1PM Under Citizenship, Just Put ‘Good’

Auditioning guy: So, what should I put down for ‘Citizenship’?
Casting intern #1: Were you born in the United States?
Auditioning guy: Yes.
Casting intern #1: Then put down that you’re a U.S. citizen.
Auditioning guy: Does it matter that I moved to Oregon for eight months?
Casting intern #1: Did you really just–
Casting intern #2, cutting him off: –No, it doesn’t matter.

MTV dating show auditions
Santa Monica, California

Overheard by: Liz
via Overheard in the Office, Nov 28, 2007

Lately I have found myself checking some out. Recently my company has been given a supplier discount from GM so I decided to peruse some GM models. Honestly the only GM car I would even consider is the Saturn Aura. I had known for awhile about their hybrid version and I thought if the discount was great enough I may actually get one of these.

Well the discount isn’t great enough to make me see past my misgivings. For one the Aura is a foot longer than my Mazda3. I’m not thrilled with the idea of a bigger car, particularly when not much of that size is in the cabin. My biggest gripe is that the mileage is not much better than what I’m getting already. The Aura Green Line is rated at 24 mpg city/32 hwy. My 2006 Mazda3 is rated 22 city/28 highway. My real world records are getting me 28 mpg combined. So the Aura would get me 30 to 32 mpg? That just doesn’t feel like enough to make switching worthwhile. If it was, say, 35 mpg I would be tempted.

I’m disappointed but I felt nothing close to the rage that’s out there about this car. The Aura Green Line is a “mild hybrid”. The full hybrid, popularized by the Prius, is what we’re familiar with. In that arrangement the electric motor powers the car when its under low load like in stop and go traffic, and a gas engine kicks in when needed. A mild hybrid is very different. There is no electric motor. Rather the starter motor has been beefed up and the alternator eliminated. In this arrangement the gasoline engine is shutoff when the car is stopped, coasting or breaking. That bigger starter motor is there to reliably and quickly restart your engine. It draws power from a battery to run your engine up to full speed before fuel is injected into the cylinders and normal combustion can start again.

This technology seems to make people furious. I read so many comments online where people ripped into GM for not selling “real” hybrids. Granted a mild hybrid does not have as big of a mileage gain, but it does save on cost. I wish I could quote the person but I can’t find the comment again. I read someone describing mild hybrids as ’70% of the gain for 30% of the cost’. So yeah you’re not getting the most fuel efficient car possible but you’re also not paying for that either. The Aura is actually the cheapest hybrid car, beating the Prius by about $100. Remember though that’s not an apples to apples comparison. The Prius is a compact while the Aura is a mid-size sedan. You’re getting a lot more car for essentially the same price as a Prius. Plus the Aura isn’t hideous looking like the Prius.

But I was still deterred from taking the hybrid plunge. Mild hybrids are fine to buy when you need a new car, but not when you have a decent car already. Then yesterday I was driving to work when a rather attractive older woman got my attention. I soon noticed she was driving a hybrid Altima! I had completely forgotten about this car. It doesn’t help that Nissan won’t advertise its existence, but I tend to forget about Nissan entirely. It’s a shame because I actually like the company, but two years ago when I was shopping for a car, I totally forgot to consider an Altima. The car just never entered my mind.

The Altima hybrid is actually a full hybrid! I did not expect to find that. It uses Toyota’s hybrid technology to get mileage ratings of 35 city and 33 highway. Considering I do mostly highway driving my average would be around 33 mpg with this car. I have to admit I’m a little tempted. Even though the mileage is not as eye-popping as I hoped, the Altima is a nice car. My sister bought a non-hybrid Altima this summer and loves it. Plus Nissan uses CVTs which is a concept I love. Honestly, two years ago, if I remembered to check out Nissan I probably would have bought an Altima just for that. The downside is the Altima is a foot longer than my Mazda3 and I really don’t care to get a bigger car.

