Long ago I swore I would always take the lowest fare I could find when I had to fly. I despised the airlines and never wanted to give them a penny more than I had to for their awful service.

I now find myself in a dilemma. Hotwire is offering a really excellent fare to LGA. It’s about a $100 less than what I thought I would have to pay. This price is the best I’ve ever seen, and yes taxes and fees are included. But you know how Hotwire works. I won’t know my flight times until after I pay for the ticket. Of course I’m going to get stuck with some awful 6:30 am flight!

As I’ve gotten older I’m less willing to accept those little indignities to save some money. Yet I feel terrible at the thought of spending more than is necessary. Oh the dilemma! It’s enough to make me cancel my trip entirely.

Shame on me. I nearly forgot today is the second anniversary of picking up my car at the dealership. It’s hard to believe I have driven my Mazda3 for two years now. It’s been a good two years filled with a lot of good memories. I was actually a little afraid I would be tired of the car by now and looking to get another one. I think that can wait for another year.

I always thought it was a stupid date to pick to get a new car. It’s the day before Halloween! I didn’t realize that at the time. I was just so excited about the car, I wanted to get it as fast as possible. That first Halloween I was so paranoid about kids egging my car, I left work early so I could lock my car in the garage. I remember that night too. I was nearly home when I saw some kids on the street. I didn’t know if they were a threat or not. I wasn’t going to take that risk. I sped up and took a sharp turn into my driveway. The safety of that garage was wonderful.

I do feel a little bad though. If only I remembered this anniversary earlier today I would have gotten a nice car wash. Sorry hun.

Wow what a day! I just experienced my first earthquake. I lived in the Bay Area for about six years now, and sure there have been tremors before but I never felt anything. I would always hear about it on the news later and never have a recollection of any ground shaking. But just a few minutes ago nature gave me a good jostle.

I was sitting at my desk at work when I start to notice I’m vibrating. Almost immediately I hear the familiar flexing sound of the windows, but at a much faster rate. It dawns on me, “Oh cool is this an earthquake?” But then I realize this has been going on for quite some time. I look up and see the ceiling tiles shaking back and forth, and I start to get concerned some of them might come down. I slowly backed away from my desk to get away from the light fixture that is directly above me, just in case.

I guess the whole thing lasted 20 seconds. I started out feeling very excited that finally I got to experience this, but towards the end I was a little scared. I didn’t know the shaking could last so long. I thought an earthquake was just a quick thrust from the ground. Maybe it would last 3 seconds? This was a slow, continuous rumble. It’s a very weird feeling.

Once the shaking stopped and I looked around the office to make sure nothing fell, I made my report to the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program. Event 40204628, I’ll remember you always. By the way, there’s no damage in the office that I can see. I can’t wait to get home and check. Lets hope my collection of fragile glass bottles perched on top of one another survived.

I just read the horrible news. Robert Goulet died today waiting in an LA hospital for a lung transplant. I had no idea he was ill at all. He’s done so many guest spots on shows I just assumed he was in normal health.

I never heard him perform but I’ll always think of him as a good guy who never turned into a diva, or whatever the male equivalent term is. I’d say that’s a pretty amazing achievement considering how full of themselves singing celebrities often are.

I’ll always love the commercial he did for Emerald Nuts. No one else could have given it such absurdist hilarity. Good bye Mr. Goulet.

Pardon me, I’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of decades. Is it true that cars pollute? All this time I thought that exhaust smoke was made from candy canes and sunshine.

Do you find that believable? Do you think there is anyone who is unaware that cars pollute? Apparently bureaucrats in the European Union do because they are proposing that automobile advertisements should all include a warning that cars damage the environment. It would be the sort of thing you see on cigarette packs. The plan, if implemented, would require 20% of the ad space be dedicated to the environmental warning.

In truth I should say I don’t really think these bureaucrats truly believe anyone is unaware of the harm cars can cause. What were seeing here are people saving their jobs. This environmental warning is a way to justify someone’s position, or maybe a group, with a high profile task. If they didn’t show themselves in action, then someone else may start to question why they have a job at all.

This is a beautiful way of doing it too. Automobiles are a hot topic in EU circles because of that new restriction on fleet-wide carbon emissions. Plus with high oil and the buzz around hybrid cars, the auto industry is under worldwide attention. At the same time this proposal mooches off the public good feelings generated by anti-tobacco advocacy by doing something comparable to those popular cigarette package warnings. They are creating an argument that is impossible to refute without looking like a tool. To be against this is to be against providing greater information (or transparency in EU-speak) to the public about a problem. Except that people already know this! Everyone learned years ago that cars pollute. A warning on ads is useless from a transportation policy standpoint, but highly useful to the EU. Not only will these bureaucrats save their EU jobs with this, but the EU will use this to justify its bloated existence. Its budget is always growing and it needs these sort of feel-good public relations exercises to thwart any attempts at shrinking it.

