I will be the first to admit that I have a massive case of schadenfreude against Toyota. Over the last decade this company has proven that they aren’t infallible after all; that they are capable of the same greed-fueled mistakes and inestimable stupidity that, at one time or another, plagues almost every car company — even great ones like BMW or Mercedes-Benz. Yet the media has been blind to the slowly mounting quality concerns of Toyota vehicles, always holding them up as the good guys while demonizing the domestic automakers in the same breath. A common refrain is how much more concerned Toyota is about fuel efficiency, which is a patent falsehood betrayed by the wide swath of SUVs and trucks they sell, many of which get inferior mileage to their domestic competition. Worst of all are those hacks at Consumer Reports, who until recently were giving every new Toyota model an automatic recommendation, sight unseen, simply because of the company’s past reputation.

I guess it’s always 1989 in Consumer Reports land, because these same hacks would always turn right around and lambaste the domestic automakers for continuing to churn out crap, even when that so-called “crap” was comprised of legitimately competitive products like the current Ford Fusion or Chevy Malibu. A huge crisis of credibility has been going on in the auto journalism of this nation for so many years, I’ve almost gotten to the point where I avoid auto news on principle.

Indeed, for the last several years now, I’ve despised and avoided two things: Toyota Motor Company, and the U.S. Congress. There’s Toyota, trying to paint themselves as the self-appointed “great American car company” and our benevolent “green savior” while all the while they’re just another corporation cutting corners and stepping on toes wherever they can to get to the top as fast as possible, for little more than bragging rights. And then there’s the U.S. Congress, filled with people with so much more money than sense that it’s a wonder the House and Senate don’t collapse inwards on themselves in a vacuous singularity of wanton ignorance. Our senators and representatives are such unbridled egomaniacs that they all fancy themselves the babysitters of the entire American public who could not possibly know what’s good for them — yet, by and large, they accomplish nothing, have little-to-no private sector experience and would probably fail miserably if forced to deal with a working man’s pressures without all their perks and hired help. Today’s headlines, for example, brought news that Congress’ approval rating has dropped to a record-breaking 10%.

Now imagine these two forces — Congress and Toyota — coming together. Peter DeLorenzo of AutoExtremist predicted the results weeks ago: An embarrassment of epic proportions. Peter, no fan of Toyota himself (his book, “The United States of Toyota”, helps explain why), urged Mr. Toyoda not to accept the U.S.’s invitation to personally attend his company’s hearings — for the bloviators on the hill would only turn it into an embarrassment and further fuel the PR nightmare. After all, look at how the Big 3 bailout hearings were handled: as little more than an opportunity for our CongressCritters to beat up on auto executives, treat them like little babies and then argue (in the Republicans’ case) that they deserved no government support, when those same Republicans were already supporting the likes of Toyota to the tune of millions of dollars in tax credits in their home constituencies.

Although it first appeared that Mr. Toyoda would not be attending the hearings this week, Toyota’s problems have only gotten worse in the last week or so — including a grand jury being convened in regards to the company’s conduct. So Toyota’s president did in fact appear before Congress today, and the result was exactly the clusterfuck that you’d imagine (and which Peter DeLorenzo predicted). It truly was a case of culture shock — here was a Japanese executive taking personal responsibility for his company’s recent failings, apologizing profusely for their results, and admitting that Toyota took its eye off the ball and lost its focus on quality and safety in pursuit of the “World’s Biggest Automaker” prize.

This was, frankly, refreshing. Toyoda’s admission gets a lot of credit from me. It’ll be a cold day in hell before you see an American corporate executive doing anything like this, largely because of the legal ramifications — after all, the attorneys would immediately bring suits arguing that if you apologize for an unfortunate incident, that’s the same as admitting culpability. However, any sincerity that his words might have carried was lost on the candor-proof U.S. Congress, who — with many of them being lawyers or former lawyers themselves — were blind to everything but the opportunity to pounce upon Toyoda and Toyota alike.

