BuggBlog

Now for something with four wheels. Good!

I've just begun another cycle of review cars -- seems like I'm going to spend the next few weeks driving SUVs and crossover SUVs. What's a "crossover" SUV? Well, you'll have to drive yourself over to my new blog, Four Wheels Good, to find out.

Just up is a post on my initial impressions of the 2008 Mitsubishi Outlander SE; later this week I'll have some thoughts on the surprisingly strong Suzuki XL7 Limited.

And I'll likely do some Google whoring by talking some more about what makes a gay car. It's like internet candy for straight people, they just can't get enough.

Judicial activism from beyond the grave

The saga of Virginia's abusive driver fees continues its convoluted and frustrating way, this time because a previously unremembered 1878 state Supreme Court ruling that it seems would prohibit the legislature from telling the state's courts to stop assessing and collecting fines for abuse driver convictions even though the legislature is now repealing the law. From the Post:

Since the fees went into effect July 1 to help finance a transportation bill, more than 1,000 motorists convicted of felony and misdemeanor offenses have been ordered to pay the fees, which are assessed over three consecutive years. One option under review is to ask motorists to finish paying the installments and then issue a refund.

Hey, maybe next time the legislature will elect to raise highway revenue in a fair way, without resorting to political trickery and sleazy conflicts of interests.

Or not.

This item is cross-posted from my embryonic new car blog, Four Wheels Good.

Nuts to that

Someone needs to bar Virginia lawmakers from having anything to do with our highways. Via Jalopnik, this report from WTKR explains how Va. Del. Lionell Spruill (D) of Suffolk is showing his political stones by taking on the burning issue of truck nuts. Sigh. Now I'm going to have to order me some.

Unsurprisingly, it all comes down to another case of, "Won't somebody please think of the children?"

Note: This post is cross-posted from my embryonic new car blog, Four Wheels Good.

Four wheels rising

Slate has a middling piece by Anne Applebaum on the moral quandaries posed by the development of technologies than can alleviate some of the world's extreme poverty but increase the dangers of climate change. Applebaum points to the unveiling in India of the $2,500 Nano, the new ultra-cheap ride that promises to greatly expand the mobility of the nation, particularly those rising from the lower to middle class.

I say the piece is middling because she's absolutely spot on about the dilemma, but reluctant to go anywhere with the observation. Here's the former:

What does feed the masses, at least at the moment, is no secret: high-tech farming, chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered crops. Modern means of communication and transport—cars, telephones, computers—will eventually make the poor richer, too. Though there are many fans of "environmentally sustainable development" who believe we can have less poverty, less pollution, and lower carbon emissions at the same time, that's not happening out there in the real world, as the unveiling of the Nano demonstrates well.

"That's not happening out there in the real world" is kind of an understatement, and it gets to one of my bigger frustrations with the overall movement to combat global warming. I actually do think global warming is a problem that needs to be addressed, but when activists are running around blaming specific hurricanes or short term weather patterns on the long-term (and still not completely known) effects of global warming, it's obvious they're taking a page from the anti-smoking movement where statistics are routinely manipulated to make it seem that being within 100 yards of a lit cigarette is as lethal as shot of cyanide on the rocks.

It's also very, very easy to bemoan the miserable state of the environment when you can afford to make "environmentally friendly" choices. As Applebaum notes, "In many countries, the desire not to be poor is, at the moment, stronger than the desire to breathe clean air. Look at photographs of Beijing in the smog if you don't believe me."

Even though Applebaum gets the problem, she hedges when it comes to what sorts of measures might show that environmentalists were taking the poverty v. environmentalism debate seriously. She writes: "If, at the next [climate change] conference, delegates also focus even a few minutes of their attention on the millions of Nano cars that will take to the roads in India and elsewhere over the next few years, then we'll know they're really serious."

Some words aren't really a measure. Some level of support for things that will elevate the world's poor and speed up the process by which more of the world can afford to be environmental caretakers would be a better measure. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an endorsement of upward mobility as represented by the Nano.

