It’s funny, I swear that every 9 times out of ten that I see a car parked like this, it’s either a Mercedes or an Audi.
Really.
And is it just me or does every Audi driver with those “new” led headlights — the kind that look like Christmas lights under the actual light — also drive like an a-hole too?
I hate to break it to those Audi drivers…
Your car is a Volkswagen Jetta. With silly headlights.
Welcome back to reality. Lose the ego.
Oh, and as for the Mercedes in the picture… You’re not doing the University of Florida any favors with that vanity plate… I hope Tim Tebow smites you.
Related “Rage on the Road” Posts from the PIAC Archive:
One of the seldom mentioned perks of switching our phone service to Magic Jack that I can’t help but acknowlege and appreciate is that we NEVER recieve unsolicited phone calls anymore.
Sure, we had to change our number — which no one really likes to do — but the people that need it have it and the people that don’t, well, they don’t.
Until recently.
Over the last few nights we’ve received calls from various 877- and 800- phone numbers during what I like to call the dining hours.
You know, when all less-than-reputable telemarketing firms schedule their calls…
I usually Google “unknowns” as the phone continues to ring and, so far, none have matched anything that I might expect to be getting a call from…
My wife finally answered one last night and the person on the other end asked for a “Steve”…
Yep, pretty much what I expected…
Someone, presumably named Steve, put our phone number down somewhere and now that it’s on some list that’s being marketed all over the place…
Somehow I think this might be the tip of the iceberg…
Boo.
Posted on March 9th, 2012 at 5:50 am by Brainy Smurf Rants | No Comments »
This post isn’t about Eli Manning or the Giants winning the Super Bowl. If I’d cared about that, I have written about it two weeks ago.
This is about a house that I drive by a couple of times per week.
It was built in 1748.
Yeah, 264 years ago.
It was once the homestead of a Eli Terry, a famous inventor and clockmaker in the late 1700′s. So famous, in fact, that he even has a Wikipedia entry.
Hey, you know you’re pretty famous when you’ve been dead for 160 years and still end up on the internet.
Anyway, the big house sat on the corner of two pretty busy roads on a large wooded hillside lot…until 2006…when the local Historical Society sold the property to a developer.
I guess the agreement was that they could develop the property on the condition that the home was “restored”.
I know a land grab when I see one and this…was defintely a land grab.
So the the house was quickly lifted from it’s foundation and up onto a device resembling the crawler tank thing that used to move the space shuttle and launch pad around.
And then the blasting began.
Hillside? What hillside?
Trees? Yeah, not any more.
In a matter of weeks, the hillside looked a lot like what I’d imagine some areas of Beirut still look like — except for the big white colonial sitting on top of a tank.
The home slowly crept farther and farther from its original foundation as the developer clear cut and leveled more and more of the lot.
Then a new foundation was poured.
No, not for the home, silly, for a… wait for it… wait for it… a CVS Pharmacy!
What town doesn’t need a CVS Pharmacy?
This area has five of them — yes, five CVS’s.
Three Walgreens, at least two Rite Aids, and a handful of other more region-specific chains too.
Now I don’t know about you, but the hardship of trying to find a full scale 24-hour Pharmacy this day in age is akin to…well, encountering a stop sign during your travels in search of one.
Can you say saturated market?
Soon, even before the CVS could open (because there weren’t any pharmacists available to staff all of the pharmacies dotting the landscape), another foundation was poured.
Could it be… a Walgreen’s?
Amazingly, nope.
They built a bank.
Now, the only thing easier to find in New England besides Dunkin’ Donuts and competing Walgreen’s and CVS pharmacies on adjacent lots are banks.
As this second building went up, I’d notice each week as the the old house inched farther and farther back — like so far back that it had no where else to go…
And then this week, maybe four or five years after the “development” started, it was announced that the “historic” Eli Terry homestead would be demolished.
I saw that coming the day they lifted it off of its foundation.
Somehow it survived being lifted off of its foundation and trucked around all over the place (meandering roughly the length of three football fields or so), having rock blasting occur closer than rock blasting should occur, a snow storm from hell — not to mention 264 years — but suddenly due it its “recent move and storage on stilts, as well as abuse from vandals,” it has deteriorated so greatly that it cannot be restored.