Make no mistake, folks. Whatever sins Toyota has committed, whether they conspired to hide evidence of safety concerns or whether they really are just caught up in all this, our so-called representatives in Congress are not interested, primarily, in getting to the bottom of it. They’re interested in making as much political hay from this as is possible, giving their constituents the impression that yes, they actually do give a crap about a public issue, actually do want to help people and actually have the capacity to get something done. What that something is I’m not sure, but they’re all facing a serious rout at the polls come the next election, because the American people have frigging had it with these assclowns, so they have to look like they’re doing something.

And so as a result, we get truly Broadway-quality acts like this one, from our own Florida representative John Mica:

“This is indeed a very embarrassing day for NHTSA. It’s equally a very embarrassing day for Toyota to have the grandson of the founder to come before the United States Congress. I’m embarrassed for you, sir.”Rep. John Mica (R-Florida)

My wife was watching the hearings at this moment, and she said the man kept saying “I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed” over and over and over, like he was trying to establish a mnemonic.

I’m embarrassed, too. I’m embarrassed for the United States of America and our so-called elected officials who are clearly among the biggest bunch of idiots ever to hold office in this country’s illustrious history, who are so head-over-heels in love with themselves, and the money and power that their office grants them, that they resort to schoolyard bullying and name-calling in a vain attempt to generate an air of authority that, given their alarming lack of intelligence, would necessarily have to be artificial. I was embarrassed by their handling of the Big 3 last winter, and I’m embarrassed by their conduct now. In fact, I daresay that there’s not a single day that goes by when I’m not embarrassed by the hacks in Congress and, increasingly, by the entire federal government of this nation, which is apparently in a race to prove that they can be just as dysfunctional and corrupt as even the most infamous third-world countries.

I am not a fan of Toyota. Their cars are mostly well-built but boring beyond belief; their attitude is two-faced and predatory and the media treats them like some kind of messiah when they are little more than a half-step removed from their rivals from the U.S., Korea, Germany or even Japan, the rest of whom don’t receive anywhere near the same “automatic pass” when placed under scrutiny. However, Toyota is now being forced to recognize that the same fickle press that treated them like kings even as they churned out increasingly slapdash automobiles has now turned upon them in a heartbeat, proving that the same irrationality that leads men like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times to pile undeserved praise upon Toyota can also lead major news outlets to create sensationalist “runaway Toyota” pieces designed to shock viewers and boost ratings, at the expense of any and all credibility.

To be sure, Toyota has made their bed and now must lie in it, and frankly, they’re going to get their just deserts. But that does not include, in my view, this ridiculous and over-the-top posturing from the likes of the U.S. Congress — members of which, in my view, are the absolute last people who ought to be lecturing anybody about the proper way to do anything, short of weaseling out of a traffic citation.

As The Saga of Toyota continues, I think we’d all do well to remember that those who live in glass houses should not cast stones. And, at the same time, it might be prudent to borrow a page from Mr. Toyoda’s playbook and make sure we all stand behind our Toyota automobiles. It would seem, after all, to be much safer than standing in front of them.

…In the misty morning, on the edge of time
We’ve lost the rising sun, a final sign
As the misty morning rolls away to die
Reaching for the stars, we blind the sky

…Oh they say that it’s over
And it just had to be
Ooh they say that it’s over
We’re lost children of the sea

…Black Sabbath, “Children of the Sea” (1980)

On Monday, April 27th, 2009, General Motors announced the discontinuation of Pontiac Motor Division. CEO Fritz Henderson made the move to scrap Pontiac and eliminate 21,000 jobs as part of a desperate last-ditch attempt to keep GM from bankruptcy. Reportedly, it was a decision made under tremendous pressure from the U.S. government — which itself stands to become the majority stakeholder in General Motors if Henderson’s final turnaround plan is carried out.

