No. It’s not a post about condiments. It’s yet another: Random Posting Surprise™. As in, I’ll start writing something and surprise myself as to what it’s about. I once again started slacking off on posting here after a fairly good start back when I last updated the Oddball Update’s design. This weekend I finally got around to recategorizing all my old posts in the archive — well, I started, anyway — and this left me feeling like I should take a break from that to post something new for a change.
Last week we were in Michigan for a few days, visiting friends and family. We spent Labor Day there, and I actually got to take a couple of days off from work, so it ended up being a four-day weekend for me. The weather was perfect most of the time we were there; sunny and in the mid-70s with the exception of a couple back-to-back rainy days. We had ample opportunity to chat with my family members, I got to see my friends Pooch and Reaper (and pick up Donutown besides, which simply has to happen every time I’m in town), and eat out at our favorite restaurants. We also did a fair amount of eating in this time as well, which was fine with us, because it meant enjoying that much more of my grandmother’s home cooking.
Surprisingly, I did not have much in the way of allergy troubles. I often get bouts of asthma-like congestion and an uncontrollable runny nose when I’m back in the homeland, likely due to the dust and molds present in my old house’s ductwork, if I had to guess. The season contributes a lot to this phenomenon, especially because when it’s cold enough to warrant firing up the furnace, the warm air blowing through those ducts is usually enough to put my sinuses on an express elevator to hell. This time, though, the furnace was not needed, and we only ran the A/C a couple of times. For the most part, I had no trouble. That was certainly a relief.
And, as I mentioned in my initial review of The Beatles: Rock Band, my video game day with my friends was inspiring enough for me to reacquaint myself with the “plastic musical instrument” genre of games after a long hiatus. Since then, Apple and I have continued to have a blast with the Beatles game. I’ve been able to re-familiarize myself with my old favorite songs, which I mostly haven’t listened to in a while, and Apple was introduced to a whole swath of the Beatles’ catalog with which she was previously unfamiliar. The other day she came into my room and took all the Beatles albums off my CD rack, then proceeded to arrange a mix disc which she put in her car. Listening to it on the way to dinner the other evening was like going on a trip down memory lane.
The Beatles’ music makes me think of my high school days, for it was then that I first started listening to them. My friend Pooch introduced me to the group and their music besides, and I promptly started buying up the albums, working my way back from the Beatles’ latter years, the tracks from which I was most familiar. Hearing those songs again today mostly reminds me of driving my old Grand Prix, for a Beatles CD or cassette tape was never far from my car stereo whenever I went home from school, drove to or from my friends’ houses or wherever else I was off to. There were a lot of things wrong with those years, but the smaller they get in my rear-view mirror, the more the good times come to the fore — hanging out with friends, discovering new music, playing the great computer games of the era, and enjoying Junes, Julys and Augusts filled with relaxation and creativity in the pleasant summer weather of Michigan.
Pooch is still introducing me to bands, although this time they’re mostly Japanese in origin. Last week’s trip to Michigan was no exception, for we got together and I picked up some new albums from Shoko Suzuki (whose lovely retro-sounding song “Hi, Hello” I’m listening to right now), Shonen Knife, Ayumi Hamasaki and Ryoko Shinohara.
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Chief Oddball
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Quick, Act Like We Give a Crap
By Chief Oddball on February 24th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
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Today the president of Toyota Motor Company, Mr. Akio Toyoda, appeared before a U.S. congressional committee to answer questions about the ongoing recall and safety/PR crisis that his company is currently suffering. My wife watched the proceedings on live TV, and as she put it, the result could only be described as “a serious culture crash.” Like a runaway Camry stuck at WOT, Mr. Toyoda ran headfirst into the unbelievable arrogance of the American government.
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.
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