EppsNet

Authorities say a motorist has driven off a cliff, plunging about 200 feet down a steep canyon near Calabasas, after swerving to avoid an animal on the road.

— Driver Avoids Animal, Careens Off Calabasas Cliff – cbs2.com

Ouch — was he a PETA member?

I like animals. I ran over a squirrel once and I felt terrible about it but it did run right out in front of my car.

However — in the event of having to make a split-second decision between clobbering an animal and driving off a cliff, well, the animal is going to get it.

On a side note, kudos to the headline writer for the alliteration: “Careens Off Calabasas Cliff.” Who says a liberal arts education isn’t good for anything?

If I had a Toyota, I’d drive it to work one morning, crash it right into the front lobby of the building, get out, say good morning to everyone, and blame the whole thing on a faulty accelerator, just to break up the monotony of daily living . . .

A Columbus man has been charged with killing a teen who was out with friends throwing eggs at cars on the Hilltop three years ago.

— The Columbus Dispatch

In other news, Columbus police report a significant decrease in the number of people throwing eggs at cars.

• RT @capricecrane: "Twitter" was the most used word of 2009. Numbers two and three were "I'm" and "broke." #
• RT @Aimee_B_Loved: Sometimes I drive between lanes and pretend my car is Pacman gobbling up the dashed lines. #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Use "can of whup-ass" only, as whup-ass is not sold in jars, squeeze tubes or resealable bags. #
• RT @RogervonOech: Never state a problem to yourself in the same terms as it was brought to you. [More at:]
  http://j.mp/cthirsh #
• RT @HarvardBiz: Government Health Care: Like the Postal Service? http://bit.ly/4IzozI #
• RT @capricecrane: I don't know how your car got dented. Maybe it's God saying you shouldn't have cut me off for that parking space. Or me. #
• RT @diablocody: Eating a gingerbread house for breakfast. A new low. #
• RT @capricecrane: According to Billboard: "Nickelback: 'Band of the decade.'" That's all. Enjoy the apocalypse. #
• RT @TheOnion: "Why do all the girls I like think of me as just a friend? And why isn't there a term to describe that relationship?" -Plato #

Cash for Clunkers has the following elements of spectacle:

• Americans destroying perfectly functional cars
• Americans whose skills are uncompetitive in the global marketplace driving around in fancy new cars

Somewhere in China and India they must be having a good laugh.

— Philip Greenspun

My wife’s explaining to our boy how she managed to pass a driving test and get a license without ever taking a driving lesson:

“I drove in Thailand and when I came over here I just took the test. I’m pretty charming. People like happy, smiling people. And when I was young, I was cute. The examiner just said, ‘okayokayokay.’ I hate to say it, but when you’re good looking, you get the benefit.”

It’s a warm early summer day here in Southern California. As I come back to the office from lunch, a colleague is setting up one of those windshield screens to keep the sun from shining into her car all afternoon.

Toughen up, sweetie. I like my steering wheel to be blazing hot when I return to my vehicle. The pain reminds me I’m alive.

AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

Today was the last day of school here in Irvine . . .

“Can I get a ride to Orchard Park?” my son asks. He has friends that he meets there to play basketball.

“Did you check with Mom?” I ask.

“I don’t have to check with Mom,” he says. “I’m out of school now.”

“So you don’t have to check with Mom?”

“No. Not any more.”

After he checks with his mom, I drive him over to the park. Actually, he drives to the park and I ride along.

As we’re approaching a red light at Jeffrey and Trabuco, he says, “I’ll stop the car so you can’t even feel it.”

This is something I showed him how to do. I’m pretty good at it, but he goes through so many slow-motion false stops and starts that by the time he’s done, the car is almost entirely in the crosswalk.

“We’re in the middle of the intersection,” I point out to him.

“I did it though,” he says.

As we drive past the Arco station, I notice that gas prices are up over $3.00 again for a gallon of regular.

“Obama needs to stop playing basketball and deal with these gas prices,” the boy says.

“You’re right.”

I gotta get some gas. I pull off the freeway — Shell or Chevron? They’re right next to each other. I check the price for regular — $2.93 either way.

It’s a tossup.

Then my son notices on a sign that the Shell gasoline is “nitrogen enriched.”

“Nitrogen enriched!?” I say. “Are you kidding me?! Fuck Chevron . . . what is nitrogen, anyway?”

“It’s an element.”

“Yeah I know, but who can tell me why it’s a good idea to put it in gasoline? What are we, chemistry professors?”

“It seeks out and destroys engine gunk.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“I read it on the sign.”