Yeah, okay… #sarcasm
I dunno, the minute it started moving up what was left of the hill, it was apparent to me that the developer had zero intention of saving the house.
Certainly doesn’t say much for the local Historical Society either. They could say that they were bamboozled but, c’mon… This was clear as day.
Honestly, I’m shocked that it didn’t “mysteriously” go up in flames before the developer even propped it up off of the original foundation — and I wouldn’t be shocked if that happens prior to demolition day anyway.
“Oh, what happened?”
But what really, really ticks me off is that the developer has apparently gotten away with not living up to their end of the agreement.
Dat ain’t right, yo. #ThatReallyPissesMeOff
But, hey, now the pain med addicts have yet another place to fulfill their bogus prescriptions…
Goodbye, old house.
Posted on February 20th, 2012 at 8:36 pm by Brainy Smurf Rants | 1 Comment »
During President Obama‘s SOTU address he touched on something about making it easier for people to refinance their mortgages at the current bargain basement prices and today I’ve seen two or three articles about it.
I haven’t researched it (at all) but I’m assuming that this is some kind of after-the-fact reactionary federal government proposed “solution” to the housing crisis of the past few years, you know, an attempt to quell the number of foreclosures that dot the landscape.
But that’s where I lose the connection.
Refinancing at a lower rate (at best, 3 or 4 percent lower which, technically speaking, is nothing) doesn’t solve the foreclosure problem.
For instance, my newest neighbor moved in back in 2006 and paid around $275k for their home.
In general terms, it’s pretty much the same house as mine except that I only paid $141k for mine in 2002.
Following the housing “slump” our homes are currently only worth around $200k.
It’s not rocket science to come to the conclusion that my neighbors are underwater (they owe more than the house is worth) and are likely prime candidates to “walk away”.
The re-finance “solution” won’t ease their pain.
It’s not the interest rate on their mortgage to blame — it’s that they paid too much for their house.
So what’s the point of this government proposal again?
To make it easier for people who can’t afford homes in the first place…again?
Full Disclosure: I freely admit that I benefited from the easy and available money back when I purchased my home with a tiny tiny tiny down payment.
Yes, mortgages were easy to come by and I’m fortunate enough to have rolled the dice, made a “wise” investment with the money loaned to me, and come out the other side a winner with a low rate, a low monthly payment, and a house worth more than double what I still owe.
I hope they, the buttons with resistance, don’t go the way of the record player.
In the 1980′s, while I was honing my own typing skills playing games like Sierra On-Line’s King’s Quest, I used to cringe watching my dad type on a keyboard while doing whatever it was he actually did on the computer — both index fingers fully extended hunting and pecking away on the keys.
He was pretty fast but, still, who uses their index fingers for every single keystroke?
Things like Ctrl-Alt-Del were always a challenge for those utilizing the two-finger methodology.
Fast forward a couple of generations…
Of late, I’ve noticed that my 2 year old, Duncan, already “expects” a touch screen interface.
A few weeks ago he got to “play” Angry Birds on a friend’s tablet, you know, flat glassy looking thing without any buttons.
He “played” for no more than 5 minutes, max, before losing interest.
But since then, I’ve caught him, on more than one occasion, touching the television screen and flicking his finger as if that’s how we change the channel.
He even does it with my wife’s non-touchscreen cell phone. Pretty much anywhere that there’s a digital “display”, he thinks it’s for touching and quickly sliding an extended finger across.
Yet, he has zero interest in a keyboard and only a slight fascination with the mouse — though I’m not sure he yet realizes that the pointer on the screen is directly related to the mouse…
Mixed in among all of the inserts that always come with my Citi statement and bill was this nifty little flyer.
Talk about spin… I mean, they’re trying to imply that they’re meeting my “borrowing needs” better than ever before by raising the minimum monthly payment.
Say what?
This reminds me of how owners of Sony Trinitron televisions and monitors in the 1990′s would brag about how they’re screens were actually better than anything else on the market when, clearly, they weren’t. They had a MAJOR flaw. A visible one?!
Dear Ronald,
Since the launch of your recent Smurf Happy Meal promotion, my family has visited McDonald’s restaurants in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut on ten occasions in search of a Smurf happy meal toy for our toddler aged children.
