Lost in Transmission & Rating Things That Are Wrong With My Car

Lost in Transmission

For those of you interested, not interested and those still unsure, my second search for a vehicle in the last 10 months is over. It concluded with a stylish 4-cylinder 97 Civic. Thank God I already have a girlfriend. I’m just glad the search is over. I do this way too often. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t hate it with the passion of a thousand island dressing (I may have misunderstood that saying). Seriously, the act of looking for a car is up there with waterboarding for me. Strap me down to a chair and force me to look for a cheap but reliable vehicle that is Maryland State inspected and I will admit to shit that I did not do. So in an effort to maximize the time between now and the next time I’ll have to deal with this shit (and with that girlfriend card firmly in my pocket), I decided to stick within the Honda and Toyota families - not that the concept of buying a car from one of 7 different companies who have gone bankrupt and will cease to manufacture replacement parts isn’t appealing. Though I did occasionally take a peek at the Wranglers around the area. But I was able to fight through it thanks to my mantra: “What would a grown-up do?” “Buy foreign, and throw away your Weird Al t-shirts.” I didn’t even ask for that second piece of advice, thank you subconscious.

So why am I buying my second car in under a year? Well, I’ll give you half that story now. If you haven’t heard about the exploding jeep, you’ll have to wait. But it forced me into buying a car cheap and quick when I moved to Maryland in August. Basically, the cheapest car I could find that was Maryland State inspected on craigslist. And so I got my $1300 Sentra. It started to accrue so many problems in so little time that it was evident I’d never be able to sell it again. It wouldn’t pass inspection, it wouldn’t pass emissions, it wouldn’t even pass a moped on the sidewalk. I found myself wishing that something would go wrong with the engine or transmission just so I could justify getting rid of the damn thing. Well, I got my wish about a month ago.

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Things That Are Wrong With My Car

Driver’s Side Window Stuck Up – This is especially annoying at drive thrus and toll booths. It actually used to just make this metallic grinding noise about halfway down (and up) and you just had to push (or pull) it the rest of the way while holding the button down. I had gotten good enough at it where I rarely got my fingers caught in it on the way up, when it just stopped altogether. Honestly it’s probably better that way. Thankfully, this has nothing to do with the performance of the car but God forbid I get pulled over and have to explain that. C-

Exhaust System Banging Against Gas Tank & Back of Car – The literal day after I bought the car, it started making this banging noise. Turns out the guy who sold it to me had basically glued the exhaust system together long enough to fool me into buying it. After Jamie (my nephew daddy) helped (he did it – I helped) find another tailpipe and fasten it on, it was rigged to only bang against the gas tank rather than have a hole in it. But it still wouldn’t pass emissions and it made the same annoying noise and now we added a much higher risk of explosion for a part that has nothing to do with the performance of the vehicle. Thankfully I met Jen before she ever saw the car. C+

Brakes Are Broken – So I went to my mechanic the last time to get new front brakes because every time I tried to stop, the car pulled to the right and smoke started coming up from the front right tire. I figured that was bad. So the mechanic replaced the front brakes and told me that the rear cylinder was leaking so bad that he recommended that I either replace it or I don’t drive for more than another “two days” with that car. Well, I wasn’t about to shell out $500 for a car that probably wouldn’t sell for that. And so I took those two days and just drove for another 2 months with one hand on the emergency brake. A worthwhile non-investment. B

Faulty Transmission – Finally, something that I can’t overlook. The car won’t get out of first gear. I came to this realization on the Capital Beltway. This is the second car of mine that died on 495. It’s not a very forgiving environment. In fact, I had to put my left turn signal on to ensure everybody would try to pass me on the left so I could get off the highway on the right. So it is dead. But I managed to get the car back home and I know of 4 or 5 used car & junk lots I could actually drive the car to in first gear. Better than a hole in the engine. But not by much. D-

Missing Windshield Gasket – I was driving up 83 after work when I saw the rubber gasket that went around my windshield blowing in the wind. Before I had any other thoughts, it went flying off onto the highway. Now I’m sure it’s not an expensive part, but it seems like an important one. Right now, gravity is the only thing keeping my windshield on. While I don’t expect gravity to ever stop working, it would be nice to have some insurance. And duct tape is apparently not the answer. Duct tape is like Superman tape that will stick to anything – but rain is it’s kryptonite. So I’m living without a gasket, which will only matter in the case that gravity ceases to work or if I flip my car into a position which gravity cannot help it stay on. Either way, I got much bigger problems than my windshield. B+

Buying foreign and wearing polos,

Honda D.


