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  <title>domesticat.net</title>
  <subtitle>Much ado about the usual nothing.</subtitle>
  <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://domesticat.net/2003/02/guy-means-business"/>
  <link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://domesticat.net/node/869/atom/feed"/>
  <id>http://domesticat.net/node/869/atom/feed</id>
  <updated>2007-11-13T01:12:24+00:00</updated>
  <entry>
    <title>This guy means business</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://domesticat.net/2003/02/guy-means-business" />
    <id>http://domesticat.net/2003/02/guy-means-business</id>
    <published>2003-02-01T04:47:44+00:00</published>
    <updated>2007-11-13T01:12:24+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>domesticat</name>
    </author>
    <category term="rice" />
    <category term="ricers" />
    <category term="stupidity" />
    <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Rice-chasing is fun.  Sort of.  Now, true, there is a certain element of danger to the chase; it's entirely likely that a man crazy enough to put an eight-foot wing on a four-cylinder car (and call it a "racing model") is also crazy enough to be packing a firearm or two&hellip;</p>
<p>&hellip;But I'm very, very quick about my photos, and also very, very stealthy.</p>
    ]]></summary>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Rice-chasing is fun.  Sort of.  Now, true, there is a certain element of danger to the chase; it's entirely likely that a man crazy enough to put an eight-foot wing on a four-cylinder car (and call it a "racing model") is also crazy enough to be packing a firearm or two&hellip;</p>
<p>&hellip;But I'm very, very quick about my photos, and also very, very stealthy.</p>
<p>There are rules to this game, you see.  Never actually touch the car.  Don't come out of your own vehicle until you're ready to take a photo.  Work quickly:  back, sides, front.  Check tires for stupidities like fake rotors, check interior for m4d $tylingz, do a quick scan through your photos to make sure you don't have any blurries, then get the hell out before anyone notices.</p>
<p>Trust me.  There is <em>no possible way</em> that a round, 5'2", bespectacled woman is going to explain to a ricer, "But I have this great section on my websites devoted to cars like yours!"</p>
<p>Nah.  I'm of the stealth-photo-and-run types.  Saves explaining.</p>
<p>Occasionally, that mentality presents a problem, as in the case of today's car.  I have known about this car for over a month, and have not been able to get a photo of it.  The owner of this car does not live close to me, but lives on a road that I travel often.  I have hoped to see this car around town, so that I could photograph it in a parking lot, but have never spotted it anywhere else.</p>
<p>I have tried multiple times to get photos of this car while it was sitting in the driveway.  Something always interfered; too dark, glaring sunshine, or worst of all - owner tinkering with car.  Definite no-no there.</p>
<p>No more.  Today I was successful.  It was a bright but cloudy day, the car was parked in an excellent position, and the owner was nowhere to be seen.  I parked the next street down, and walked back until I was in viewing range of the car, and...</p>
<p><em>*snap!*</em></p>
<p>Now you will understand the question that's been on my mind every time I've passed this car for the past month:  how could my poor Jetta be expected to keep up with this monster Honda Civic hatchback'?  </p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/1992416326" title="front"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2102/1992416326_353a57ab45_m.jpg" alt="front" title="front"  class=" flickr-photo-img" height="160" width="240" /></a> </p>
<p>Look at all these speed-related upgrades!  </p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/1991613805" title="side"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/1991613805_dc6a364c44_m.jpg" alt="side" title="side"  class=" flickr-photo-img" height="117" width="240" /></a> </p>
<p>This is a man that knows his body kits and knows how to use 'em to their greatest advantage.  Look at the size of that front kit; it's diverting wind away from the front tires, enabling them to get a better grip on the road.  Most racers would stop there, but no, this guy's got his ear to the ground; he knows that a front body kit isn't going to be able to look or perform its best until those silly gaping holes left by the factory are covered with chicken wire.</p>
<p>This guy means business.</p>
<p>Performance and handling are improved 2x by the addition of alloy wheels with low-profile tires.  He is to be admired for understanding the nuances of tire performance, by providing a large decal on the front of the car that scares even more wind away from the tires, thus ensuing at least another 2x performance gain.</p>
<p>That decal may <em>say</em> Arospeed but it says to passers-by, "I mean bidness wit dis car, beatch."</p>
<p>But wait!  The impressive attention to detail doesn't stop there!  There's more to this car than just the front body kit; take a look at that rear body kit.  This guy knows something that 95+% of industry professionals don't know:  if you leave the rear body kit slickly painted, the air going over the top of the car will slide down the hatchback too fast, allowing the rear wheels to float a couple of inches off the ground.</p>
<p>As you know, this is very bad for traction, so he's left the back body kit only roughly painted.  This slows the air down a bit, giving those slim rear wheels every chance they can to bite into the road and push this car forward to victory on race day.</p>
<p>(Whenever race day comes, that is.)</p>
<p>Apparently, though, the 'roughening' of the back body kit wasn't enough of a performance improvement for this guy.  Since the owner of this car was not offered the opportunity to interview with the rice-chasers of domesticat.net, we are forced to speculate about the problems that led to his design choices.</p>
<p>We have come up with the following possibilities for the last design feature of the car:</p>
<ol>
<li>He wanted to pop wheelies</li>
<li>Standard picnic tables too rough for sitting</li>
<li>Car so low to the ground that he needed a better way to find it in parking lots</li>
<li>Chicks thought the body kits weren't hot enough</li>
<li>Refused to trust industry wisdom about body kits stabilizing car in quick racing turns</li>
</ol>
<p>No matter what the reasoning, the need was obvious.  The only way to possibly make this car cooler, more fuel-efficent, better at attracting women, better for spreading out picnic lunches, or just plain easier to find in a parking lot was to slap a wing on it the size of Papua New Guinea.</p>
<p>After all, anyone who laughs at it just doesn't understand what it takes to craft a truly performance-oriented vehicle.</p>
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