Saturday, September 22, 2012

Ready the Vomit Bag

Mercy.  Reminds me of a game I play.  "Ugly or Unhappy."  You play it by driving up on a Prius and you guess whether the driver is unhappy (usually frowning), ugly or both.  You all make your bets and the driver passes the Prius, you peer into the Prius driver's window and confirm who was right.

Usually everybody, no matter what their bets, and no, I'm not making that up.  I have 7 years experience in this game.  You should try it yourself and see if I'm lying.

8 comments:

Will Brown said...

Work at the same plant as a woman who drives a Prius; have to say this doesn't only apply when she's driving it. Maybe this is just a prerequisite condition to deciding to buy one of the POS.

Tom the Impaler said...

Once filled, the vomit bag should be chunked straight into his face.

Ping Jockey said...

Captain, what is this 'thing' that you have about the Prius? I've noticed it before in a few of your previous posts.

I have had mine for six years (and nearly 90,000 miles) now -- I love the 40+ MPG it gets on secondary roads and in city driving, and the 50+ MPG it gets on the interstate (although to be honest, it does drop in MPG to the high 40's when you go over 65 MPH). Some people have laughed when I told them that I own a Prius -- I get to laugh at the gas pump.

The quality of the workmanship is evident: I have faithfully maintained it on schedule (as any good owner would), and the only major item that I have had fail was the fan unit for the cabin cooling system (due to an interior short in the motor). My girlfriend's youngest sister has had her Prius sedan for over ten years and over 100,000 miles, and it is still going strong.

If you don't like the size of the Prius itself, you can get sedan-sized vehicles (such as the Camry) with the hybrid system; I have talked with owners of hybrid system Camrys, and their mileage is virtually identical to mine.

In deciding on my Prius, the selling point I was interested in was it's high MPG -- why should I pay thousands for a conventional gas-engined car (which would get 35 MPG at most), when for about $5000 more I could get one that I know would get 40 to 50+ MPG?

The era of cheap fuel is over, and (with the system set up the way it is) the price of gas is never going to go below $2 a gallon again. Our society had better accept that and adapt to it.

If American automakers had a vehicle that was comparable to the Prius, I'd buy it -- but it seems that they would rather live in a delusional fantasyland of the 50's and 60's when gas was about 50 cents a gallon (I know that because I was born in '56), than adapt to our present reality and develop their own hybrid.

It has been at least ten years since the Prius was introduced and what do they have to offer? The Chevy Volt, an overpriced sedan that uses a gasoline engine OR battery-power. (When people can buy Model T's, you can't stay in business making buggy whips -- no matter how much you insist that people should buy them.)

FYI -- I am NOT a leftist looney, an environmentalist whacko, nor an Obozo supporter. I am a solid small-government conservative (NOT a Republican -- let me make THAT clear!), a Navy vet/retiree (in fact, my 'handle' is a nickname for my Navy rating), and a sensible environmentalist (I grew up in a rural small town -- in fact, some people in my past have probably called me a hick or a redneck).

Captain Capitalism said...

Ping,

My ridicule (as well as 100% of all the other conservatives and libertarians' ridicule) for Prius drivers is DEFINITELY not aimed at you.

The reason why is that you are DEFINITELY not the typical Prius driver. And I mean that. You are the FIRST AND ONLY Prius driver that has ever spoken any sense or logic I've ever ran into.

You have to (like the genuinely nice, true, caring American woman) look around you and at your peers.

The remaining 99.9999% of Prius drivers are hypocritical, pompous assholes that nobody likes. My ire, as well as the rest of the world, of Prius drivers is not aimed at you, but the people you've unfortunately by purchase associated yourself with.

If you really want to ef with people's minds, put a ROmney bumper stick on your Prius.

That would not only cause confusion, but I GUARANTEE you, you will have other Prius drivers lecturing you or giving you a mean look on the road as if you betrayed them. Thus, belying the fact they never bought the car for environmental reasons, but political ones.

Regardless, still, you can play the Prius game too! And see if I'm not right!

Cpt.

Tom said...

As a man who owns a bitchin sports convertible that runs on premium, burns through tires like they’re made of wax, and makes eco-friendly cars piss themselves with oil when it rumbles by (like in the Transformers movies), I feel I should point out that while the Prius claims to be a "green" car that's "better for the environment" and "uses less oil".....

It takes 113,000,000 BTUs of energy to build one of those futuristic pussy-mobiles called a Toyota Prius.... which is not only a loss of Man Points to own and drive, but also a loss of Man Points to rent, ride in, fuck in, or even see rolling down the street. 113,000,000 BTU’s equals 1,000 gallons of gasoline. You could drive a 98 Toyota Tercel on that amount of gasoline for like 7 years. That means by purchasing an “eco-friendly” car, you are pissing away 7 years of driving in one fucking purchase. If you don’t get 7 years of driving out of that hybrid piece of shit (which the warantee guarantees you won’t) you just fucked Mother Earth and kicked her cat across the lawn on your way out.

Old cars are better for the environment than new hybrid cars. So why don’t we promote old cars as the “eco-friendly” alternative to hybrids?

Joe Bar said...

Or, we could all just ride motorcycles. :-)

S.Lynn said...

Love the South Park episode where if you drive a Prius you love to smell your own farts because they smell so good (to you). It's that attitude that I hate-Prius drivers are tree-huggers and think they're superior that they drive slower. Love to speed past them and blow their doors off.

Aynsley said...

I take public transit to work. I like to play "Crazy, Drunk, or Performance Artist".