Elbow Street

This Biennium in Blogs

2010-01-26T22:02:00.002-05:00

Everyone still has them.

EDIT: On further reflection, no they don't. Facebook, you've killed the blogspot blog.

Things I'm Embarrassed About

2008-07-25T23:09:00.001-04:00

I find many New Yorker cartoons funny.

...and now your moment of zen.

2008-04-27T22:58:00.000-04:00

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/04/25/vo.germany.baby.giraffe.ap

Mickey Kaus Coins an Offensive New Term...

2008-02-11T20:36:00.000-05:00

Hispandering.

Apparently, any view on immigration that does not align with Señor Kaus' is actually a shameless pander to a minority group that is in a photo finish with African-Americans for most despised. [What group is most despised? - ed. Do you even need to ask?]

P.S. It turns out that "Hispandering" isn't a new term. But, it was coined by Mickey Kaus.

P.P.S. Tomorrow on "What Has Happen to the Ideological Heroes of My College Years?": What is going on with Paul Krugman? [Aren't these postscripts and conversations with a nonexistent editor Mickey Kaus trademarks? - ed. Yes, but a) they are useful, b) I've always wanted to do it and c) I have an excuse with this post.]

P.P.P.S. Come baseball season, learning how to type a "ñ" is going to come in handy. [Oh-wee-oh Magglio!! - ed. That's right.]

P.P.P.P.S Notice that the editorials, blog posts, etc. regarding the emails about Obama being a Muslim always denounce this "smear" against him. They never say, "So what if he is?"

P.P.P.P.P.S. Whew! See you in three weeks!!!

Uncommitted! Uncommitted! Uncommitted! Uncommitted!

2008-01-15T19:27:00.000-05:00

Something Must Be Said about This

2008-01-13T16:27:00.001-05:00

I'm going to go all Fire Joe Morgan on this NYT article. How Jerry Garrett got a gig as an automotive writer for the most important newspaper in the country is beyond me. (Jalopnik isn't fond of him either. Further proof that no one holds a grudge like a Michigander.)

HEAR the noise, feel the thunder, experience the lightning! Detroit is firing up the pyrotechnics as it prepares to play host to the 2008 North American International Auto Show. Perhaps all the hoopla will make it easier for the industry to forget, just for a while, the stark new realities of the showroom, where car buyers seem to be falling out of love with the kinds of vehicles that made Detroit the capital of the automobile world.

If you follow the Jalopnik link above, you'll see that Mr. Garrett is not a fan of both Detroit the city and Detroit the personification of the American automotive industry. Based on this paragraph, I'd say he is not a fan of marketing events either.

The huge auto show at Cobo Center downtown, where press previews start Sunday and doors open to the public on Saturday, Jan. 19 (through Jan. 27), is historically a loud, flashy and mostly unapologetic celebration of tire-burning, gas-guzzling, budget-busting vehicles, from big trucks and S.U.V.’s to racy sports cars and ostentatious luxury cruisers. Despite the considerable lip service that will be paid to green technologies, and a sizable fleet of concept cars showcasing various green ideas, the theme song of the show could well be “And the Band Played On.”

I'm going to assume that the song he is referring to is the Simple Minds track from their obscure mid-90's album Good News from the Next World, either that or he is making shit up. The fleet of concept cars to which he refers is apparently not so sizable that he can't ignore it for the rest of the article.

The auto industry in America faces a historic transformation. The playing field changed last Dec. 19, when President Bush signed a federal law mandating a 40 percent improvement in fuel economy by 2020. Later, 16 state governments and several environmental groups sued the federal government for the right to enact tougher emissions laws. And the year ended with new vehicle sales at the lowest level since 1998, amid shrinking demand for Detroit’s bread-and-butter models.

I don't really have a smart-ass comment to make about this paragraph. These are three verifiable facts the he has managed to get correct. ~~(I'm actually giving him the benefit of the doubt on this, I don't feel like rummaging around in vehicle sales statistics.)~~ (Actually, 2008 is predicted to be the worst year since 1998. But, it should be pointed out that this includes all manufacturers, apparently consumers don't want what anyone is selling. This certainly has more to do with the economy than with what auto makers are offering.)

I'll leave my argument about why CAFE standards are dumb to another time.

So, what significant new model introductions are Detroit’s Big Three
showcasing here? Essentially, it seems, even more of the same-old, same-old.

Ford is unveiling the new full-size F-150 pickup, still the nation’s most popular vehicle despite a sales meltdown late last year. (F-150 sales plunged by 105,000 units in 2007.)Development of the F-150, a truly crucial product for the troubled Ford Motor Company, was reportedly delayed for several months in 2006 for unspecified engineering changes intended to make the truck more competitive. Those changes, however, did not include making the F-150 smaller, lighter, less expensive or more environmentally friendly.

