Go to any internet forum about cars and you will see the discussions: STI vs. Evo / 911 vs. Corvette / Mustang vs. Camaro / Turbocharged 4-cyl vs. big V8 / Import vs. domestic / Fast and Furious vs. Laws of Physics.
Most of the discussions involved poring over every spec and using it to gloat superiority over the other. None of this is new.
Why do we do this? Because we are all idiots.
Man has grappled with certain basic questions since the dawn of time: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What car should I get?
I don’t know much about the other questions, but I think about the last one a lot. I call it ADIDAWCTB (All Day I Dream About What Car to Buy). That’s not as catchy as ADIDAS, but it’s pretty accurate.
I give myself one job when we go on vacation: driving the car. My wife handles the trivial things like: packing, lodging, food, sights, and kids. Of course, we only drive if our destination is in the same continent1.
My kids (10-, 6-year-olds) sometimes walk 1 km to school here in Germany, and it freaks me out. That’s because we Americans never let our kids out of an adult’s sight, and because I have no idea how far 1 km2 is. German kids here walk or ride their bikes and scooters to school, which must mean German parents think this is normal, or they need to be locked up.
Germans must be anti-American. Germans do not celebrate the 4th of July, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, or Thanksgiving. And while Germany has a baseball league, is the home of the ancestral hot dog, and allows a few Chevys, it has no apple pie (it does, however, have Apfelstrudel, Apfelstreusel, Apfelkuchen, Apfeltasche, and even McDonald’s original tongue-scalding hot apple pockets).
[Update 2016-06-25: accidentally deleted this post, and lost some info posting it back. Oops.]
It took a while, but I finally got my approval from TÜV (Technischer Überwachungsverein) for my 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI. This is necessary to register my car in Germany. A car requires this approval every two years.
I consider myself a car-driving fool, so traveling to a city where cars are not used is a bit odd for me. But Venice is pretty unique, so I don’t mind coming here. It’s been sinking for centuries, so who knows how much longer it will be around, which is as good of an excuse as any to visit.
I’ve wanted to go to the Geneva International Motor Show for some time now. Being the professional procrastinator that I am, it took me 18 years to actually do it.
The world certainly doesn’t seem well, but my little part of it got significantly better last night. I was finally able to drive my car in Germany. Yesterday, after weeks of trying, I got the person helping me to understand what I needed for insurance. So as soon as I got home, I gassed up the car.
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