This specific promotion is what lead us to choose McDonald’s over other eateries and, as a result, spend well in excess of $100 with your company.
From these ten visits, though, only once has the location actually had a Smurf toy in stock to include in our Happy Meal.
Once.
One out of ten visits — a location in Pennsylvania being the “winner”.
That isn’t acceptable.
Problem is, we don’t want any more Return of the Jedi finger skateboards or leftover Disney movie promotions from over a year ago.
There are Smurfs adorning your windows, drive-thru menus, and Happy Meal boxes — but no toys. What gives?
I won’t even go into the quality of the food or service at a couple of the locations we visited.
And have I mentioned that the “Check Engine Soon” light has been on for a couple of months?
If not, well, a couple of weeks ago I took it in to the nearest Land Rover dealership for an oil change.
Actually, I really only took it to the dealership so as to get it looked over prior to our 2000 mile road trip.
Off hand, I also asked them to take a look at the check engine light issue even though the car was driving just fine.
I dropped it off on Wednesday, July 27th, expecting to pick it up on Thursday evening — one day later.
No call came while I was at work on Thursday — so I called them and they said that I needed a new oxygen sensor to make the light turn off and that they wouldn’t have the part until tomorrow.
Fine.
Inconvenient, sure, but we’ve got four cars. We’ll live.
Friday comes and, again, no call.
I call them.
Now they say they need to replace another oxygen sensor and they’ll have it ready for me on Monday.
Hmmmm… I’m not liking how this is going…
I agree to it, disparagingly, while thinking in my head — they’re just throwing new parts at the problem that probably isn’t even a problem at all.
On Monday evening, my wife drives me out there to pick it up and it’s still up on the lift.
It’s not done.
They never called. What’s up with that?
Don’t they realize the crazy daycare preparations we had to make (not to mention, we both had to leave work early) to make this trip? Grrrr…
On Tuesday, I call them again asking if it’s ready. This time they say some sort of gasket needs to be replaced cause it’s all gummed up with oil or something is leaking — I dunno, I stopped listening — but I agreed to have them replace it because he claimed that the car wasn’t running well.
Weird, my car ran fine when I took it in for an oil change and now it doesn’t run well.
I’m really not liking how this is going.
On Wednesday, an entire week after I’d originally dropped it off, the dealership FINALLY calls me to tell me that the engine light is still on and that I need a new “engine harness” to correct the problem.
I let him do his gear-head schtick for awhile before asking how much that would cost to replace.
“Well, they’re made to order so we wouldn’t be able to do it for two or three weeks but the cost with labor would be around $2400.”
Staying calm (and thinking about my looming vacation in a matter of days), I asked, “What’s my bill up to so far?”
“$1675 after a $25 off special.”
I could not BELIEVE he mentioned $25 off on a $1700 bill like it was some sort of gift…
“Um, okay, does it run right now?”
“Yep, it’s running great.”
“Okay, then I’m coming to pick it up… now.”
So I get a ride out there and the whole time I’m thinking — did they really just try to hit me up for over $4000 on an oil change? For real? Is this really happening?
So I get to the dealership just as they’re about to close, charge my $1675 fee, flash a few dirty looks and get in the car.
Yep, check engine light is still on.
Did I just go without a car for an entire week for a simple oil change?
Yep.
And I’m $1675 poorer for nothing?!
Holy crap!?
When I get home, I hop out, and click the key to lock the car.
Nothing.
I try it again.
Nothing.
Are you kidding me?
They broke the keyless entry.
So now I’ve been down a vehicle for a week, I’m $1675 poorer, my car is in worse shape that it was a week ago, and I’m going on a 2000-mile road trip in two days.
Wonderful.
So, on Friday, August 5th, just before we embarked on our vacation, my wife took it back to the dealership to get the keyless entry fixed.
After being treated like a moron at first by being told her key’s battery was dead (and mine just happened to die at the exact same time? Suuuuuure.), and some denial that they did anything that would affect the keyless entry, they tried to “reset” things — for two hours while my wife sat there.
And they were unsuccessful.
Great dealership, huh?
