The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

So, first things first I recently got my old Nissan D21 pickup back from my friend Murderstang. If you remember a few posts ago I exclaimed that hell had in fact frozen over and I had sold my Nissan D21 that I had owned since 1995. Long story short, he wanted a bigger truck and i was in the market so BAM Nissan is back. now on to the story...

Bought the truck on Saturday and was so excited to get it back. Murderstang had done some keen upgrades and work to it while in his care. I knew i couldn't drive it and would have to wait to title it until the dreaded DMV was open during the week. No biggie, i can wait. So the first available time slot for a much on the go person was Wednesday at 8:15am. Read all about what i needed in hand and off we go to the DMV.

So, remember the title of this post (see above...)? Yeah, we couldn't remember if BOTH names were on the original title or if it was me or the misses or ????? I was all like "Leave it blank, the kind employee at the DMV will help us straighten it all out". Flash forward to the bureaucratic kick in the nuts i received as i handed over the papers with glee, just full of joy that i would get to drive my truck to work that day. See unbeknownst to me and the misses this tiny blank space on the title meant NO TRUCK FOR YOU! The government sponsored paperwork Nazi had seen his opening to dash the dreams of said wannabe hotrodder that sat in front of him.  And DASH DREAMS HE DID!

See, the truth is any government agency exists only to spread pain and agony on the citizens and blind them with confusing haphazard red tape and nonsense. This keeps the general masses from realizing that their wages and buying power have been on a steady decline since the 1970s whilst cost of goods and services doubles about every 15 minutes or so. With a grinch inspired smile he handed back the title along with another paper that had to be filled out from my friend Murder Stang (who by the way works 2 jobs and is insanely busy). Knowing the chances of me getting this crap filled out within the next year or so is about the same as me going and punching out Mike Tyson the rage builds and my only recourse is to leave and try to limit my cursing to 100 or less.

So, long story short never ever expect any help from any government employee. If they had come into their position with joy in their heart that has long since been crushed by angry confused patrons and overbearing unbending laws about their useless pieces of paper. Whether leaning on a government shovel or sitting behind a drab grey government cubical your encounter will be unpleasant. Just try your best to avoid at all costs.

Maybe I Need To Evaluate My Strategy

 

War Inside My Head

So, I went to an auto auction in Zepherhills Florida last weekend. I woke up early and drove over with a pocket full of cash and a mind full of dreams. As I walked the car corral I didn't see anything that really jumped out at me. There was a pretty wicked 67 Ford Gasser that looked like a beast until I opened the hood and saw it was all show and no go. Sorry bro, gassers are supposed to be smelly ugly beasts that have about as much engine hanging out of the hood as they do under it, not some lame ass 302 with a sad little 2 barrel carb. But whatever, it was early and I had the auction to go to.

As I sit down and look over the sheet to see which one of these little beauties would be taking my hard earned cash I noticed there was about 10 golf carts for sale, odd but whatever. Auctions are kinda like a rolling carnival of lawless oddities. In my little pea brain I am busy doing the internal math that will keep me in the good graces of the accounting department. Because the other interesting thing about Auctions is they pretty much charge everyone for everything, buyers premiums, sellers premiums... hell I think there is a "being alive fee" in there somewhere. After about 30 minutes of hearing the barker go over about a million things and plug everything under the sun he finally starts.

An elderly man sits next to me as the auction kicks off. He is writing everything down on his paper... what the bids go for and if they sell or not. Nothing is selling, i mean NOTHING. I look at him and say "what the hell is going on here?" He exclaims that for the most part only about 10% of the cars in an auction actually sell because everything carries a reserve price.

About 30 cars into this 60 car auction I have seen about all I need to see. Oddly enough the very thing that represents actual free market has perverted into complete and utter bullshit. Auctions should be the complete celebration of free market, wanna know what something is worth? Auction it off... what ever the crowd pays that is exactly what it is worth. Sadly, television and "reality TV" has once again reared its ugly head and created a fantasy world where 1967 Camaros are worth 120k and old British roadsters actually run. So, looks like my money and my effort will be better spent elsewhere. No more auctions for this wannabe hotrodder... time to hit the market and see what I can shake loose.

Why Velocity Channel WHY?

   So, I love the Velocity Channel but this weeks Wannabe Hotrodder installment is gonna have to rail against them. The Velocity Channel is a car guys cream dream but as of late I am a bit confused. See, there seems to be a very disturbing trend on the channel, they seem to relish in showing me glorious European roadsters from the 50s and 60s. Show after show dedicated to bringing me barn finds and auction house “deals” of multimillion dollar ferrari and lamborghini. Now, these truly are wonderful cars and have their place in auto history but, and this is a HUGE BUT, I don’t need every singe program to show me all these glorious million dollar cars that I could never own. More and more of the channels programming seems to be leaning toward this and I am not quite sure why? There are tons and TONS of awesome incredible custom cars and hotrods and all kinds of American automobiles that could be part of their programming.
    I don’t want this to be misconstrued as a knock against all those awesome technological marvels. They are freakin’ insanely awesome cars that most any car lover would be thrilled to own. The fact of the matter is I could take all the money that my entire family blood line has and will make for all time and that still wouldn’t be able to buy one, so why am I being shown these cars? I am this channels key demographic. Do they want me to like strive to be able to buy one? I can’t, and even if I did have the money I wouldn’t buy one because that kind of extravagant spending it ludicrous. So what is the end game of the programming? Do they set out to just make their viewers feel like crap? That doesn’t seem like sound programming.
   I guess in the end I just want the Velocity Channel to survive. I love it, and I hope it can stay relevant. Because I fear if it stays on its current trajectory it will fall the way of TechTV and the dodo bird. Just a distant memory of what could have been. Now show us some god damn muscle cars that the common man can relate to already!!!!