The Hybrid Conspiracy.

I would like to talk about something that I care very much about today, the Toyota Prius.
Each decade can be summed up in a handy cut-out-’n’-keep, bite-sized phrase. The Fifties was “black and white”, the Sixties was “peace and love”, the Seventies was “Disco fever”, the Eighties was “greed is good”, the Nineties was “Dot-com boom” and the decade just past was “the twin towers”.

We have similar reference points with cars. The Fifties was the Corvette, the Sixties was the E-type Jag, the Seventies was The GTO, the Eighties was the Delorian, the Nineties was the McLaren F1 and the decade just passed was a time when everyone took leave of their senses. It was the time of the Toyota Prius.

Since the beginning of cars in the world not much has really changed, they have evolved bit by bit with fewer running boards and less flared wheel arches but the general concept was the same, a gas powered engine with four wheels . It was not until the turn of the twenty first century that the automotive industry took an idiotic dog leg turn to the left with hybrid and electric cars. Whether you believe global warming is caused by man or not the simple fact of the matter is this, oil will one day run out and it would be stupid to use the last drops of it on something as trivial as personal transportation. This we can all agree on and the biggest problem with the Prius is that it uses oil, about as much as a diesel Volkswagen, but its worse for the environment than absolutely anything you can buy on the market right now.

Hybrid cars are filthy, they produce more carbon emissions in there lifespan than anything else. sure they get good gas mileage during the time they are on the road but it is what comes before and after that counts. All hybrid and electric cars have huge nickel batteries that store the energy produced by the engine to be used later. the problem with this is that Nickel mining is a terribly dirty earth ravaging process, leaving vast expanse (mostly in canada and alaska) barren and desolate. After the raw materials are mined in Canada they are shipped off to france in a huge black smoke spewing tanker ship to be refined and after that shipped by land over many many miles to japan where it is fitted into the vehicles. then the vehicles are shipped back to the U.S. and all the rest of the word to be sold as green cars, when by the time they hit the markets they have already done more damage to the environment than even the biggest of diesel trucks. Is marketed as “green” and because man is now fundamentally lazy, it’s convenient to believe the hype. Not only that but after the hipster dufuses or celebutards who want the good press are done with the vehicles, the batteries will sit in a landfill and seep into the water supply and can never be recycled or gotten rid of.

The reason for the Prius and all the other hybrid copies is that the automotive industry saw a quick fix that would make the public happy and the consumer feel good about himself. The catalytic converter was a quick fix in the late seventies and look where it has gotten us, more CO2 in the air than we know what to do with and a hole the size of Texas in the ozone layer. sense when did we become a country of quick fixes that only make the greater problem worse in the long run but seem like the miracle cure right now?

The obvious choice is not electric or hybrid but rather hydrogen, it burns the same as gas, it is the most abundant element in the universe, existing engines can be retrofitted to run on it and the only thing coming out of the tailpipe is water, pure drinkable water. But as it turns out Hydrogen is somewhat hard to store and transport and that is the reason the automotive companies are not pursuing it. They have the quick fix already developed and hydrogen would cost a lot right now to develop. We need to do this one right though.

And they are right it will be hard, but what happened to the days when we went to the moon and did the other things because they were hard? Why have we now suddenly decided that actually it’s much better to take the easy option?

Even though the Pious or Prickus or whatever you want to call it is the car that defined the last decade it is far from the best. The best car of the decade is the exact opposite of the Pious, And it was built not because it was easy but because it was, on paper, completely impossible. It is, of course, the Bugatti Veyron. Bugatti was bought by Volkswagen and the first order of business for the newly acquired firm from the slightly mad boss at VW was to make a car that was reliable, as comfortable as buckingham palace, had 1,000 horsepower and could do 254 MPH. Many people failed him and he fired anyone who did until he got it right.

Of course, it is not that hard to produce a 1,000-horsepower car that can hit 254MPH -once. But VW was talking about a normal road car that could be driven round town like a Golf. Some of the problems they encountered were overcome by great feats of engineering. for example the aerodynamics. you can easily make a shape that cuts the air well at 254MPH (about the same speed as a second world war Hawker Hurricane) but at this kind of pace, it will barely be in contact with the road. Which would make cornering a tad tricky. at the same time if you try to keep the tires pressed down into the road, the shape of the body will make 254MPH impossible. The car has a W16 engine with four turbos and 13 intercoolers to keep it from melting a hole in the asphalt. It is the last hurrah of the Gasoline age. The Concord of the motoring world, and we will never see anything like it again.

The piont here is not to talk about this car but to talk about what is possible if we work together and create a solution to something. We can make a reliable usable everyday hydrogen car, we just have to try.

Lofty Ambitions...

