A Journey to the Disappointment Islands
BBC
Spring started with a couple little storms reminding us that this long winter hasn’t quite shaken itself loose yet. Want to get away? Click on the link above and marvel in how the writer’s middle-of-the-night curiosity about a pair of mis-named islands in the 17th century resulted in him visiting one of the last untrammeled pieces of paradise on the globe. For a lot of people I’m sure the idea of traveling so far just to get to a tiny spit of land that doesn’t even have a steady source of fresh water, much less a hotel, probably sounds awful. To me, though, this article fills the sails of my heart and strains at the anchor lines holding me down. Oh, to travel…
Walled Off in San Francisco
The Bold Italic
I know it’s not the best way to recommend an article by pointing out its shortcomings, but I wish this were longer and talked about more walled off rooms. That said, this made me think of a small space uncovered while helping my friend tear out drywall after the latest flood. About a foot square, but floor to ceiling and drywalled on the inside yet with no way to get to this space. What was it there for? The reality is likely much more mundane than the possibilities – it’s more than likely the space just represents the re-framing the unit went through and rather than incorporate the incongruity into the newly-framed room, it was walled off for the sake of simplicity. Or maybe…
The Dodge Neon: There Should Be More Cars Like This Today
Jalopnik
The car blog Jalopnik does an occasional piece they call “Redemption Garage” where they look at forgotten or misunderstood cars and make a case for why they mattered. By “occasional” I mean they’ve done two. The first entry was a Dodge Caliber and… no. But The Neon…
Okay, settle in or keep scrolling down because I’ve got thoughts…
First, this is a nod to Fern who gave up her beloved Neon a few years ago. She loved that car, but mechanical issues made it unfeasible and she’d just gotten a newer, more reliable car… She still misses it, though.
I get it for numerous reasons. First, there’s the purely emotional connection on develops with a car which I’ve written about pretty recently myself. But, I’d like to point out that there’s a lot to be said about the Neon mechanically.
There’s a whole class of cars – the vast majority you pass everyday – that I refer to as “appliance cars.” That is, most people don’t give a crap about their cars other than whether they’ll take them from point A to point B. There’s more, sure – most people want their rides to at least be carry their requisite stuff, aesthetically pleasing, and safe, too, but rarely does anything truly trump reliability. Start everyday. Don’t leave me or mine stranded. Think of your Toyota Camrys and Corollas, Honda Accords and Civics, Ford Fiesta, Focus, and Fusions… you get the idea. These are the best sellers that let Ford build the Mustang, or Honda to build the NSX, or Toyota to build the Supra. And while various automakers will try to style their cars differently or add this new whiz-bang feature or that gimmick, there’s not a lot of variation.
That wasn’t the case when the Neon debuted. It was different – the article goes into this in a number of ways and for that reason is worth reading – and it had to be. There’s a lot to be written about how Chrysler’s back was up against the wall and like the other two of The Big Three, they’d mostly ceded the sub-compact market to the Japanese automakers. But early-90’s Chrysler was scrappy: think of the Dodge Viper, the crazy Prowler, the redesigned Ram truck with that now-familiar big rig style front end. And they took a swing at the Japanese by offering a cheap car on an all new platform that had more power and more, well, fun. And it worked. Well, relatively speaking – to say they were fighting an uphill battle against the Corollas and Civics would be like saying if you jump high enough you can tough an airliner. But they made progress! The article talks about their “Hi!” ad campaign which I would argue foreshadowed a lot of Steve Jobs’ playbook when he came back to Apple a few years later – what the colorful iMac was to the beige PC, that’s what the Neon (it came in bright purple and green, for gods sake!) was to Corollas and Civics. Out of the box the Neon had personality!
Sadly, it wasn’t enough. Chrysler had deep-rooted problems that led them to sell out to Daimler-Benz before the end of the decade – an abysmally bad deal that eventually led them into bankruptcy in early 2009. I’m happy to say that their time since being purchased by Fiat has been really good for many reasons too numerous to mention, but that’s the happy ending to their story (at least so far).
PS: speaking of Chrysler, or more appropriately FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, as they’re now known), a couple weeks back Fern and I had a chance to go to the Silicon Valley Auto Show. I wanted to see one specific car: my future mid-life crisis vehicle, the forthcoming Jeep Gladiator pickup. Oh, it was glorious. It will be mine… in “Punk’n” orange. Here’s a link to Jeep’s online configurator. Blessedly, at the moment they don’t list prices, so I can trick out my Rubicon manual transmission orange monster with all the bells and whistles without utter hopelessness!
The ‘Forrest Gump’ sequel that never was, from O.J. to Oklahoma City
Yahoo! Entertainment
We’ve all seen “Forrest Gump” and it’s pretty safe to say we all are okay with it (I mean, you know, it grossed $677.9 million, so…). With that kind of adoration, why wasn’t there a sequel? I mean, other than it makes absolutely no sense it would have a sequel? Other than that? Well, but for September 11, it almost did. I really want to follow that up with a quip like, “And it would have been just as big a disaster!” but I won’t. I mean, yeah, I kinda just did. But I totally didn’t. But it would have been really bad. Maybe like one plane crashing into a building. Yes, I am going to hell. In fact I am driving the bus. And good seats are still available…
The Mortician and the Murderer
Topic Magazine
This long-read is dark. Illegal cremations? check. Trafficking in organs? check. Side helping of racketeering? You betcha. I remember when this story broke back in the day, but this is a comprehensive look at one of the most grisly scandals I can think of. Here’s a pull quote for you from one of the people who led to the whole thing being discovered: “‘Don’t tell me I don’t know what burning bodies smell like!’ the man had reportedly yelled. ‘I was at the ovens at Auschwitz!'” So, yeah, you may not want to read this one while eating. Just sayin’