This is the paragraph that launched this post. Making the F-150 smaller/lighter would defeat the purpose of the F-150. It's a full-size pickup, there are already smaller pickups on the market, the F-150 is not one of them. Furthermore, the decline in sales is due mostly to the decline in home construction, not because buyers want a smaller truck. The larger and heavier pickup models are the ones that are selling better. Jerry Garrett knows this. He's the one who told me.

At the show, Ford is also unveiling the Explorer America, a concept
vehicle that suggests the next-generation Explorer may look a lot like a
Brinks armored car. Ford says the next Explorer will be powered, like several ofits new vehicles, by smaller, lighter, more efficient engines that can besouped-up with turbochargers and direct fuel injection.

OK, now I'm confused. I thought American manufacturers weren't releasing vehicles with smaller, lighter, more efficient engines? Make up your mind, Jerry!

Ford’s new 2009 F-150 will have some company, as Chrysler is expected to introduce a rival truck, the 2009 Dodge Ram, with a cattle run through the downtown streets.

The new Ram is said to have a more comfortable suspension, a nicer interior and other convenience features. But the Ram’s improvements, like those for the F-150 (which will be offered in a new, high-end Platinum model) have little to do with environmental concerns.

The auto companies need to release new trucks somewhere. If they had unveiled these new trucks at the L.A. Auto Show would that have changed Mr. Garrett's impression of it? Trucks, by their nature, are not environmentally-friendly. But, as evidence by the fact that the F-150 is the best selling vehicle in the country, there is a market for them. Automakers are in the business of making money, that means selling vehicles that people buy.

The other hometown company, General Motors, will put aside its
greener-than-green marketing campaign for a while to make the show’s most over-the-top introduction — a 620-horsepower Corvette ZR1 — the fastest, most powerful and most expensive Chevrolet in history. The Elvis of the auto show, this $100,000-plus limited-edition supercar has received breathless coverage in the enthusiast press.

I think a limited-edition car that costs more than what 90% of Americans make in a year is a bad example of an auto company's broader plans.

I'm going to skip ahead a little here.

So where is that next generation of vehicles capable of meeting those federal mandates, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and pioneering uses of alternative forms of propulsion? They seem to exist, for the most part, still somewhere over the rainbow and in television commercials.
Sales of the second-generation Toyota Prius hybrid, a relatively old model due for replacement before long, nonetheless soared 70 percent last year, with more than 180,000 sales in the United States alone. But Detroit automakers still have no equivalent vehicle — a compact sedan with a full hybrid system and a design not shared with gasoline models — though they have had since 1999 to develop one. A potential game-changer like the Chevrolet’s Volt electric vehicle won’t arrive until 2010, G.M. says.

For comparisons sake, slightly less than 700,000 F-150s were sold last year. I don't think that replacing the F-150 with a Prius clone is going to save Ford.

What does it matter if a hybrid shares a design with a gasoline model? It only matters if you want to make sure that everyone knows you driving a hybrid. Apparently, Mr. Garrett feels that American manufacturers need to put more of a focus on the self-righteous market. (Though judging by the John Mellencamp Chevy commercials and the Toby Keith Ford commercials, they may be doing this already.)

Skipping ahead again. (Not only is the next part a little boring, I also don't want to be sued for reprinting an entire NYT article.)

Chrysler will unveil three concept vehicles to serve as showcases for advanced environmental technologies. But while these are technologically feasible, they are likely to be well beyond the limited development budget of the privately owned Chrysler.

While Chrysler may have a limited development budget, I doubt if it has anything to do with it being privately owned.

Skipping...

Otherwise, the roster of Detroit debutantes is heavily laden with fairly conventional S.U.V.’s, car-based crossover wagons and big-engine sports cars. Only a handful of new sedans are being introduced, including the Hyundai Genesis, an upscale rear-drive sport sedan with a powerful V-8 and the Volkswagen Passat CC, a four-door car with a coupelike roofline. Mitsubishi is showing a sporty coupe, the Concept-RA, a hint of the next Eclipse.
Variations of vehicles introduced at overseas auto shows will be also make their debuts, including a BMW 1 Series convertible; a sedan version of the Ford Verve subcompact car; and BMW’s X6 crossover. Land Rover is showing a sleek LRX concept, currently in development in limbo until the company’s ownership picture is clarified; Tata, of India, is believed to be close to a deal with Ford to buy both Land Rover and Jaguar.

Wait! I thought we were talking about American automakers.