The Altima hybrid is a much better comparison to make with the Aura hybrid. They are the same class of vehicle, unlike the Prius. The Aura will set you back $22,140 and get 27 mpg, while the Altima is $24,990 and will get you 34 mpg. What’s the more efficient purchase? The Aura is going for $820 for every mpg. The Altima is $735 for every mpg. Wow, the full hybrid wins unless my logic is faulty. I guess we should take options into account. I am comparing the base MSRP so we should look at what comes with that. CarsDirect has the best comparison feature I’ve seen. The cars look virtually the same feature-wise. Mp3 playback comes standard with the Aura, and it has a longer warranty, but that seems to be it. I’m still declaring the Altima hybrid the winner.

This still presents a problem for me though. The Altima hybrid base does not include a sunroof. I can’t buy a car without one because my Mazda3 has one. To go without would be a downgrade. Using the Build Your Nissan feature on NissanUSA I was told in order to include the $850 sunroof option I must also order the $6400 Technology Package, bringing the total cost up to $32,945. That turns out to be deceptive though. If you select the sunroof, the website prompts you to also choose the Technology Package. However if choose the much cheaper $1300 Convenience Package first you can also choose the sunroof. That gives me a $27,845 price which is way more than I would spend on a new car. I could see myself spending that much on a Maxima, but that’s ridiculous for an Altima no matter if it’s a hybrid.

Truthfully I’m not so enamored with hybrid technology. What I would really wet myself over is a modern diesel engine. I’ll have to talk more about that another day.

In the spirit of everything old is new again, SUVs are guzzling their way back into American hearts. Now mind you it’s not to the same extreme as in the turn of the century when everyone seemed to have their eye on some kind of giant truck. However more people are switching back to those fortresses on wheels. More accurately, they’re buying back the trucks they sold when gas prices jumped.

Businessweek is reporting used car residuals are rising for SUVs. The value 3 years after first sale has gone from their low of 46% of value last year to 48.6% this year. Sounds like too little to matter, but it puts used SUVs back into the same resale range as midsize cars. That means Americans have stopped shunning them! Businessweek seems to think the cause goes back to room. People have tried downsizing their vehicle in an attempt to save on gas, but crossover vehicles don’t cut it. For one they barely save gas. BW pointed out a big ol’ Chevy Tahoe will get you 16 mpg while a Honda Element will still take up 17 mpg. That is hardly worth sacrificing for.

BW’s logic is certainly reasonable, but I never believed SUV sales were driven by logic. I’ve heard from too many people about why they bought these trucks in the past. I’ve seen people buy them because their friends and neighbors bought one. One woman’s request for an SUV will forever stick in my mind. She had recently given birth and because her family now included a baby, they “needed” to get a much bigger vehicle. I’m sure she was one of many women out there who had passed a 500 pound baby out of their birth canal and absolutely needed two extra rows of seats to lug their bundle of joy around town.

Few people have bought an SUV because they needed the room. People buy these trucks because they want the room. Just like before, people like to ride high and have that feeling of power. The difference now, and reason why used SUV sales are returning to a normal pace, is because people are now accustom to the price of gasoline. The trip from $1.50 a gallon to $3+ a gallon was a shock. This doubling happened over a scant five years. People panicked and dumped their full size SUVs for those smaller crossover vehicles. This decision wasn’t driven by logic, but rather, fear of a seemingly unstoppable price rise. If it was logic, they would have noticed the poor gas mileage crossovers had and never bothered making that switch. However I think we have reached a point where people are no longer surprised. We’ve had time to adjust our budgets for these higher prices, and now more people are again ready to choose style over fuel efficiency.

I’m not expecting SUV sales to return to what they were. Back around 2000 SUVs had cachet. Sales were fast because they were a hot new trend. Today they’re old news. No one is going to be blown away just because you bought an Escalade. You have to get 24″ rims, video screens everywhere and a massive sound system to get anyone’s attention. I think SUVs have simply grown up. They’ve gone from must have to most hated, and now they will simply fade into the everyday mix of vehicles.

Today’s hot new vehicles are hybrids. I wonder how long until the love runs out…

The human body really conspires to make you fat. Scientists have found that fat burning enzymes basically stop working when you’re sitting. These enzymes drop to a mere 10% of their capability when you’re in that position.

