The joy-not of driving the third car

In another episode of overlooked dad things, I’ve mentioned before how in my household, I have the permanent short straw, well in most cases, but in the context of this post, when it comes to the cars we drive.

Technically, I have two cars in my name that I am paying for, and then we have mythical wife’s old car that is free and clear, but is also 13 years old, and comes with all of the anxious hangups that go along with driving around in a 13-year-old vehicle.

This post doesn’t exist if I actually got to daily drive one of the two cars I pay for, which means my daily commuter car is the third car in our household, which on paper really isn’t bad, as it is small and compact, making it ideal for my parking garage that has the smallest fucking parking spaces in existence and gets very good gas mileage, to which my daily commute of maybe 12-13 miles round trip means I’m filling up maybe once a month.

However, like I said, it’s a 13-year-old car.  With the overwhelming majority of those years being not mine, which means there’s a lifetime of history and little things that I’m unaware of, service and maintenance that I don’t know how well has been maintained other than the time in which I began to oversee it.

Whereas it was a sturdy, peppy car when mythical wife was mythical girlfriend and we first got together, the car is now 13 years old, and definitely feels its age.  Lots of the mechanisms feel tired, the transmission feels slippery and I permanently drive it in manual shift mode to get around all the wonky gear spacing and super revs when sneezing on the gas pedal. 

I don’t have the power to overtake anyone that isn’t standing still and have to concede my position way more often than I sometimes care to, and I spend admittedly more time than I probably should, lamenting on the day in which I don’t have to be the one in the third car and might actually get to permanently drive my own car that I don’t have share and adjust every time I get into it.

If it’s idled too long, something overheats or otherwise happens where the revs take on a higher pitch.  The tires in the rear are balding and should really be replaced, and the car’s at its time of life in which it’s always a question on whether or not these are the last new tires for them or not.  And of course, there’s all sorts of rattles and creaks that even Batman couldn’t identify.

But the absolute worst part of the third car is the horrendous lines of sight for probably anyone over 5’2, because mythical wife had had the car before I drove it regularly and she has no idea what I’m talking about.

The photograph above is what I see when I’m at a stop light – which is not the stop light at all.  I have to crane my neck at an uncomfortable angle in order to see the stop light, which really fucking sucks when a light stays red forever, necessitating me to keep my head in an awkward position to ensure that I see it turn green and begin driving accordingly.

At 5’9, I am not as tall as I wish I were, but I wouldn’t classify myself as someone who could be referred to as tall.  And yet, even when the seat is as far back as I can and adjusted to be as low as it gets, I’m still in a position to where if I ‘m not the third or further back car in a line of cars, I probably can’t see a traffic light in front of me without craning my neck.  Which sucks doubly because I always want to be the first car in a line so that I can drive with nobody in front of me because the existence of other commuters is what ruins the otherwise enjoyable act of driving cars, so I’m often in a position to where I concede sitting behind others, or put myself to where I have to crane my neck in order to monitor the light.

It’s every time I have to sit at a light craning my neck that this post has materialized in my head.  It doesn’t happen all the time, and some commutes I’m lucky to where it doesn’t happen at all, but then there are some days and some intersections where I just don’t get so lucky, and I have to sit there looking and feeling absurd as I how I often feel about the whole notion that I’m the one who always seem to have to make all the sacrifices in life for the sake my family.

Things White People Like: Cars that are kind of like Broncos

I know that I’ve written several times about white peoples’ fascinations with the revived Ford Broncos, but over the last year or so, I couldn’t help but notice how many car manufacturers have slowly been creating their own vehicles to try to tap into that same market, of “white guys who are tired of how there are minorities that have the audacity to buy Jeeps, so they’ve all transitioned over to Ford Broncos, except now they once saw a black guy driving one, so they’ve been searching for something else.”

What finally spurred me to actually write about this after all this time that this general topic has been swirling around in my brain from time to time, is that this particular morning, I pulled up behind one of these Bronco clones, thinking that I was pulling up on a Land Rover  Defender or maybe a Hummer EV.  But then I saw the Lexus badge, and my brow scrunched and I was like, seriously, Lexus is in on this shit now too?

Sure, it didn’t help that the car had an aftermarket lift kit, and didn’t look exactly like the Lexus shown to the right, but the fact that someone would go through the trouble and finances to make their “luxury” Lexus look more rugged and, like a Bronco, by adding a lift kid and wide wheels was fascinating enough, and sure enough when I passed by him, it was a guy that basically looked like Adam Scott, which is to say a pretty generic looking white guy, no disrespect to Adam Scott I love Parks & Rec and Severance

The point remains is that Lexus is on the game now too, and now I can recall numerous vehicles that fall into the category of being Ford Bronco wannabes, targeting white people, and they are most definitely biting on the bait.

