assault with a deadly hybrid

Sure, you may be saving trees. However, by driving a Toyota Prius, you are also apparently now in possession of a lethal weapon. But, you ask, aren't all vehicles potentially a lethal weapon? And yes, dear reader, you would be correct in thinking so. Yet the Prius is now thought to be uniquely life-threatening due to its freakishly quiet engine, especially at speeds under 25mph in which it switches to its electric-only mode.

The LA Times published a story today highlighting the dangerous effects that this silence has on pedestrians, particularly blind ones. Because the engine is so quiet, pedestrians are less likely to hear when hybrid cars are coming. For those who depend on the sound of a car coming or passing by to know when to not cross a street, this could obviously cause some problems. Operating from the same hybrid technology as the Prius, the Toyota Camry Hybrid is also reported to be similarly hazardous. Honda hybrids, however, maintain more engine noise because they never fully go into engine-only mode.


As someone equipped with a Prius, I can personally testify to its silence. It never ceases to amaze my friends upon embarking on their first ride in Yoda (my car's name, FYI) - I cannot count how many times I have heard them say, "... Are you sure it's on?" I guess I'll have to be extra careful not to run over any pedestrians now, because I wasn't before and all.

springtime is upon us

Happy first day of SPRING!

There's a reason why Vivaldi put this season first. Perhaps it is because he really enjoyed the fact that young college women can officially pull out the smallest pieces of fabric from their closets and justify them as a "sun dress." But, let's face it - girls in LA do that year-round. There must be another reason, and I am going to speculate that it is because it marks the 59-day mark in the countdown until I graduate. Frankly, we all know that is motivation enough to write one of the most popular Baroque violin concertos. Spring forward!

US brings torture home

As if $4-gallon gas prices aren't ridiculous enough, wheat prices have now spiked dramatically as well, resulting in the increased price of all baked goods. The cost for cereals, bagels, muffins, breads, pizza, and other flour-ful foods are rising quickly. CNN reports, "The cost of cereals and bakery products climbed at an annual rate of more than 9% last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to a rise in the overall Consumer Price Index during the past 12 months of 4%."

The rise is thought to be contributed by a number of factors. First, due to a high demand of ethanol, farmers have been encouraged to cut back on growing wheat in order to plant corn for producing feul. Additionally, the farmers have experienced sub-par growing conditions, including freezes and droughts. Lastly, if you haven't heard already, the US dollar kind of sucks. This makes wheat inexpensive for foreigners, leading to a ridiculously high exportation rate.

Who knew the Atkin's diet would actually end up making your wallet fatter? I guess it's a win-win for those who deprive themselves of these carboliciously divine foods. But for the rest of the world - and by the rest of the world, I mean me - the bank account will have to suck it up.

Bring on the muffins.

mel + jon = <3

You know that feeling you get when you find out that two people from two different circles of your friends know each other? Like when a name is brought up of someone you are friends with from high school in a conversation with a college friend? That is the feeling I experienced moments ago. Times ten. Plus three.

Kristen Schaal, who plays the band's single fan/stalker on HBO's Flight of the Conchords, showed up as the newest Daily Show correspondent. Picture it: a shot of Jon Stewart pans out across the desk to his right as he introduces the segment's commentator, and there they are! Together, in the same frame. Glorious. At the risk of presenting myself as pathetic, I cannot think of any two things that make me happier than Jon Stewart and Flight of the Conchords. This merging -- a magical Venn diagram, if you will -- that has only occured in the depths of my REM cycle has left my mind, quite frankly, blown. Now if we could only get Bret and Jemaine in the same room as Jon...

Inspired by tonight's fantasticness, here is a montage of Mel, Kristen Schaal, doing her thing... which is, of course, stalking.

a honk-and-run

This is pretty much the only thing keeping me sane right now. I'm just going to keep replaying it. A lot. I wonder what this dude would do if the car actually hit him....

this just in...

Our sources at Comedy Central have released the following:

Hillary Clinton -- the first viable presidential candidate with a working uterus
-- will be a guest on the Daily Show this upcoming Monday night -- the eve of
the March 4th primaries in Texas, Ohio and several other less sexy states -- to
presumably talk about politics, patriotism and pant suits.

Oh, how I miss the old maroon couch!!

dirty pop

I prefer the quiet sections of the library, but not because my productivity relies on dead silence. On the contrary, I actually need noise to get anything done. What I cannot stand is the conversations that take place in the sections where talking is not frowned upon. When I am trying to write a 50-page paper -- you know what, even when I am not trying to write a 50-page paper, I could care less about which events you remember partaking in and which ones for which you were blacked out. I really don't need to know what you and Matt did or did not do, and what method of birth control you did or did not use. And if your best friend's sister's boyfriend's cousin's on-and-off girlfriend called you a whore, she probably had a reason for it.

So, finding myself in the conundrum of where to set up camp in the library, I strike a happy medium by sitting in the quiet section with my headphones. Ingenious, I know. Even though I happily type to the rhythms of my "Write Your Thesis!" playlist, I can't help but feel paranoid. My worst library fear (besides spilling liquid all over my and others' books, which I already got over when it happened last semester) is mistakenly plugging my headphones into the wrong jack of my laptop but not realizing it because I would think the sound is coming from my headphones still, and consequently broadcasting my playlist to the entire room.

Most people are probably thinking, Big deal. So people around you hear some music and then someone gives you the rude library Shhhh!, then you turn it off. Touche, except for the fact that for some inexplicable reason, I write best to really, really, really bad 90's pop music. I'm talking 'NSync, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees kind of bad. I do not know why it works, but it works. I won't question it. I will, however, continue to double-, triple-, and quadruple-check where I plug in my headphones. And when you hear blasts of "Tearin' Up My Heart" emitting from the Jeffer's Room (because that day will surely happen), please know that I am both truly sorry and sufficiently humiliated.