Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

This blog will pay for itself.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Second rate reporter says what?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I really should read my own blog.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / She Has a Name

She Has a Name

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Silver Ellen Duncan Dundee is the name of the new ride.

We always have the color of the car in the name, everyone keeps calling it a Lesbaru so Ellen works (because I love this car and think Ellen DeGeneres is absolutely brilliant and a swell person), Duncan is a family car name (Duncan Blue Lark, Duncan Blue Louie (our AMC Eagle in the 70’s), Ruby R. Duncan Dundee, etc.), and Dundee because when my mom bought her first Outback, she appended Dundee for Crocodile Dundee to the name because, well, it was an Outback.

In other good news, Shawn is going to get his CDL and spend 7 weeks in Indianapolis training before moving back and driving for a good company (at an alarmingly high wage).

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    max

    Silver Ellen Duncan Dundee is the name of the new ride.

    I am suddenly dreading whatever children’s names you might invent.

    max
    [‘Rainbow Swirly Off-White Talaya Heart Cole has a good ring to it!’]

  2. 2.

    aimai

    Christ–I’ve had the same car for 13 years now and I haven’t bothered to name it. “My car” seems good enough.

  3. 3.

    gussie

    So basically, excellent news for Shawn, and Cole is taking the karmic hit by being the sort of person who names his car. Now _that_ is true friendship.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Your family names their cars?

    Can say in all honesty have never, ever encountered anyone else who does.

    Do they name toasters and other appliances too?

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  7. 7.

    kindness

    John….you need at least one Jerry reference in that name. C’mon buddy, no slacking now.

    @JPL: Cars don’t pull a Lola on you. You just know it.

  11. 11.

    Violet

    Silver Ellen Duncan Dundee

    If you include the “L” from “Silver”, which works since supposedly it’s a Lesbaru, your car’s initials spell SLEDD. Not a bad nickname for your new ride. “Go get in the sled(d), Lily and Rosie” and so forth.

  12. 12.

    Pogonip

    John, what’s your toilet’s name? (“What’s your toilet’s name, child, what’s your toilet’s name…”). What do you call the toaster? How do you address the front doorknob?

    Congrats, Shawn! When you return, better bring extra mustard.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    My sister insists on naming cars and will name the car of anyone in the family if the owner won’t name it his / herself. My ancient VW is the “Peace Bug” (I had anti-war stickers at one time) and our pickup is “Mother Monster Truck.”

  15. 15.

    TheMightyTrowel

    Dudes. Who DOESN’T name their cars?

    ETA: the cars I grew up with were Eric the Red (an old red Merc), Bilbo (and old volvo stationwagon) and Vanna White (a white dodge caravan). My cars as an adult have been Prospero (it was magic that he still worked), Erik Bloodaxe (a red volvo – EB was the first king of norway and northumbria) and the current one Quetzlcoatl (my jade green volvo). Yes. We like volvos.

    ETA2: I also name my computers.

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @NotMax:

    Can say in all honesty have never, ever encountered anyone else who does.

    Well, you’ve web-met two of us now… three families, really. My dad, back in the early 1960s, had one of the first Volkswagen Beetles imported to the NYC area; because it was white, he called it Pfeffernuuse.

    When I met the man who is now my Spousal Unit, in the mid-1970s, he drove a miserably unreliable Ford product that he called the Millenium Turkey (christened right after the first watching of you-know-what film).

    The current household car doesn’t have a name, because neither of us cares enough to either love or hate it…

  19. 19.

    raven

    I knew these dopes that had birthday parties for their VW. Back to a great game suckers.

  20. 20.

    scav

    @Anne Laurie: My dad had a Turkey too, rather solid little green truck we bought from an airport. Always The Turkey. Blue VW bus was the Embujay. The Beetle was sometimes the Tomato Can.

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:

    Heh. Nasty ol’ cars can definitely earn nicknames, but shiny new driving appliances are pretty near impossible. The eleventeenth silver 2012 Camry in the Target parking lot simply hasn’t earned the right to a moniker.

  24. 24.

    Cassidy

    Holy shitballs, between “I don’t know what car to buy” to “my doggy is such a slut” (which is just a little creepy by itself), you’ve managed to churn out a whole lot of words for absolutely nothing. Fuckin’ hell dude.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    @Anne Laurie

    Well, live and learn.