So, I don’t blame Land Rover — I still don’t think it’s a lemon and I don’t think that their cars suck.
I do, however, think that Land Rover of Farmington Valley is a complete joke. We will NEVER again take the car there.
And while the lack of keyless entry is a real pain (you try carring two kids and having to walk to the driver’s side door to unlock the car when it’s pouring rain), it’s not the end of the world.
I’ve chalked it up as a $1675 mistake.
But on the bright side, 1800 miles into our road trip when, for no reason at all, the check engine light turned off, I smiled a little on the inside.
This afternoon we headed over to a local “Extravaganza”.
Seriously, that’s what it was called.
It was one of those municipal events where they sell fried dough, cotton candy, and over priced inflatible somethings to benefit the Parks and Recreation department or something.
This one had a full blown carnival with a dozen or so rides and even some miniature horses for the kids to ride.
But the one thing that caught Duncan’s eye was the fire department’s ladder truck — ladder fully extended and spouting water from the top.
He wasn’t dressed for running through the water but we took his shirt off and set him free anyway.
As we did so, I surveyed the scene and pinpointed one kid.
He was a little too old to be frolicking in the mist and, well, he obviously had no regard for anyone around him. You know the type…basically, he was a threat.
It was one of those things where I “knew” it was going to happen — I even said as much outloud — but I wasn’t about prevent my kid from having a good time because of one moron in the crowd.
I’m not the over protective type.
But it’s not like you can take a preventative stance these days either and go up to someone else’s kid and say, “Hey, quit being an idiot and watch where you’re going…” without having their even bigger idiot parent getting all up in your face about it…
So, instead, my kid got bowled over.
Go ahead, it’s okay to watch it a few times. Frame-by-frame, even…
That’s the beginning of my reaction at the tail end of the video.
Had I kept the camera rolling, you’d have heard my expletive laden description of how I really felt about what I’d just witnessed.
No worries — I didn’t say it loud or anything but the camera microphone most definitely would have picked it up.
Of the nine or ten adjectives and one noun that I uttered, well, “little” was the *only* word that could be considered safe for this website…
To the kid’s credit, he wasn’t without remorse.
Immediately after it happened, he stopped in his tracks and just stood there looking at Duncan (who was laying in a puddle on the pavement with his hands over his face and feet in the air) as my wife ran into the fray to make sure he was okay.
As my wife picked him up, I could plainly see that the kid felt bad. He had that sort of posture that kids get when they want to say “Sorry” but don’t know how or when exactly to do it. I mean, it’s not like he did it on purpose…
I also watched him look over his shoulder to see if his parents were calling him over — which they weren’t because, well, I’m sure you guessed it, they weren’t the type that supervise their kids.
Might explain why their kids are morons.
Anyway, once the kid realized that he’d “dodged” a bullet, well, back he went to running around with total disregard.
Seriously, he’s way too old to be afraid to open his eyes when running through a glorified sprinkler. Is it just me?
I dunno, a helmet and shoulder pads shouldn’t be required for running through the hose…
Not being the overprotective type, once Duncan’d composed himself, we sent him right back out there.
As you can see, Duncan’s okay.
And in a weird sort of way, I’m pretty proud that he could take a hit like that.
Not that I’ve ever actually eaten one, mind you, but when you choose a name like “guacamole” as an alias, well, seriously, how good can they be in either form — whole or squashed into a slimy lumpy paste?
And how dare it be considered a fruit along side things like grapes, apples, oranges, and mangos?
Avocados are more disgusting than radishes, even, and those taste like dirt. Crunchy. White. Dirt.
But this isn’t really about disgusting fruits (or vegetables)… It’s about a flyer I received in the mail this week from Subway.
Take a look at this:
Do you see what I see?
I’ll give you a hint — it’s apparently Trademarked.
No, it’s not the Subway logo. How exciting of a post would that make, I mean, really…
Okay — here’s a closer view:
The only thing that could possibly be worse than an avocado on its own is having to pay a dollar extra to have it added to a sandwich…
No, wait…
Adding radishes in addition to avocado would definitely make it worse…
I keep hearing about how banks have started, well, raping their customers with sneaky fees and I like to think that I’m diligent enough when it comes to my finances to dodge them but, once again, Bank of America has dinged me with an unannounced fee that I’ve never once had to pay in the past.
