Monday, August 31, 2009
Just wondering
Why don't cars have one seat in the front? Why do they have to have two seats? No matter how small the car is it has two seats. I say it is a waste of space. You could keep important things in that extra space. Hell you could get rid of the trunk completely.
They seem to want to come out with smaller and smaller more fuel efficient cars. They are having trouble finding space for batteries and and extra generators. I say the front passenger space would be a great place. And the extra space freed up would give the car makers some room to put in a proper back seat in case someone really needs or wants to have passengers. As it is now, lots of small cars have bench backseats or so little leg room as to be unusable anyway.
True story--one year I was going to my aunt's for holiday. I can't remember if it was Christmas or Thanksgiving. She had a Chevy Cavalier. Which being not only a small car, was a dangerous piece of shit car. So my aunt is driving and my grandmother was in the passenger seat. That means I had to wedge myself into the back. So the car being two door I squeeze into the back past the front passenger seat. Then because my relatives are normal human size there was nowhere for my legs. So I kind of half curled up on the back bench seat. I couldn't have sat up even if there was leg room anyway because God has seen fit to give me a head but the designers of the Cavalier apparently didn't think that people with heads would be sitting in the back seat of the car so they didn't add the room for one. Needless to say the ride was not one of the highlights of my life. Getting out of the car was much more fun when I had to butter my ass up to be able to get out of the back.
If they had put a proper back seat in the car and not had a front passenger seat it would have been a much better ride. Especially in a commuter car. Or an economy car. Why do you need four places to possibly sit?
Think about it. Most of the cars you see on a day to day basis rarely have more than one person in them anyway. Most cars are driven to work, parked, and then driven home. What a great way to save weight by getting rid of the damn extra seat that is never used!
Yes some people car pool. Some people take the kids to school. But lets be honest people, most of the time it is just you in your car. Making a decent car with one seat or if you want two seats put one in the back, and you can make thinner cars too. Where is it written that you have to be side by side with your passenger? That is all I am saying. Laterzzz...
Labels: cars, idea, random, wondering
Friday, August 07, 2009
I Remember...
I remember John Bender. At the beginning of The Breakfast Club as the kids were arriving up walked Bender past them all. He was wearing layers of clothing that he may have picked up off the floor of his room or maybe had slept in the night before.His boots stomped across the parking lot. No one drove Bender to school.
Then in the library he was an antagonist. He wasn't going to sit and write an essay. Had Bender ever written an essay in his life? Probably not.
He confronted the authority. Did he win? No. And when he was told he would be a loser for the rest of his life you could see on his face that he knew it was true. Shit, John Bender had been told by his parents that he would be a loser since the day he was born. The worst part was that this scum bag Vice Principal thought so little of him that he would say it right to his face.
Back in the room the other students started to come around to him. To his honesty. To the fact that he knew that high school was bullshit. That authority was bullshit. That there is only this one moment here in this library.
At the end of the movie The Princess kisses him and gives him an earring. We can assume that at some point later they got together but we know that at least for the one day Bender wasn't a loser in the eyes of four other people. He wasn't a loser in his own eyes. He showed with a fist raised in the air that yeah, today, for once, John Bender was a winner.
So I remember John Bender today. I remember because John Hughes died.
The man who made many movies that I laughed at. Movies that I quoted. Movies that I watched on HBO, TNT, USA, and VHS.
I know how many times I have seen The Breakfast Club, or Weird Science, or Sixteen Candles. I can't count how many times I have seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I do know that if I ever go to Chicago and see the sites I will be thinking, "this is one of the places where Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane went." And I will smile because in a way, it was like I had been there before.
So I want to say thank you to John Hughes. Thank you for making some great movies. Thank you for giving me entertainment. Thank you for the cultural signpost of my youth. Thank you for John Bender.
Labels: Chicago, John Bender, John Hughes, movie, The Breakfast Club