For me, a lifelong fan of Pontiac and someone whose very existence is spiritually tied to that storied brand, it was a sad, disappointing day. Sad because, for all of our pie-in-the-sky hopes that Pontiac might again live up to its history of interesting and exciting cars — perhaps with a new Firebird or Trans Am — we now know with certainty that those dreams will never come true. Disappointing because GM let Pontiac wither away and die when the clock ran out, at a time when they have neither the money nor manpower to give it the dignity of a celebrated sendoff. There will be no pomp and circumstance when Pontiac fades away in 2010, because GM can’t afford any.

Long ago, on a website far, far away, I lamented the death of my favorite Pontiac, the Firebird, when that model met its end in 2002. Back then, I could never have imagined that the entire Pontiac brand would disappear before my eyes less than a decade later. (Ironically, Chevy fans have since regained their Camaro, the Firebird’s one-time platform-sharing sister.) But now here we are, and the jig really is up.

Pontiac was a brand with an identity, one that said you went your own way, marched to a different drummer, refused to settle for the mundane. In the 1960s and ’70s, that identity lived in almost every product Pontiac sold — and they sold a lot of them. Its products were at the heart of pop culture sensations like Smokey and the Bandit and Knight Rider. Unfortunately, since the 1980s, Pontiac’s identity has mostly lacked the corporate support and product portfolio needed to make its storied image work. The once-proud brand’s slide into obscurity was, as a result, inevitable.

The Fallout

The carnage doesn’t end with the collapse of Pontiac itself. The Australian brand Holden, which designed and manufactured the last-generation GTO and current-generation Pontiac G8, will be dealt a crippling financial blow with the loss of the 30,000 annual export units it planned to badge as Pontiacs, which some have estimated could cost Holden upwards of $1 billion per year. It’s not known if Holden can absorb that kind of loss.

There has also been sizable up-front investment by aftermarket parts manufacturers in support of the Pontiac G8, which was expected to be a model with a long lineage. While the Holden Commodore-based G8 is already sold in other parts of the world (the Middle East, for example) as the Chevy Lumina, GM’s Henderson said that the company does not have the money to transplant the G8 into Chevy’s North American lineup, so that investment now looks like wasted money.

The same goes for the Solstice — it will not live on as a Chevrolet, or as anything. With the loss of Saturn and Pontiac, the only two GM divisions producing these little Kappa-based roadsters, the model will come to an end. Reports have it that that the cars’ cutting-edge hydroformed body panels cost GM a fortune to produce, so I suppose we should not be surprised. (If you have a Solstice, my advice to you is: Don’t dent it.)

So, all-in-all, it’s a sad day for Pontiac fans, possibly Holden fans, and certainly fans of General Motors — which may still be plunged into bankruptcy with no guarantee of survival, despite all of the aforementioned cuts.

The Reaction

The Pontiac meltdown got people talking. Even people who had no idea what Pontiac’s historical significance is, or could even identify one (except for the Aztek, which everyone knows and hates). The word “Pontiac” was the number-three trending topic on Twitter an hour after GM’s Monday morning press conference. One thing I have noticed, though, in reading all of the various comments on blogs and in the news, is that a whole swath of people — mostly the younger generation, even people my age — have no clue that Pontiac ever meant anything to anyone, or produced anything but rental-fleet fodder. That’s depressing.

One commenter — on a Pontiac-oriented message board, no less — even took issue with how seriously I (and a few others like me) were taking the news. To him, this was nothing more than “little stuff.” Oh, is it? Tell that to the 21,000 people who are now out of a job. But he’d probably have just laughed at them. What disgusted me the most about the myriad public reaction was one commenter who actually did laugh at the jettisoned workers, finding great mirth in the fact that 50-year-old UAW members are going to have to find new jobs and completely reeducate themselves. Wow, sadistic much? I understand that there’s not a lot of love for unions, and I’m certainly no fan of Ron “my way or the highway” Gettlefinger or the rest of latter-day union management. But when a man who has worked hard his whole life suddenly finds that not only his job, but his entire industry is gone, how is that ever funny?