Sure, when I actually line them up like I have in this image, they don’t really look as identical as they seem to look when you see them one at a time in the wild, but the point remains is that they’ve all been inspired by the success of the Ford Bronco, and are all trying to get a slice of the pie.  Which is fascinating in the sense that Ford as a brand doesn’t really have a great reputation, seeing as how their cars are basically manufactured from recycled Rubbermaid parts and the cheapest metals they can find, but all these luxury makers are crawling all over each other in order to emulate a general shitbox, but with their own pretentious spins on them.

The Lexus RX550, the Land Rover Discovery, the Hummer EV, and the Rivian whatever, all have that general same look and feel as a Bronco, except that they’re probably $20K+ more than a Bronco.  And the only real bragging right a driver of a clone really gets is the insinuation that they have money because they plopped $20K+ more on their whip than they could have had a Bronco for, but then again, fewer things say white people more than flexing finances, even if it’s not always necessarily an intelligent choice.

It’s just so funny though, because the Bronco is a rip off of a Jeep, which is basically the greatest vehicle in the world at off-roading, but it’s beyond obvious that anyone in a Bronco, much less any of their egregiously more expensive poser-clones, the closest thing they’ll ever see to being off-road is when they go to a farm in the fall for pumpkin picking.

But then again, white people.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: What’s the beef with Cornell?

7onMySideNewark: Newark teen accepted into seven Ivy League schools

My first thought when I saw this headline was, haha seven, why not eight?  Which of the Ivies rejected him?

But according to the article, for whatever reason, the #TRYHARD alleges that he only applied to seven, and was accepted into all seven of them, which leads me to think, why the fuck didn’t he go ahead and apply to all eight at that point?

The odd Ivy out in this case was Cornell, and considering the #TRYHARD wants to study political science, I’m thinking why the fuck didn’t he go ahead and apply to Cornell as well?

I mean, he can’t use distance as a reason, Ithaca is closer to Newark than Boston is, and Dartmouth might as well be on the moon in comparison to most of the other Ivies, so I can’t really wrap my brain around why this #TRYHARD would apply to every single Ivy except for Cornell.

Either way, acceptances are one thing, but there’s no information given about scholarships, or if there were any scholarships even offered at all.  As impressive as gaining entry to 7/8 Ivies might sound, the real question is how he and his family are going to manage to pay for it, because scholarships are always disclosed in these #TRYHARD articles for further flexing, and his family runs a pizza shop.  Going to imagine it’s going to be quite the difficulty for he and his family to support the gargantuan tuitions and supporting expenses college is going to be, even if Harvard allows for certain financial thresholds to attend for free.

No matter though, good on this #TRYHARD for almost completing the Ivy Sweep.  I don’t necessarily believe that he didn’t apply to Cornell, because if you’re going to shoot for the moon, there’s little reason why he wouldn’t have gone after all of them, and it’s like a marketing tactic.  If 4/100 people like a product, it can still be spun that 4/5 like it, and toss the other 95 testers out, just like this kid can say he only applied to seven Ivies, and throw Cornell out.

Doesn’t compete against some of the more notable #TRYHARDs of the #SZN, but anyone who can get into multiple Ivies, let alone one, is still worth mentioning.

Dad Brog #148: an example of having to take it on the chin

I don’t really know anything about Judaism, but for whatever reason, my kids have the entire week off because of Passover.  I don’t really know anything about Passover either, but far be it for me to question any religion’s stuff beyond the fact that my kids are off school, but some of my colleagues at work who are Jewish are all in the office like it’s any other day of the week.

The thing is we’re a week removed from a week in which both mythical wife was off on spring break on account of being a teacher, and the au pair was off on spring break on account of her being a student and going to school.  In previous years at my kids’ preschool, they’ve usually just aligned with the county school schedule, and this is the first time that I can recollect them having a separate Passover week off.  This has never been an issue in any of the previous years that my kids have been going to their school, but for whatever reason, here we are, this year.

All I know is that it really sucks because as is often times the case, I’m the one who has to take it on the chin and alter my days in order to accommodate this misalignment of time off, and further illustrate that I don’t get time off, ever, and this is just my life and I really have no other choice but to cope with it.

So, for this week, I have to stay home with my kids until my au pair gets home from class to which then I have to go into the office late, play catchup the entire days, and probably have to stay late a little bit to make up for lost time, so that I don’t fall behind on more of my shit later on.