This is just the craziest thing to me. I’m left with a bunch of questions. How would these enzymes even know when I’m sitting? Is there an optimum angle of recline to burn calories, or is ramrod straight the best way? Do these enzymes quit working if I lean against a wall? Perhaps they can tell if you’re standing or not by the amount of pressure on your feet.

I’m not even sure about how much standing we should be doing. The ABC News article says people stood more 50 years ago. Has standing time been measured year after year? Who would do that? How much more did they stand 50 years ago? Telling me to putter isn’t any help. Is puttering for 15 minutes enough? Does it have to be continuous time to make a difference, or could I stand in 2 minute segments every 10 minutes?

This is just another half-baked health story that will throw people into confusion. How do you add more standing into your day? Should I eat my meals standing? Should I watch TV while standing? Should I read while standing? I guess I should order one of those stand up desks Donald Rumsfeld uses. I thought he was a crazy old man when I read about this, but he knew something we all didn’t. In honor we should refer to them as Rumsfeld Desks.

Hey this is great news for airlines. Now they can ditch seats out of concern for our health and cram more passengers in standing room only.

A few weeks ago I read some good news. An Alameda County court ruled UC Berkeley is free to remove the treesitters. If you never heard of them, you’ve missed out on some only in Berkeley crazy. Here’s a quick recap for you. UC Berkeley planned to cut down a few dozen oak trees on campus so they could build an athletic training center and a new building to consolidate their business and law schools. The hippies were having none of that. Last December they began sitting in the trees to stop them from being cut down. They’ve been there ever since, even building their own Ewok Village with platforms and pulleys up there.

There’s been lots of legal fighting back and forth since the occupation started, but the question of whether or not the treesitters could be evicted has been settled. They’re out! I’m actually quite surprised that was a question. It’s university property so doesn’t that mean the university can eject people at will? Okay it is a state university so questions of free speech and open public access arise, but that’s not free license to come and go as you please. I couldn’t pitch a tent in the Berkeley mayor’s office because I had a bug up my butt about wetlands or public housing. Why would I be allowed to live in a tree on quasi-public land? Hell even if it were unquestionably public, like a park, I still wouldn’t be allowed to live there for a protest.

But anyway, on October 30 the judge ruled the treesitters can be removed. Yet UC Berkeley seems to have done nothing. Last Friday two Berkeley police were injured by the treesitters and taken to a hospital. When one cop tried to arrest a guy who was cutting up a fence the university put up around the trees, the treesitters then dumped an “unidentified liquid” which burned two officers’ eyes. My bet is the “unidentified liquid” was urine.

I’m pretty disappointed the treesitters are still up there. I actually thought that decision would soon lead to them being dragged to the ground, but I guess I can understand the worries of the Berkeley cops. One of those treesitters are bound to fall and of course they will sue. Meritless or not I doubt the Berkeley police want to pay legal expenses. UC Berkeley seems to want to starve them out with a barbed wire fence. Hopefully the school will succeed.

What Berkeley should do is poison the trees. That way you spare yourself the legal worries of cutting down a tree with people in it, or dragging them down. But with the trees dead the treesitters will give up. Wouldn’t pouring ordinary bleach into the soil kill them? You could also try physically damaging the root system, or stripping the trunks of their bark too. The trees die and the protestors will have saved nothing. I would be surprised if they chose to remain living in dead trees for very long. If I’m wrong, then there’s always starvation.

By the way I highly recommend reading the comments on the SF Gate story about the judge’s order. Plenty of fun there!

While those Democratic candidates were practicing for last Thursday’s debate, I was finishing my first audiobook. I’ve never listened to one of these before. I was actually a little skeptical of it. I worried that an audiobook was just another step towards laziness. Now I could read a book without the bother of having to move my eyes!

The audiobook was put into my hands by a friend who borrowed it from the library. I was actually a little put out at first. I didn’t ask for any books and I haven’t read any fiction since high school anyway. I gave it a chance though and I’m glad I did. The Devil of Nanking is a chilling mystery. It was ten CDs long and I became so hooked I listened to five on the first day.

