Justin Cox's Mindless Chatter » car http://justincox.com Home to a part time super hero. Maybe. Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:30:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 This is why GM should have been allowed to go bankrupt… http://justincox.com/2009/this-is-why-gm-should-have-been-allowed-to-go-bankrupt/ http://justincox.com/2009/this-is-why-gm-should-have-been-allowed-to-go-bankrupt/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:59:42 +0000 Justin http://justincox.com/?p=1298 If you spend as much time loitering on the internet as me, you may have already seen this; if not, well, prepare to be astounded. GM, the auto maker that you and I basically now own whether you like it or not, has created the future in modern transport. They’re calling it the P.U.M.A. which stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility Project — I don’t know why they didn’t call it the more accurate PUMAP. Either way, this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in awhile.

PUMA!

I'm a PUMA and I'm awesome. At least I think I am.

GM collaborated with Segway on this project, basically for the hell of it. I mean, since the Segway really revolutionized walking and everyone desired one, logically we’d all want some strange gyroscopic roadster. Hopefully you can see the sarcasm dropping off that last sentence. Really though, there’s no way anyone is going to want a roughly $5000 thing that rides at 35 MPH and goes a whole 35 miles before needing to be recharged. And by no one, I really mean no one. What exactly is the market for this thing?

And furthermore, since I’m now funding GM’s existence, I demand that my money be better spent researching and developing better, more viable products — you know, the kind that people will actually buy. Either that or the next time GM decided they can’t afford to continue being in existence, because it will happen again, maybe the government should say “no. You guys go and see what bankruptcy feels like and maybe you won’t make things that are ridiculous.”

]]> http://justincox.com/2009/this-is-why-gm-should-have-been-allowed-to-go-bankrupt/feed/ 4 I might be cursed… http://justincox.com/2008/i-might-be-cursed/ http://justincox.com/2008/i-might-be-cursed/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:54:38 +0000 Justin http://www.justincox.com/?p=805 Flat TireI had a flat tire today. You might be thinking, big deal. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t a big deal. Though this is, roughly, my sixth flat tire over the course of the last three or four years. Like I said, I think I might be cursed.

This all started back in 2004 with Hurricane Charlie. Prior to returning to Tallahassee I caught a flat tire from some of the debris. No big deal. It happens. However, that set off a chain of events that no man should have to go through.

Over the course of the next 18 months I ended up with another four, I kid you not, flat tires. The worst of which was a hole in the sidewall of a tire that was so bad I had to put on a spare in the middle of nowhere on I-10 and spend the night in the exact halfway point between Tallahassee and Lake City (see nowhere). That wasn’t much fun at all.

I thought the streak ended after I bought a new set of tires two or so years back. Surely when I bought a new car last July my luck had changed. But sadly I was wrong. I caught a nice screw, about an inch and a half long, right in the tread this morning. The good news is that I can change a tire using those crappy jacks in under 20 minutes. The bad news is that now I’m going to be absolutely paranoid as to when the next one’s going to go.

Think you have worse luck when it comes to tires than me? Share your horror story in the comments.

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