After taking some heat for its previous introductions of monstrous
trucks, like the Tundra pickup and Sequoia S.U.V., Toyota will use the 2008 Detroit show to highlight two small, efficient vehicles: the Venza compact crossover and the A-BAT hybrid, which has been called a Prius pickup truck.
With hybrid show cars proliferating, even a custom coachbuilder like
Fisker Coachbuild is getting into the act. The company, which has been rebodying BMW and Mercedes sports cars, will be showing a premium-priced plug-in hybrid luxury sedan.

Oh Toyota, you can do no wrong.

Hybrid shows cars are proliferating? What happened to "unapologetic celebration of tire-burning, gas-guzzling, budget-busting vehicles?" Oh well.

Oveplayed Meme of the Day

2008-01-09T19:22:00.000-05:00

It's a new feature!! (Despite the implications of the title, new feature will not be posted daily.)

Today's overplayed meme is:

Obama voters are misogynist, Clinton voters are racist.

I'm Alive!!

2008-01-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

Just very, very busy.

Thing the Tigers Should Not Do, pt.1.

2007-12-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

Count on Jacque Jones as an everyday left fielder: He has a career OPS+ of 100 making him the definition of average. This is an imporovement over his 87 OPS+ last season, though. Marcus Thames has a career OPS+ of 105, with a 99 in 2007. While not outstanding, this is, at least, and improvement over Jones. If you platoon them, you may actually have a decent left fielder.

This Fortnight in Blogs

2007-12-09T20:44:00.000-05:00

Carrie has a successful trip to Atlanta.
Two of them celebrate the anniversary of their blog.
Tom...mmy issues a retraction and posts a video. (If you are that spectacularly ignorant, why appear on a quiz show?)
Shonda & Ryan acquire a new car. It is promptly egged by miscreants.
School has changed a lot since my day. Maybe if this was true, these folks would know that Treesylvania is kind of redundant.
Steve posts tributes to his favorite holiday movies.

Live from Westlake, OH

2007-12-01T23:14:00.000-05:00

The weather has impeded my process home from New York. I decided to take the long way home instead of going through Canada again, that way if I got stuck, at least I would be in my own country. When I reached Cleveland, the roads started getting pretty bad, so here I am . At least I have free Internet, which could not be said of the Rochester Hyatt.

Things to do this week.

2007-11-25T20:27:00.000-05:00

Get my suit dry-cleaned.
Come to terms with actually winning at fantasy football.
Find my passport.
Attend this.
Cross the US-Canadian border four times with the back of my Jeep filled with black cases (Model ST-12M).
Be interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers.
Possibly be interrogated by their Canadian counterparts.
Think up a blog post that does not involve the New York Times or bullet points.

Things I did this weekend.

2007-11-25T20:14:00.000-05:00

Made homemade Kahlua.
Lost an epic game of Trivial Pursuit. The original version is HARD.
Was the only member of my family to stay awake for the entirety of Ocean's Thirteen.
Was able to see my father carry on a conversation with Don Cheadle in his sleep.
Drove over 500 miles.
Listened to most of Assassination Vacation, again.

This Week in Blogs

2007-11-25T19:39:00.000-05:00

Steve is in a bicycle vs. pedestrian accident.
Mrs. White prepares for her pitch meeting.
Ryan runs FIFTY FUCKING MILES!
Shonda gains weight, in a good way.
Tom...my gets nostalgic.
Paul and Carrie have a house guest. Said house guest rents them a HD tv. Note to future visitors to the Szerencse household: a high bar has been set.
I am found out.

New York Times Provincialism Watch

2007-11-25T19:29:00.000-05:00

This week finds us at the Pentagon City Costco, in Arlington, VA. The Times' crack reporters have discovered that some people, even wealthy, powerful people, like to save money by shopping at discount stores. How gauche.

Side note: It pains me say say this, because there are few people I respect more than Ben Bradlee, but his son looks like he's a tool. I think it's the sunglasses.

Stay Classy, LSJ

2007-11-25T19:14:00.000-05:00

The Lansing State Journal is now displaying adds for Girls Gone Wild. Nice.

This Week in Blogs

2007-11-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

Carrie receives fashion advice in REM.
Paul comments on papers in verse.
Tom...my gets punny with pre-Fry & Laurie Fry & Laurie.
Everybody's favorite pseudonymous teacher forgets... something.
Shonda & Ryan post ultrasound pictures of their offspring or possibly a U-boat.
Steve post a short, short story, is acknowledged for it and celebrates a birthday. Happy birthday, Steve!

Further proof that New Yorker readers are weird.

2007-11-17T10:38:00.000-05:00

While researching the last post, I uncovered this blog. Sadly, it only lasted three months and has not been updated in over a year, despite having been linked to by Gawker and Sasha Frere-Jones. However, it did spawn the most self-righteous blog comment in the history of self-righteous blog comments.

The printed matter related sports curse no one talks about.

