Actually, I don't remember when Roger Simon wasn't a lunatic.
A number of the commentaries I've seen on this have pointed knowingly at the...Toyota Prius.
I do have a bit of "Jesus Christ, can't the blasted kid be discreet?" in my reaction. How hard is it for a well off white kid not to get arrested for drugs?
Am I misremembering that Simon was the inspiration for the Berube line?
As for his being sane, in the early days of blogdom, I corresponded with him a bit and he was fine. Clearly addled by the echo chamber effect now, however.
I was just impressed that a Prius can do 100.
But back in the early days of blogdom, you were pro-war. So did he get crazy, or did you snap out of it?
This line: And make no mistake about it, young Gore was trying to medicate himself - not seeking enlightenment through drugs as many of us did in our time (not that we found much) -- is unbearable. On so many levels. Just fucking atrocious.
5: They're supposed to be very zippy little cars -- a lot of pickup.
We didn't correspond about the war. Plus, I still think supporting the war was non-crazy.
So, you haven't snapped out of it entirely yet. Don't worry, I hear it can take years.
I just don't get the Alanis-irony that they're saying motivates this. It seems to be something like Gore is a goody-two-shoes about the environment, so therefore his son must have no sin, but that doesn't make sense. Outspoken critic of drug use getting busted (like Limbaugh): hoist by own petard. Son of environmental critic caught clubbing baby seals: funny, though not for the seals.
This just doesn't make any sense unless you've got such a hardon for Gore that you try to turn everything into a carbon footprint screed.
I second M/lls's 1.
"non-crazy" is a low bar, LB.
Eh, I'm just being a prick about it.
It's just proof that Gore must be a bad parent, because, ever since the Meno, we've known exactly how to make good people, hence only bad people have bad children.
you try to turn everything into a carbon footprint screed
Have you not considered the greenhouse gas output from bong hits?
Hey, we're still on Simon's blogroll. Way to alienate our friends, Labs.
15: You think we had it nailed, but trying to have a sex on a trolley is curiously challenging, especially when it rolls over the fat man.
16: That's why you inhale.
Eh, I'm just being a prick about it.
Not a very big one. Slol's being overly accepting; more corruption from the procedurally liberal. Ogged was and is just wrong. Or trivially correct.
I was just impressed that a Prius can do 100.
My first thought was that this can only be good PR for the Prius, in that most people would have exactly the same thought. Geez, maybe I should check one of those out after all...
I've never taken ours up to 100 mph, but I'm not surprised it can go that fast.
Should we have a big "who was more right about the war" fight? Again?
I was stunned to find that a Prius could go 100. It would seem to defeat the purpose of owning a Prius, really. But do you think the gas engine kicks in?
I remember that a Missouri state trooper was impressed that I could do 100 in my Prius. "Didn't know them little cars could go so fast," he said.
19: Damn you. I gave up and looked at the walkthrough on 30, and then didn't have the heart to try the remaining levels.
22: But those are fun, aren't they? (Actually, at the time I was being very mealymouthed and apologetic about my opposition to the war, so I really don't have a leg to stand on.)
The purpose of a Prius isn't to go slow, Klug.
Priuses are small cars, and should easily be able to make 100. The gas engine would kick in; they have worse fuel efficiency on the highway than in the city (the opposite of most cars) for that reason.
22: What would be the point? Arguments don't convince; failed wars do. We'll either have more or we won't.
My favorite comment from tbogg's was this one:
"Al Gore III has done more jail time for speeding than Scooter has done for treason."
Just keep saying that. Every time they bring it up.
Jim 7
Why is medicating yourself presumptively worse than "seeking enlightenment"? The former seems somewhat logical if you're depressed or in pain, even if it's illegal and a cause for concern; the latter seems like douchebaggery.
24: Explanation for the Presidential pseud: "The I told him I made movies. Dirty movies."
Most cars can do 100, actually, but in a lot of small cars, it feels really unsafe to go that fast; the steering wheel shakes, the wind does strange things, etc. But Al Gore III was so hopped up on liberal drugs that he wouldn't have noticed anyway.
The purpose of a Prius isn't to go slow, Klug
You should drive more slowly if you want fuel efficiency, as wind resistance increaes exponentially as you speed up. Lighten up, leadfoot Ben, and turn down the Sammy Hagar.
SCMT, that's clever. No, I just wound up paying a large fine for the moving violation.
As for his being sane, in the early days of blogdom, I corresponded with him a bit and he was fine.
Isn't this more or less your argument for why Glenn Reynolds was sane? Sure, he's been wanting us to pave the Mideast since 2001, but he wrote in such a calm, reasonable-sounding tone!
