11 Dec 02
There is a new crime in America: taking pictures of hotels where the Vice President (and Evil
Do-er Extraordinare) is lodging when he visits your town. An IT
professional took pictures of the Denver hotel where the VP was
bunking. He was arrested, held and questioned (without a lawyer) for
hours, and then released without his camera. The Denver Police and the Secret Service will not acknowledge
or deny detaining the man and violating his civil rights. That’s
your USA PATRIOT act at work. Protecting you and yours from IT
professionals who dabble in photography.Is anyone else baffled by the current Lexus advertising campaign on
television? In these ads (maybe there is just one; I haven’t really
studied them) a helpful spouse manages to sneak a $50,000 automobile of one
stripe or another into the driveway (complete with a giant red bow) without
the other spouse noticing. Then, the keys are presented with much pomp
and circumstance to the non-Lexus-aware spouse. Non-Lexus-aware spouse
then proceeds to express extreme gaiety over the fact that they were just
presented with the keys to an automobile with a monthly payment of $750 for
the next five years. If I gave Sarah the keys to a new Lexus, she’d be
far more likely to have me evaluated for mental diseases than to express
some form of happiness at the fact that there is a $50,000 automobile in the
driveway with a big red bow that needs insurance, gas, and maintenance.
Who, exactly, is Lexus targeting with these ads?
So, if you bought a $50,000 car, put $5,000 down, and got 0% financing
for five years, your monthly payment would be $750/month for the next five
years. How do people afford that? That is more than 150% larger
than my monthly rent payment! I can’t imagine paying more for a car,
every month, than I was paying in rent.