No Doubt Video on VH1 this morning. Didn’t catch the title, but it was kind of a catchy tune. I was having a hard time following along with the song though, too many quick-cut, in-your-face close ups of the top half of Gwen Stefani in tight T-shirts or cleavage baring tops or her jumping up and down, backlit, on a bed in a semi-transparent skirt. I’m sure the 12 year-old boys love it, but it made me long for the simple blue dress with white polka dots of the “Don’t Speak” video.

I can’t wait to get back in the Miata. The tires on this Taurus slip and slide when cornering in the wet, which it was for the first 3 days of our time together. Now that it has dried out they squeal like stuck pigs on the dry pavement. They do alright in a straight line though, wet or dry. This car would handle a lot better with some sticker rubber (or maybe I should stop treating it like a sports car, hee-hee.)

In NYC’s competitive news market you just have to have a helicopter to cover breaking news (or just in case a low speed chase breaks out.) And while you have one you can use it for traffic reports in the morning and evening. WB11 the New York affiliate of the Warner Brothers fledgling TV network was giving a helicopter traffic report from a hanger somewhere. The reporter was reading while just sitting on the ground. Maybe they can’t afford to own a chopper, but the budget does allow for renting the cockpit out. Maybe I’m being harsh. It was raining that morning so they probably couldn’t fly because of the weather. They still had a traffic report, so it begs the question, why have the helicopter in the first place…oh yeah, low speed chases.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn in Rock Hill, SC. We got 2 adjoining rooms, one for Donna & I and one for Donna’s mom. While Mom was sitting reading she noticed a parade of ants on the nightstand. We checked on the bed and fortunately there weren’t any. Donna & her mom killed a bunch of them, so when she called the front desk to complain and they offered to move us, we just said no. In the morning the ants were back in full force. It was either a search party looking for their missing companions or a funeral procession. After breakfast Donna’s mom stopped to remind them of their ant problem in room 104. (When we checked out they were nice enough not to charge us for the room even though we didn’t bitch and moan about their crappy motel.)

Last night I went to Mail Boxes, Etc. to print up the Aiken Bicycle Club newsletter. I was standing at the copier looking out the window when this woman pulls into the spot next to my car. I pulled into an end spot and all the way to one side, so no one could open a door into it, but I hadn’t prepared for this contingency. She opens the hatch of her Grand Cherokee and pulls out a big box. Now with her hands full she has no way to close the hatch. So she walks over to my car and places her box on my trunk! Closes the hatch, picks up the box and comes inside to mail it. As she is standing in line I walk up to her and say, “Next time I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t use my car as a box stand.” She replies with, “but your shirt matches the pretty blue of your car. Besides I didn’t have any where else to put it.” “You wouldn’t want me to sit on the hood of car just because it looked inviting would you,” was all I could come up as I walked away shaking my head.