I'm sitting here at work, doing nothing because that's what I do at work, and I received an email about fun facts on the presidents. At the very end of the e-mail it said "who knows, maybe someday you could be president." and I started thinking, yea maybe someday i will be president. What would I do if i was the president? I think I would use every single bathroom, and there are 35 of them, and I would determine which one has the best water pressure and the best "seat feel". then I would exclusively use this bathroom for the rest of my term. I would also write into law that Mel brooks must make a new movie every six months for the entire four years of my presidency, and it better be good. Then I realized that this is exactly why I'm not president and why I will never be president. Because I'm more worried about water pressure than I am about Iraq.
On the same note I don,t think any of our current presidents have really cared about our country in the way that the great presidents of the past did. I mean can you really compare people like Lincoln and Roosevelt to George Jr. and Barack? No you cant, and here's why. they ALL are more interested in water pressure as well. Maybe not in the literal sense but overall they all have there own agendas. George Bush Jr was to busy trying to live up to his father and the result was a hole where Iraq used to be. Clinton was to busy trying not to look like a sissy in front of his wife, and got lucky riding the dot com boom. And Obama is to busy being the first black president, and as a result has spent every last doller or yen or whatever on the planet trying to prove hes a nice guy. no one is really thinking. At least I would be honest about my agenda. and I bet the water pressure int he oval office is really good.

Insomnia, and Paranioa.

Well, Its 3:30am and I'm wide awake. that sucks. at this hour you start thinking all kinds of crazy things. There is just something weird about being awake when everyone else on your side of the world is asleep. Being awake and alone in a dark house is a little scary too, I don't know why, I mean bad guys could just as easily get you when you asleep. I think its because when your awake and alone in the dark there is nothing else to do but think about what could happen, and that leads to paranoia.
When I was around four years old my dad told me that when you passed a falling rock sign you had to look out for a rogue Indian named Falling Rock. Apparently Falling Rock jumps on your car and hacks through the roof with his tomahawk. He also has an expressed interest in young children. After all they taste better. This is the entrance into my life of what is a family trait passed down from my mother, irrational fears.
The faster you go, I thought, the less chance you had of Falling Rock landing on your car. If only we weren’t stuck behind these Texans, we could floor it and not have a problem
“Yea Right dad.” I would say, “There is no such thing as an Indian named Falling Rock.” all the while I was looking out my window, just in case.
“That’s exactly what our other son said.” My father alleged “and look what happened to him.”
“What happened?” I said wide eyed
“Well, He’s not here is he?”
“Yea right, you never had another son, besides how could falling rock be In so many places at the same time.” I would say, still not so sure of myself. The rest of the trip would be spent wishing we weren’t stuck behind Texans so falling rock could not get us.
I come from a family of over believers, a clan of the easily duped. My mother almost exclusively watches shows on TV that are only there to scare people and she buys right into it. If she heard it on 20/20 it has to be true. If some reporter with a square jaw and a concerned look on his face stated that toilets are the leading cause of death amongst paraplegics, she would neurotically worry about it and eventually buy all new “safe” toilets for the whole house. When asked what she was so worried about, after all no one in the family was a paraplegic, she would shrug and say “what if I got in some horrible car accident? At least the bathrooms would be ready for me” or “what if a Paraplegic came over to the house? I don’t want his blood on my hands, besides I heard it on 20/20”
Unfortunately these fears were hereditary and I grew up in fear of just about anything. Not fears like monsters under my bed (although the chupacabra, I’m sure, was always outside my window just waiting for me to open it) I would take the stairs because what if my laces got stuck in the escalator and I was sucked under? I didn’t eat tuna for fear of killing dolphins; Botulism forced me to not eat canned vegetables; I was afraid I was going to get amnesia so I would write down things like that names of my pets and instructions on how to put on underwear, just in case; I was afraid that I would follow the wrong dad home from the fair and the new family would make me do their dishes for the rest of my life. “it’s a good thing this little guy followed us home” they would say. And for what? It doesn't do any good to worry, you will end up wasting your life if you do.

In the begining...

I decided to start a blog simply because I'm bored. and I have some stories to tell, not that more than two people will ever read it. You may wonder at the title of my blog, and there is where I will begin.

When I was in second grade my parents decided that public school was no good and that I needed a good private education. I was promptly taken from my second grade class at Martin Luther King Elementary school and put into the loving and caring hands of the Catholic school system. (how do you convey sarcasm in a blog?) I was at Queen of Heaven for second and third grade, just enough time for my self esteem and view of God and religion to be so horribly skewed that at the young age of eight I was thinking of being atheist, or possibly Jewish so I could work in Hollywood.
Catholic School is a terrible place, a place like hell or New Jersey, except they preach it to you every day. The irony is they are trying to prevent hell by promising it. But enough about that, moving on to the lesbian nuns.
My second grade teachers were both nuns, kind of, they looked like nuns and dressed like nuns but they were not actually a part of the local convents or technically ordained, however they did live together in there own convent of sorts. I don't remember their names but If I did I would definitely tell you. These nuns were mean and hateful and had no problems ostracizing you in front of a full class. They came to school together and left together and in my little eight year old brain this was normal. It wasn't until I was older and until my mother confirmed my own suspicions that these women were a part of the GLBTQ community. I'm not sure which is funnier, the thought of lesbian nuns or the fact that the catholic church, which as you know always takes the moral high ground, (more sarcasm please) allowed this to go on in their school when it is so clearly against their belief system.
And you know what? Who cares, if it makes them happy it works, who am I to judge. I like eating Sour Patch Kids while bathing and that's equally as weird. But you can bet I will have more catholic school stories in the future.

So this is a blog of stories and other things that I like,and I would like to hear from you guys (meaning my mom and wife cause, lets face it, your the only ones reading). As the french critic Edmond de Goncourt said, A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world." with the possible exception of blogs and youtube videos, and I cant wait for some of your ridiculous opinions.