Note: This post is cross-posted at my embryonic new car blog, Four Wheels Good.

In the Driveway: BMW's tough love

Given the events of the past few weeks, I'm lamentably behind on posting my thoughts on the cars I'm currently driving for review. So here begins the official catching up, with a look at two high-end 2007 models.

First up is the BMW X5, the larger of the German automaker's two SUV offerings. Frankly, all BMWs are touch cars to love. They drive like a dream -- pretty much every BMW I've driven, I've enjoyed purely from the experience of holding the steering wheel, pressing the accelerator and making it go. It's just all the other stuff that gets in the way.

The infamous iDrive is as counter-intuitive and frustrating as ever, sitting on the center console like a clumsy doorknob. Sometimes you twist the dial to get what you want, other times you jog it in one of four directions, and other times you press it. Perhaps it's because I'm an Apple Kool-Aid Drinker and therefore used to elegant design solutions for control interfaces, but I expect an interface to have some sort of logical consistency. With the iDrive, I'm constantly dialing when I should be jogging, or vice versa, and having to clumsily navigate backwards to escape my error.

In the Driveway: 2007 Toyota Tundra

So the Toyota Tundra arrived on Thursday, and now it sits like a big white behemoth in my driveway. If nothing else, the pickup packs some serious bulk (though it seem just a shade smaller than a Dodge Ram I parked next to on Friday). The first thing Cavin asked me, after he managed to climb into the passenger seat, was, "How do you drive this in the city?"

Answer: Very, very carefully.

Honestly, a truck this size has no business in the city unless you're using it in some necessary professional capacity: contractor, landscaper, plumber, junk collector. Naturally, I drove it into the city the first chance I got -- I needed some way to get to that panel at the Washington Hilton. I asked a friend beforehand if I could park the sucker in his private alley spot, which led me into a tight situation with a garbage truck before I finally realized I would never fit the thing in without blocking 3/4 of the alley. Back to the street it was, where I got lucky and found spot I could pull into just a block from the Hilton. It was actually easier than when I parked it later that day in the Tyson's Corner parking garage.

Other first impressions:

• It cruises along pretty nicely, though that's not a huge surprise given the honkin' V8 under the hood. It's supposed to be pretty heavy on torque on the low end, but I don't plan on hauling any loads of cinder blocks in the next week, so you'll have to take someone else's word for it.

• It handles fairly well, though I feel compelled to drive a little gingerly given the size. My brother-in-law would probably be able take the thing through D.C. like Cooper Mini, but I need to compensate for my lack of recent experience. The ride's a little rough in patches and, given the low-end torque and all, it's a little herky jerky in stop and go traffic.

• The interior has that "nice, but not too nice" feel of many trucks. Basically, there are enough touches going on to make you feel you're getting something better than a simple farm truck, but not so much it's going to push it past the $35,000 sticker price on this model. Though you could bump that up by adding in some navigation and other extras, but the six-disc CD with AUX input is included here. Copious amounts of console storage are a big plus.

• I really like the exterior -- it has some of the butch-type stylings that set apart a truck like the Dodge Ram, but in a way that feels a bit more refined. That said, overall I still prefer the overall look of the Toyota Tacoma.The Tundra is rated at 14 mpg city, 18 mpg highway -- I've been getting 15.4 mpg average, with mixed city/highway (a little heavier on city). It may be a Toyota, but it ain't a Prius.

We'll see how I feel about the brute after a few more days driving around town.

Wheels make the world go 'round

So, as I mentioned, in addition to focusing on the new business, one of the things I'm looking forward to is the time to dive back into car reviews. Tomorrow, if all goes well, will mark the return of "In the Driveway" posts, followed not too long after by the return of Gears to Metro Weekly. My driveway will be filling up soon, starting today with the gargantuan (and fairly butch) new Toyota Tundra. It's not even here yet, and I already have an urge to go and haul some heavy shit around. Nothing in particular, just, you know, something heavy. And probably dirty.

