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Detroit, 2:06 PM
Sat Dec 5
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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Detroit cars, on the other hand, start showing up in the junkyards in large quantities when they hit 10 years old. This has not changed in the last quarter-century. Right now you could pack a highway to the Moon bumper-to-bumper with all the late-90s Ford Tauruses in America's junkyards.
01:46 PM
11:12 AM
11/29/09
11/29/09
This mash up also seems Jalopnik/ Lemons appropriate: [www.youtube.com]
11/29/09
11/29/09
But at an F1 race, I think L'Trimm espousing their love of cars that go boom as Robert Kubica grenaded yet another expensive BMW lump would've been appropriately hilarious...
11/29/09
1) How the competitors at Lemons gladly participate in and abet their own punishments;
2) The power source for the boom box--just hilarious;
3) Ms. Murilee's robe hanging out the door of the Crown Vic;
4) People who can dance on a moving vehicle!
11/29/09
11/29/09
17 minutes of, well, 1968 Iron Butterfly. That'll snap anyone into shape, if the reward is turning it off...unless they're operating a motor vehicle under while under the influence of something they shouldn't be.
I made it through the first 7 minutes on the way home week-before-last.
I like extended-dance-mixes, but this was a bit much.
/goes to find Information Society's 'Pure Energy' album
11/29/09
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11/29/09
I'll have to attempt it, again. Sounds like something which would be significantly enhanced by doobage.
Damned job hunting...always fuckin' up my doobage budget/running the risk of drug testing BS.
11/29/09
11/29/09
I like that song, so it would be enjoyable for me.
11/29/09
And yes, you must put on your green sweater, as we say, to appreciate it.
11/29/09
Well, the way society is going, the prisons should eventually be locked up with enough true criminals (white collar people, I'm glaring at you) to effectively legalize cannabis, which I've always advocated, even though I'd not tried it until I was in my mid-30's.
It is a much better pain killer/sleeping aid than any of a dozen prescription medications I'd been on, and was not only helpful, but it didn't leave me with a chemical 'hangover'. I truly didn't want any 'high', I just wanted to hurt less and have a decent night's sleep.
Win.
It's not legal because the gubment hasn't yet figured out how to make money on it. Tobacco is hard to grow, relatively-speaking, and bathtub booze...well...there's a quality issue.
Mary Jane grows on all but one continent, naturally, so of course, it's bad.
Actually, I'm all for legalization of most anything barring murder, rape, child abuse, robbery, y'know, the truly bad shit. Everything else (heroin, prostitution, other stuff which is frowned upon pretty much everywhere) will shake itself out, though it may be a few, um, interesting years. More like several months, probably.
@Murilee Martin:
Murilee...interpretive dance?
I like it.
What's funny is, my wife bought the album, new, and still has it.
Information Society videos are likely the reason for the Satellite reference. I had to disable Flash 'cause it crashes Chrome on this machine, so I'll look at vids tomorrow, at work.
There is an 'upside' to being underemployed. You're taxed so little, there is plenty of Jalop-time.
11/29/09
Ah, I'd forgotten. The Hack album cover.
Good times.
11/29/09
I actually own a Mistah FAB album, oddly enough. It might still be to my benefit to attend a Hyphy 101 seminar, however.
11/29/09
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11/29/09
...then again, I probably just don't get out enough.
11/30/09
There's also a short bus Limo in town for the white-upper-middle-class poser kids. It was the dumbest thing I had ever seen until several of the occupants went "tits-on-glass"... since then I've been okay with it.
11/29/09
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11/29/09
If we don't tow it, someone else will. We treat all people with the same respect that they give to us.
We are accommodating and understanding and will do anything within reason to help someone else. After all our business is helping others in a time of need.
Many times people deal with us in a fit of rage even though we didn't park their car and didn't order it towed. Those people need to have their paperwork in perfect order and do everything by policy (such as a wife picking up a husbands car etc)
We can be very nice. I often knock off mileage charges, days of storage, etc. We can be very not nice too. Keep that in mind next time you deal with a tow company.
11/29/09
Parking is illegal at some point of the day for every single space in the city, and instruction signs are often so incomprehensible that even well-intentioned drivers will screw up and be hit with a $200+ ticket. This is nothing more than a general tax levied on the population. If you are very very unlucky, the city will just up and take your car to the impound lot for nothing more than being parked illegally for a few minutes. Then on top of your $200 ticket, you also have tow and impound charges of another $300 or so. And heaven forbid this happens on a weekend, because then your car will be dragged out to the middle of nowhere and you'll spend the remainder of your day (or two) trying to get it out.
Then there is the marshal 'service' (a public service concession awarded to a private individual), who works with private tow companies to find those 'scofflaws' who have more than two unpaid tickets and ruin their lives. First off, most tow companies are mobbed up, more often than not. And even if they're not mobbed up, they're run by corrupt assholes who live on kickbacks and the misery of others. So anyway, you have the marshal who on the surface exists to collect money owed on parking tickets... to do this he roams around the city in a minivan with private wreckers in tow and when they find a car that returns as having unpaid tickets, they surround this car, force the driver out and make them either pay the full balance in cash on the spot or they take the car. Now most people don't just carry a few hundred in cash on them, so more often than not they just put big stickers that say 'SEIZED' on it and take the car... even if you offer to run to a cash machine down the block they have the right to just take the car, which they always do. See, its not in their interest to just collect cash, because once its towed then the owner of the car is on the hook for not only the balance of their tickets, but also an overinflated towing and storage charge, which the marshal is entitled to a cut of... and the tow companies get a cut of their total tickets owed as well. So its win/win for them.
So now your car has been confiscated by thugs in the middle of a public street and you're basically left standing there with nothing. Now begins the odyssey to try and get your private property returned to you (and hope you have a day to kill). See, they don't tell you where its towed to... it could be anywhere. First you have to go to the marshal's office in person to pay your balance of tickets --cash only-- then they give you a paper with the location of the yard that is holding your car... likely many many miles away, in a bad neighborhood, where you go and once again pay in cash your tow and storage fees, and hope that your car is in one piece (it often isn't because they just don't give a shit).
During this experience, you will encounter the most nasty, mean-spirited people on the face of the planet, who not only don't care about you or your property, but also seem to take joy in the fact that they have this tiny amount of power to hurt people with. The entire process is awful and should not exist in a free society. I would not be exaggerating if I said that I wish physical harm on them and their families.
So while its wonderful that wherever it is that your happy friendly tow company operates gets the benefit of your benevolence, you should probably know that when you take someone's private property away from them, they're going to be upset. And quite frankly, I seem to recall something in the constitution about not being able to deprive an individual of their 'life, liberty or property without due process of law'... so unless some asshole with a ticket book or a deliberately unintelligible parking sign now constitutes 'due process', I would expect more people to not be happy with your work.
11/30/09
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11/29/09
The other 10% of the time was spent towing cars the townies would abandon in the dorm overnight parking lots. I got very good at noticing the dirt around the tires as an indicator of a car that hadn't moved in months.
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11/29/09
It usually costs us around $500/yr for a parking pass (cheapest variety) so no wonder they get to afford all the fancy devices. That's why most people take the big blue bus.