I'm Mark and you've found my personal site. Emotional minors or the easily offended should close the window and never return. This blog exists primarily to amuse me. If you enjoy it also so much the better. Guaranteed to be Vain & Vapid™ or double your money back.
There’s a lot of hoopla in the mainstream media right now about the San Diego man who claims his Prius accelerated out of control on Tuesday. Too much about this story seems off in my opinon. The driver is now claiming that after the car kept accelerating on its own, he reached down and tried to pull the accelerator pedal back but it wasn’t stuck. How do you manage that trick? Is he a contortionist? More puzzling, he goes on to claim that he didn’t put the car in neutral because he was afraid to do anything that wasn’t normal. Huh? Diving down to the footwell while going 94 mph is normal but shifting the transmission to neutral, as it’s designed to do, isn’t? Something is fishy here.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the entire incident was staged. The AP has a story–almost no outlets have picked it up–pointing out that 89 class actions lawsuits already have been filed on behalf of Toyota owners claiming the resale value of their vehicles has declined due to the recalls. The story estimates Toyota faces a conservative $3 billion in damages. Here’s where coincidences start coming together.
On March 25, there will be a hearing by a panel of Federal judges to consider consolidating all the individual cases into one massive case. The stakes are enormous. In the 2008 settlement over Ford Explorers, plaintiff attorneys collected $25 million in cash while the owners they represented each got a $500 voucher towards the purchase of another Ford. These plaintiff attorneys who currently are making up evidence against Toyota will probably see a similar windfall.
Oh and one more item of interest. Where will this March 25 hearing take place? San Diego.
A little blip buried in this week’s overblown coverage of Toyota’s recalls. The so-called professor who rigged up an Avalon for ABC’s hack Brian Ross actually works for the plaintiff lawyers who are “gathering,” i.e. manufacturing, evidence for lawsuits against Toyota.
Legal vultures circling around the piles of money that Toyota practically has been minting for years are manipulating our dimwitted mainstream press?
Rich was watching the Oscars while I made dinner tonight. I tried to avoid watching but then I heard Richard Dreyfus voicing a Hyundai ad that I know Jeff Bridges had originally done. Odd. Sure enough, seems the PR fascists at the Academy forced Hyundai to substitute other voices for tonight’s broadcast. Typical.
I feel like someone might come snatch away my homo card for saying this but I just don’t care about the Oscars. Some much hoopla. So much incessant self promotion. So much mediocrity.
Looks like Sir Elton has set off the whackos. Again. I don’t really care what he says about fictional characters but I’m amused by the huffing and puffing. Such truly insightful rhetoric, too. I particularly like the comeback from bobj72 on The Daily Beast, quoting our favorite old chestnut Leviticus and attributing it to Jesus.
Uh, bobj72, I’m far from a biblical scholar but I’m pretty sure Leviticus is from that best seller the Old Testament while your boy Jesus didn’t make an appearance until the sequel came out.
The best spot of the 2010 Superbowl technically isn’t a commercial because CBS didn’t bill for the airtime. Rather it was the promo for Late Show with David Letterman. Brilliant.
Of course if you’ve spent anytime here, you’re probably not surprised by my sentiment. Obviously I’m a huge fan of Letterman’s humor. But I’ve got to hand it to Leno for jumping in. Good step towards rehabilitating his rep. The NY Times has coverage of the interesting backstory.
I think the complete surprise of the spot figures in its success. Given the way most advertisers today attempt to leverage their enormous outlays with previews, websites, etc., the unexpected audacity of the Letterman-Oprah-Leno ad seems refreshing.
There’s something to be said for the delight of a surprise.
I’m amused but also appalled by the media circus over the throttle and brake issues at Toyota. As I usually find anytime I have more than casual knowledge of a subject, the general media has gotten the story completely wrong. It doesn’t make good headlines but the fact remains–machines can’t come to life and act on their own. Pick any incident of supposed unintended acceleration and you will find driver error involved. Pressing the accelerator when you think it’s the brake. Or if in a worse case, a throttle really did stick, not having the presence of mind to shift to neutral, brake and steer to the side of the road. Car & Driver is the rare voice of reason on the subject:
Anyone so uncoordinated that they can’t differentiate the pedals and operate them independently shouldn’t be driving. And this is going to sound uncharitable, but even if the recall dealing with potentially sticking pedals applies to a lot of Toyotas, why aren’t people just shifting into neutral? Even if the throttle really sticks fully open, it won’t have any accelerative impact on the car if it’s in neutral. By this point, if you have a Toyota (or any car), and you don’t know to shift to neutral if the engine races unexpectedly, you’re going to succumb to what can only be described as natural selection.
And just because I want to suppress more comments from looney-tune right wingers, let me urge you to go have both lunch and dinner at California Pizza Kitchen then stop by the nearest Peet’s for a coffee or three. Both companies are standing up to the morons who insist on walking around with handguns strapped to their sides in plain view.
The gun nuts see it as their constitutional right to intimidate and frighten the public at large. Idiots don’t really understand what the Second Amendment means. They think arms equals handguns when it could just as easily apply to Sherman tanks or flame throwers.
In fact Mr. Whacko, if you think you have an inalienable right to carry a pistol, I’m going to install a thermonuclear missile on my balcony. The neighbors have been having sex in their open window again. They need to be put on notice. I’m tired of hearing that loud woman across the courtyard have screaming orgasm.
The usual suspects already are riled up over Superbowl ads. First news that CBS has rejected a commercial for a gay dating site, ostensibly because the idea of two men kissing and dry humping makes them squeamish. Predictably. I started feeling some righteous indignation. Then I saw the spot.
It’s just god-awful bad. I’m happy CBS rejected it. Do you really believe two ugly cretins like those characters would suddenly start making out just because their hands touched in the chip bowl? The ad has nothing to do with being gay and looking for love. It seems calculated to be controversial and scare the bejeebies out of the notoriously insecure straight males.
I know I’ll disagree the ad simply because the lunatic fringe Focus on the Family is behind it. That said, I am slightly amused that the hate is being whipped up even though the spot itself has yet to be released.
“Come on, let’s protest. We’re offended by something we haven’t seen yet.”