    Not really a name, but at one time had an Audi 100. It spent wa-a-ay too much time in the shop* (yet all was forgiven when it did run as it was such a sweet ride).

    But due to its chronic breakdowns, used to joke and tell people it should have been called the Audi Limona.

    Weird design, too. Built to start only in neutral (automatic transmission). Battery was under the rear seat, on the passenger side.

    *Particularly recall an L-shaped bracket which held the alternator in place breaking in half at least 4 times. The last time, had it towed to the nearest dealership, where the mechanic insisted it was completely impossible for that part to ever break “under any circumstances.”

    I pulled the two pieces of the bracket out of my pocket and said, “See these two pieces? They’re supposed to be one.” Upshot was that he fixed it for free, finagling in a bracket from some other model (this was in a mostly rural area – had it been an urban dealer have no doubt would have been charged a hefty fee).

  28. 28.

    MikeJ

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    Dudes. Who DOESN’T name their cars?

    I don’t. I care lot more about my computers than my car and the only reason they get names is to tell them apart on the network. Granted, they are themed. For the past 10-15 years I’ve rotated through various coffee growing regions/names. Keyna, Sumatra, Malawi, Sulawasi, Mocha, Peaberry, etc.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: I ain’t watching the round ball (there’s baseball on!), but half-assed rooting for KY because SEC. I take it from your comment UConn is doing well. Boo.

  31. 31.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    My cars are always named for Goddesses (current one is Lilith).

    My wife’s car, on the other hand, is known as the “Mutt-mobile.”

  32. 32.

    David

    We started naming cars when the kids started driving and owning (inheriting) our cars as we upgraded. It started out to eliminate confusion–when there was just the van and one BMW, you just say we are taking the Bimmer. Once we upgraded, the 2000 BMW became “dos mil.” The new one became “das boot.” It was German and as big as a boat. Another BMW I picked up for the youngest became “Heinrich.”

  33. 33.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @MikeJ: I name my computers after arthurian knights because they seem to want to do the right thing, but sometimes they get distracted and go on quests leaving me (and all my important work) behind.

  34. 34.

    seefleur

    My 2000 Buick LeSabre was “Meme” – as in the French Grammy sort of way. My current Sonata is called The Mothership – in part because I am a mother of 4 and in part because it looks somewhat like a squat UFO. Our old ’65 VW hatchback was called “der Fart-vernugen” back when VW was doing their “Fahrvergnugen” ad blitz. And at one time we had a Ford Festiva that was called “EL Crapo” for obvious reasons. The best one was the Renault Le Car that we just called Le Shit Bombe, again for obvious reasons…. Really – who DOESN’T name their cars?

  35. 35.

    doug r

    @NotMax: My wife named our 1975 VW van Bertha. Our 2003 Honda Civic is dark blue and one of the plate choices ended in BAT, so it IS the BATmobile.

  36. 36.

    MikeJ

    @Betty Cracker:

    there’s baseball on!

    Jackie Bradley Jr., one of the best names in baseball, just bunted in a run. Texas 1 3 Boston, bottom of the 8th.

  37. 37.

    Tommy

    @MikeJ: I have seven things connected to my home network, so I totally understand naming your computers. And as something of a coffee snob, I might have to steal your naming idea.

  38. 38.

    raven

    @doug r:

    I had a hard run
    Running from your window
    I was all night running, running, running
    I wonder if you care?
    I had a run-in
    Run around and run down
    Run around a corner
    Run smack into a tree

    I had to move
    Really had to move
    That’s why if you please
    I am on my bended knees
    Bertha don’t you come around here anymore

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    @Violet: If you live in West Virginia, you do *not* want your car to be called “sled.”

    Remind me of a story from a friend of mine a few years back. He was working for an armored car company, and when winter arrived, his partner said “you do know we call these trucks ‘the big red sled,’ right?”

  43. 43.

    Sir Laffs-a-lot

    I usedto name my cars ( had a 1982 Civic that had survived 3 accidents unde a previous owner which I named Bongo); however having ben in delivery for 25 years I am now on my 40th car (2 were new, including my current HHR) and I ran out of inspiration for 4 wheeled monikers.

    I do name my computing devices and name my home network; The Simpson’s provide ready made inspiration. Hence th enetwork is “Springfield”; the home server (mac) is Krusty the Clown; the PC is Bart, the laptop (middle aged but servcable) is Homer, the Kindles are Itchy and Scratchy and so on.

