Dome Override

Not a weekday passes that I don't see a fellow motorist in a pickup that is conspicuously festooned with bumper/window stickers which proclaim its owner's fealty to either Ford, Dodge, or Chevy.

I wish there was a way I could ask one of those motorists to meet me at the Common Grounds coffee shop one afternoon and politely explain to me just what the fuck he (always he) hopes to convey with such a sticker. 'Cause I just plain don't fucking get it.

Sure, I get the fact that there's a long-standing feud as to the relative merits of a Ford vs. Dodge vs. Chevy that's been playing out since the Truman administration. But the part that has me flummoxed is that it just seems so arbitrary. Of course you could say the same for any other type of bumper stickers, most of which serve only one purpose: to proclaim one's loyalty to or enjoyment of some team, brand, political party, college, brand of guitar strings, etc.

The thing that renders the whole "my truck is better than yours" assertion completely meaningless can be summed up by the fact that there is no quantitative, qualitative, or demonstrable difference between any of America's pickups, at least not since about 1993. They're pretty much all the same thing with different nameplates, ain't they? So I'm guessing it just comes down to brand loyalty, but that's equally flummoxing to me; what exactly defines a Ford man vs. a Dodge man? And are these perpetuated in the marketing of each?

I tried to suss this out by drawing an analogy to the guitar world, where a similar rivalry plays out between Fender enthusiasts and Les Paul acolytes (and maybe toss in a couple specialty names like Paul Reed Smith, etc.). Some guitar nerds typically gravitate toward one or the other and then swear allegiance to their brand and then participate in all sorts of dingbatty holy wars as to their guitar's presumed superiority (which is in itself pretty ludicrous, since nobody besides other guitar players really gives a shit). But it is my understanding that there is in fact tangible shit that clearly defines what sets a Les Paul apart from a Fender. I don't know for sure what they are; I just know that Les Pauls are fucking heavy.

The programming world is rife with religious wars, too: Mac/Windows, Linux/Windows, Java/C++, Python/Ruby* are the ones that spring immediately to mind, and if you were inclined to throw away 2-3 hours reading Slashdot (and goddamn, if there's an online community that's more predictably strident and provincial than Slashdot, I'd be surprised), you'd see that people are pretty eloquent about what makes A better than B, whatever A and B might happen to be this week.

So what makes a Dodge different than a Chevrolet or a Ford? Are there online discussion forums where guys explain the benefits of one over the other? I doubt it; there are no such differences. Same cheap shit, different brand name.

On a related note: I've long found it amusing to observe America's precipitous automaking decline. My dad has a Chevy truck, and it's always pretty amazing how Fisher Price the thing is. Lots of cheap plastic gewgaws and whizbang lights that are supposed to make the driver feel like he's in charge of an important piece of equipment. My favorite is a switch that says 'Dome Override'. One day I asked my dad what the hell that does.

"It turns on the dome light."

"Ah."

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I AM SO FUCKING CLEVER:

Last week's code-monkey adventures involved me declaring a variable to represent a slash (virgule, if you're nasty). In a flash of brilliance that I hope to one day replicate, I named the variable saul_hudson.

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* Ruby is thee language du jour for web dinks these days, and it is pretty neato. But I can't hear the name Ruby without getting that Kenny Rogers** song stuck in my head.

** Dig this: about three years ago I was at the grocery store, wearing headphones as is my wont, and I happened to have that Ruby (Don't Take Your Love to Town) song on my rockbox. I hadn't heard it since I was a young'un, and I'd like to confess here and now that the drama that plays out in that song gave me goosebumps, just like it did when I was in third grade, listening to my dad's Kenny Rogers tape as I shot baskets in the driveway.

"You coulda heard a pin drop when Tommy turned and locked the door."

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