But in the end, I have to recognize that I’m a special case. I was born and raised Pontiac, and grew up just outside of Detroit in the midst of the American car epicenter. My birthday is the anniversary of the date the Firebird was introduced in 1967. The classic Trans Am in our garage right now has been there since the week I was born. In high school I always loved the start of the warm spring season so that I could wear my black Trans Am jacket with the gold embroidered “screaming eagle” on the back, and my obsession with the brand was legendary among those who knew me. My first car was a Pontiac, and my second and my third; I’ve never owned anything else. I’ve cherished them all and kept them each for years and years, while other people were flipping cars every 18 months. Many of my favorite memories — from my childhood all the way up till now — involve one Pontiac or another.

Your average guy will say “too bad,” shrug and move on — maybe to Chevrolet, maybe to Toyota or Nissan. And while I’ll move on too, just like everyone, I’m not going to forget.

Time Marches On

With the exception of the “zombie Pontiac” that will exist between now and its official closing day next year, Pontiac lives on now only in the hearts and minds of those who, like me, really felt a connection with the brand. The most fitting tribute I can pay to the auto company that gave me so many happy memories (and a few unhappy ones, but those mostly just add color) is to proudly maintain and enjoy the Pontiacs I have left.

Between my dad and I, we own three of the most iconic Pontiac automobiles ever produced across three decades. The crown jewel, our 1979 black-and-gold Special Edition Trans Am, has been neglected for the better part of the past decade, but this year I aim to change that, permanently — and I’m actually going to make good on that vow. The old Trans Am will roam the streets again in just a few months, making me as happy as I always was on those weekend afternoons in the 1980s when my dad and I would go for drives, drop by his office building or pick up hot dogs or White Castles for lunch. And though I love my GTO and all, it’ll be so damn nice to have a T-top again.

I’m luckier than most. I don’t have to settle for my memories of Pontiac. I can keep making more of my own!

And in some strange way, losing Pontiac is almost a relief — for now the endless death watch can finally end, the ridicule can stop, the worry over “What if Pontiac dies?” can forever leave me, because the worst has happened. Rather than look at a Pontiac product and have its appeal clouded by the lifeless entity the brand has become, now I’ll look at it and see pleasant times and great memories made. No corporate shutdown can take that away from me.

In the end, though, I hope that we’ll always have someone to fill the little niche that Pontiac attempted to carve for itself: that of exciting performance-oriented cars that don’t come attached with the price premiums of German sports cars or Japanese luxury marques. Performance will always be available, but Pontiac offered gobs of it at a price that you could actually afford. I think that as long as we have cars like the Mustang, the Camaro, the Challenger or even the Corvette — plus the STis, Evos and 370Zs of the Japanese world — that dream can still be realized.

So rest in peace, Pontiac Motor Division. Your phoenix shall rise no more, but my own black-and-gold bird will tour the American highways for countless years to come, in memory of you.

You can find additional tribute posts this week at Becca’s Byline and AutoExtremist.com.

I delved through the official PDF copy of GM’s proposal, which the Detroit Free Press has available for download, in the hopes of finding some news about my brand of choice: Pontiac. I’ve been a Pontiac fan since…well, “the dawn of time” might be an accurate assessment, although there was a time when I was actually more enamored with the Ford Mustang. I’d say that it was 1992 or thereabouts when I really started soaking up all the information I could find about the Firebird, and started to become intimately familiar with Pontiac’s lineup and future plans. Of course, since I was old enough to drive, every car I’ve ever owned has been a Pontiac — and a black one, at that.

After hearing the recent rumors that GM was considering the total elimination of Pontiac, along with is Saab and Saturn brands, I was of mixed emotions. As much as I always loved Pontiac, their current lineup is a sad, shallow caricature of its former “rebel” image. No one takes them seriously, and given their haphazard flailing about and vapid product portfolio, it’s hard to take them seriously. With the Firebird and GTO gone, the Solstice being upstaged by the spiffier Saturn Sky, and the G8 being billed as a somewhat less-than-exciting replacement for about four different discontinued models, GM’s former “Excitement” brand hasn’t been offering us much to get excited about. And the “Green Appeasing” subcompact they’re trying to introduce, a rebadged Chevy Aveo called the G3, is nothing but a total embarrassment to the brand and its few remaining fans. Still, despite what Pontiac has become, I was bitter about the prospect of the nameplate ceasing to exist.