2007-11-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows about the SI Cover Curse and the Madden Cover Curse, but I think I have uncovered a new one: The Overly-Long Magazine Profile Curse. In the October 28th issue of Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine, Michael Lewis had 7139 word article about field-goal kickers and how they are always the scapegoat. Much of this article focused on Adam Vinatieri; we all know how that turned out for him two weeks later.

One day after the Vinatieri story, a profile of Scott Boras appeared in the New Yorker. Now his clients seem to be jumping ship. The Tigers' own Kenny Rogers has given him the boot, and it looks like A-Rod, the crown jewel in Boras' stable of athletes, is thinking about leaving too.

Needs more green!!!!

2007-11-14T20:46:00.000-05:00

This is an ugly, ugly blog. It hurts even my eyes. I may have to fix that.

New York Times Provincialism Watch

2007-11-14T20:05:00.000-05:00

Welcome to what should be a reccurring feature here at The Elbow. I will use this space to point out a frequent issue I have with my favorite source of news: its belittling or bemused coverage of the lives of people that live outside of the northeast corridor. I was unsure whether to call it New York Times Provincialism Watch or New York Times Parochialism Watch. What do you think?

In today's installment we catch up with Susan Stellin in Maine, where she says, "Hunt-ing?" Apparently, when you get north of the Berkshires, people like to shoot deer. Who would have known?

It appears this is my first entry in three years.

2007-11-02T23:31:00.000-04:00

So, I, apparently, had this blog thing totally wrong. "Blogs are sooo 2002" will go down with "That Titanic is unsinkable," "Ze Germans will never think to go around ze wall" and "Americans aren't dumb enough to vote for George W. Bush" in the annals of bad predictions. I will end my career as a futurist with this prediction: I have no future as a futurist.

So what have I learned in three years? I've learned that I suck at fantasy football. I've learned that weddings are very expensive. I've learned that as you head south-east in Michigan the demand curve for beer moves the right. I've learned never to rent a tuxedo from a cruise line. I've learned that I can be relied upon for an average of one blog post every five months (which may actually be more than Paul).

So, I am going to give this another try. I may actually tell people this time.

Did they try playing it backward?

2004-09-27T23:02:00.000-04:00

CNN.com - Elliott Smith's latest album offers few clues - Sep 27, 2004

Behind the scenes at NBC.

2004-08-25T19:08:00.000-04:00

From today's NYT. Funny.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: And Now, Another Olympic Moment

I'm a dork, pt. 2.

2004-08-22T16:59:00.000-04:00

Funny. True.

The Apple Product Cycle

I, Victim.

2004-08-22T16:03:00.000-04:00

My girlfriend gets back into town. We're heading out to my car for a fun day of visiting open houses, when I notice that someone has decided it would look better with a silver squiggle of spray paint down the side. I'm understandably upset by this, considering the hemming and hawing I did last night about whether to leave my car on the street. This is, apparently, what I get for being too lazy to take the 2 minutes to move my car around back.

So, my girlfriend (hereafter known as M) and I head out to a foaming brush place that she knows of on Oakland. We want to see if we can get any of the paint off. I realized that this seems kind of futile, but we were able to remove some of the paint.

Upon our return home, I call to make a police report, in case I need it for an insurance claim. I was expecting them to take a statement over the phone, instead they send out a member of Lansing's Finest. He looks at my car, writes down the appropriate information, takes a picture and heads on his way. It turns out that this was part of a string of incidents; he was on his way to take a picture of another vandalized car. In the process, I may have inadvertently offended the officer:

Me: "I wasn't expecting them to send an officer; I was just looking to document this for insurance purposes."

Officer: "You know... We actually try to solve these."

Me: "Sorry."

Oh well.

Thus, I now have to include a trip to MAACO this week.

Growing the number of awkward sentence constructions?

2004-08-22T02:34:00.000-04:00

Is this where the phrase "growing the economy" comes from? Is it me, or did W start this? I honestly cannot remember that wording being used more than four years ago. Maybe I have selective amnesia. Unfortunately, this phrase does not seem to be going away; rather it has wormed its way into the lexicon.

Secret tunnels beneath Chicago.

2004-08-21T23:53:00.000-04:00

Interesting site about small tunnels that ran under most of downtown Chicago. One of those random bits of trivia my friends and family will give me shit for knowing in the future.

Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad History

Yeah, I'm a dork.

2004-08-21T22:41:00.000-04:00

I know blogs are sooo 2002, but this is the kind of thing that happens when I'm left home alone. I'll probably end up doing this for a week, before getting bored. However, I'm bored now, so here it is - a blog.

The Lutheran in me knows that this is a pointless and self-indulgent endeavor - my thoughts and opinions are not unique and are, therefore, not worth sharing.

Also, it is an excuse to say nom de plume.