  44. 44.

    terraformer

    My second car was a 1996 Legacy Outback wagon, the second year of production and the first with the new “ruggedized” look. I bought it brand new, traded in a 1985 BMW for it. I ordered green, but then one arrived on the lot in blue (they only had blue and green available that year). I went with the blue. I put 100K miles on it, and never had a problem. Even took it off road into a swampy area and it went right through it all. It was a bit underpowered, only 155 horses (next year they came out w/the hood scoop and an additional 10hp), but it was a great car. Good luck with this one John – sounds (and looks!) like a real winner!

  46. 46.

    Pogonip

    @efgoldman: And if your car were, for some reason, knighted by the queen, it would be Sir Fucking Pile of Junk–or Ser Fucking Pile of Junk, if it happened to be knighted by George R. R. Martin.

    Should it be elected Pope, things might get a bit awkward.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:

    Remember the Audi 5000 unintended acceleration kerfuffle? Friend with good business sense and a morbid sense of humor got an unbelievable deal on a turbo wagon, which was promptly named The Baby Killer. We had some spirited races in the Sonoma-Napa wine country (me in a turbo Saab) that were named WWII do-overs.

    And here I am, all growed up and boring.

  48. 48.

    Mj_Oregon

    If he plans to go OTR, driving truck will play havoc with Shawn’s progress with his diabetes unless he’s EXTREMELY careful about what he eats. The food available to truck drivers encompasses a diet from hell, believe me. Will he be doing in-state day cab maybe? Hopefully? At least he’d get good cooking from you that way.

  51. 51.

    Kristine

    We always named our cars.

    Dad stuck with standard names like Betsy, Little Red (for a ’71 Datsun 1200 roller skate), Big Red (for the Valiant he inherited from his mom).

    I named my Ford pick-up “Harrison.” My Forester is Kuro-shinju (Black Pearl, which is his paint color).

    And all my cars are boys.

  52. 52.

    trollhattan

    Can I talk bicycles? I just finished overhauling my MIL’s mountain bike for my 6th grader. Sat in a shed for more than a decade (the bike, you putzen) so was a half-year project with an additional two or three trips to the bike shop for tasks I don’t have the tools for. Anyway, we rode to school together this morning for the first time with her shiny new ride, which is a 1992 Merlin. She barely fits the frame today but will be able to ride it for many years to come, and the boys with their fixies are just going to stare and go, “bluurgh.”

    The frustrating thing is that five years is a lifetime in mountain bike technology, and getting key replacements for a bike old enough to order a drink is nearly impossible.

  53. 53.

    Bobby D

    Pops was a mechanic, managed a chain of auto/battery shops. We had more cars pass through our hands than I can remember. Pop would buy and sell them for extra money. Only a very, very few got names. They had to be extra quirky and have a story.

    One such vehicle was “Flash”. A 1960-something plymouth of some kind, valiant maybe, that had acceleration measured in geologic time.

    There was “Percy Mae”, a hideous color of pea green Buick Wildcat, boat-tail with a crazy shaped rear glass, late 60s I’d guess, that would absolutely haul ass. I think it had posi-traction, and remember pop laying rubber on a hardpack dirt road once…didn’t think that was even possible.

    My own? No actual names. Just “the Soob”, or “The money pit” (528iT wagon that was constantly having things break)

  55. 55.

    cckids

    @doug r:

    My wife named our 1975 VW van Bertha

    Our 1993 tourmaline-colored 15-passenger van, with wheelchair lift, was called Big Bertha. Just seemed to fit.

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @trollhattan: Nice.

    Ebay is your friend for parts. I’m a road weenie, and things move more slowly in terms of parts, but my oldest bike is a 1971 Masi, been rebuilt several times. You can still find “new old stock” Campy parts.

  58. 58.

    Anne Laurie

    @Kristine:

    And all my cars are boys.

    Maybe it’s like the daemons in the Golden Compass, which are always of the opposite sex from their person?

  59. 59.

    srv

    71 Impala – Green Onion or The Battlestar (5 car wrecks, totalled 3, never moving)
    914 – Poorsha
    Datsun B210 – Scotch
    CRX – Rita
    Accord – 51

    Don’t have a car currently, but weirdly, have an airplane.

  60. 60.

    CaseyL

    I’ve named every car I’ve ever owned. I believe certain objects have a sort of consciousness, and personality; and some cars definitely have a Platonic sense of mission. I’ve had cars that took better care of me than I did of them.

