my pretty ford

every friday night, there’s a car…thing in somerville where people bring out their prized cars to proudly hog all the parking and cause considerable traffic along main st.  however, it is quiet festive and anyone who enjoys a good ol’ slice of americana and all around bustle would probably appreciate it.  also if you like cars.  there’s an old station wagon covered in odd paraphernalia and stickers that always shows up.  i like to think of it as the ugly girl who covers her face with a paper bag and degrades herself for attention.  here are some more appetizing cars i was able to catch on my phone.  btw, that’s the 3rd ford gt i’ve seen in-person within a single month.  or are they all the same one?!?!

ford gt spotting

i was driving home from work in basking ridge when I caught this sexy thing cruising around ahead of me.  i quickly accelerated to catch up and then pulled out my camera phone to snap these three pictures.  no, i don’t see how that relates to when my license was suspended.

the long winding road to fast cars

recently, i lost my one and only copy of call of duty 4 to an act of violence unparalleled in modern history. i cannot think of a single moment, let alone a stretch of time within the past two centuries in which more violations to human rights were committed than in the single instance my dad scratched up my cod4 disc. surely forced relocation and non-consensual euthanasia pale in comparison to the atrocity of losing the best online multiplayer game in recent years. it was also like $50 when i got it. needless to say, i’ve been forced to revisit my games of yore, sometimes reaching back as far as a year. talk about retro gaming. anyway, i’ve taken up relearning the joys of kissing the apex and tuning gear ratios with a fun little game called forza 2 motorsport.

during a particularly tedious run of the nürburgring nordschleife track (not nearly as fun as pronouncing the name), my mind began wandering off as i grew weary of the monotonous forests of germany (this explains my traffic record). soon i was pondering how best to answer a question that’s been popping up occasionally among the girls i know. “why do they advertise 0-60 in car commercials?” or the declarative variant, “i hate when they advertise 0-60 in car commercials.”

the argument goes that it’s needless to purchase a car for its acceleration or performance because it is so rare that one can truly enjoy the g’s when driving during the typical excursion. nor is it rational to purchase a car with racing credentials when you are clearly not a professional race car driver. while i am quick to cede the argument that performance cars are not rational purchases, i find it ironic to hear women preaching the virtues of rational spending.

to put it in the simplest terms, performance sports cars are luxury items. they fall into the same category as designer shoes. clearly, you don’t need 20 pairs of shoes to get by, nor do you need one that’s worth over $500. you’re never going to use them, just like the 500 ft lbs of torque we will never use on the road. it’s not a matter of practicality, it’s a matter of luxury. you’d be hard pressed to find a person who doesn’t dream of indulging in some needless expenditures, whether it be a 6 bath mansion, a $3,000 guitar, or even a 52″ plasma. it’s just that simple. in america, we value luxury. if you want a no-frills lifestyle, i suggest moving to guatemala; and unless you’re prepared to swear off all the frivolous crap you enjoy, i would suggest you stop asking why 0-60 is a legitimate concern to some people.

holy shit, i love faded paper figures

well, this was a surprise. if anyone has seen the recent lexus ad for the rx350 pebble beach edition, it features this gorgeous electronica track which i decided to search out. after a very brief search, i came across the band faded paper figures who supposedly wrote the song used in the commercial. i then looked up this indie electronica band and lo and behold, they were marvelous. it was like sensual love making in my ear, the kind that makes you tear with joy and not feel like you have to blame it on dust. they sound very much like the postal service which is a fantastic compliment. anyways, i just wanted to say how much i loved these guys. as soon as i find out how, i’m going to buy an album, even though they put all there songs out for free on myspace.com. these guys deserve money for their art and i am more than happy to deliver. fantastic. here’s the ad i first heard them in.

c-ad-illac

i’m going to pretend like there hasn’t been a huge hiatus for postings since school started and just jump right back into it.

i was watching discovery atlas on dhdt and it was the episode on modern china. i had seen something similar to this, only a montage set to music at a costco once while perusing through the hdtv section. ever since then i’ve been trying to hunt down that demo, with little luck and while i don’t believe this discovery special was what i was watching, it fills the role well enough for me to feel like i’ve brought democracy to iraq. mission accomplished, boys. anyways, i must say that documentary was absolutely fantasmigorical, scrumtrelescent even. totally on par with the planet earth series. adding to the generous enlightening of the show was a notable new ad campaign by cadillac for the 2008 cts which i found extremely appealing and effective. because i can’t post a youtube vid of the entire atlas: china revealed special, i’ll just leave that to you to investigate, but the new cadillac ad i can post, and i will explain what makes it so good.