Yeah, I know it doesn’t seem fair, but there’s little sense in calling it out because nobody listens or would be willing to do anything about it.  So it’s just grin and bear it, and make the best of my shitty situation where I don’t ever get a fucking break, and try to take solace in the fact that I can spend a little bit of extra time with my kids and try to push out of my mind the meetings I may be missing and the optics that goes along with flaky attendance, even if I do manage to get all my shit done.

As I’ve opined a thousand times, I would just like a little bit of help and a little bit of breaks from having to be the hard fucking hyper carry in my household.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: There’s a bigger world outside of California

KGTV: High schooler from Torrey Pines accepted into 63 different colleges, amassing $3M in cumulative scholarships

$3 million bones from 63 acceptances; an average scholarship value of $47,619 isn’t bad, but in the grand spectrum of the #TRYHARD game, is fairly pedestrian in comparison to some of the #TRYHARDs that have already emerged this #SZN. 

Ultimately, I’m liking that either Google and news outlets are either being lazy and not reporting, or the possibility that #TRYHARDING isn’t as wrapped up as it used to be in previous years, and there just aren’t as many insufferable #TRYHARDs this year as in years prior, because that’s less stuff for me to write about, as if I didn’t put myself in this situation wanting to write about all the #TRYHARDs of the year.

After some of the #TRYHARDs that have already been documented, this kid really isn’t that exceptional.  His academic haul is still pretty good, but it’s hard to keep up in the game, when there are some who have doubled his scholarship dollars, and/or number of acceptances, like the one who could boast about having an acceptance from every single one of the 50 United States.

Normally, I’m at the point in the #SZN where I just want to skip writing about all of the #TRYHARDs once the truly exceptional ones have come out, but in this case, it’s the article itself that I want to nitpick about and provide me with some inspiration to blather some words out:

A graduating senior from Torrey Pines High School has accomplished what some might consider impossible — earning over $3 million in scholarships.

Impossible?  $3M?  I know Torrey Pines, California is basically akin to paradise, but these so-called journalists need to look at the world outside of their own, because not only is $3M possible, there’s already been at least one teen who has amassed $6M in scholarships this #SZN alone.

The lack of credentials and failure to name drop any of the acceptances other than the one he selected lends to imply that many of them weren’t very prestigious or impressive, and comes off as one of those #TRYHARDs that actually didn’t #TRYHARD as much as they were just good at filling out online forms and getting what I’m guessing are free applications.

It’s also funny to me that someone in this part of California is even in a position to need to be applying to every school under the sun, because that chunk of land slightly north of San Diego is home to some gorgeous earth, that I also imagine probably costs the arms and legs of several generations’ worth of wealth to be living there.  I have a hard time believing that there are people who actually live out there who are in positions to be needing scholarships, but I suppose while I’ve been thinking about money fervently over the last few weeks, the wealthy don’t stay wealthy by being frivolous, they’re usually wealthy because they’re often times good at finding other people to pick up the check instead of themselves.

Whatever though, good on this #TRYHARD and I use that term lightly on account of comparing him to others in the game, for getting accepted into a buttload of schools, and of course picking a fairly mid one to actually go to, in Howard University.  I’m sure it’ll be an interesting culture shock to go from the vast picturesque paradise of Torrey Pines to going to school in the dump of Washington DC.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Good effort, but not enough trying hard

11AliveOnMySide: Fairburn, Georgia teen accepted into 53 colleges with $1.5M in scholarships earned

After writing about the chica that notched 155 acceptances and $6M in scholarships, #TRYHARDs like this one just seem so pale in comparison to write about.  Which really sucks for them, because being a student with a 4.0 GPA and hoovering up 50+ college acceptances really is something to be proud of, but I guess this is what happens when #TRYHARD culture has become the thing it’s become, and gives a glimpse to why #TRYHARDs #TRYHARD.

As important as education is, to those in the #TRYHARDing game, attention and notoriety seems to matter just a little bit more.  What with all the insufferable humblebragging, the photoshoots and general look-at-me behavior by all those that #TRYHARD, it’s apparent that the actual education at the end of the journey is secondary to the two seconds of internet notoriety that comes with being the best of the best when it comes to #TRYHARDing and accumulating as many college acceptances as possible while more than likely, not having to pay a cent in application fees.

Which is a shame, because a lot of the stories of the people who become #TRYHARDs are really fascinating and inspiring up until the point where they decide to do what they do because they want the attention.  Like this one chica from close to where I used to live, which was a pretty desolate wasteland back then, and is seemingly worse now, has still managed to emerge from the muck and be a student with a 4.0 GPA, volleyball player, and somehow has the tenacity to be working two jobs, really is the embodiment of hard work.

