Tag Archives: cars

Rant

American Peculiarities

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Below is a list of American Peculiarities that I cannot seem to wrap my head around.

American Peculiarities
Team America, PC: Watch Movies Free Online
  • Not being able to pronounce/spell words properly, simplifying them instead and calling it a new language. Eg Aluminium->Aluminum, Colour->Color.
  • Suing each other for any and every small reason.
  • Calling a liquid “gas”
  • Obsession with cars.
  • Calling a national-level sport “World Series”
  • Meddling in the affairs of other countries for no reason other than to make American weapon manufacturers rich.
  • Using a retarded unit system.
  • Naming kids something, but then shortening their names to something else. Eg. Aaron->Ronnie, Leonard->Lennie. Also how is Bill short for William?
  • Prescription medicines openly advertised on TV and patients asking their doctors for specific brands of medicines.
  • Not being able to think of original names for cities and just copying European city names.
  • Cheerleading.
  • Not knowing where India is.
  • Huge portions of food everywhere. Tremendous quantities of sugar in foods.
  • Calling only “South-East Asians” as “Asians”
  • Calling aerated beverages “soda” or “pop”.
  • Obsessing over the flag and plastering it everywhere.
  • Restaurant staff relying on tips to make ends meet.
  • Have a strange idea of what “freedom” means .
  • Always running short of material when constructing toilet stall doors.
  • Insane medical expenses.
  • Calling a game which is mostly not played with the feet, football.

I will let James Brown explain the rest

James Brown – Living in America
Rant

Americans are Obsessed with Cars

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Americans indeed seem to be weirdly obsessed with cars.

Americans obsessed with cars
An American “Truck”, PC: Hotcars

Agreed, most of my knowledge about America comes from movies, but I have visited USA once. I noticed this obsession for the first time when visiting Palo Alto. The guy I was meeting said he drove to his hometown airport in his car and parked it at the airport. At San Francisco airport, he rented out another car and came to work. When I asked him why he needed his own car while travelling, he looked at me as if I am crazy. Car Rental is a huge industry in USA. Later, I realized that most Americans really don’t believe in walking or public transportation.

To say that an average American’s life revolves around their car is an understatement.

For most of the world, a car serves a utilitarian purpose. People use cars to get from point A to point B in relative comfort. Americans however, love their cars. Like American food, most American cars are also supersized. Average engine sizes are all above 2.5l and “real men” drive cars with >4.0l engines. In many families, everyone has their own car. Some families have more than 1 car per-member.

Americans eat food in their cars, watch movies in cars & sometimes sleep in their cars. In fact most Americans (if I were to believe movies) even lost their virginities in the back seat of a car. I have even seen homeless people who cannot afford food, driving cars. The birthday gift for most kids turning 18, is a car. Unlike Europe, in America, you can be old enough to drive a car, but not old enough to drink alcohol. Crazy, right?

Not to mention Pickup trucks. Why do Americans even need “trucks”? What is it that the regular Americans have to carry on a daily basis that the rest of the world doesn’t?

Many Americans love buying old cars and restoring them. I don’t think this is as common a hobby in the rest of the world as it is in America. In spite of being so passionate about cars, most Americans can’t even drive cars with manual transmissions.

Most of the developing world cannot afford cars. European cars are very utilitarian. So why are Americans so obsessed with cars?

Reminds me of the Fear Factory cover of Gary Numan’s cars, which I saw a decade ago in Test Drive 6

Rant

Hyundai Creta is the new Suzuki Swift

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There’s a word used in and around Delhi and most of North India. The word is “Lafandar”. It basically refers to a class of teenagers (but could also extend to people in their 30s) who have a lot of free time, whose fathers have a lot of money and whose favourite past time is driving around the streets from evening till late night in their pimped our cars. Also, they do not contribute to society in any way, except by occasionally crushing pedestrians under their cars, keeping this country’s burgeoning population in check.

You can easily spot them at a distance; they are the ones driving aggressively, changing lanes unnecessarily and cutting others off.

Till a few years ago, a vast majority of these “Lafandars” were driving Suzuki Swifts. It never made much sense to me, as the Swift is a middle class car and not a show-off worthy car.

Now that the swift has fallen out of style, most of these people are now driving Hyundai Cretas.

When you spot a Creta at a distance, you can be reasonably sure that if you drive too close to it or overtake it, the owner will cut you off; hence it is best to keep some distance between you and them.