The Pontiac burns
I stand and watch it smolder
Twelve payments remain.
mr crash? what did
happen this fine august day
that inflamed your car?
12 payments left from when
as I see some chrome
on your car's bumper
Insurance agent
Might be of some help here
But probably not
Tell us what happened
Curious monkeys wish to
know all the details.
Insurance Man says:
"This is an act of Monday"
Chrome does not burn well
What is up with that!
Is that really your car, crash?
Time to bike to work
I wanna ride my by-cylcle
By-cycle, By-cycle
BYYYYY - CYCLELLLLLLLLLL
That happened to me once when I was a junior in high school. I can tell the story later, it was pretty funny (but not at the time).
Posted by: adampsyche on August 26, 2002 07:39 PMThat is not my car
Mine did not burn so fiercely
Alas! It did burn.
Alternator seized,
smoldered and began to flame;
I pulled to the side
Ran into a store
Borrowed an extinguisher
Doused the spreading fire.
Typing in haiku
Does not do enough justice
I think I'll stop now!
...
It's actually pretty funny now that I think about it. I'd just taken out a loan this morning from my credit union, which I was going to use to pay off my 401(k) loan, which would free me up to take a larger 401(k) loan, which would then pay off the new loan, the car loan, and pay the closing costs on our home refinancing. Apparently the car heard that it was soon to be paid off and decided it was time to commit suicide by self-immolation.
It failed, though, because a rebuilt alternator is only about sixty bucks and I put the fire out before it could melt all the wiring under the hood. However, this left me without transportation to work because the kids all went back to school today and the wife needed her van for shuttle service, so I finally got to license my Monte Carlo that's just been parked in the garage for two months now.
But it was sure cool to see the fire department come zooming up and do their thing, even though it was just smoldering by that point. It at least gave people something to talk about.
Posted by: Crash on August 26, 2002 07:43 PMYou have my pity;
Though when it comes to driving,
I've no fucking clue.
Right outside my office the other day,
I saw in flames a Cabriolet
Rubberneckers gathered round
And watched it burn right to the ground
The car went up like old-growth forest
And I thought "Oh god! Why not a Taurus?"
I drive a Golf each day you see
And was scared one day it would be me.
At least now you don't
have to hear someone shout out
"Dude, where is my car?"
Kaf, I understand your trepidation
As no one wants a conflagration.
Just be thankful for the realization
You'll never get into
A Pinto.
An Hot-o-mobile
Mad commuter heard to cry
"Gah! My Fiero!"
You fooled me, you did
As I worried about you
With a name like Crash.
:)
Posted by: dejah420 on August 26, 2002 08:48 PMThe car is in flames,
Twelve payments yet to be made.
Marshmallows, anyone?
So much for the hoopdee
And the short jaunts to 7-11
This car has seen better days
But the rest will be in car-heaven
My neighbor had that happen to her car. The scary part was it was simply sitting in her driveway and the wiring in her door caught fire spontaneously-it set her car alarm off,thank God, or none of us would have noticed till the gas tank exploded. I think at that point the whole neighborhood would have had a clue.
Poor neighbor had just put $600 worth of work on her car air conditioner that very morning.
Posted by: b****fire on August 26, 2002 10:19 PMHey, hey!
Edgeling -- not Ed Geling -- is back.
i disappeared for awhile because a swarm of nasty viruses have waged war on my person, and i have spent the last two days wallowing in a feverish, sweaty-sheeted, moaning-and-thrashing abyss of my own crapulence.
in which time i encountered no monkeys, or images of any monkeys....
But i did have a deep thought:
The Black Riders from LOTR... were they the prototype of all the other soulless nearly-invincible lurking bloodless assassinfiends of the late 20th?
Would we have Predator, Terminator, the Resident Evil thingies, or a lot of other crap if not for Tolkien?
Talk amongst yourselves...
-resumes diseased wallow-
Posted by: Edgeling on August 27, 2002 03:11 AMSpeaking of bad mornings:
wake up this morning
what is that smell that I smell?
dead mouse on the floor
Rude awakening
Odor of belated mouse
Worse than bedmate's farts
The Black Riders from LOTR... were they the prototype of all the other soulless nearly-invincible lurking bloodless assassinfiends of the late 20th?
I don't think so. I think like the other s you mention they are a distillation of the fear of the unknown, anthropomorphized.
I think even early man had fears that he could never put a face to, a personality or identity to, and has always made up spectres because it is more comforting to have something to blame for those late-night chills.
Posted by: kafkaesque on August 27, 2002 11:35 AMYou can go back way earlier than Tolkien. Greek Mythology, beliefs about witchcraft, Satan, religion, selling your soul, etc. through the centuries.
With a character like the Terminator (okay, i'm getting wayyyy too deep into this but why not?) I think you could say is based greatly on the legend of the Golem. Something which has been created by a man (like computers & artificial intelligence were created by mankind) but soon the man learns he cannot control it. The Golem is bloodless, very violent and supposedly soulless, just obeying orders at first but then learning about emotions and defying his creator. So, you've got the first Teminator who is like the early Golem, then the second Arnold one in T2 who starts to question what he has been created for, what is emotion, etc.
Like Kafkaesque said, I think these are issues and fears that people have been trying to deal with for sometime. I guess since the whole concept of a "soul" came into being.
