Look at all those angry eyes and pointy teeth! It’s like Christmas at the Kennedy Compound!

OK, that wasn’t me, that was “President” Schwarzenegger (as voiced by the great Harry Shearer) from The Simpsons Movie talking about a mutated squirrel, but you get the gist.

Anyway, Ahnuld has decided to NOT ban the act of driving while having a dog sitting in your lap. Seems he only promised to sign bills that are “the highest priority for California.”

Yeah, ya know Arnie, how high of a priority can it be to, you know, drive without a sweaty, slobbering, distraction in your frickin’ lap fergodsakes.

Honestly, does this make ANY sense at all? How can NOT making this against the law make for more safer roads. Is this somehow too intrusive onto drivers?

Yes, I know, I know, most municipalities have the catch all “failure to use due care and cation” citation on the books, but that only takes effect AFTER you’ve slammed into a couple of parked cars, or mowed down granny in a crosswalk. So the current situation is: driving with a dog in your lap = A-OK; driving 10 over the limit on a deserted freeway = you’re a danger that must be stopped.

How long, O Lord, how long?

Source: AutoBlog

A quick walk down to Omaha Beach … seemingly, the British love RVs … what the landed gentry drive to the vacation house … “That engine sounds familiar,” I said …

So one morning, out on the Atlantic coast of France, I get up, and there’s Antoine, my host down in the kitchen. He’d been up for a while, reading the paper. He looked at me and asked, “Wanna go for a walk down the beach? There’s some interesting stuff down towards the touristy end.”

Sure, why not. I had never been down that way before, since the town was in the opposite direction.

It turns out that down that way, along the walking path, separated from the bike path, separated from the road, are a bunch of disused German gun emplacements from the Second World War. You come around this point of land, and suddenly the beach is broad and flat and deep. Anyone with any military sense could see that this was a place where you could land so many boats with so many men that you could easily swamp coastal defenses. No wonder the Nazis were nervous.

Perched above the beach, on the “high” ground was a series of 5 or so gun emplacements. They had maybe a 30 foot height advantage, but hey, you go with what you got.

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Or the funniest names so far.

Of course, these names are all Japanese, since they have some sort of lock on too-cute names (OK, one’s an Italian design house). An old girlfriend of mine, Janet, had a track prepped 300 ZX Twin Turbo that she raced. Big, powerful handful of a car. As most of you know, in the Japanese home market, all Z cars actually have the name “Fairlady”.

The Japanese have long had a habit of naming things the complete opposite of what they are. During WW II the Imperial Japanese fielded planes with names like “Golden Chrysanthemum” and “Brilliant Cherry Blossom”. No wonder we called them things like “Frank” and “Zeke” and “Betty”.

Anyway, showing that Car & Driver magazine has not completely devolved into fish wrap, they have a neat little piece about silly car names and there derivations.

Cars that get monikered with names like Isuzu GIGA 20 Light Dump, the Mazda Bongo/Bongo Friendee/Bongo Brawny, the Honda Life Dunk, the Mazda/Autozam Scrum Stand Off Truck, and the Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard.

“Oh that? That’s my new Isuzu truck. It is SO utilitarian, but at the same time, so mysterious.”

There’s more: the Nissan Elgrand Homy, the Sbarro Assystem, the Daihatsu Charade Social Poze, the Yamaha Pantryboy Supreme, and the Mitsubishi MUM 500 Shall We Join Us?

I know, I know, I should mention a car called the Assystem; your car has a system for your ass? For its own ass? But the last two just crack me up: the Yamaha Pantryboy Supreme, and the Mitsubishi MUM 500 Shall We Join Us?

“Yeah, I decided to spring for the Yamaha Pantryboy Supreme.” Are you frickin’ kidding me!? What the hell is a Pantryboy? Wait! Pretend I didn’t ask, I don’t wanna know.

Seriously though, the Mitsubishi MUM 500 Shall We Join Us?

First, that’s not a name, that’s a sentence, and secondly, no, no we will not join you.

Source: Neatorama

Race tracks should be this smooth … the Ford Fiesta in action … stay out of the left-hand lane, you moron! … “Sweet Jesus, was that a ’56?”

The bulk of the time I spent in France was out on the Atlantic Coast, in a little seaside fishing village/resort town. The next closest big town was named Royan, and seemed to be about the size of Portland Oregon.

To get there, we had to drive with our friends, Jeanne & Antoine, from Paris in a Rental car. Specifically, we were driving a Ford Fiesta. Don’t confuse this with the Fiesta of the late 70s early 80s, this is about the size and shape of Ford’s last version of the Escort here in the U.S..

We pick the thing up from Hertz in downtown Paris … the Hertz place is like rental places everywhere, fairly clean fairly efficient and fairly dehumanizing, like the DMV is it ran properly.

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This is actually rather pathetic.

Apparently, some middle class dude with a fair amount of money and absolutely NO taste got jealous of his upper class neighbor’s Rolls, and decided that his Toyota Camry (you read that right, Toyota Camry) could be just as pimp.

Uhhh…no. No, no, no. Plating a Camry in 24K gold does not, I repeat, DOES NOT make you cool.

Autoblog has the full story and gallery, if you feel like laughing at a poseur will brighten your day.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation 2008 Part Sept - Minivans of France

No, really, minivans … that size thing again … Don’t the French have large families? … sure seem cleaner than ours …

In many ways, minivans are the quintessential American vehicle, and, if you and I were being forthright and practical about our vehicle needs, we’d be driving minivans. Maximum space on the inside, minimum footprint on the outside, room for people, room for things, room for people and things, and reasonably efficient.

But, they lack any sort of fun in the driving department, so most car guys look at them as a necessary evil, like drip pans.

You’d be surprised to see a minivan outside of the US, and boy, I sure was when I saw my first minivan in Paris during this trip … then I saw another one, then another, and another … and then I realized that about one out of ten cars on the road in Paris and elsewhere was a minivan.

At first it was kind of disturbing, but then I realized that this is the same country that considers Jerry Lewis a comic genius and Mickey Rourke an underappreciated actor of lasting importance.

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