This clip is fantastic. It plays on everything we associate with car salesmen. You might need a history lesson with this though. Ralph Williams was a big car dealer in Northern California back in the 60s and 70s. Apparently he made his money building the reputation used car dealers have today.

What confuses me though is that supposedly this clip was a goof done in between takes of the real commercial. But if it’s a goof, why did they put the graphics up?

Sometimes politicians can have an idea that is too good to actually get implemented. One of those ideas slipped by today. S.2205 is the DREAM Act of 2007. DREAM stands for “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors” (sometimes I hate acronyms). This bill would have granted children of illegal immigrants, who were 15 or under when they entered the US, citizenship if they passed two years of a higher education degree program, or they spent two years in the US military (see 4:d:1:D).

If I were the author of the bill I would have been stricter. I would have made getting the bachelor’s degree mandatory, not just a halfway stint. I also would have doubled the military service requirement to a four year enlistment. Even with my nitpicking I still say this is a fantasic idea. The kids who get dragged here by their parents don’t have to be punished for their parents crime. They get the chance to be embraced by America if they show they are capable of putting in hard work.

Unfortunately this bill failed in the Senate. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader from Kentucky, voted against because “I do not believe we should reward illegal behavior.” I’ll admit he has a point. I am not a fan of illegal immigrants. I don’t care what sort of rhetoric you throw at me. I’m sure lots of them just want better jobs and a less corrupt society. I won’t argue with that. Yet these people are still violating US law. They’re line jumpers. Millions of people are patiently waiting to move up the queue and get their green cards. Illegal immigrants are basically giving these people the finger. That’s just not fair. If you care about US immigration policy you should be telling your Congress members to increase immigration quotas and increase funds to the State Department so they can process all these applications faster. Rewarding these line jumpers by ignoring their crime is bad policy.

Where I disagree with McConnell is that I don’t believe this bill will influence anyone towards entering the US illegally. They have plenty of incentive to cross already. This bill isn’t going to push anyone who wasn’t going to come anyway. At the same time it would have done a better job of integrating the children of illegals into our society and recognized that hard work gets rewarded.

There’s still hope for this plan though. Some of those who voted against it, did it because they thought it should be part of a comprehensive immigration policy reform. I find that to be a stupid reason but at least it leaves the door open for this idea to get implemented later.

Chevy is going all out to promote the 2008 Malibu with plans for a $150 million ad campaign. No ad is going to change my mind though. As soon as I looked at the pictures, my feelings crystallized. Engineering-wise, it’s probably a fine car. But as I looked at the body, I could see myself driving it, if I was married with two middle-school-age kids and I turned into a crusty old man (*shudder*). I just can’t see anyone else buying this car. A lot of it is the brand. The name “Malibu” conjures up all these thoughts.

As I contemplated that future I also tried to concentrate on what styling elements really bothered me. The first thing that came to mind was that two-piece grille. I can’t articulate why. I’ve been staring at it trying to come up with a solid answer but I can’t find it. I just think it’s blah. That space has the potential for really bold grille but that bar ruins it. So then I got to thinking what if we got rid of it and gave the Malibu a gigantic grille like a pickup truck. Below is what I came up with.

And I don’t want to hear any bitching about the Photoshop work. That was just 10 minutes with a clone brush, so you judge the idea not the artistry. So what do you think, too big? I kind of think so. I would probably shrink it to 80%.

Notice that I made the Chevy bowtie silver. I was trying to deemphasize the logo by giving it a color that doesn’t really stand out as much as that yellow one. The bar that is actually there calls too much attention to it. That’s a negative for a lot of people who don’t want to consider Chevy. Rubbing it in their face will only repel them more.

I was also thinking of making that giant grille silver, but I couldn’t do the color replacement properly. I wonder if that would be too much. It certainly can’t be chrome because then it would be like driving around with a mirror on the front of your car. You would blind all the other drivers. At least with a silver grille the silver logo would completely wash out.

I didn’t make any other changes to the body because nothing jumped out at me. It’s a very bland car. I suppose if this was a Honda or Toyota I wouldn’t give it a second thought, but that Malibu name brings up so many bad feelings in my mind. Isn’t there another sedan nameplate Chevy could resurrect? A Chevy Laguna sounds nice. I have no bad feelings about that one. Hey, why not bring back the Nova as this car? Hell, the Chevy Citation would be a better name (seriously, why would Chevy name a car after a ticket?).