Okay, I think I should go get some coffee now.
Posted by: witchstone on August 27, 2002 11:56 AMediting some code
forget to save lights go out
much cursing ensues
Also, the "Terminator" story especially contains the fear of the "uncanny"*. Like the golem, Arnie is an empty shell, the soulless human, as my esteemed witchy colleague said.
Man is attempting to remake himself, only better, and pays the price for it. Maybe this is related to ancient fears involving hubris, etc.
Stories like that can be seen as cautionary tales, warning mankind not to play God.
*Freud coined the notion of the uncanny (unheimlich in German) and it is usually used to describe something mysterious, strangely familiar, or evoking terror. (quoted from some website or other somewhere)
Posted by: kafkaesque on August 27, 2002 12:05 PMSo I just remembered this dream I had last night. I know, I know, nothing is more irritating than people endlessly trying to explain their dreams "And then we weren't at your house anymore, we were in this weird room with this big poster of Rick Springfield but you had turned into Corey Feldman blah blah blah." Well, don't worry, none of you were in it and I'll keep it short.
But it was my first html dream and who better to share it with? In the dream my sister and I were back in high school and she was learning html for some reason and she wanted to code "Cure Red" for the colors on everything. Cure Red, as in the band The Cure. It was like this darker, bloody red.
Um. What?
Posted by: witchstone on August 27, 2002 02:28 PMWe got broadsided tonight, abouyt 6 pm, by a girl in a
Hyundai who ran the red light at 6th and RUssell in
Covington. My whole family was in the van, my
husband, Andy, all the dogs. The van is totalled.
Thank god it was heavy aNDS Styrong, because she hit
the pasenger side at about 40 mph.
I feel a bit sore and pretty upset. David is acting
very British, like there is nothing at all to b e
upset aboput. Andy is not acting at all upset, and
seems to have full range of motion, etc. I guess He
did not see the van coming nad did not brace himsoef
for the collision like I id.
Please think of us tonite.
Posted by: tizzie on October 15, 2002 08:22 PMOh, man.
Glad you're OK tizzie. Best to the whole family.
Posted by: kafkaesque on October 15, 2002 08:45 PMIsn't October the month.
Live to post about it on 9622 is about as good as you can expect.
Tizzie: statistically (actually probabilistically) this means you and your family should have no problems at all for ten or so years!
:)
Posted by: Miguel on October 15, 2002 08:51 PMGlad you're okay, tizzie! Good god, people drive like jackasses...Hold on to the kids and hubby tight for the evening, and hunker down with Young Frankenstein or Duck Soup or something that has nothing to do with action-car chases. Maybe Best in Show! With popcorn, ice cream & hot fudge, and a nice juicy cocktail for you and the hubby.
Posted by: readymade
on
October 15, 2002 08:56 PM
Dang, the roads are full of nincompoops. Speaking of which, did the driver of the other car get hurt badly? Yikes.
My mom and I were in the car when someone pulled out from a side road right in front of us. They slammed on the brakes and thank God they held cuz the roads were slick (rainiest drought I have ever seen.)
Hope you folks will think to go get checked. Lots of times you don't notice your owies till the day after. And-I am really glad none of you were badly hurt.
Posted by: b****fire on October 15, 2002 09:08 PM"What happened to Crash's Pontiac, anyway?"
Crash fixed it, and it's now parked on the RV pad next to Crash's garage where Crash's Jeep used to be. Does Miguel wish to purchase a used Pontiac with just a touch of smoky scent? Does anyone wish to smack Crash for using the third person?
Glad you and yours are OK, Tizzie.
Miguel wishes to use it when he descends on the Davis home (for he has not forgotren Friday is pizza night and that there's a barbecue on Sunday, even though member Crash conspired to destroy the thread where these were mentioned) and will be bringing this year's almonds (out next week) to smoke in the Pontiac's roomy and propitious interior.
Posted by: Miguel on October 15, 2002 09:13 PMThe Commish wonders how Miguel can possibly get all those almonds into a pipe (as rolling papers would obviously out of the question) and also hopes Tizzie and her family are doing okay.
The Commish also blames Crash for starting this whole new third-person conceit.
* waves like the Queen *
Posted by: yhbc on October 15, 2002 09:26 PMThank you for all of your good thoughts. We're still a bit shook up this morning, but no injuries. We were lucky! The other driver, a teenaged girl, was also unhurt. Her Hyundai crumpled like an accordion, but she had her seat belt on, and the airbag worked.
I apologize for that dreadful post! Can you tell I was upset?! sheesh. women!
Posted by: tizzie on October 16, 2002 08:38 AMHey, no apologies for the post! Remember, I freaked when my daughter got hit by a car (no injuries, not even a bruise-a miracle cuz the CAR did not escaped unscathed-heh)
It is fantastic that everyone is okay. Cars can be fixed or replaced but people are priceless!
And hopefully that poor girl learned her lesson...
Posted by: b****fire on October 16, 2002 08:56 AMA note about posting images:
We encourage users to post images, especially those hilarous pics of monkeys
wearing dresses or programming for Linux. But posting images that reside on someone
else's server is considered by many to be bandwidth theft. Our thoughts
on the matter, along with some solutions to the problem, can be found
here. Thanks.
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