Views from a car

Well looky here, it must be Friday again. That was fast. How's everybody doing now that we've reached the middle of January? 2009 already feels ok for me; usually I can't believe it's whatever year it is until early March, but maybe I'm getting more accepting in my old age. In any case, I'm glad to see you again. I have a bunch of smaller items that have been sitting in my inbox for a while. Together, they actually form something resembling a theme, so I'm just going to pound them out. Get comfy, friends.

This theme I spoke of in the last paragraph revolves around things I have seen or heard while driving recently. To clarify though, these are not items that would normally go into the Car Watch section of the post. No bumper stickers, license plates, or license plate frames here, so don't worry about me poaching from myself. You'll see what I mean in no time.

A little while ago, my lovely wife and I took the 101 north up to Ventura. Those of you who know that route also know that we passed Camarillo on the way. It's a good thing we knew the name of that city already, because the sign that normally says "Welcome to Camarillo" was altered. "Camarillo" had a big line of spray paint though it, and someone wrote, "FUCK IT" in its place. "I thought that was in Thailand," I said, very pleased with myself. I wonder if that sign confused tourists, leading them to turn around because "FUCK IT" wasn't on any of their maps. One can only hope.

Speaking of Camarillo, I once had this train of thought: "Camarillo is the letter C and then amarillo. Amarillo means yellow in Spanish, so it's C yellow. That sounds like cielo, which means sky or heaven in Spanish. Therefore, Camarillo is...heaven!" I'm sure that's what the city's founders had in mind.

I saw a sign from my car recently that said, "Good Used Tires." It was the "Good" that really stood out for me and made me contemplate what they were actually selling. After considerable contemplation, I came to several conclusions. First, I guess having "Good" in there is a necessity since no one would want to buy bad used tires (or even so-so ones). Then I thought some more and realized, "Hey, why are there good used tires out there?" I still don't really have an answer. I mean, it's been my experience that people tend to drive on tires until they're not safe enough to have on your car. As tire companies like to point out, they're the only safety feature that actually touches the road. Even more so, tires seem to be one of those things that people only replace when they really need to because of the expense. So where would "good used tires" come from? My only logical answer would be cars with relatively new tires that otherwise stopped working for one reason or another. I guess a totaled car could still have its tires be fully functional. Same with one that was a lemon, right? I still don't like it though.

Another company name I saw was on a large truck: "SCG - Select Carrier Group." Ok, I can dig it. It's website though was http://www.selectscg.com/. Yep, that's Select Select Carrier Group. I understand that those are different uses of select (one being an active verb and the other an adjective meaning 'superior' or 'chosen'), but it still sounds redundant - and therefore bothersome - to me.

There's another company name I spied. This one is called Web. I'll give you ten guesses as to what they do. Go ahead. Ok, did anyone guess, "Multifamily laundry systems"? Didn't think so. I saw that and sent myself a note to ridicule their confusing company name. But then I checked out their website and saw that they've actually been around "for nearly six decades." Then I felt sad for them. Imagine having a company for over 40 years. You named it something that made sense to you but was more metaphorical than really spelling out what you do. That's fine, companies do that all the time, and we understand what they're doing. Then, the largest technological advance in your lifetime comes along and goes by the same name. You can't change your name because then you're giving in and ignoring the decades of customers who know you by your name already. So you stick with it, and every smart ass blogger who sees your van thinks you're a moron at first instead of an unfortunate side effect to the online industry's inception and subsequent boom. Hang in there, Web. By your twelfth decade, no one will remember the internet.

I heard a commercial in my car (is this a theme or what?) for an internet security company called Go Trusted. For starters, I just think that's a horrible name. But my point is this: their domain name is the same as their company name. So what does it look like? "Got rusted." If you saw "gotrusted" written somewhere, wouldn't you put the imaginary space between the two words that actually go together? And that's a really bad image for something that's supposed to be a helpful product. Come to think of it, I can't really use "go trusted" in a regular sentence. I just tried, and they're all super forced and awkward sounding. For example: "When investing, I would rather go trusted and established paths than experimental ones." And that sentence just took me three minutes to write. The moral of this paragraph: I don't like it.

Speaking of investing, I heard another radio commercial for a company in that realm. The thing is, I'm not sure if their name is Invest Tools or Investools. I waited for them to spell that out for me at the end of the commercial, but they didn't. They did tell me to go to either tryinvesttools.com or tryinvestools.com, but I don't know which. Then, the icing on the cake was when they spelled "try" for me twice. "That's t-r-y inves(t)tools.com." Thanks, I was really hung up on spelling that word.

Last but so very far from least, I saw "BM Plumbing Services." I swear on all that I hold dear. And you know what? I'm gonna leave that one alone. When the jokes write themselves, it's not nearly as fun.

But you know what is fun? A return to your regularly scheduled program: Car Watch!

My favorite brother called me to tell me about a plate he saw: "OH GUY." While I'll acknowledge that it could be someone named Guy, there's little excitement in that reading. Unless it's done in a sexy woman's voice, then it's a little more intriguing. Instead, I like to think that it's some dude who fancies himself a bit of a comedian around his office. "I went out to Chez Ne Pas last night-" someone will start to say. 'Ohhh!" he'll interject in a "My, aren't you fancy" tone. Later, someone will say, "I'm sore from working out this morning." For that, he uses his, "I'm pretending to be afraid of you" version of "Oh." "My kid's selling magazine subscriptions again this year," someone will say in a conversation across the room to another co-worker. That one gets the "Oh" with a side of eyeroll. You get where I'm going. He thinks he's carved out a funny persona as The Oh Guy. They just think he's a douchebag.

Next up, I pulled into a tight spot at the market a little while ago. As I got out, I saw the car next to me had this license plate frame: "Morons, Morons. I'm surrounded by morons." Then I realized that since I was parked next to him/her, that made me a moron by definition. I didn't like that. I did absolutely nothing moronic in that situation, but this person was flatly calling me dumb. What was more troubling to me was the fact that no one sees that frame unless they're near the car. Therefore, the frame is essentially designed to insult the intelligence of absolutely everybody who reads it. That's no way to make friends.

And lastly, my homey Rockabye saw a bumper sticker and, as all the cool kids are doing, sent it to me. It read, "To neuter is cuter." My initial thought on this is not a very appreciative one: Just because something rhymes, that doesn't mean it makes sense, jerkface. But then I thought about it a little more, and I must say, my stance has changed dramatically. You see, I don't really like seeing a male dog's...junk. Without said junk, the nether regions are more streamlined, which I would argue makes the area more aesthetically pleasing. (That might be a little strong. Instead, I'll say the streamlining makes the area less aesthetically displeasing.) By that logic, "cuter" suddenly isn't that far off. What's next? "You get a good grade if your pet is spayed?" "To castrate is great?" "Nix the scrotum but leave the totem?"

That's it for me, friends. Fear not; I'll be back in a week with some more of these thoughts, observations, stories, and taunts of defenseless people. In the meantime, Happy 3rd Birthday on Monday to my little buddy T-Roy. Happy 2nd birthday to the adorable Ty-baby on Tuesday, which is also little Emma's 0.5 birthday and our new President's first day at work. I hope someone brings in bagels or something to build some camaraderie. Have a great weekend and week, folks. In the meantime, you can always email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. Peace out.