Subaru thoughts

Hi there.

I apologize for 2 car posts in a row. I know this blog was going to be more diverse and cover a variety of topics, but I got lazy and wrote 2 days in a row about stuff I know about. Suck it.

So I own a Subaru (ok don't own it yet, i'm making payments). It's an Impreza. The name really bothers me, this post is getting a little too Jerry Seindfeldish, but to be honest, aside from the lame humor and the odd hair, the stupid tv show...ok he has no redeeming characteristics, but pushing on.
I have an Impreza. There really isn't much impressive about it. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad car, I love the AWD and and the romping 168hp gets me where I need to go, but it's just not impressive. I did a little research between the beginning of the blog and here, and found out (thanks Wikipedia) that the Impreza is named after an Italian word meaning feat or achievement. The next model up got the acronym treatment (WRX), and one step higher got STI which stand for World Rally Cross Country and Subaru Tecnica International.

Interesting. I have the base model, the 2.5i Doesn't really stand for anything, 2.5 liter engine with i-Active Valve Lift System. Huh? A racing series, and racing company and an i-Active Valve Lift System? I can't make heads or tails of this, Send it down to Chief O'Brien for analysis.

You know what they should of called it? Something to show it's background, something with a some real Japanese history attached to it. Here are the first things that come to mind:
Subaru Samurai - oh wait that was already a lame tiny 4x4 in the 80's
Subaru Sony - not gonna work
Subaru Tribeca - wait, they already used that one and it refers to a neighborhood in New York
Subaru 2.5X - this really works, better than 2.5i anyways
Subaru Meiji Restoration - Just doesn't really roll of the tongue
Subaru Hentai - for 18+ drivers only.
Subaru ______ - what do you think they should of called the Impreza?
I've included a picture of a 2.5i (that looks a lot like mine) below, so take a look at it for inspiration and then let me know what you think.

Saab + Spyker = Weird European fetish love?

Here's the breakdown:

Luxury sports car/race car brand that has never turned a profit in last 10 years pairs with defunct GM brand that has mediocre cars, and a plant in Sweden. Sounds like pure gold to me.

What does Saab get out of it? It gets to keep living.

Spyker on the other hand, for 40 million (with some additional loans) gets, a factory in Sweden, a platform that has been hailed as the next Jesus (2012 Saab 9-5), a bunch of crappy Opel based models, and $600 Million in guaranteed loans.

Spyker pretty much gets free loans/factory during a terrible time for the automotive industry, Saab gets...um..not much.

The equation looks like this:

Super car manufacturer with experience running non-profitable business acquires dying brand that can't post a profit, sounds like a winning combination to me (sarcasm).

Spyker makes awesome cars, but is still stuck in the mentality that race cars sell regular cars.
To make things even worse, when it comes to super cars, Spyker, besides an odd look isn't the fastest/coolest/newest/most powerful kid on the block. They produce cars with 400-ish hp cars that can go 0-60 in around 4.5 seconds and can get up to 180. The new Corvette's can do that, an M3/5/6 can do that. Doesn't sound that special. To quote one of my favorite movies:
"When everyone is special, no one is special".

They essentially make street legal race cars. Last I checked, people didn't buy Saabs because they wanted to go fast, they bought them because they had unique quirks and made them (and their elbow patch blazers) feel special.

Pretty much the only thing special about Spyker is they are Dutch. The last major contribution the Dutch made towards advancing mankind was cyclocross. oh wait, that's the Belgians, um, the dutch invented some small pots that can be used to bake in. They are know for Gouda, windmills and...oh and almost ruining the European economy in the 17th century with a Tulip bulb bubble (this is true, read about it more here).

In order to succeed, Spyker really has to hit a home run with the new 9-5 and start producing something that turns peoples heads.

Spyker does def. produce weird looking cars:

















And so did/does Saab (yes, that's a Saab Sonnett, a sports car with a name that sounds like a 14 line poem)














So maybe it is a match made in weird car heaven. Time will tell.

Working out in the morning

This morning marked the [insert number greater than 50] morning where I did not get up to work out. I actually set an alarm for 45 minutes early, which I promptly turned off, rolled over to my warm fiance and went back to sleep for an hour. If I had gotten up, this is what I would of done (I know this because for a precious month last winter, I did this):

1. Bathroom/toothbrushing
2. Pound down a bunch of water
3. Rummage around drawer looking for spandex
4. Get Yelled at by aforementioned fiance for "being stupid loud"
5. Find spandex
6. Head down to basement
7. Realize I forgot socks and return upstairs to repeat steps 3 -6
8. Check tires on bike, realize rear one is flat again
9. Replace rear tube
10. Pop random movie in dvd player
11. get on bike
12. realize I am still in my boxers, get off of bike and change to spandex
13. get back on bike, press play on dvd player, discover that I am watching a terrible movie.
14. watch movie anyways while spinning my brains away in a hot basement, my head 6 inches from the ceiling
15. Realize that my anticipated 1 hr "ride" has been reduced to 30 mins by steps 1-13.
16. Finish up, go upstairs, get in shower
17. Proceed as if it were normal day...except I am so hungry now I can barely make it to work (I eat breakfast at work)

By contrast, today I:
1. Bathroom/toothbrushing
...
16. Finish up, go upstairs, get in shower
17. Proceed as if it were normal day

I really do need to get back on the bike.

