Book Of Norm

The title says it all. After seeing a 9-5 Wagon and a Discovery within a few minutes of each other I could not get over the comparison. With Saab dead, I guess you can borrow whatever you want. But in this case.. Why?

The worst car of all time. The butt of every auto journalist joke. The ugliest car ever. The 2001 Pontiac Aztec. But here is the funny thing - GM was right. Pontiac was right. Whoever designed this thing is laughing, crying, and yelling "I told you so!!!" into the void. I hear ya mystery car designer, I hear ya. The reason is, we all drive one now. We drive edgy looking crossovers which are actually cars. When the Pontiac came out, everyone made fun of it because it was "not a real SUV" but it tried to look like one with plastic and sharp lines. Journalists laughed as well all kept buying Ford Explorers, or actual cars like the Camry. Fast forward on your VCR to 2019. Pontiac is dead, the Aztec is reviled, the Camry is fading as 'cars' fall off the sales chart and the up and coming crown prince of units sold is the 2019 Rav4. Notice anything? It's a Pontiac Aztec!!!! It is based on a car. It has plastic body panels (2 tone!). It has a s...

Facebook is dying. Want proof? They are discussing paying people to add content, because people are posting less and less. http://www.inc.com/jeff- bercovici/facebook-pay-users. html Paid content = crap. There is no way this works. This is not Youtube where people follow random funny/celebrity types because it's basically TV. This is Facebook where users are meant to interact with their friends, online. You're going to pay some of them to put up content? Ridiculous. Facebook will always stick around, just like Google search will always be there, we run Microsoft Windows for our OS and we have an x86 architecture and QWERTY keyboards courtesy of IBM. It just won't be as important anymore.

I woke up to bright sunshine. There were trees above me as I looked up. It was a cold day. Cold, and blue. They often went together. I shook myself awake. My head hurt like hell. I was in the passenger seat, fully reclined. Slowly I came to, and saw Sarah sleeping in the driver's seat. I rolled onto my side and was greeted by Denali's wet nose, followed by some sloppy kisses. We were ok. I knew we were ok from that. Just that. It was going to be ok. I reached across and hugged Sarah, and she started to wake up, leaning into my hug. "Where are we baby?" I asked her. All I could see were trees around us, no road, just a dirt track behind us. She woke up to the question. "Oh baby I'm so glad you're ok. I was so worried about you last night. You kept falling asleep on me. I tried to keep you awake as we drove, but I didn't know what to do." I told her it was ok, she had done the right thing, we had to get away from Boston. She followed up: ...

I knew the key was to not panic. To pick our route carefully. To stay away from the highways and main roads where traffic would be backed up. I'd had my truck for years, which meant I still had my old paper maps in it. I drove slowly though our neighborhood as I worked with Sarah on the route. I wanted to head North first, get away from people, get away from the highways. Find a path no one fleeing Boston would try and take. I turned on the radio but all that was on was the emergency broadcast system. It was telling us to evacuate the city in an "orderly manner." I almost ran over someone, something maybe, as I listened to that broadcast. I had to swerve as the person was crouching in the middle of the road. Only as we went past I saw they were crouching over another body. Sarah said "I think we can head on local roads around Marlborough and Hudson, so right past the Assabet park." Sarah was a realtor - she knew this area far better than I ever would. She ha...

Boston. Two passengers on stolen South Korean passports had come into Logan the day before. Police were searching for them. A husband and wife. They had checked into a hotel, but could not be found. Shit. Jesus. I kept packing. The radio went on. Reports of attacks in San Diego. No one was sure yet of anything. I tried to get through to Sarah. She texted me through Facebook, she had seen the news: nukes. She was worried, wanted to know if that meant anything dangerous for us. I told her not to worry - once she got home we would head out of the city, get somewhere safe. I grabbed everything I could find. Food. Water. Camping gear. All the dog food. A couple of folding solar panels with USB ports. Flashlights. A wind up radio. I didn't have a lot of weapons. I packed what I had. Hatchet. Couple of folding outdoor knives, my Leatherman. Once the Suburban was packed I went over to the gas station. The line was crazy, but I had to wait for Sarah anyway. It took an hour to ...

We sat there watching. No one wanted to go back to work. We ate lunch and speculated. "Do you think it's a virus?" "Maybe it's a bio-weapon the South tried to use?" "Some crazy chemical like Meth but stronger." We didn't know, but no one else did either. A few minutes later Obama came on and announced that the US would be moving 4 carrier groups into the East China Sea and Sea of Japan. Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, came on also: Japan was mobilizing their entire Naval Defense Force. Combined, it was the largest naval deployment since WWII. Even Putin said they would move in the Admiral Kuznetsov to assist. What the hell were the Russians doing helping the South Koreans? A breaking news story came through soon after - the Chinese military was evacuating Shenyang. I had never heard of it before, but reports said it was a city of more than 8 million. 8 million. It's maybe 100 miles from the North Korean border. Sketchy reports were ...