Mercedes does blonde jokes. Really.

And I thought car companies didn't have senses of humor.



This is a video. A video I think is funny enough to post, so if you can't see it, click here. No? Fine. Be that way.

Again with the irony

California. Land of entertainment. Home to Hollywood. Movies. TV. The state motto is "Maior. Melior. Magis." (Or it should be — that's Latin for "Bigger. Better. More.") This is a state that so believes in "big" it needed its own mattress size — Cal King.

Explain to me then why this is the state that is passing a law banning televisions larger than 58"? I'm not kidding. The state of California has evidently decided it has the right to limit the size of your TV in your home. (Not until 2013, so you've got a few years, but still.)

This is the second part of a TV energy bill, the first part of which limits sales of HDTVs in the state to only those which meet its energy efficiency standards. I'm down with that. But the next part, the "you can't have a really large TV because we said so" part? I'm thinking that Kit Eaton of Fast Company summed it up nicely:

The Consumer Electronics Association has publicly reacted to California legislators' ban on inefficient TVs by saying "You're all dumb, with about the same grasp on technology as Homer Simpson." I'm paraphrasing, but the CEA has a point.

That's like saying you can't buy SUVs anymore because they're not as energy efficient as small cars. Has anyone checked the energy efficiency of a Porsche 911 against a Highlander Hybrid? I'm just saying...

Miles to go before I sleep

Math can make your head spin. I was reading Seth Godin's blog (catching up on his blog actually, but whatever) and came upon his post, "Not so good at math." He reprinted the classic miles-per-gallon example, comparing Suburbans to Priuses, in which two alternative performance improvements are proposed and you are asked which is the better choice.

His point is to remind marketers that the ordinary consumer is, as he puts it "not wired for arithmetic. It confuses us, stresses us out and more often than not, is used to deceive."

Have you ever heard someone say, "numbers don't lie"? Yeah, right. Numbers may not lie, but they sure can obfuscate some cold hard facts, especially when wielded by a master.

To me, it's like the age-old question is lying by omission lying?

The mpg example goes like this:

You want to reduce gasoline consumption and, lucky for you, there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

• Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
• Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

That seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, except for the fact that you know there's a trick in there somewhere.

This is a bit of a mind bender, but think about it this way (since you've obviously figured out that the answer is NOT replacing the Priuses) — if you drive 25 miles in an "unmodified" Suburban, you'll go through 2 1/2 gallons of gas, while going through only 1/2 a gallon driving the same distance in a Prius. That's easy enough, right? Okay, stick with me. If you modify the Prius, doubling the gas consumption efficiency, and drive another 25 miles you'll save a whopping 1/4 gallon of gas.

But, if you modify your Suburban, improving gas consumption efficiency only by a third, and drive another 25 miles, you'll save 1/2 gallon of gas (actually, a little bit more). Twice as much as you would save modifying the Prius.

Basically, the Prius is already so efficient, that making it more efficient doesn't save you that much. But the Suburban is so inefficient, that even making it a little more efficient makes a big difference.

To Seth's point, however, who of us ordinary consumers would jump to that conclusion first? And no, Dad, you are not an ordinary consumer.

Goldilocks goes shopping

I want to talk about the joys of comparison shopping. Now there is certainly joy to be found, I'm sure, in not having to look at the price. I'm sure, but I wouldn't know.

There's a whole 'nother level of satisfaction to be gained from being told one price and then, through a combination of dogged determination, persistence and sheer orneriness, finding that same good or service for a lower price. This I do know.

Just yesterday, my car dealership wanted to charge me $355 plus tax to replace and mount my tire. Leaving there convinced that couldn't be the best price, I stopped into DiscountTires, sure they would beat that price. Shockingly, they wanted $453 to do the same thing (as an aside, I think they might want to consider changing the name of their business).

A few minutes on the internet turned up a source that would sell and ship me the tire for $235. I actually contemplated the look on the face of the nice man who runs my mailbox center when he received that box before continuing my research.

Finally, I found the tire source that was "just right"—Big-O Tires would sell and mount the tire for $250, including tax. And they're just down the street from me. Tell me that's not satisfying.

It's a car thing

Tony Stark, this one's for you.

For those few who are willing and able, Bugatti has just introduced the Veyron Grand Sport, a convertible version of the Veyron. The Grand Sport features a removable hard top of transparent polycarbonate - that's right, the top is clear - and evidently Bugatti took its time releasing this bad boy to keep the original's speed, dexterity and safety uncompromised.

What's more amazing? The Grand Sport makes the Veyron look like a veritable bargain at $1,500,000 - the first convertible was auctioned in August for - are you sitting down? - $2,900,000. And I bet it doesn't even have cup holders.

Glug, glug, glug

There's nothing like a little data mapping to make your day.

Gasbuddy Gas Prices

Or not.

Fast, faster, fastest

Forbes Magazine is great for its lists:

Men's 10 Worst Fashion Sins - leisure suits, comb-overs, shirts un-buttoned down to there... only 10? How'd they do that?
Top-Earning Dead Celebrities - now that's cool
America's Most Sinful Cities - sin by sin, not city by city, because that would just be boring

Last year, my favorite list was The Forbes Fictional 15, a list of the richest fictional characters -- on which, by the way, Tony Stark was number 10.

But this year, I'm torn, since I'm kinda a car geek. What, you don't believe me? Walking in the dark, at midnight, on a dirt path behind the Empire Polo Fields, leaving Coachella, I stopped dead in my tracks. "What? What?" asked my girlfriends. "That's a Maybach," I said, pointing. "A what? How can you even see that?" "I have a gift." Not to mention, what is a $400,000 (minimum) car doing parked on a dirt road behind the stage at Coachella? Parked! I mean, don't those things come with a driver? Smythington-Smythe?

But back to the lists - this year, Forbes gives us not only the Fastest Cars, but the Fastest Fictional Cars. Nice!

The top three are animated... Blurr from Transformers, Mach 5 from Speed Racer and the Batmobile. Rounding out the fictitious speedsters are Dom's car from The Fast and the Furious (love that movie, RT: 53) and K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider.

Then we come to five fastest cars in the real world (though I'm not exactly sure whose definition of "real" we're working with - the world's fastest car costs over $600,000, and the second fastest costs a cool $1.5 million). Number one is the SSC Ultimate Aero (a Shelby - American made, thank you very much), then the Bugatti Veyron, followed by the Koenigsegg CCX, the Saleen S7 Twin Turbo (also American made), and lastly the Bristol Fighter T.

Not til the bottom half do you get to your more pedestrian Lamborghini, Pagani, and Mercedes. Ferrari and Porsche? Not even On. The. List. Hmpf.

Which makes the R8 (Audi) product placement in Iron Man that much more glaring. Seriously, you don't think the #10 richest fictional character in the universe isn't going to be driving one of the top 10 fastest cars in the world? Of course he is. And, hello?, only Tony Stark could afford one of those cars. Like I said, hmpf.