The Devil of Nanking follows two stories. One involves the efforts of a mentally fragile woman dubbed Grey to cling to her sanity. She read rumors about a film of the atrocities of the Japanese occupation of Nanking. Grey must find that film to prove she didn’t imagine what she thought happened in Nanking. If she can’t find it then all those people who accused her of being warped and sick in the head for imagining such things would be right. Running parallel with Grey’s story is the tale of a Chinese professor who was failed by his faith in Chiang Kai Shek and modern China, and was trapped in Nanking when the Japanese took the city.

Grey, quickly stymied by the unhelpful academic Shi Chongming, drifts into the lifestyle of a nightclub hostess in Tokyo. This unplanned detour becomes fortunate but dangerous for Grey. It’s in Tokyo’s clubworld Grey makes contact with organized crime, and becomes a useful agent for Professor Shi’s investigation. Professor Shi knows the whispered stories about the aged Yakuza kingpin Jinzo Fuyuki and his medicine for eternal life. If Grey can find out what this is, Shi will get her the film that will confirm her sanity.

Grey’s storyline is gripping and scary. Listening to an episode of gruesome torture alone in the dead of night is not the best way to get to bed. I probably shouldn’t have done that. The Nanking storyline was tense and frightening, but it really pulled at your heart too. I don’t want to give away too much of this storyline. If you’re already familiar with what happened in Nanking, then you know what to worry about already. If you don’t, you should do some research online. Search for ‘the rape of Nanking’ and you should find some hideous real-life stories.

This was a great mystery, and this comes from a person who doesn’t really go for these stories. It’s definitely worth buying.

There was yet another presidential debate last Thursday. This time the Democrats got together in Las Vegas to zing each other. I didn’t bother to watch because I’m old enough to know debates are completely useless. Giving a candidate 30 seconds to answer a question will not get you an intelligent, articulate answer. I remember when I was but a youth I watched every single 1992 presidential debate. In my naive mind I thought they were important. I even taped them! I was wrong though. Debates are just soundbyte factories. There’s no need to pay attention to them.

Sadly though not everyone has learned this lesson. I discovered from a friend’s email that people are having a conniption fit over the final question of last Thursday’s debate. A UNLV student named Maria Luisa asked Hillary Clinton if she preferred diamonds or pearls.

This lighthearted question has enraged a few people who apparently take this all too seriously. Luisa has been pilloried by these people for, I assume, not taking the honor of question-asker seriously. She responded saying that CNN “forced” her to ask that question. CNN asked everyone who wanted to ask questions to submit them beforehand for approval along with some fun questions. So it seems that Luisa thought up this question herself, even though she was really hoping to ask a question about Yucca Mountain.

Frankly I think it’s ridiculous that anyone criticized her and she had to defend herself. It was the last question of the night. CNN just wanted to close the show on a cute, funny note. Maybe they were hoping this would become a parallel to the “boxers vs. briefs” question Bill Clinton was asked on the ’92 campaign. I doubt CNN even had the time allow a full discussion on something serious like Yucca Mountain. Do you expect CNN to break away in the middle of Clinton’s answer?

I’m sure someone will say she should have just lied to CNN and agreed to ask the goofy question, while just asking the Yucca Mountain question when she had the microphone. Well those people are assholes. If you don’t want to ask a silly question, you refuse. You have to be a real jerk if you feel the need to doublecross someone.

Anyway this is all a lot of heat and light for nothing. It doesn’t matter what question Maria Luisa asked. Yucca Mountain, campaign finance, health care, Iran, none of it matters because the format of these debates doesn’t let candidates give the nuanced, thought out answers these subjects require. People complain about how politicians play for slick soundbytes but what do you expect when they’re given maybe a minute to answer. Short snappy answers get rewarded.

For debates to matter they have to be restructured. No more timers. Let the candidate take whatever time they need to answer. Let them interrupt each other too. The ideal would be a free form discussion where the candidates questioned and attacked each other. That may not be the most practical thing for a TV audience though so there would have to be a moderator. I want them to have a lot less screen time than today’s moderators. Really I want them just to kick start the discussion. They might also be necessary to get the discussion moving along if the candidates get stuck in personal attacks. You could also break up the debate along topical lines and have the moderator move the discussion along. There could be 20 minutes on the environment, followed by 20 minutes of health care discussion, and the moderator is responsible for timing the discussion, but not individual candidates. There should be no audience either. I don’t want candidates trying to play for the crowd to get cheap applause. Maybe with that structure we would get real understanding from debates. Until then I’d like to ask Hillary if she prefers her bed sheets tucked under the mattress or not.