This is the second time in just 3 months that I’ve been assessed a “new” fee.
Last time it was a $14 charge, billed a Monthly Maintenance Fee, for letting my balance go under $1500 when the previous floor was $750. I must’ve missed some fine print on the back of some flyer stuffed in my with my statement or something…
They hit me twice with that fee. Twenty-eight bucks for nothing…
This time the fee was only $3. Some might call that nickel-and-diming and not that big of a deal but in reality, that’s 60 nickels or 30 dimes. That’s some serious change.
This time they call it a Check Image Service Fee.
So, remember when you used to get the actual checks that you wrote back with your statement each month? That stopped years ago and then they started printing postage stamp sized pictures of the checks written on your statement. Now they’re charging for that, apparently.
Okay, whatever, that’s fine.
I can imagine that there were some substantial costs involved in actually stuffing the original checks into envelopes. Those days are long gone and I’m sure the banks have seen tons of savings as a result.
Scanning the checks (which they have to do anyway) and printing them on the customer’s statement costs, well, essentially nothing. Maybe one extra page per statement and a tiny bit of toner. For a bank, that’s the cost of doing business.
Kinda like the free lollipops if you actually set foot inside a branch — if they even still offer those…
They’re trying to capitalize on a service that’s rapidly going extinct anyway…
In short, I know that they’re really just trying to push their customers to go paperless in some kind of “green” initiative which, I’m sorry, is just stupid.
Newsflash: Paper does grow on trees.
But what *really* rubs me the wrong way about this fee is that I didn’t write ONE SINGLE CHECK during my past billing statement so there are no check images…
Really, you need to click on the link — otherwise the rest of this post is meaningless.
Regarding me missing the mark…I beg to differ.
Don’t get me wrong — I thought it was a good commercial. Well, the first minute or so of it was good.
I thought the soundtrack worked (partially because you never heard his (Eminem’s) nasally voice).
I thought the message was, well, it was good too.
I just thought the star was all wrong for the reasons I listed out originally.
Beag mentioned the Grammys — Eminem’s got to have some curb appeal. Good point but that’s the thing — how many folks over the age of 30 have ever heard any of the songs nominated in any of the categories?
We’re about the same age — right in the center of that most coveted advertising demographic. I don’t know about you, but I pretty much punched out of the modern music scene in the Dave Matthews era and the waning days of Pearl Jam.
I’m also not ashamed to admit that I enjoy listening to all three… Back-to-back-to-back…
At the same time, though, I have zero interest in the acts performing on Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve celebration anymore. Haven’t had any interest in over a decade. The same holds true for the Grammys — performers, nominees, and presenters.
I think I’m in the majority on that one. I still watch the show but mostly because nothing else is on on that night — kinda like how I watched the Super Bowl even though my Bears weren’t in it.
Point is, Eminem has little appeal to me and probably everyone that I know over the age of 30.
On a tangent, since I mentioned the Dick Clark thing, I’d like to take this moment to mention that Will Smith’s daughter is terrible. Just terrible. “Whip My Hair?” Huh?
Now, for the whole “Made in the USA” thing, well, I know that that hasn’t been the case in the auto industry since, well, probably the early 1970′s — just like you mentioned.
I drove a GEO Metro in the early 1990′s. It was a GM product. Inside the door, it said Suzuki. Go figure.
My BMW was assembled in the heart of NASCAR country. German engineering? Yeah, right…
My Scion was actually assembled in Japan. I’m actually pretty surprised by this.
I only mentioned the “across the river” to connect it with the Justin Bieber reference. That, and hailing from southern Ontario, I know first hand that the landscape is dotted with humongous auto assembly plants. And technically, Windsor, Ontario could be considered a Detroit-area assembly plant like you mentioned — close or not, it’s still in another country.
I also thought it was appropriate as they threw “Imported” from Detroit right in your face as if Detroit itself is another country. What’s up with that?
We’re in total agreement that Chrysler had/has lost its edge. I blame the Plymouth Voyager explosion of the mid 1980′s. Mini-vans were their bread-and-butter back then and they held on to that “image” for far too long.
