Shifting Awareness

Hybrid Horror Flick

Found this on Green Daily next to a snippet of coverage on LG.  Maybe not as funny as the South Park episode on hybrids, but pretty darn close!  (Note: female mechanic, extra bonus.)

Trailer description:

“Late one night, a mysterious car is brought into the Chicago police impound garage after a deadly traffic accident. The garage’s female mechanic, Tilda, and her young, hip fellow mechanics soon discover the car has a mind of its own: it morphs into different cars to confuse them and instead of needing an engine to run, it breathes. It’s a killing machine that is capable of outrunning and outwitting humans. In a high-octane fight to the death, it’s our group of determined humans versus the car in this supernatural action-adventure in the vein of Stephen King’s Christine and Transformers.”

Green Daily‘s take:

“There’s a new candidate for must-see, environmentally relevant, B-movie of the year, and it features a homicidal, shape-shifting car that runs on emissions-free supernatural power. Judging by the trailer, the killer car featured in Hybrid is not a man-eating Prius, but a sort of haunted, organic, muscle car that breathes. Does this hybrid demon-car symbolize fate paying us back for carbon emissions, killing the environment, the collapsing US auto industry, or does it just symbolize that haunted cars are totally awesome?”

Posted by Carolyn Permalink Categories: Shifting Awareness »

Parking Etiquette

I have never had a dedicated parking spot, in California or elsewhere, so you can imagine the adjustment to an entire warehouse in downtown San Francisco in which to park any day or night.  Instead of searching for a space, channeling The Secret, I simply press the door opener and pull into a bona fide garage.  I savor this luxury as I watch our neighbors shuffle their cars, a dance for the meter maid that often ends with fists clutching tickets shaking in the wind. 

But yesterday my Schadenfreude backfired: after giving an out-of-town guest a tour of the shop, we discovered our driveway entirely blocked by a C230 Kompressor.  I couldn’t believe it and tried to pull our car out anyway.  When geometery prevailed I felt like a person tailgated on the highway, tempted by the opposite pedal, fantasizing about the utter satisfaction of stomping the carpet.  I managed to control myself. 

The tools of a business owner develop half in advance and half in response.  This time I got to learn the city protocol for getting cars towed from blocked driveways.  The phone number is 415-553-1200 and just by calling you have the apparent authority to have a car cited, or cited and towed.  You do not need to have a sign posted that says “No Parking” or a red curb or similar warning.  I’m not sure who makes the judgement call as to whether a vehicle is truly in violation; I imagine a system rife with persnickety homeowners.  And yet I suddenly relate to them.

In this case the owner was tracked down in a condo down the street. I’m so sorry! Blah blah blah. Who parks across a driveway, let alone one with the door open?  People who know the people inside.  Or at least I thought. 

A full day later I concede that no vehicle belongs more in the city than another.  But for the sake of doing business, and therefore pulling cars in and out of the garage, there must be parking etiquette.  Before I didn’t want a “No Parking” sign; we just repainted the roll door and, besides, they are so unfriendly. The second complication is that our curb is not very well defined.  This will be fixed when the city buries the power lines on our side of the street, but it may be several years. 

Now, in the meantime, we need a sign.  I will apply for a 15 minute curb zone.  For the overstepping bumper, I need to compose a note (in advance).  And for the totally oblivious, the towing number is now in my cell phone. 

Posted by Carolyn Comments 17 Permalink Categories: Shifting Awareness »