Omni Geo Memento Mori

I had three favorite cars: my 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, 1986 4WD Toyota Corolla and my 1997 Geo Metro.

Sad to say I totaled all three of them.

Not to say they're the only cars I totaled. Just the ones I liked.

The Little Green Guy bought the farm on this rainy Friday. Came up to the stoplight for Cambridge Street in Brighton. The BMW in front of me went. I went. The BMW put on his brakes. I put on my brakes. He stopped. I didn't. Bang.

I drove him (using the term loosely) to the mechanic. He was put on the lift and the mechanic and I saw that the steel support portion of the body that served as the support for the wheel was eroded. I suppose it's better to for the front wheel to snap like that in a piddling 5 mph collision than grooving down the pike at 80.

Still, I'll miss the Little Green Guy. True. His back window wiper and air condition didn't work anymore. The windshield was beginning to look like it had been sandpapered. But I'll miss the way he was able to snuggle in between Saabs and SUVs with out even touching them. The way you never had to worry about scratching him-- who would notice? The 40 mpg.

Life goes on.

But with $7/gallon gas on the horizon, it'll have to go on 40+ mpg.

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Links of Interest
Perversion: It's not just for humans anymore
Orangutans using spears
Intestinal yarn
Expelled again
Babbage redux
Jupiter in a soap bubble
Arsenic in fish oil
Vitamin D Deficiency makes you dumb
women dying young
brain damage from cancer chemotherapy
world's most amazing shrimp
world science festival
Sexpelled
robot jellyfish
has the world become a better place?
science meets art
oscar the naked dancing cockatoo
tiger splash park
fascinating world trade fair
curious expeditions
world in a bottle

Buy Geo Metros!

I love my wee car.

I drive a 1997 Geo Metro LSI. It is a tiny, green hatchback. It has a dent on the left side near the gas tank where I leaned once while filling the tank. That's right. I leaned on it too hard and dented it.

It fits nicely in those little spaces between SUVs in a parking lot. You know the ones. Where two big musclebound dinosaurs are rubbing [shoulders] using up four spaces instead of two. My little Geo slips in between them. No doubt pissing them off. When their tires rub against my fenders getting out from the space, they leave a mark I consider a badge of honor.

When I park in a lot my car is usually the smallest. It gets 40 mpg winter, summer, in the city, on the highway and with the air conditioner on. When I fill up at a station I can hear SUV owners on the other side openly weeping.

They should. Especially those big gas guzzling behemoths with the made-in-China Support Our Troops magnets on the back. Support our troops-- I'm supporting the troops. I buy Citgo gas and not much of it. Citgo comes from Venezuela. Cavez country. Where the leader is socialist, thinks our president is Satan and whose oil does not come from the Saudi family. As far as I'm concerned, every car that gets less than 30 mpg is actively acting against the troops and no pissant Chinese decal is going to say anything different.

You want gas to drop in price? Then quit buying it! Invest in more efficient cars and trucks. Dump that Hummer. Get rid of that Ford Expedition.

Bin Laden loves them.
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Links of Interest
science festival in NYC

Tsunami on the sun

Smallest Black Hole Ever

Gonna comb that planet right out of my hair
Steampunk Taxidermy
Fuel Cell Airplane
Astrolabes
A Solar System Like Our Own
Nature Gone Wrong
Things that Don't Go Together
Vanitas
Mumps in the Midwest
Frogs without Lungs
Electricity Generating Plants
Chinese Dyslexia Found For Cure
Here we go Again: Evolution