    My beloved old Cressida Wagon earned her name of Angel when she waited until we were safely at a service station before letting me know her battery was dead. This, after a long drive to an area I wasn’t familiar with, to meet my then-boyfriend. Angel had many opportunities to strand me, as I kept getting lost and stopping to consult a map or ask directions. Nope. She waited until I was somewhere the problem could be fixed.

    My first car ever, a hand-me-down 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, knew I was a brand new driver who knew nothing about cars. He kept going even though he desperately needed oil – I’ll never forget the expression on the gas station guy’s face when I said, “What? You mean cars need to have their oil refilled regularly?” (I took good enough care of the Cutlass after that that I was able to sell him to a student when I moved to Seattle.)

    I name many of my household objects, and often feel terrible when it’s time to discard them. Seems like a mean thing to do, after years of good, uncomplaining service. I won’t even go into the time I threw out a VCR that I could swear cried all the way to the dumpster.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    Mr. Suzanne names his cars. Current one is Axer. Previous one was Lagos. I find it slightly strange. I don’t name things.

  64. 64.

    scav

    Put the vehicle in water and boom! No one is surprised they have names. Are wheels poison but spinnikers magic? Ain’t cultural norms interesting. Also, didn’t we just have a thread with house names? Computers too, but that just makes network sense anymore — although Big Blue far predated the internet, even predated the IBM PC.

  65. 65.

    The Dangerman

    Kentucky’s model is horrible for college basketball; they had the best athletes (not even close) but heady play wins championships. Well done, UConn.

    Rumor is Calipari is the next Lakers coach so the model will have a most deserving demise.

    ETA: The non-heady play for UK was the PF #6 that reset the clock. After that, game over.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    when my mom bought her first Outback, she appended Dundee for Crocodile Dundee to the name because, well, it was an Outback.

    Well, it’s s notch better than having chosen to call it Privy.

  68. 68.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:

    You’re spot on re. road stuff–there’s a pedigree and collectable market, and before the ’80s parts didn’t change quickly. Two chainrings, a five-sprocket freewheel, there’s your racing bike. The stuff is still around and I suspect, even made, at least in some regard. In digging through my olde crap I found a NIB set of Campy Record hubs, 32-hole. Even the box is intact.

    A Masi, any Masi, is a damn nice bike.

  70. 70.

    Original Lee

    We name our vehicles, too. We don’t name our computers yet, because we have different formats and locations, but soon we will start duplication as the kids get their own, and then they will be named. My first car that I bought new was Lucy, Original Spouse’s was Eugene. Next were Stanley, Celeste, and Sebastian. The current vehicles are Jeeves and TinTin.

    I didn’t grow up in a family that named cars, though. That could explain why they all were high-maintenance.

  72. 72.

    Suzanne

    When I was in graphic design school as an undergrad, this was in the days of Zip disks. So my cohort and I started a theme of naming our disks, but there had to be a theme. One dude did cheesy colognes (Drakkar Noir, Poison, etc.). Mine was infomercial products. It was a fun goof.

  73. 73.

    Violet

    @Suzanne: A friend worked on some project where various segments were named after Star Wars characters or elements. They’d be talking about it and say things like, “My boss is breathing down my neck about Chewbacca. I think the real problem is [client company] is late with the input for Yoda so that means we can’t get started on The Force and until The Force gets going, Chewbacca is going to be delayed.” It sounded utterly ridiculous. This was a very high dollar, multi-year, multinational project–the kind of thing that was probably taken very seriously be the company’s management–and it sounded like kids playing with action figures when they talked about it.

  74. 74.

    Redshift

    Some of my cars ask to be named, others (like my current PT Cruiser) are just “my car.” It isn’t related to how much “personality” the model has, it’s the individual car. Ms. Redshift names then more often than I do, but she doesn’t always name them either.

  75. 75.

    Feebog

    My Mom and Dad used to travel full time, they pulled a Terry trailer with a 1975 Ford van they had reprinted brown. My nephew named it Snikers.

  76. 76.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Redshift: If memory serves, Ms. Redshift is an archaeologist? We learn early to look at material culture as powerful – in my (admittedly limited) experience archaeologists tend very frequently to anthropomorphize the things in our lives.

    My trowels have names too.

  77. 77.

    Suzanne

    @Violet: Some of my company’s clients want their projects to remain confidential, so we sound like douches when we talk about Project Green or Building Tango.