In actuality, I'll probably just go to the grocery store with it today. But I can dream.

Live from KY

Not that KY -- KY as in my old Kentucky home. After last week's vomitus interruptus, I've finally managed to make my way across the wilds of West Virginia to my mother's Lexington home. A few things that came to me during the nine-hour drive.

-- I definitely get extra butch points for driving a Jeep with a blown out rear window, and a jerry-rigged left panel that managed to keep out the snow in the mountains but still left the interior with a decibel level on par with a Boeing wind tunnel. But I really need to clean the thing -- it's starting to have the same feel and smell as one of grandpa's old farm trucks.

-- Maybe there's just a lot of construction with giant bulldozers and craines going on in rural Maryland and West Virginia, but I've never seen that many scary Wide Loads outside of a Golden Corral buffet.

-- If you happen to be a low-level drag performer who relocated to the West Coast yet still wants to pretend that I actually care about what you say, here's a tip. When you send out your e-mail blast with a list of "REAL magazines" comments about your latest tedious offering, you might want to think twice about including your craigslist posting on the list. It may be effective in promoting your show to people looking for used futons and fetish sex, but it ain't exactly Vanity Fair.

And that's probably one of those places I should just stop writing and start cooking dinner.

That's a lesson learned

Telling God to "bring it on"? Bad idea. A snow day is a blessing for those of us who love the chance to spend a weekday sprawled on the couch leveling up our Phantasy Star Universe characters or tackling some Gears of War on "Insane" difficulty. In my case, a snow day on a Wednesday means leaving behind my oh-so-comfy couch to brave the snowy to meet an unchangeable Wednesday printer deadline. Poor, poor me. Well, at least I don't have a journalism job that requires me to brave the snow to listen to nonsensical presidential press conferences.

I'm jesting, naturally. Well, except for the Bush part. But my commute this morning was actually a little faster than usual, given that there were only about 20 other people on the road. That would be 20 other people who can't drive worth a good goddamn in the snow, but I managed to steer around them. After the hour-plus commute home last night, I was irrevocably convinced of the fallacy of the whole "wisdom of crowds" thing (not the actual book, per se, but at least the popular culture interpretation of it as "everybody's doing it so it must be good!"). Nothing brings out the stupidity in humanity like taking a little spin on a snowy road, which is amazing, given that everyone I know considers themselves to be the world's best snow driver. Myself included.

Anyway, here's hoping for a quick end to the day. Those aliens aren't going to kill themselves, and my couch is getting lonely.

In the Driveway: 2007 Corvette convertible

Driving over unsalted, ice-slicked roads in a 400-horsepower, rear-wheel drive beast of a car isn't the least stressful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Not that I don't love the Corvette -- it's one of my favorite cars -- but, man, it is not fun to get caught in a snowstorm. Of course, if I'd paid even a modicum of attention to the news this morning, I might have caught a weather report and taken the Jeep out to the tennis center, instead. As it turned out, it took me almost and hour to get home -- a drive that should have taken about 20 minutes.

But you don't buy a 'Vette in preparation for snowy weather -- you buy a 'Vette because you have a thing for powerful, front-engine, rear-drive American cars. I've written about the Corvette before, and how I think it's an excellent car. Most of the Corvettes since the '80s had left me fairly cold -- either stripped of the audacious curves that made the '70s models distinctive, or overdone in some pale imitation of Italian sheet metal. The latest version strikes an almost perfect balance between the wilder stylings of the past with the more refined look of power in the present.

I don't, however, much care for the convertible version I'm driving at the moment. Although it's quiet enough on the inside, and it maintains a healthy trunk in the back, the overall style of the body doesn't really work with the little black soft top. The hardtop version seems far more cohesive. The soft top, while it looks okay enough topless, just doesn't hold together stylistically the way the hardtop does.

One other important point: If you should be entertaining ideas of a Corvette, or any other powerful sports car, I really think you should be going with the manual. Not only does the manual just feel right, the automatic doesn't provide the visceral thrill of the manual. Call me old-fashioned.