as time progresses, my rants get longer and longer bitter? jaded? me? never!

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Driving a Ford Territory makes you an asshole

“The new Ford Territory is an innovative design that incorporates the best elements of large sedans, four-wheel-drives and people movers.” - Ford advertising material

i thought these were amazing cars when i first saw them. the same torquey, hi-tech straight six as a new ford falcon, in a 4×4 with a towing capacity of TWO TONNES! they got wheels car of the year, and you see them everywhere, surely this is a good thing?

hell no!

i haven’t found a single ford territory on the road that has obeyed the speed limit, that hasn’t muscled myself or another road user out of its way with its sheer size and road presence, or with any more than one person in it

ford may claim all the crap up the top, but the facts are this - the new ford territory is an ugly design that brings out the lead-footed-ness and desire to beat anything on 4 wheels of large sedan drivers, the arrogance and lack of need to worry about other road users because you are bigger than everyone else of four-wheel-drives, and the day one of them gets used as a people mover, a market dominated by people who can’t afford the fuel bill of a 4 litre engine moving a big heavy towing vehicle driving four wheels, then i’ll eat my hat! driving a ford territory makes you an asshole, stay away from them!

2007 update: a few ford territory drivers, not wanting to prove me wrong, have apparently seen this webpage and bandied the address around one of their forums on more than one occasion. as a result, over time i have received several angry emails, and even been ganged-up-on and harassed on my personal msn messenger account, for expressing my personal views on my website. well done, anyone who contacted me, you have proven me right in a way i never could, thankyou

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Things that piss me right off!

Crap drivers

People who do 80 in the 100 zone, then 80 in the 60 zone. People who do 70 in single lanes, and 120 in overtaking lanes. Underconfident drivers who don’t know who has right of way and end up holding up traffic. People who “duck past” you while you’re reversing out of a carpark. People who brake and slow right down for every single corner no matter how gradual the turn is. Anyone who does more than 5 under the limit, or 10 if they have kids, you’re being a dangerous restriction to traffic, HURRY UP! People who are so clueless they drive along a straight road with their blinker on. People who don’t slow down in the wet then blame the accident on the poor condition of the roads. And that fucking asshole at Coles who didn’t want to go one measly foot out of his way so I could park and he could get past, but could take the time to get out of his car, walk to my window and give me a serve about how I’m such a poor road user, fuck you!

People who are full of shit

People who say they’ll call you but never do. People who say they’re going to do something but never do. People who tell stories about things which you know for a fact are untrue. Compulsive liars. People who change who they are depending on the company they’re in. People who take things said out of context. People who say they can get you something for a certain price and never make with the goods. Journalists who have absolutely nothing to say, but must constantly print their one-sided view on everything. People who pretend they understand things then ask the stupidest possible question they could, there is no shame in not knowing something, I don’t know alot of things as well, but at least don’t fake it and get caught out.

Mondays

Who wants to enjoy the end of the weekend? Monday is a terrible depressing event that ruins all your fun, just like the school holidays ending, except it happens every week. I have absolutely no problem putting in a top effort for the rest of the week, even on Friday afternoon, Friday is just another day of the week to me, but I just hate Monday with a vengeance. Everyone should be pissed off on Mondays and not do any work at all. I heartily support the four day working week.

Computers

Unfortunate for me, because it’s my job to fix them. Having to fix computers makes me sick to the stomach. With all the faulty hardware, poorly written software, absolutely shithouse failure-prone “self install kits” I’ve seen, and proprietary “standards” which nobody seems to adhere to, I am honestly surprised anyone can do any work at all on the damn things! As for the paperless office, what a joke, computers have caused the death of more trees due to useless printouts of redundant information, machine-language reports, jammed laser printers and empty ink cartridges than I could if I walked around with a petrol tanker and a box of matches. Why can’t all the companies who make the same thing just get together and decide on one, simple, stable, easy solution to the problem at hand and make life easy for everyone. I understand it and I’m sick of it, I can’t imagine how someone with no idea wades through all the useless drivel to get their computer to a useable state. What’s wrong with good old pen and paper anyway?

Bluetooth

What a fantastic technology idea, executed in such a poor manner that makes it so painful to use, I’d rather not have it. Driver support is flaky at best, sometimes it just stops working for no reason, and god forbid you would actually unplug the USB dongle! Why do you need a “license file” to connect through radio to your own phone, but you can use a cable no problems? Even audio devices such as portable hands frees are awkward to use. Who wants a battery and a speaker hanging off their ear anyway? it’s uncomfortable and you look like an idiot from a star trek convention, coupled with the need to constantly pair and unpair devices, you may as well just buy a carkit or use speakerphone. Let’s not even go into the drain on battery life, 5 days standby to 1.5 with bluetooth on, yeah, real useful.

Lack of Common Sense

It seems to me that the older I get, the more stupid people I meet who I’m surprised can get through the day to day rituals of washing and dressing, never mind do something complex like modify a car or install software - that’s one of my favorite ones, “Do I click Next?” no moron, you click cancel, pull the powerplug out the wall, and chuck the whole lot in the river, of course you fucking click next, what other choice do you have?! Some more great ones are: emails that get sent to me about 5 times because someone was too lazy to read the headers and see I’d already been sent it, people asking me the same question which I have just given them the answer to, people who can’t figure out how to open counter-clockwise doorhandles.

People who contact me for the sole purpose of asking me car questions

I am not your personal spanner service. I do not live for the sole purpose of spoonfeeding stupid people who are simply too tight to pay a mechanic to solve their problems. Buy a fucking shop manual, pull stuff apart and put it back together and teach yourself like everyone else has, or read the multitudes of information which is already on the internet in easy to read, searchable format. Or even better, take it to a mechanic and stop wasting everyone’s time, including your own.

Headaches

What the fuck causes these anyway? Once I had a headache for THREE MONTHS! No shit. Doctors, CAT scan, x-rays, chiropractors, optometrists - nobody could tell me what the hell was wrong with me. Then one day it just went away. Next time I’ll just get a lobotomy, it’ll probably be cheaper.