9, 10, 12, 13: Don't be overly generous, LB. The war and its supporters were manifestly insane; so, unfortunately, was the overwhelming majority of America back then, when the driving national instinct was not to do what was necessary to prevent another attack, but to kill as many brown people as possible until the bloodlust was sated.
I spent July 4th finishing bloxorz as well. Sweet relief.
Should we have a big "who was more right about the war" fight? Again?
Let's wait until the next war comes by, then have the same "well I plausibly could have been right, in theory" conversation four years into the Iranian occupation.
I've actually only gone 100 once, in a rented Cadillac DeVille. It felt like going 60.
If I tried that in either of the small cars I've owned, I would have shaken apart at 90. I think that's what I'm most amazed at. (And the wasted fuel.) The speed doesn't surprise me; it seems like one out of every 20 cars in the SC area are going >95. But they're usually luxury/sports cars.
But those are fun, aren't they?
I think so. But I actually thought you might be being a bit out of bounds pointing out ogged's history on this - you know, bringing up a humiliating past incident that had been atoned for.
But now I see that he hasn't donned the appropriate hair shirt. So he's fair game.
For my part, I was a lukewarm war supporter who, in retrospect, can't offer a lucid rationale for why I felt that way. I knew that the WMD and Al Qaeda stuff was phony at the time, but I really bought into the neocon rationale about spreading democracy and all that. What a chump I was !
Beware of crazy friends with fast cars. In the course of a drive to San Francisco one spring break, I had this feeling that we were going kind of fast, took a glimpse at the speedometer and saw that we were going 120. Over the Siskiyous. At night.
Beware of crazy friends with fast cars
A high-school friend of mine drove like that while playing this song. Yes, it was the right kind of car for that song.
Plus, I still think supporting the war was non-crazy.
I think you need to eat something, ogged.
I think you need to eat something, ogged.
...His words, perhaps?
Wasn't this the son that got squished as a lad by running into traffic after puling his hand out of Dad's grip.
Jesus H. C., Jesus -- I had an almost identical experience in the Siskiyous. I was riding with a lowlife guy I barely knew, and it turned out his hobby was buying cheap cars and pushing them to the limit. He was using the Siskiyous to test the cars cornering. He and his girlfriend chatted the whole time about various cars he'd wrecked.
42 - Official car of peaked in high school!
46: my thoughts exactly. Might explain issues with pain and anxiety.
I woke up, having been dozing in the front seat right up against his elbow, to find my dad going 100 once. On a two-lane road, in Nova Scotia. In 1959, in a '53 Dodge wagon, 5 people in the car, filled to roofline with the toasters and coolers and a month's worth of luggage that you took in those semi-camping motel cabin days.
I drove from SF to Vegas in 8 hours once. For whatever reason, the three of us in the car kept goading each other to go faster. I imagine our average speed was somewhere north of 100. Of course I was the only one to get a ticket.
I totally want to take my Prius to 100 now.
I totally want your Prius.
It's practically like driving the Ferrari F430.
True confession: I find Priuses (Prii?) uninteresting because of their shape. Look, a hamster on wheels! I was raised in a family where muscle cars were highly prized and there was a great deal of nostalgia for big, curvaceous, American automobiles. My mother was for many years a homemaker who drove a '69 Wildcat and tried to antagonize other drivers on the road. She once blew off steam after the funeral of one of her aunts - my mother was ~35 - by dragging Main Street with the high school kids in whatever behemoth she was driving at the time. Rah and I routinely point out to one another huge gas-guzzling cars of the '60s and '70s and then hold hands and salivate as they go by.
The comment on the Sedan DeVille brought back some great memories. My favorite car ever was my '85 Sedan DeVille, glistening black with tinted windows and a frame about six miles long. I couldn't have parallel parked it on an empty football field. U-turns in that thing were amazing.
'85 should have been '84, natch.
As to anyone hating on Al Gore III for his leftist drug-crazed speeding ticket, neighba please. He goes out of his way to try to establish Boomer cred with that "as many of us did in our time" and explain that the drugs are a sign the kid is medicating himself? OK, so does that mean he hates his parents and was trying to escape them by doin' dope back in his time? Or was that harmless and he shouldn't be held to the same standard? Classic "do as I say" bullshit wingerism.
"there was a great deal of nostalgia for big, curvaceous, American automobiles"
Fascist...joking, joking. No, the Prius isn't the sexiest car in the world.