Still Standing Right Here…


QOTD credits (7/1/09): John Chapin - (Thank God you already have a girlfriend)

Rating Pranks I've Pulled

Pranks I've Pulled

"It's A Very Weird Al Birthday" - There is a Weird Al song called appropriately and simply enough "Happy Birthday" in which the chorus screams "Happy birthday!... Happy birthday to you!" This part is annoying enough in the context of the song. I knew enough about computers at this point in time to cut out the part where they scream "Happy birthday!" and make Geoff's computer play that clip anytime he opened a program, closed a program, minimized a window, maximized a window, or hit an inappropriate keystroke. And this wasn't enough for me. I restructured his three icons for internet explorer, e-mail and word to play the entire song in a somewhat hidden program. I knew Geoff would not only be unable to fix it, but he'd know exactly who did it too. So he came to work, walked in his office, tried some stuff that lasted about 30 seconds and left, saying "Fix it. I'll be back in 15 minutes." Honestly, I don't know why I expected any other reaction. B+

"Geoff Turns 30" - This was year two of the fuck-with-Geoff era. I was not discouraged by his reaction the first time. Although, I did kind of check with Gary before I actually approached him that day. Anyway, I closed the RAC Tuesday night and he opened it on Wednesday (his 30th birthday), so I didn't just confine myself to his office this time. I hung up Happy Birthday and Over the Hill banners at the front desk and taped balloons to the wall leading up to his office. When he entered the main office, I had Tim McGraw's "My Next Thirty Years" blaring at different points in the song from five different computers to make sure he'd hear the chorus at least once before he could get to all of them to turn them off (it was a bonus that he hates country music). Then when he got into his office, there were 100 "over the hill" helium balloons on his ceiling. A day or two later, he opened a drawer of his filing cabinet and two helium balloons came out and hit him in the face. The gift that keeps on giving. He seemed less upset about this one. I think he was really just plotting the revenge he'd get two and a half years later. A-

"The Third South Ultimate Prank" - This was from back in the old dorm days and it was thought out and executed with military precision. The day before we were scheduled to compete in these dorm wars that I had made up, six of us stayed up all night to pull this one off. Brigid and Courtney designed and cut out over 100 footprints in the shape of 3s and Ss. And they actually looked like footprints. Meanwhile, Suzanne, Billy, Kristen and I were cutting out premeasured pieces of fishing wire and filling up pink helium balloons (remember I wore a pink hat back in these days) and writing stuff like "Third South Rules" and "Your Floor Sucks" on them. After tying the fishing wire to the balloons, Suzanne dropped the end to Kristen and Billy, who were waiting outside now, and they'd walk over to me, who was climbing up each of the columns of windows, and I'd tape the wire to the wall just above the first floor window so that eventually all the balloons sat just outside everyone's windows (which didn't open far enough to remove them that way). This took until daylight to finish. And then the six of us, with a floor plan and three exits and feet taped all over our body, synchronized our watches and snuck onto third north's floor to tape the footprints in a fashion as if they had walked all over the floor, up the wall, on the ceiling, and out the far entrance. We accomplished this in 3 minutes at 7am. And then they woke up and we kicked their ass in dorm wars. Man I miss college. Well, you know. A+

"The Icon Trick" - I can only take credit for maybe a tenth of this one because I have friends that are smarter than me. Mike had a computer with very literally 80 plus shortcuts on his desktop. What the hell were all these things? I don't think I even have more than 4 programs I use. Anyway, when he was away, I made a whole lot of shortcuts named "Mike, you have too many shortcuts on your computer" and filled up the other half of his screen with them. This was all I was going to do. Then I got several other ideas from a few computer savvy guys. So I took a screenshot of his computer as it was with the icons on it. Then I set that as his background. So his new background was a picture of his background, but with all the icons on there. So when he deleted the actual shortcuts, the picture of the icons were still there. This is where the gag kinda fell apart. I knew he wouldn't realize what was going on and how long did I want to pretend that I really fucked up his computer? Regardless, it's a pretty easy and funny prank that I'm going to try on the very few people I know who aren't on this list. B

Quote Of the Day 11/30/04

Sev: "We'll be going on mostly class 3 rapids, but there are a couple class 4 rapids on the river."
Me: "How do they determine the classes of rapids?"
Tony: "Number of fatalities."

The lyrical prankster,

D Rec.


Still Standing Right Here...

Weird Al vs. Malcolm X

Weird Al vs. Malcolm X

Well, I finally got a chance to get to the nurse last week. According to all her specialized equipment, a throat culture, and an anal probe (which I'm still questioning the necessity of), I have been diagnosed with a possible sore throat.

I've already called the mortician.

So that's all they could come up with, a sore throat. "Don't worry, Mr. Henson, it's just the flu. Take some Tylenol." Well, without the funky bowel movements, it's really just a mild annoyance. I'm not supposed to yell really loud or sing for a while. So my mild annoyance is everybody else's virtual nirvana. But as long as I can still type, I can still piss off a lot of people. ;)

Well, Weird Al is at it again. He's got another album called Running With Scissors. I have all the songs on MP3 format at work and the kids love them. To the point where it's REALLY annoying. Well, one of the kids told us that he's doing a report for school on Weird Al. Heidi (fellow child abuser) and myself didn't really think this was justifiable material for a biographical report for an 8th grader. Craig, in his own attempt at a defense for himself, muttered that a lot of other kids were doing reports on stupider people...

Quote of the Day 8/12/99

"Well, this one kid is doing that guy... uh, uh... some Malcolm X guy."

-The reason 13-year-olds get a bad rep


Now, don't get me wrong. I agree that Weird Al has done more good for the world than Malcolm X (especially black people), but I might save that for oral presentation.

Good enough for now,

Dustin.


Still Standing Right Here...