first off, yes, that is kate walsh, whose career i find absolutely detestable. grey’s anatomy sucks my testicles with the kind of force that jim dyson dreams about at night. and after watching this ad, i find myself fantasizing about ms. walsh doing the same. nothing helps to pop a tent like the idea of degrading a successful woman with loads of cash and dignity but who is actually a huge slut begging to get stuffed like the t-day turkey you all wolfed down recently. anyways, before i have to start paying you for the hour, allow me to continue on with why this ad is so good.

first of all, the grey’s anatomy audience is a crowd of impressionable materialistic go-getters who care a great deal about self-image and reputation. they’re the kind of people who want other people to look at them and say, ‘damn, i wish i were/fucking him/her,’ and though few clearly look the part, many are willing to shill the dinero needed to play it. this means italian shoes, fancy cars, 3-figure haircuts, etc. also see nip/tuck. furthermore, kate walsh is the perfect age to hook the demographic cadillac should be targetting. nobody who relates themselves with hayden panettiere has enough dough to afford a luxury sports cars. kate is just the right age to harden those viagra popping business men while also being classy enough to draw the non-hostile envy of 30-something women all over america. hell, even i find her alluring in the ad. one might even say that she ‘turns my key’. yuck yuck.

there also happens to be a second variation of the ad, in which b-movie actor, matthew mcwannabe aka martin henderson, does the driving, while pitching a nice little speech about hindering individuality. now, martin henderson is probably best known for his role in the britney spears video for toxic. that being said, the age group this ad is targeting probably doesn’t recognize him or realize how pathetic his career is. all they see is a good-looking guy talking some big talk about beating hippies. unfortunately, this version is so unpopular that youtube does not have a video for it at the time. i will however explain the best part of this ad. part of the narration includes a line that goes something like this: ‘you could follow the philosophy that a nail that sticks out gets hammered; or you could be the hammer.’ this is a real knock-out punch, because it not only equates the cts with having individuality, but it equates it with having so much individuality, that it stifles the individuality of others, and of course that is the underlying dream of any rich businessman.

in conclusion, i wish to say good job modernista, the ad agency that handled this campaign. you guys did an unbelievable job at selling the cts. also, please give me a job.

who’s been a naughty doctor?  that’s right, bitch, you have.  now bend over so i can give you your shot.

diesel: dee-zull or dee-sull

today i saw a review of the mercedes-benz e320 blutec diesel luxury sedan. it’s a car that runs off diesel fuel, the johnny-come-lately alternative fuel source for the automotive industry.

now, i wasn’t really paying attention to the review because frankly, i think the car is a bit too blase for my tastes, but what really caught my attention was that every time the reviewer mentioned the word ‘diesel’ he would pronounce it ‘dee-sull’. after about the fifth time he said it, i started getting really annoyed and stopped watching. later on during the day, i began thinking about the difference between ‘dee-sull’ and dee-zull’. i assume that most people say ‘dee-zull’, though it’s technically correct to say either. this got me to thinking how a habit or idea like saying ‘dee-sull’ in propagated. after ruminating on the topic while taking a well-deserved shower, considering all the ways to rid the world of people who say ‘dee-sull’, i came to a startling conclusion: language is not safe from evolution.

now, you might think, that i mean something like, ‘the language apparatus (throat, mouth, nose) evolves physically and accommodates for certain sounds which go on to define the limitations of spoken human language.’ this is not what i mean, though it is true. what i really mean is that language, in fact all things that exist, are subject to the process of evolution. it’s not just an anthropological term limited to describing biological change. it is a much more profound and encapsulating concept which applies, almost metaphysically, to all things that exist.

consider that if a man is born with a genetic disorder rendering him incapable of walking, he would clearly die out quite rapidly (assuming a more primitive time when societies weren’t around to shoulder the burden of invalids among the populace). this characteristic would fall before the onward march of evolution, dying along with its carrier. so long as the carrier is unable to genetically propagate the disorder through reproduction, the mutated genetic code would last only as long as the host’s pathetic lifespan. genetic reproduction is the method of propagation nature uses to power the endless cycle of life. now, consider if a person were taught to beat women every time he met them. in today’s society, this would clearly run him astray, providing for almost no opportunity to reproduce. he would not sire any offspring and consequently be unable to continue this odd tradition of unadulterated misogynistic violence. in the same way, behaviors, habits, and ideas are subject to the flow of evolution. if something is not conducive to mass propagation, it will likely die out with the individual that exhibits the quality.