Which is why GM’s vision for Pontiac, as presented in their restructuring plan, is probably about the best thing that could happen to it. From the document:

Significant efforts have been expended to combine the Buick, Pontiac and GMC (BPG) brands into a single dealer distribution network, with approximately 80% of these brands‘ combined sales sold through BPG-branded stores. This channel will be fully competitive in terms of total entries offered, with Pontiac serving as a specialty/niche brand with reduced product offerings solely intended to complement Buick and GMC models and reinforce the channel as a whole.
GM Restructuring Plan for Long-Term Viability, 12/2/2008

In a way, this makes perfect sense. Rather than each of the entities in the “BPG” tier trying to function as a full-line marque, the combined entities should represent a single full-line marque, with each nameplate contributing something different to the goal. And in this case, Pontiac would contribute some “specialty/niche products” — perhaps just the halo cars, if you will.

Besides, as far as I can tell, Pontiac already is a niche brand — it just doesn’t know it. Pontiac’s attempt to be a fully-rounded GM marque, offering vanilla cars like the G6, G5 and Vibe, watered down (if not completely snuffed out) the brand’s “Excitement” image. And let’s be honest; anyone looking for a bread-and-butter car isn’t going to buy a Pontiac. Pontiac only exists for one reason: To provide inspiring, soulful product to mainstream, middle-class buyers who actually want some fun in their mode of transportation. Pontiac should not be about utility, or fuel economy, or ergonomics. It should be about performance, design and — dare I invoke the term — excitement. And it should not try to compete with Porsche, BMW or any of the Euro marques in refinement, comfort or panache — let those brands have that stuff. Pontiac cars should be all about stuffing it in your face, like it was in the ’60s and ’70s. Like the nostril-festooned Trans Am of the ’90s. No holds barred!

And because this should be the brand’s focus, it naturally should be a reduced portfolio with maybe two or three cars. The “sporty, fun” alter-egos that grin at you mischievously from the corners of the Buick/GMC/Pontiac combined showroom. If you want your cushy pseudo-luxury ride, you have your Buick sedans and crossovers. If you want your fun car, you have your Pontiacs. And then, for some reason, you have your GMCs. Frankly I think it’s GMC that needs to cease to exist; what with Chevrolet offering everything GMC does in essentially the same package, I don’t see the point.

But you can see from GM’s discussion of the three combined “second tier” brands — Buick, GMC and Pontiac — that it’s Pontiac that would get the axe first if it came to it. They’re just there to “round out” the product offerings of the second tier, and if it doesn’t work out, Pontiac will go the way of Oldsmobile. So yeah, the brand might still cease to exist in the very near future, but at least it sounds like GM has finally faced the music and relegated it to the niche status that it has so deserved, for better and for worse, for a long time now. (And hey, with GM about ready to throw in the towel and dissolve Saturn, maybe the Sky can go away and the Solstice will finally be able to stand on its own merits.)

So if Pontiac were reduced to two or three niche products, what should they be? I think Peter DeLorenzo of AutoExtremist has the right idea:

A Firebird Trans-Am, a GTO and a big Bonneville sedan would do nicely. Notgonnahappen.com, but it’s an interesting thought…
AutoExtremist.com

Perchance to dream.

Edit: As if reading my mind, Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press posted practically the same thoughts today. Well done.

2009 Acura TL

I’ll freely admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of Asian automotive design. Most automobiles from the Far East employ either a fairly straightforward, utilitarian appeal, or a proportionally exaggerated style reminiscent of Japanese SD (“Super Deformed”) caricature. But I’d like to think that even the common observer would have the same reaction that I did upon seeing Acura’s all-new 2009 TL (pictured left). And that would be to throw up on their shoes.