They do need some “edge”. But I still say that Eminem in a Super Bowl commercial was the wrong way to go about it. On MTV, during a Jersey Shore marathon, sure, but not the Super Bowl.
When it comes to widely viewed events (such as the Super Bowl), the memorable commercials are the ones that have appeal to the masses.
Comedy is one way to get there — though that generally works best for beer commercials.
The Volkswagen Passat Darth Vader spot used comedy and a “villian” from 35 years ago. That worked. My son is the same age as your little one (to the day, I think) and he knows who Darth Vader is. My mother knows who he is too.
It appealed to all ages (and genders) making it a perfect Super Bowl commercial.
VW is not suffering from an image crisis though…
Back on topic and regarding what I think was a poor casting choice for a Super Bowl commercial.
The last big, BIG televised event that I can think of was the Winter Olympics last February. You may or may not remember the BC Tourism commercial that ran nearly every break featuring Sarah McLachlan, Ryan Reynolds, Michael J. Fox, Steve Nash, Kim Cattrall, and Eric McCormack.
If not, here it is:
Same idea as the Chrysler commerical, while not all local to Vancouver or even British Columbia, all of them are Canadian and pretty much everyone on the northern half of this hemisphere will know of at least one of those celebrities. Further, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll have a neagative image towards any one of them either…
Ryan Reynolds was named People’s most beautiful person three years in a row. I’m not certain why — he’s alright, I guess — but that crown ensure that grocery store tabloid readers know who he is along with all those folks going to see his chick flick movies.
The older crowd would know who Michael J. Fox is from his time on Family Ties. Or even the Back to the Future movies. More recently, he’s the face of Parkinson’s disease. He’s well known and, as far as I can tell, pretty well respected too.
Steve Nash was the NBA’s MVP for a few seasons. All of the wannabe jocks know who he is.
Kim Cattrall covers the cable crowd. She was one of the stars in the Sex in the City series that got so many people to pay extra for HBO. She’s also been in tons of movies and even dated Pierre Trudeau (a former Pime Minister of Canada).
Eric McCormack, rightfully so or not, covers the gay crowd. I’m not sure if he’s actually gay or not, I don’t think he is — it doesn’t really matter — but from his role on the tv show Will & Grace, I’d say that the masses just assume he is.
How do these six spokespeople differ from Eminem? Well, first off, the variety alone ensures that 95% of the audience will identify with at least one of them. Maybe Chrysler should have had a few more cameos.
Further, though, and more importantly, they all have pretty squeaky clean images.
I’m not an expert on any of those celebs — I listed pretty much all I know about them — but I do know that their image is treated with higher regard than that of Eminen. Image is everything.
That’s why I thought the commercial was terrible.
You just don’t want a perceived thug telling you they’re coming back. To me, that’s the message Chrysler sent and it’s 100% because of the casting. It’s not edgy — it’s almost insulting.
Oh, and I don’t see Detroit making a comeback.
Dearborn, maybe.
Okay, does this mean we should have a rap showdown?
;0)
Seriously — I really appreciate the well thought-out, not to mention long, comment. Thanks Dude!
I'm three apples high and nearsighted. I like yellow-haired smurfs, robot invasions, sarcasm, and anything where the secret ingredient is love.
I started this blog in March 2007 after accidently stumbling across a few PF blogs while researching the idea of using 0% balance tranfers to finance a home improvement project -- from there, I was hooked...
[more]
One of the seldom mentioned perks of 
This post isn’t about Eli Manning or the Giants winning the Super Bowl. If I’d cared about that, I have written about it two weeks ago.
During 
I hope they, the buttons with resistance, don’t go the way of the record player.
Dear Ronald,
So remember how when 
Not that I’ve ever actually eaten one, mind you, but when you choose a name like “guacamole” as an alias, well, seriously, how good can they be in either form — whole or squashed into a slimy lumpy paste?
I keep hearing about how banks have started, well, raping their customers with sneaky fees and I like to think that I’m diligent enough when it comes to my finances to dodge them but, once again, Bank of America has dinged me with an unannounced fee that I’ve never once had to pay in the past.
I drove a GEO Metro in the early 1990′s. It was a GM product. Inside the door, it said Suzuki. Go figure.
