A lesson in trusting computers: don’t trust them. As I learned the hard way yesterday, if you’re not willing to do a small amount of human thinking, you’re at the mercy of a machine, and the machine is not always as smart as you think.
Case in point: I had a meeting with my sister last [...]

Note: This isn’t as cheerful a thing as I’d like to post, but at five in the morning it’s all I can muster.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation announced last week that roadside memorials, while an understandable expression of grief, were an unsafe distraction to drivers. They contacted the families of those who’ve died on our [...]

Saturday my girlfriend looked out the front window to see a police officer inspecting the hood of her car, like a biology student on a fieldtrip. But he was writing on a notepad that, regardless of his off-duty interests, looked an awful lot like it was full of blank parking tickets.
“But that’s impossible,” we said [...]

New taillights! Yes! I am the best, with my new, un-cracked rear indicators. Take that, Tercel! I will eventually fix all your broken parts, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me (beyond, of course, breaking at a faster rate than I can fix).
The rear lights (brake and signal) have been broken even [...]

When my dad bought his first brand-new car he did it without warning. One day in 1992 he just came home with a shining blue minivan that smelled like a factory in Mexico.
This was the largest car my sister and I had ever seen (I was 10, she was 14). Like scientists observing an [...]

The results are in: 38 miles to the gallon. And if you think I\’m kidding, it was actually more like 38.46 miles to the gallon. See, specificity implies fact.
But I don\’t need to imply, because it\’s true. All that coasting and gliding and driving slow paid off; my car gets hybrid-like mileage. In a way, [...]

2 + 2 = 4, and gas prices hit $2.20 this weekend in the Twin Cities.
Both are as obvious as three fingers slammed in a car door, but only one doesn\’t add up. And only one is making me feel like, well, slamming my fingers in a car door.
It’s the gas prices, the arbiter of [...]

I had a midterm exam yesterday morning at 8:15. That\’s early, especially when you haven\’t done the readings (can\’t do the readings if you don\’t own the book).
So I got up at 6:45, thinking I would shower, eat a good breakfast and still have a little time to look over my class notes.
But when I [...]