A quick introduction and explanation.

A quick note on the blog title. Any puns are intended and Picard was the best Star Trek Captain. Any attempts to convince me otherwise will be met by massive ignorance and awesome stubbornness. I am not a Star Trek expert and don't even have the command uniform pajamas, so don't think you can emasculate me (yes I'm male) by spouting off obscure Star Trek facts and opinions, because frankly, I don't care.

Beer at 8:30am, AKA Job Interview Number 1

Once upon a time I had a blog, but I found I had nothing interesting to write, so the blog died a natural blog death, 4 posts and then lost to oblivion. I think that the internet is broken down like this:

79% porn

10% forums of people arguing with idiots

5% blogs with 4 posts

4% the google.

1% legitimate (non-porn) webpages

1% email money scams (I has a clients in baghdad with $1MILLION USD currency cash for you!)

I’m going to try and be a little better with this blog.

My current goal is to find a new job. I’ll have to write a future blog on what type of job I am looking for, but I thought I’d just start to document the job search so far.

So first of all, last night I did not swim, instead I prepared for my interview today. Interestingly enough, all my preparation could not have prepared me for what I found.

So the interview was in a business park, and the day started with me parked in back lot (I haven’t driven to work in almost 5 years) after arriving 20 minutes early. A guy in a suit pulls up in the spot next to me in a Ford truck. He cracks open a can of beer, pounds it, and then walks into the office park. This is not some dinky little place, in this complex alone there are 2 fortune 500 companies, so this was a little unexpected. Crossing my fingers that he wasn’t one of my interviewers, I went up.

I was informed upon arrival that the primary interviewer (we’ll call him Roger) was going to be busy all day and would not be able to interview me…but Ed has gladly stepped in to help (names changed to protect the kind-of innocent). I have 3 interviews and a quiz (wtf a quiz?). First interview is the typical, why do you want to work here etc…stuff. On the way to second interview we walk by Roger’s corner office, he is having a doughnut and flirting with some larger blond girl. Hmmm….busy indeed.

Interview 2 was more of the same, nothing special, and interview 3 was with a guy who “really doesn’t know the group that well since I’m in another department. I just agreed to do this interview because they know me.” After interview 3, we walk by Rogers office again, he’s watching a video on his computer with some other guys (no longer can see blonde.)

Time for the quiz. I’m shown into a conference room, given a pad of paper, a pencil and the quiz. Question 1: There are 10 bottles on a table, 2 are beer, 2 are milk, 3 are water and 3 are poison (question changed slightly). If a beer and a water have to be on one end etc…

Which of the following is true:

a) If the second bottle is milk, would you drink the 7^th bottle?

b) If the 10^th bottle is water and the second one is poison, who’s on first?

c) Etc…

There are 24 questions, halfway into question 3 I have to pee (probably all the talk about bottles of liquid). I coolly slip out of the conference room, out the office door and into the very clean bathroom…..zip, all done, hands washed, ready to tackle the next 21 questions, f*ck, the office door is locked shut, I need a pass to get back in.

10 minutes pass (I now have 35 mins left for the questions) and finally I track down secretary who is willing to let me back in (but only after she confirms with Roger that I am in fact an interviewee. Whew, back in my conference room, ready to tackle the rest of these questions.

Question 7:

At the junior Olympics there are 5 events and 4 teams. Each event has a gold, silver and bronze medal. Answer the following questions with the following assumptions:

Team 1 doesn’t win any golds

Team 2 wins 3 golds

No team goes 2 events without winning a medal

No team wins 2 gold consecutively

Team 4 is full of American idol contestants who thought this was the special olympics

(ok I made last one up, and the special Olympics are awesome)

If Team 3 gets a gold medal in event 2, what is Team 4’s favorite survivor episode:

a) The one where the mean gay guy got the immunity idol and won

b) Snooki is the obviously the best character

c) You got punk’d

d) Imma let you finish.

Finished there and now I have my HR contact to give me the summary and I’m done.

On my way out I run into Roger again, heading out to grab a coffee with the blonde coworker. He has a wedding band, she does not, I notice these little things. He wishes me luck, I return the gesture, and I'm out.

Interview done, but honestly, I think I’m better off at my dead-end job than that company. More on that dead end job later.

Blog post number 1!

So I'm going to take this blog and run with it. Really go places. Forgive the dorky title :)