I don’t think there’s even a word for this act. A Scottish man, Robert Stewart, pled guilty to “sexually aggravated breach of the peace” for simulating sex with his bicycle. Life just doesn’t get more bizarre than that. He’s been put on the local sex offenders list for three years.

What troubles me more though is how Stewart was found. At first I thought this man was just being a degenerate and doing this in public. However it turns out he was doing this behind his locked bedroom door at the hostel he lives in. Two cleaners came and knocked on his door. When they heard no response, they used their keys to open the door. There they found Stewart pleasuring his bicycle. The cleaners told the manager what they saw and the manager called the police.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. His bedroom was locked so he was trying to keep this behavior away from everyone. Did he intend for the cleaners to see and that’s why he didn’t respond to their knocks? Did he realize they were cleaners? Stewart claimed to be drunk at the time so I guess he wasn’t thinking clearly, although would anyone having sex with a bike be thinking clearly?

Being on a sex offender list seems pretty harsh though. As far as I know about this case, Stewart didn’t try to proposition these cleaners or chase after them or threaten them. It simply sounds like a very embarrassing situation. Let’s try to look at this without the sensationalism of “bike sex”. Say I was staying in this hostel. I had my door locked and I was in bed jerking off. I don’t respond to the knocks on my door and two cleaners open it and see me jerking off. What is the appropriate response to that?

I think it depends on my response to the open door. If I showed some kind of embarrassment or surprise, then it’s reasonable to assume I didn’t intend to expose myself and legal punishment is just too harsh. However if I continued to masturbate or gave the cleaners a come hither look, then I’m a dirty pervert who thinks exposing myself is an appropriate way to pick up women and being on a sex offender list isn’t so unreasonable. I’d stick with this logic even with drunk people. Being drunk doesn’t change who you are. It just makes you less inhibited. If you’re not the sort of person who would masturbate in front of strangers, being drunk isn’t going to make you that person.

So did Robert Stewart show any kind of surprise when the cleaners looked in on him? I have no idea. What I do know is that I will never entertain the idea of staying in a hostel now.

I’m struggling with some strange feelings, but I guess it’s not healthy to deny it. I kinda want to visit Dollywood.

I can blame all of this on an essay in The Economist. It argued Dollywood is a perfect lens to view rural America. Can’t say that I disagree. I very much enjoyed this paragraph:

Indigenous music is everywhere. In one corner is the Smoky Mountain String Band—three guys in blue dungarees with a banjo, fiddle and upright bass. In another is a bluegrass band called Naomi and the Wood Brothers. In Europe, exhibitions of traditional music and crafts tend to be subsidised and unpopular. At Dollywood, they are neither.

I am not a fan of bluegrass. I’m not even a Dolly Parton fan, at least not her singing or movie career. I am of course a fan of any woman with huge breasts. That’s not the reason I want to visit though. I’d like to go simply out of curiosity. What is there to do at Dollywood? The Economist essay said a lot about patriotism and religion at the park but nothing particular. Are there rollercoasters? Is it all shoddy carnival rides? Maybe Dollywood is like a Colonial Williamsburg of the Great Smoky Mountains.

The essay did talk about some truly heroic portions at the concession stands. Massive piles of fried appetizers are typically followed by a hefty entree of country fried steak. For dessert, nothing short of a 3 pound slice of apple pie a la mode. You just know at Dollywood it has to be a freshly made homestyle apple pie. The sort that has pockets of cinnamon that burst with flavor.

I’m a filthy liar. I just want to go for the pie; That sweet, sweet pie. The thought of that heaping pile of pie and ice cream makes me weak in my knees. Is it so wrong to travel for food?

Ahahahahaha! Man when you think you’ve seen the tackiest thing in the world, this thing pops up on eBay.

There’s a saddle around the shifter. Nothing I can say could properly ridicule this.