This reminds me… When I was looking for my first car out of college I test drove a 1998 Malibu. On a practical level it would have been a fine choice. It had lots of interior room, but it didn’t feel like a boat when I drove it. The gas pedal felt loose but that could have been adjusted. I sat down with the salesman and he tried the “lowest I can go” line and said something like $210 a month. I politely said thank you, made a beeline for the door and called a friend to pick me up at the dealership. As I waited at the curb, the salesman comes running outside and says his manager will let him sell for $180 a month. It was too late though. He could have said $100 a month and I would still have said no. There’s no way I would buy a Malibu.

I really try not to get excited about concept cars. Sometimes I’ll even avoid reading about them if they appear too sweet at first glance. I don’t want to get myself all hot and bothered over a car that will probably not be sold. Sadly for my sake, the Nissan Intima was too powerful for me to resist. I spied a quick glimpse of its grill, headlight array and fender, and I was sucked in.

The most obvious feature of the Intima are the suicide doors. They’re sexy and bold and rare. I would have guessed they haven’t been sold factory equipped since the 1930s. I did a little research online and found the last production car with them was the 1971 Ford Thunderbird 4-door Landau. That’s much later than I imagined. I still doubt any car built today would have them because you can’t have a B-pillar with them. The lack of a B-pillar presents a design challenge. The frame wouldn’t be as rigid as it might be. It would take some expensive reinforcement to make the frame pass crash tests. This reinforcement will add thousands to the cost of the car and probably lift the Intima out of Nissan’s intended price range. I still wonder, by some miracle if they were sold with factory installed suicide doors, how would the safety mavens would take it. Would they scream about Nissan’s “irresponsibility”?

I absolutely love the body. That line that sweeps across the doors and down the rear gives the Intima a muscular look. It really distinguishes it from wimpy, bland sedans (I’m looking at you Taurus). The rear light cluster picks up from that sweeping line in the sheet metal for a very unique shape. However that does make me wonder about how useful this trunk can be. Those powerfully jutting lights force the trunk hatch to narrow at the bottom. That can really hamper loading. I would have low expectations if I had to take this car to Home Depot.

I know that front end will change if this car gets mass produced. Notice how the headlights are split between the body and the hood. Having to cut two of those slots for every single hood is just an extra step of complexity that adds cost. Expect that to disappear. It looks like the headlights are composed of several LEDs. I have no complaints about that. I’m surprised this isn’t widespread already. They’re energy efficient, put out little heat and last for years. Those fog lights look like they are also LEDs. I’m uncertain if they would survive to production in that form. It doesn’t look like an especially difficult cut to make, but then again most things get blandified during the production process.

One thing I doubt many have noticed is that it appears the era of the chunky door handle is over, maybe. From the mid-90s until today door handles took on larger proportions than in the past, along with the same color as the body. I think it started out with SUVs and moved on to cars. I guess I shouldn’t declare the era over just because of this concept car, but I have a feeling the end is at least in sight.

The interior of the Intima is sweet! I’m sure that won’t last to a production model though. This is merely to wow people with a concept. That touchscreen control is too not-too-distant-future sci-fi to be real. What is beautiful and has a chance of making it into the real world is that gauge cluster. You can recreate that with blue LEDs and some finely painted lettering. The three cups (for lack of a better term) the gauges sit in remind me a lot of my Mazda3′s gauge cluster. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. Hmmm… now I’m wondering if there is an aftermarket gauge cluster I could put into my car to replicate this.

Oh and there is no way those swivel seats will make it to production either.

Here is the negative about the Intima, and it’s a pretty big one. Look at that glass roof. Imagine sitting out in the summer sun in this car. That roof will cook everyone inside this car. Sure it’s wonderful from a design perspective. That’s why these roofs keep popping up every couple of years. They are terribly impractical though. I can’t say for certain, but I think it’s unlikely a production Intima would have it anyway, thankfully!

All in all though, the car is still beautiful and I would put down a deposit today if I could order it in basically this form. It’s a Nissan so it should have a CVT, which I have been lusting after for years now anyway. I really hope this design gets built. It’s just the sort of bold look that makes cars fun.

I am pretty appalled by this, but not for the obvious reason. In the town of Boca del Rio, Mexico, protesters tore down a statue of ex-President Vicente Fox. The statue only stood for a few hours before it was pulled down.

I’m appalled that Vicente Fox has a statue anywhere. How incredibly pompous can he be? He’s been out of office, maybe, a year. When he was president he failed to deliver on so many of his reform promises. It’s shameful that such a do-nothing would be given a statue. I hope that thing never gets replaced.