  78. 78.

    John O

    I’m surprised there are so many car-namers out there. I must not hang with a car naming crowd.

    Mine’s 13 years old, too, and has never been anything other than “my car.”

    Too bad about the game, in that I liked the outcome but was rooting for KY to lose more than I was rooting for UConn to win. Less fun that way.

  79. 79.

    Violet

    @Suzanne: That makes sense. For my friend’s workplace, the projects aren’t confidential, as they require international cooperation and all sorts of people know what’s going on. It’s just up to the project manager to name the segments of the project and for this one he was a huge Star Wars fan. It was totally goofy. The project name itself was based on the location of the project, as they usually are for this group.

  83. 83.

    Mister Papercut

    The car I had to learn to drive on, during the family’s protracted poor spell in the mid-90’s, was a 1977 Mercury Comet. We were grateful, because we had to be, that it ran, but that was about it. Spitting out that thrice-damned vehicle’s name was more than we could bear — even calling it “the car,” through gritted teeth, was a chore — so it picked up the appellation of “The Beef Pot Pie.”

  84. 84.

    sfinny

    Well my car just got a recall notice so maybe Gray Davis is a good name. Otherwise I go with something related to the color red, like Big Tomato or The Blob. God I suck at this.

  85. 85.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: my family named a couple of our cars when I was a kid. My husband named our first new car, and the bright yellow escape we bought in 2001 was named The Short Bus by our kids’ friends.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    You’ve seen mine then. I shortened it to POS. There was a time when I got a monthly check from the federal government after all so I’m used to acronyms.
    I’ve owned lots of cars and motorcycles and I’ve never named one of them. One was christened by someone else once as the 125cc oil slick.

  87. 87.

    JaneE

    We started giving our cars a nickname when we got two of the same car – couldn’t use the model to distinguish them. My current ride is Miss Sparkle.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Never understood the need to name one’s vehicle. Like the old cowboy who when asked what his horse’s name was said, you don’t name something you might have to eat/part out.

  95. 95.

    PaulW

    I named my PT Cruiser Jennifer Blue.

    Hey, we name boats, people…

    Just asking, is there a decent car out there that’s stylish like a PT Cruiser but with a more reliable engine? I’m gonna need to go car-shopping sooner or later… and no, not the Kia Soul. For some reason I’m too tall in the seat in that car… plus it’s too blocky. No curves to it.

  97. 97.

    Ramalama

    We always named our cars. When my parents got an early Honda (late 70s, looked like a gym shoe, yes), we kids insisted on naming it Bob, because the combo of what little we knew about Japan colliding with the name Bob always made us laugh.

    Previously there was the Tornado, the Brown Bomber, Betty White.

    Then when I growed up and got me a car it was Gretchen the Pug. And now I drive Justin. As in Just in time.

    But my partner and I have also named our two wood stoves. Martha and Bertha. It suits them. I can’t say why.

  99. 99.

    Genine

    Congratulations on the car! And congratulations to Shawn on the new opportunity! I wish “alarmingly high” wages for all!

  100. 100.

    muricafukyea

    Jesus titty fuking christ on a a stick. Cole gives his cars names? What was the car in the field named?

  101. 101.

    Seanly

    My step father calls all of his cars Alice. I’ve never been one to name my cars. I refer to our 14-yr old car as the RPOS (rolling piece of shit, stole that from a grad school buddy), but that’s about it. Our 2011 Subaru Outback (the next gen after John’s Silver Ellen) is a great little car and we call it the “sue-bee” – not sure how to spell that other than phonetically.
    EDIT: for a couple of years I did drive a faded orange Ford Torino that we called Grendel because it was such a beast, but that was a nickname. A nickname is different than a name to me.

  102. 102.

    Seanly

    And congrats on the new car and to your friend Shawn for a new job. Too bad he spells the wonderful name Sean incorrectly. :)

  103. 103.

    Gravie

    My first car — a hunched, vaguely blue-green 1957 Renault Dauphin — was christened “Froggy.” My husband’s college car, a ’68 Mustang, was the Alabama Flash. Haven’t really named any since then until we got our new truck last fall, which is now known as Gumby because the tag starts with GMB.

  107. 107.

    Indymisanthrope

    Tell Shawn not to bother me while he’s here.

    Actually, tell him to grab dinner at Fat Dan’s Deli. He’ll appreciate it.

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