Oh come on. Like lefty bloggers haven't haw haw'ed about the twins and their drunken antics. It's shitty, but it's fair game. (Admittedly, the tut-tutting is annoying, but then patronizing people is always annoying.)
I kinda found the 100 in a Prius thing irritating myself. Having driven one, the awesome gas mileage decreases pretty fast once you're going over 60, so yeah, speeding *does* defeat the purpose of owning the goddamn thing. (Although in California, maybe he owns it just so he can use the carpool lane, I dunno.)
True confession: I find Priuses (Prii?) uninteresting because of their shape. Look, a hamster on wheels!
I like them for that reason. simple shape = streamlined = functional = practical = good.
I was raised in a family where muscle cars were highly prized and there was a great deal of nostalgia for big, curvaceous, American automobiles. My mother was for many years a homemaker who drove a '69 Wildcat and tried to antagonize other drivers on the road. She once blew off steam after the funeral of one of her aunts - my mother was ~35 - by dragging Main Street with the high school kids in whatever behemoth she was driving at the time. Rah and I routinely point out to one another huge gas-guzzling cars of the '60s and '70s and then hold hands and salivate as they go by.
Funny...just about everyone in my family made fun of my dad for buying (it was a great deal, used car) and driving what they referred to as a "land yacht". "I like to drive a car that can actually fit in a parking space, personally."
Yeah, the shape is one of my favorite things about the Prius. (That, and the feeling of superiority that you get from driving a hybrid.) It's distinctive looking, but it's also surprisingly big on the inside.
There must be a Willy Nelson song in there somewhere about muscle-car driving mamas letting their sons grow up to be "cowboys".
I don't think any of the Honda hybrids can do 100. The Civic hybrid can't. I owned the first generation Insight Hybrid, and got it up to 100 once, but that was only because of a west Texas tail wind. That thing was as light as a feather. The wind shifted to the side and I had to change lanes to keep control of the car. Heading the other direction, I couldn't get above 45.
Toyota really scored making the electric motor the main power and using the gas engine as a supplement. I shoulda bought the Prius.
When my dad was about my age he drove a Sedan DeVille. He drove that thing for the next ten years, until it rusted apart, and then drove a LeSabre sedan, until it rusted apart, and now he has a Crown Victoria.
He's finally aged into his target market.
I wish people identified the Prius more with reducing greenhouse emissions than with good gas mileage. The latter sort of feeds into the widespread misconception that, with a little tweaking, our entire society based on private automobile ownership can go on forever.
The good mileage really only comes with driving in town anyway, not highway driving.
The engineer in me loves the Prius, yes, but the teenager in me does not. Gods, car memories. When I was 16 my mother tried to get my father to buy me a '77 Firebird because "it has good lines."
57: Yeah, we haw haw about the Twins' drunken antics but, in my case anyway, that's because the Twins' dad is such a professed teetotaller and moralist. I'm sure Al has sparked one a time or two in his life and doesn't feel the need to get preachy about it.
I totally want your Prius.
McManly is refreshingly honest about his Prius envy.
Left Coast Conversions, RMMP. Left Coast Conversions. Imagine how much you could confuse people with an electric '77 Firebird.
64.2: Right, and the environmental thing is why the Prius aspect gets so much play. That and probably a lot of people find Prius ownership a tad smug, especially from people who speed in their Prii.
66: And now my highly detailed fantasy life is complete.
Is speeding in a Prius worse concerning fuel efficiency than speeding in a regular car? Surely that's the relevant comparison.
I'm sure Al has sparked one a time or two in his life and doesn't feel the need to get preachy about it.
In fact he's openly admitted to smoking it regularly back in the day.
30: because people medicating are fuckups, and deserving moral disapprobation.
Considering I beat bloxorz days ago, I've spent far too much time playing that game. On the other hand, I've determined it's possible to finish in less than 2200 moves.
69: Almost certainly not. The Prius is pretty aerodynamic, and the way engines work you get better power efficiency at larger throttle openings, so you want underpowered cars or really tall gearing.
People who drive slowly in the carpool lane in their Prius annoy me.
Isn't the word 'awesome' a teens cliche or am I totally out of touch?
You guys realize that 100 mph is 160 km/h and not the fucking sound barrier?
Priuses aren't curvaceous?
They look a lot like a circa-1985 notion of a Future Car to me, which I suspect is a lot of the appeal. But, then, my ten-year-old used Nissan Altima still sports the completely useless car-phone antenna that came with it because I like the George Jetson aspect.
re: 75
Yeah, standard (but not legal) motorway driving speed in much of the UK.
Same in Alabama, at least for 11-year-old girls.