But at some point in her journey, it was decided to become a #TRYHARD, and the question becomes if the grades, the extracurriculars, and the jobs, are they for the purpose of building character and necessity, or are they the purpose for padding a personal resume to feed into the next stage of life to where additional #TRYHARDing is all that life is going to be until they’re anonymous adults who hate their lives and wonder what their formative teenage years went.

I can’t remember who said it between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but one of them had a story about when they were young and in high school, and they were being touted as future megastars and can’t-miss prospects, they were reminded that as great as they think they were, inevitably there would always be someone out there who was working harder, and was probably better than you were.  And as inevitable as greatness finding greatness is, Bird and Magic eventually encountered each other at the college ranks, a rivalry was born, carrying into the NBA, and the debate still lives on whom of the two was the better player.

And as impressive as 53 and $1.5M should be, in the grand spectrum of things, just up the street from where this #TRYHARD was doing her thing, she probably wasn’t aware of a queen bee #TRYHARDingn way harder than she was en route to her 155 and $6M.  And there is no debate on whom of the two was the bigger #TRYHARD.

As I said before, it’s going to be a real hard act to follow, and I almost don’t want to waste my time writing about lesser #TRYHARDs unless a real noteworthy #TRYHARD comes along, but we’ll see how time permits in the coming months of #TRYHARDSZN2025.

So many easy jokes about the Mariners repping Nintendo

LL: Seattle Mariners agree to wear Nintendo Switch 2 patch for the 2025 MLB season

I don’t care enough to dig deep into the finer details, but Nintendo doesn’t own the Mariners like they once did, but they have enough pull with the baseball organization to ensure that throughout the 2025 baseball season, the Mariners will have a sponsorship patch on their away uniforms for the Nintendo Switch 2.  Their home whites will have a regular old Nintendo word mark logo on those alternatively.

Regardless, the jokes write themselves about a company like Nintendo being the uniform sponsor for a baseball organization like the Mariners, because in more ways than one, they operate in similar manners.  Now such could be as the result of the once ownership and the influence Nintendo clearly still has within the Seattle Mariners organization, or maybe they really are two peas in a pod in how their business philosophies are concerned, but the fact of the matter is that there really is a lot in common between both companies.

Nintendo is notoriously Japanese, as in that they are more than happy to operate in a completely risk-averse, efficient manner that prioritizes a zero-waste mentality.  For example, despite the fact that a billion people on the planet wanted the Wii when it first came out, they were all like ehhhh, let’s make just 20 million units, can’t possibly risk there being some false demand and us being stuck with extra units and being forced to sell at a discount.  And for the next several years, nobody could get their hands on one, and they were selling on the resale market at insane markups, and by the time demand was truly fulfilled, the Wii 2 was knocking on the door, and the process kind of repeated itself. The point is, Nintendo prioritizes efficiency and avoiding all risk over possibly making consumers happy and meeting demand a lot closer in which they operate to this day. 

And the Mariners are kind of the same way, because they just, always kind of suck as an MLB franchise, and no matter how much the market changes, how much talent they luck into from their system, and the availability of free agents throughout the years, the organization just somehow manages to always suck at winning baseball games, and much like Nintendo, letting consumers down by taking no risks, avoiding any possibility of dead money by signing no free agents, and routinely letting their fans down on a yearly basis.

It’s funny, because I actually wrote about the Mariners not too long ago and how it’s pretty incredible how much they’ve sucked historically.  Because this is an organization that has had the likes of Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez and a prime Robinson Cano, and in some cases, an overlap of some of these talents. Yet they never won anything, beyond the magical 2001 season where they won 116 games, before crashing out unceremoniously in the playoffs to the Yankees.  They rarely saw the playoffs, didn’t do much once they got there, and no matter the talent that has been on the squad, they just, well suck.

Just recently, the Mariners successfully signed their catcher Cal Raleigh, to an insanely team-friendly deal, six years at just $105M.  The guy is an average 4 WAR player, not even hitting his prime, and could easily have been worth double of this, in just a few years.  But he clearly likes something in Seattle and has agreed to stay there, but the real question is if the Nintendo Mariners will actually do something with this centerpiece, or if it will just be more of the same, operating like Nintendo, where they will only produce the absolute bare minimum in order to be relevant, but absolutely nothing more in order to even attempt to be anything but afloat.

It’s really a chicken and egg situation on whether the Seattle Mariners are operating like Nintendo, or if Nintendo is operating like the Seattle Mariners; but if I’m a betting man, I’d say the former, but either way, neither is a particularly enviable position to be in, because jaded video gamers all resent Nintendo for their Nintendo-ey business practices, and Mariners fans all resent the Mariners for simply never really trying, so ultimately, this sponsorship marriage seems to be a very fitting fit for both parties involved.