however, these intangible qualities are not completely regulated by the same mechanics as biological evolution as there are many ways to propagate an idea. it does not require reproduction or child-rearing, but rather thrives on the art of persuasion. those concepts and ideas that are more easily instilled upon others end up propagating the most successfully and those which few people take towards end up dwindling and fading away into extinction. all of culture is in fact regulated by this metaphysical evolution. it is an evolution of thought. these thoughts and ideas are what richard dawkins coined ‘memes’. they are how human culture changes over time. an idea that seems to benefit the individual best with regards to success in life is an idea that he/she is likely to follow. the more beneficial the idea is, the more widely it will spread among the population.

fashion, for example, makes for an easy analogy to this evolution of memes. fashion functions on innovation and creativity at the highest levels, new ideas and concepts explored by the avant-garde designers within the industry. these innovative ideas are like genetic mutations. they produce something fresh and new. the true test then is how well they are received. the public opinion and reception of a new design is like the reproductive success offered by a genetic mutation. if the public hates it, the design will die out. if it is loved, the design will flourish. how well it’s received is also dependent on a myriad of variables spanning from audience to marketing to sheer aesthetic quality. it’s all circumstantial whether a new design can survive in the fashion industry, just like the survivability of a genetic mutation is also context dependent.

so back to the diesel question. how does the pronunciation of diesel propagate? through sheer circumstance and ideological persuasion. if one were to commit a veritable linguistic genocide, one must attack the psychological, social, and ideological allures of the pronunciation in question until it became so unpopular that to utter said word would incur widespread beleaguering from every corner of society. so as per my goal to eliminate all the people who say ‘dee-sull’ instead of ‘dee-zull’, i must notify you, the reader, that only mouth-breathers, lisping homosexuals, and brain-damaged layman pronounce the word diesel with a sibilance. ask yourself, are you any of those things?

transformers transformed (in my head)

so i saw transformers the other day, and i was stoned like a cheating afghan woman. i was really pumped because the special effects were sure to put me in a state of orgiastic visual ecstasy. when the new untitled j. j. abrams trailer came on, which i’d already seen leaked on youtube, i was buggin’ because that movie just looks really fucking crazy. there’s something about the end of the world that works really well with being stoned. fantastic four 2, transformers, nancy drew; each offers a grim possibility for an apocalyptic future and each best served with a slice of hash brownies. so then the movie starts, and once again, like fantastic four, there was crazy shit in space, and if there’s one thing i love more than watching awesome sfx while high as a kite, it’s watching awesome sfx about crazy space shit while high as a kite. so i listened to the soothing voice of peter cullen, as he explicated the epic story of the allspark and its seemingly godlike qualities. sadly, this is where the movie and i parted ways, for in my frenzied fervor to be told something fantastic, i constructed my own misinterpreted storyline for the allspark, and sat for an hour overwhelmed by the immensity of the story i was being told, but which i had really just imagined myself. now, in the movie, the allspark is an ancient relic from cybertron which imbued all machines on the planet with life. it was an artifact which megatron treacherously used to wage war on cybertron, hoping to enslave the planet. on the other hand, my interpretation had been that the allspark was a mystical relic of the universe, which imbued life on all barren planets, initiating an evolutionary process beginning with the most basic elements and components of the host planet.  i affectionately dubbed it the ‘god cube’.  i believed that the allspark had given life to the barren planet of cybertron, life which eventually evolved into the transformers. i also believed that the transformer race had unlocked the secrets of the allspark and begun to worship it.  later, megatron would use the allspark to dominate the entire planet and subjugate them into mindless drones (i.e. beast machines). also, i believed that megatron was a fanatic worshiper of the allspark, driven to tyranny by madness, and striving to ‘enslave and punish’ all life spawned from the allspark in some fanatic idealist rampage, like the dark and disturbingly morbid zeal of the catholic church during the inquisition. in the real movie, optimus prime and his rag tag rogue team of freedom fighters on cybertron manage to jettison the allspark deep into space where it drifted freely for millions of years before reaching earth 10,000 years in the past.  in my version, the ‘god cube’ drifted the cosmos for millions of years before landing on a primordial earth, where it then acted as the catalyst of a new evolutionary branch of life, leading up to the creation of the human race, thereby tying humans and transformers to the same unknown force that bonds all living entities in the universe. now, after millions of years of hunting for the allspark, the transformers finally track it to earth, coincidentally during the modern human age. megatron thus plans to enslave and punish all life on earth, which i believed to be part of his fanatic ‘to punish and enslave’ philosophy, but optimus and his team arrive to oppose the would be tyrant before another planet falls to his fanaticism. this was the plot as i perceived it in my drug induced haze. personally, i think it’s much better, and much more epic, as well as much darker in thematic content. so you can imagine my disappointment, halfway through the movie when i realized i had constructed a false plot that was actually more engrossing then the actual plot. megatron was not fanatical, nor were his decepticon followers, though i did appreciate the few ‘hail megatron’ lines which ironically came from starscream, traditionally known to be megatron’s brutus. however, in any case, i was saddened by my realization and found certain scenes hard to believe as simple human relations were hindering the transformers’ infinitely important mission to find the allspark. i would have believed that such a relic of massive importance would have overridden parental squabbles. in any case, the movie was still badass, as the special effects made my eyes pop and all the ‘wah wah wah wah wah’ transforming moments nearly drew me to my feet in a standing ovation. however, i still preferred by darker vision of the transformers universe more. the beast machines portrayal of megatron is probably my favorite incarnation of the malevolent villain as it imbues him with something much more than your run of the mill power hungry baddy; it gave him a belief that what he was doing was right, and that is what makes a truly terrifying villain (see george w. bush). maybe one day someone will make a movie or write a book or design a video game that mimics my imagined vision of the transformer universe. until then, i will just say that i cannot wait to get fucked up again and watch that movie in hd on blu-ray disc. also, i’d like to see megan fox in hd, with her clothes torn off and getting plowed on bumblebee’s hood. only time will tell if bay decides to add that to the special features.