Seriously, I’m not sure what Acura was trying to accomplish here, but this can only be described as an Epic Fail. It’s as though they tried so hard to differentiate the look of the TL from the car on which it’s based, the Honda Accord, that they vastly overcompensated. This doesn’t just look unlike a Honda Accord, it looks unlike anything you’d ever be caught dead standing next to, let alone driving.

Until I see worse — and I probably will, at some point — the TL wins Chief Oddball’s Ugliest New Car of 2009 award. By a frickin’ landslide.

If you thought that one photo was bad, check out the rest. Love that engine bay — what you can see of it, anyhow!

“Pontiac is CAR.”

That’s precious. What next? “GMC is TRUCK”?

Unfortunately, we all know that nobody is going to get their hands on one of the limited SRT8s for sticker price. Dealer markup is going to kill this one, just like it killed the Shelby. If you want a Challenger, best to wait until year two or three of production. (By then, they’ll have the bugs ironed out anyway.)

The cars will be available in three stages: BAN1, BAN2 and BAN3. Toward the top end, your car comes complete with a roll cage, navigation system and racing suspension.

Nice touch: “T/A 7.0″ decals on the shaker scoop. Woohoo!

Check out this article on AutoBlog for the full details. No pricing has been announced yet, but the whole idea is just the damn awesomest thing I’ve ever heard of. What I’d give to park one of these next to our classic original ’79 S/E! Undoubtedly, though, the cost will be extreme.

While we’re on the Bandit subject, I sure wish our classic Trans Am was up for this year’s Bandit Run. To commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the original Smokey and the Bandit film, a group of Pontiac enthusiasts will be retracing Bandit and Snowman’s route from Texarkana to Atlanta, with authentic “Bandit” Trans Ams getting special attention. Plus, every participant will be allowed to take a ceremonial parade lap around the Atlanta Grand Prix course.

Dude, this event is so me. Maybe I’ll make it for the 40th.

The sedan is bearable, still a tremendous step down in design (IMO) from the handsome previous generation, but truly, what in God’s name is with that hatchback? Is it going to tiptoe through a rally stage?

The Ford Flex -? Is that a new exercise machine you can order in the middle of the night or a term for the new kinder, gentler working hours at the Glass House so as not to burn anyone out? That’s not a car name, certainly not a “we-can’t-miss-with-this-one-everything-is-on-the-line” kind of car name.

Ford Flex? Ugh.
Peter D. Lorenzo, AutoExtremist.com

In fact, Peter’s entire Rant this week is about how Ford just can’t seem to get a clue, despite some genuinely good concept ideas. Hmm, that sounds like GM of the nineties.

It’s been a good few days. At work, we’re close to completion on our big new product version, the new user interface for which I designed, and which has already guaranteed us at least four or five sales — customers who preview it are always chomping at the bit to license it. The weather here has been nice, I’ve been getting some good sleep, and we’ve been enjoying some good meals.

Yesterday evening was particularly good. We went to dinner at the Hachiban Ramen Japanese noodle shop over at the Carrefour shopping plaza, and it greatly exceeded my expectations. I had the “soup noodle with Japanese roasted pork,” which was phenomenal. We also had spring rolls, some excellent fried chicken (screw KFC), a chicken salad, and various other things which were all great. I actually thought about having a second bowl of noodles, but that would have been overkill. We might just have a chance to go back there one more time before we leave.

After the noodles, we went next door to Swensen’s ice cream shop and had the “Sticky Chewy Choc Fantasy” as I believe it was called, which was basically a chocolate ice cream sundae with chocolate syrup, chocolate chips and chocolate coming out of your ears. It was amazing.

Finally, we stopped at a place called Roti Bun – “Where The Good Bread Come From.” Ha, that’s actually their slogan. Apparently this joint is like a coffee bar that’s also known for their “roti buns” — they’re like a Muslim specialty pastry that’s really fluffy and sweet. Apparently they were all the rage some time ago when the chain first came to Thailand from Malaysia. In Malaysia, they have three different shops under the same chain: “Roti Mum,” “Roti Dad” and “Roti Boy.” When they first entered Thailand, they were “Roti Boy,” but now there’s hardly any of them left — none at all in Bangkok, actually — and the ones that remain are called “Roti Bun” instead.