“Oh . . . OK, we’re going Shell.”

My son’s learning to drive . . . pulling out of a parking lot, he turns right and clips the curb a little bit.

I ask him, “Did you look left to make sure no one was coming?”

“I saw no one was coming.”

“How did you see that if you didn’t look?”

“I saw it in my peripheral vision.”

“Did you see that curb in your peripheral vision?”

• Automaker bankruptcies: A success of the market system – http://bit.ly/1BgH7 #
• At Wingnuts w/Casey. For wings. #
• At Corona rink for AAU Nationals #

One of the post offices here in Irvine is a best-kept secret . . . it’s off Culver Drive, down a side street and around a corner, basically in a residential area. It’s never busy because, unlike the post office on Sand Canyon, it’s not visible from a major street and most people don’t know it’s there.

My wife emailed me at work yesterday morning to say that she went to that post office and tons of cars were lined up to get in, which reminded her that it was April 15.

Not to worry though. We mailed our taxes on the 14th — to beat that last-minute rush.

Twenty years or so ago, I was living in Hollywood and — on the evening of April 15 — filling up at a gas station just south of the freeway from Union Station. Beyond Union Station on Alameda St. is the Terminal Annex post office.

As I said, it was April 15 . . . cars were lined up on Alameda from the post office, past Union Station and past the gas station for as far as I was able to see. News helicopters were circling overhead filming the Tax Day madness.

A man drove into the gas station, stopped next to me, rolled down his window and said — I am not kidding — “Can you tell me how to get to the post office?”

“Sure. You see that line of cars?”

Taxes make people nuts . . .

Nick Adenhart pitched six scoreless innings for the Angels last night but took a no-decision as the bullpen came in and blew the lead.

A few hours later, Adenhart was killed in a car smash in Fullerton by some drunken idiot who ran a red light.

He was 22 years old . . .

P.S. My son says Adenhart’s dad had flown out from Baltimore and saw his son pitch a great game, that Adenhart was “buzzing” in the locker room after the game, despite the loss, so maybe it wasn’t a bad day. Except for the dying part.

P.P.S. The Angels postponed their game the following night, April 9. The local Angels TV station instead replayed the April 8 game — the Adenhart game. It was sad watching him walk off the field, not knowing it was the last time . . .

• Everyone in Irvine drives the same car: http://tinyurl.com/cad86w #
• Most valuable and underused social media strategy: http://blog.foghound.com/474/ #
• 5 Ways ‘Common Sense’ Lies to You Everyday: http://tinyurl.com/cdmhxa #

It’s a white Lexus SUV. This leads to hilarious mixups like my son approaching a line of cars after school and getting into the wrong one by mistake, and my wife and I standing in the Trader Joe’s parking lot trying to figure out why we can’t unlock “our” vehicle . . .

• Offering and accepting only rational, results-oriented behavior and communication: http://tinyurl.com/5z2rg6 #
• Financial collapse shows failure of free markets? http://tinyurl.com/cmoqqw #
• Diners can ‘have a ball’ at testicle festival: http://www.modbee.com/weird/story/645349.html #
• Obama to Back GM Warranties, OnStar Operator Service: http://tinyurl.com/c8k4xz #
• In Fargo, goodwill runs as deep as the river: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29962032 http://tinyurl.com/cw9o89 #

IRVINE – A group of solemn people sat around tables at a fast-food Chinese restaurant off Jeffrey Road on Wednesday night after a man was shot and killed while sitting in a white Lexus parked behind the eatery.

— OCRegister.com

At least he died in a nice car. It’s Irvine, Jake!

This happened a stone’s throw from my house. Well, more than a stone’s throw but let’s say a hard 5-iron with a good bounce off Trabuco Road.

I’ve been to that Chinese restaurant many times. (It’s a dine-in restaurant, not a fast-food place, despite what the Register says.)

Don’t worry about me though. Irvine is still the safest city in the country.

That guy must have gotten himself mixed up in some kind of trouble . . .

This is an Italian Alfa Romeo commercial.

To look at it, you wouldn’t know it’s a car commercial because there’s no car in it, but in Italy there’s a series of these Alfa Romeo sloth commercials. The running gag is that the sloth is a lethargic, slow-moving creature — until he gets in his Alfa Romeo — but this one’s a little different, in a mesmerizing WTF kind of way . . .

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Danica Patrick paid a $196 fine to settle a speeding ticket after the star racecar driver was caught going 54 mph in a 35-mph zone last month.

— ESPN.com

Was she in a hurry to obtain oral sex? Because that would be hot . . .