new 2009 bmw m3 is gorgeous

i’ve just caught some photos of the new 2009 bmw m3 and it is fucking hot. if this sexy beast could drink, i would totally date rape the shit out of it. sadly it cannot, and it’ll take more than questionable tactics from a frat boy play book to get one of these babies in my garage. just like nailing the prom queen in high school, this is one dream that will likely never see the harsh, unforgiving light of reality, but that’s why man invented imagination. it helps to ease our suffering. enjoy these photos!

i did notice that the hood intake bump is kinda weird looking. it’s like that really hot girl who has that strange bump along her nose. it still looks good at certain angles, and really offers no reason why you shouldn’t get inside her as often as possible. (the car)

here is an example of something i would give up to own a new 2009 bmw m3. this guy’s job. (it was really close)

p.s. you smoke that cigarette, adrianna; you put that dirty shaft in your mouth and you suck on it, baby. oh ya, that’s right, just like that.

cars worth trading in your child for

i was bored today and decided to check out some sweet rides. here’s what i came up with.

audi r8

this car reminds me of a woman. the kind that doesn’t need words to let you know you have no shot.

jaguar cx-f

this car actually reminds me of a jaguar. the side view mirrors look like ears.

ferrari 599

i watched this car being made from scratch on a discovery channel documentary and since then, i’ve been in love.

bmw neiman marcus limited edition individual m6 convertible

50 were made and all were sold in a record 00:01:32.

each of these cars not only lets the ladies know that you’re a refined gentleman with mountains of cash, but also that they should expect to be turned over a few times in bed.

that guy on the sports bike

this morning i was on the road and i stopped at a traffic light and noticed, as many of us have witnessed on occasion, a biker gang waiting at the light, scattered across two lanes. they were the typical forty-something surley bearded type, wearing leather jackets and riding on harleys with ape hangers and cruiser bars, but off on the fringe of their mid-life crisis convention, there was a guy on a sports bike wearing a full face helmet, the kind of biker who burns his tires while his buddies film it for their homemade street racing videos. now this guy was clearly out of place and i wondered to myself whether he was actually in the gang, which got me to thinking about how awkward it would be to be that guy who gets stuck at a light in his kowasaki sports bike while a gang of chopper heads comes rolling up from behind. you’re unfortunately forced to recognize the bikers because of their mutual motorcycle enthusiasm, unlike the rest of us who just roll up our windows to drown out the obnoxious engine revs, but at the same time, the awkward juxtaposition of you, ass up like you’re waiting for the ‘hoff to come and butter you up, and them laying back like the gas tank’s got their balls in its mouth, leaves you enduring the embarrassment of being the lone rider on a neon colored bike, sitting on the fringes of a biker gang, like that weird kid who clings to the popular cliques in high school; the one that’s just too socially awkward to get any, but is good to keep around to verbally abuse because he’s not witty enough to retort and he just keeps taking it because he wants to be popular so badly (i’m looking at you andy bernard). now, i personally have no preference for any particular style of motorcycle or motorcyclist, but it just struck me as funny seeing this guy in his neon yellow leather euro-jacket, waiting on the light while the entire demographic of american chopper sat at his tail, probably wondering why gay people wear flamboyant neon colors.