I guess it was like a fad; people were all over them at first, but I guess the buns are too sweet for most Thai people so eventually everyone stopped going there. We’ve bought Roti Buns from the mall location twice now, and both times there’s never been any customers anywhere near the place. They’ll probably be out of business by the next time we come back, just like Mango Tasto, so I thought I’d better enjoy them while I can. I’ve had the vanilla, banana and cocoa flavored Roti Buns, all of which were great. There’s a fourth flavor too, “coffee,” but…bleh. I’m not a coffee guy.

Did I mention the great new China Dolls albums I got while we’ve been here? Since one of Apple’s sisters works as a radio DJ, she has access to a huge library of CDs. I managed to rip MP3s from a few China Dolls albums that I’d never heard before; unfortunately the Thai pop duo hasn’t released a new CD in three years, but their second album got by me, so my sister in law let me borrow it. I think it has become my favorite China Dolls album. I mean, there’s a song about soup. Yeah, soup. It’s called “Tom Yum” and is named after the famous Thai hot and sour soup dish of the same designation. “Hot-hot-hot chicken Tom Yum, I love you!” the girls sing. I want to laugh myself silly, but it’s just so much fun. Oh, and I know enough Thai words now that I understood that much of the song without Apple translating for me.

For us computer nerds, one of the great things about being in Asia is that you can load up your BitTorrent client with all kinds of materials that would get you into hot water back in the U.S., assuming any of the studios caught you with them. Specifically, I’ve been able to download all the episodes of Battlestar Galactica which have aired since our departure, ensuring that I’ll be up-to-date by the time I get home. The season finale is airing this coming Sunday night, so I’ll be watching that one via TiVo upon our return. I hear it’s scheduled to run five minutes past the end of the hour, so be aware, anyone out there who’s planning to record it.

Back home, I see that Ford is introducing another stodgy, boxy, SUV-looking vehicle whose name starts with an “F.” Seems like every Ford car has to have a name starting with “E” or “F” these days, which really got old about six years ago if you ask me. The new vehicle is called the Ford Flex, and it’s like the big brother of the Scion xB in the sense that it’s all square and boxy, but at least it’s not the size of a shoebox and probably makes better torque. Apparently, Ford considered calling this thing the Fairlane, and it’s damn good thing they didn’t because that would have been a major disservice to that lengendary marque. (I mean, it’s not even a car. It’s a crossover SUV thing.) According to the Detroit News, the Flex is Ford’s replacement for the cancelled Windstar, so in my mind, at least its stodginess has been explained. Ah, Ford…still on the road to nothing at all exciting.

Our return trip from Thailand next week could prove to be interesting. Bangkok has a brand new airport, one which we have passed through three times since we’ve been here. Unfortunately, it was built during the reign of former prime minister “Toxin” Thaksin, and the corruption of his administration apparently ensured that all kinds of corners were cut during the airport’s assembly. In particular, the premature failure of several segments of runway caused the International Aviation Authority to revoke the airport’s safety certificate.

As a result of this, air traffic here in Thailand is being thrown into a mess in a couple of days. On the 25th, all domestic air traffic is being rerouted through the old Bangkok airport, while international flights will continue to operate out of the new airport. Of course, this means that when we fly from Hat Yai to Bangkok, we’ll have to fly into the old airport and then get a taxi or something to the new one in order to catch our Bangkok to Los Angeles flight. Since we leave only three days after this rerouting starts, it’s possible it could be a debacle on the highest order. Fortunately, we have over six hours between our flights at the two airports, so that should be plenty of time to get there.

I’m still waiting to get my hands on a steering wheel again. While I was working today, I listened to a recording I made of me driving the GTO. Sweet, sweet blissful V8 sound. I shall soon be hearing it again.

Better wrap this up, before someone turns off the Internet.