1,481 miles from Glenwood Springs, CO to Powell, OH. Started at 1:21PM and finished at 10:21AM the next day, including ninety miles of snow-covered roads from Vail on east. Not exactly Ed Bolian’s pace, but unlike the repo-Lambo buy-here-pay-here king of the GPS fraud I have this odd policy that I don’t take a shit inside a moving car, even if I’m in a hurry.
One consequence of my breakneck schedule this past week has been that I didn’t provide a Weekly Roundup this past Friday. Let’s get that done so I can do the next Weekly Roundup tomorrow.
Yes, I went to Randy’s last week. It wasn’t that great. Tim Horton’s has nothing to fear.
Brother Bark consoled a long-distance lover and recommended an RSX to TTAC’s readers.
At TTAC, I reviewed a Sonata and considered the many ways which autonomous vehicles might find society unwelcoming.
For R&T, I pleaded for the return of the big Lincoln coupe and made the case for standardized wiper controls.
Alright, that’s last week handled, although I might bust out a “The Critics Respond” for a particularly moronic commenter on the autonomous-vehicles thang. Now I’m free to start catching up on all the things I missed this week!
“Not exactly Ed Bolian’s pace, but unlike the repo-Lambo buy-here-pay-here king of the GPS fraud”
is there background to this? I noticed you kept referring to it in the Barkcast…
It’s commonly believed that Ed faked his run. The reason he “chose” DeMuro to reveal the news to the world was because he thought DeMuro was a useful, gullible idiot.
why didn’t I remember that…
One of the down sides of reposessed / junked vehicles is the dump the DPO occasionally leaves you……
So far I’m the only guy I’ve even known who
ll clean this out , death cars too .
Part of the JOB .
Randy’s donuts was supposedly once a good So. Cal. chain , only a few still sport that name and now most remaining are run by cheap assed Chinese , they manage to ruin almost anything they touch by being tighter than a bull in flytime .
I hope my dumb assed comments aren’t going to be made fun of this week .
-Nate
Hey, I’ve never made fun of your comments!
Shits? Didn’t the Cannonballer’s of yore pre-prep with a low residue or near liquid diet to , ahem, eliminate that issue? Perhaps it was the duct-tape sealed non-stop Jetta guys.
I’m old enough to remain when Made In Japan meant something cheap, not something better made (or collectible Re: Mr. Matsumoku), but the stuff Japan put out in the 1950s and 1960s may have been inexpensive, but those first transistor radios were actually well made. Some Japanese stuff was of lesser quality than something made in America but it still wasn’t junk.
I don’t know if it was the influence of Demming on a homogeneous, very conformist society, but making stuff well seems to be something ingrained in Japanese society. I don’t see that in Chinese goods. Sure, a Chinese factory can make good product if their customer watches them like a hawk and demands quality product (that’s based on conversations I’ve had with Bertel Schmidt, who had a business working with Chinese vendors, and a couple of guys who have private label goods made there), but left to their own devices, it seems like Chinese workers and their employers don’t have much pride in a good product. If they run out of the correct parts, they’ll use whatever they have on the shelf. So what if the “stainless steel” frets on your guitar start to rust? There is a reason why your iPhone is assembled in China from components made somewhere else. Also, they don’t regard intellectual property as a concept worthy of attention. Bosch won’t make anything real proprietary in their joint venture Chinese plants.
Even Chinese consumers more or less acknowledge all this in their preferences for non-Chinese brands.
it was a little of both, IMO. Deming came through when Japan was building their industries, and they actually listened to him instead of brushing him off like Western companies. The old “We’re doing just fine as-is, why do we need you?” mindset. Japan Inc. said “this makes sense, so let’s do it this way.”
The more conformist culture can help when the business plan is solid. Back then the Japanese automakers looked at the flaws of Western cars (poor quality and reliability, big and thirsty) and the business plan was “We will make and sell cars without those flaws.” Which they did; and thanks to some advantageous timing they had the energy crises to give them a foothold in the market.
Similar for the electronics manufacturers; the Japanese built their electronics industry around the transistor while the bigger American firms (Raytheon, RCA, Sylvania, etc.) were still over-invested in vacuum tubes.
in a nutshell, for Japan Inc, the business plan is the Bible. If the plan is good, they do very well. If it isn’t, they’re in trouble because the rank and file will spend 20 years flawlessly carrying out a bad plan.
How bad is this Randy’s if Tim Horton’s and their par baked donuts have nothing to fear.
This. Tim Horton’s donuts are inedible. I hate their coffee but also realize that puts me in the minority here in Canuckistan.
So you wont take a shit in a [moving] car. Noted.
It is Friday night here, so you’re already late.
1,481 miles in 21 hours is impressive. What were you driving?
Fiesta ST.
That’s an average of roughly 70 mph. Which means he drove above that only to make up lost time for pit stops (I’m assuming a second driver for fatigue). Most any newer vehicle can maintain that pace, so the type of car isn’t too critical once one satisfies fuel capacity, comfort, reliability, and “invisibility to police” criteria.
Perfect choice is a minivan with the second row seats removed and a pallet for sleeping. I’ve made 1350 miles in 22 hours (roughly 60 mph average) in a Oldsmobile Silhouette minivan on several occasions. That’s with me and my wife driving, and two very small children. Needless to say, biological breaks were the primary limiting factor.
Now as a single driver, that’s simply asinine because fatigue will make you dangerous to others long before the 21 hour mark.
The first five hours was done at 20-30mph on snow east of Vail.
I did all but the final 90 minutes of the drive, averaging between 85 and 95 on the trot with occasional bursts to 110 after sunrise.
Had one can of NOS Cherry at the 17 hour mark.
The Vail snow certainly adds a degree of difficulty.
The longest I ever drove in one stretch (not counting refuel stops) is 19 hrs. And of course I only had 4 hrs sleep prior. Dangerous at any speed. Not worth the risk.
I think I have seen video of someone trying to take a shit out of a moving car….passenger side window
it did not end well 😀
with the fiesta, maybe if you got the hatch open, the air vacuum would pull it right out the back?
no pun intended
LOL ~ your comment made me remember my mis spent youth with some one occasionally puking their guts out the open window and making a mess all over the side of the car plus the wind whipping it back into their faces and long hair….
Serves them right for not asking me to pull over =8-) .
-Nate
hahaha…!