Apex Adjacent

Episode 134-Bad at sports, even in a fantasy world.

"When in doubt, throttle it out." Classic words to live by. In this episode, we enter our own creation into the lexicon of legendary automotive adages. Inhale. Here goes: "Don't look at me like I'm the one that put the TRD stickers on the Jeep Grand Cherokee door handles!" Boom. Nailed it.

In other flights of fancy besides us being Automotive Aristotles, Dave and Ian discuss their different philosophy about Fantasy GP. One wants to win a fake game, the other wants to game fake winnings.

If all that wasn't enough, we point and laugh as Dave endures the longest minute and 23 seconds of his life, Ian's skull dents in as he tries to find reason with a Carstanza Jeep Grand Cherokee, and we continue to infect the masses, as well as our loved ones, with our own maladies.

Episode 133 - Seriously, it's like looking through a child's Batman mask.

Ian discusses something that we've all known for a long time, but we've never quite articulated it like this before: Just because something is awful doesn't mean that it isn't fun or that we wouldn't do it again. People, we present the rental spec Dodge Challenger R/T. Just remember to queue the guitar solo, rip the sleeves off of your sport coat, and put the hammer down.

The main topic of the show centers on a recent tragedy having to do with a pedestrian and an autonomous car. The problem is huge, all encompassing, and requires the widest possible view when crafting solutions. That said, as automotive enthusiasts, let's make sure that we're seen as partners, not the combative crazy people that make hyperbolic claims instead.

Unlike the Dodge Challenger's rear view, we need to continue looking back as we look forward. If we fail to do so, we won't be able to reach a future where we've eliminated all of the risk that we realistically can.

Episode 132-Goodbye. Hello.

Coming home. There's nothing quite like the feeling of getting back into your car after a long trip. You kiss your fingers, touch the headliner, and pray that it starts. It's refreshing being back on home turf, and in this episode, we discuss that feeling.

Speaking of turf, there is a little matter that needs discussing; what one should do when in the vicinity of a Carstanza. Rule 1-Take a pic. Rule 2-Do not approach. Rule 3-Send it to us so that we can have mental breakdowns in a blanket fort while you watch.

Lastly, Dave discusses his plans, or lack thereof, for Dusty Rusty, may he spool eternal boost on the big highway in the sky.

Episode 131-Irrational Rationale.

There's a saying: "Don't yuck someone else's yum". Sure, sounds good (and a touch gross) in theory, we get it. If you're into putting car eyelashes on your Pontiac Grand Am, then you do you. When you dig into that statement, REALLY dig into it, you start to notice it's a sliding scale. On one end is a peaceful nod when said accessorized Grand Am passes by, and on the other end are the white hot infernos of rage that we experience when we witness a car that we already can't stand, wearing a wing that Vin Diesel would call ostentatious (if he could pronounce it), and the icing on this yuck cake? A MASERATI BADGE.

As automotive enthusiasts, we don't have a choice in whether or not we have to deal with clinically insane people modifying their cars, but we do get to choose our reaction to them.

Yuck.

Episode 130-We have thoughts...

If we had a dollar for every time this show was an emotional roller coaster, we'd have lots of dollars. The life of a person is full of ups and downs, and being an automotive enthusiast certainly greases the tracks (mainly with oil from cracked VW oil pans), often times accelerating our vacillation between the two polarities.

Honestly, between Ian and Dave there are probably two vastly different opinions of the emotional up/down dichotomy one experiences when #GettingWetWithIan. In this week's installment of our soapy excursion, we discuss gun ownership and gun control, then map it to our motoring hobby.

Another thing that embodies the yin/yang of our automotive predilection is the #Carstanza pics that our listeners see and send (Thank you Nick) and like an festering zombie outbreak, they seem to be spreading. An emotional up or down kind of becomes irrelevant when you're face to face with a Cobalt posing as a Camaro; it raises FAR more questions than it answers.

Episode 129-Urus

Urus. If you make it to the end of the show, you'll probably never hear the name of the weird Lamborghini SUV without it being coupled by a spine-tingling shiver and part of your soul (if you have one…Dave) giving up and leaving.

So yeah, besides spoiling Lambo names, Ian makes Dave say uncle. And by uncle, we mean what Mr. Old Man Infiniti Sedan really thinks of Ian's Boy Racer, Class Skipping, Bird Flipping, Track-honed R32. Go figure, he wound up blathering on and on about bicycles. Sheesh. You can take the ginger out of the sedan, but you can't take the old man out of the…wait, there's no good way for that to sound in the end.

Anyway, lessons learned in this episode? Sure. Context. Context is an important part of our love of cars, and context is the thing that keeps you clinging on to a nerve-racking track car as well as being able to enjoy a large barge rental car. Context.

Episode 128-Cliffhanger!!!

Look, we have a bit of an inverse Midas touch. We worked hard to line up an interview with one of the best voices in automotive journalism, Alanis King. The very next day with our interview stored safely away, F1 announced that they were no longer going to use Grid Girls. Sigh. It would have been nice to reverse the order of those events, but let's not get hung up on things we can't change.

Focusing on the things that we can change, Ian sprung into action like a ski jumper duct-taped to a social justice warrior. For some idiotic reason, the Grid Girl issue seemed to be the breaking point for morons on the internet motivating them to start complaining; rationalizing their arguments for how ultimately they think they're entitled to objectify women in any venue that they enjoy.

Folks, we have a lot of reasons to enjoy being automotive enthusiasts, it's a great hobby. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unsavory elements of that culture that make it inaccessible and unapproachable to people outside of it, in addition to making it super difficult for people in that culture that aren't misogynist xenophobes. Let's freaking fix this. Our community has disappointed us with its reaction to the F1 announcement, so let's keep the focus on moving the culture forward in a positive direction. Car culture is changing, culture is changing, and we have an opportunity to be an example. Let's not make decisions that we wish we could reverse later on.

Episode 127-Soft IT Hands

Sometimes life requires a delicate touch. Unfortunately, this is not one of those moments, so we have to buck up and put our soft IT hands through their paces.

It's not all manual labor, bruised knuckles, and sweaty brows, thankfully. There are some fresh feelings: pulling on a new pair of socks, the catharsis of beating up plaster on a fireplace, or letting a pregnant woman get away with hitting your car with hers.

All of that aside, the big news is that Dieselgate managed to impact not just the entire earth, but at one point they specifically honed in on innocent cartoon-watching primates. Yeah.

Episode 126- Cats, Hell and otherwise.

Let's have a construction discussion. Well, we did, and we do, and we need to continue to do so. Similar to seeing an entertainment center for what it is, a composition of bolts, wood, and glue, we see the automotive landscape for what it is. People, cars, personalities, unity as well as its fair share of issues. These are the pieces we get to use when building our community.

Our guest, Alanis King, has a unique and crucial view of the building blocks of the automotive enthusiast community and the community at large. In this episode we discuss good things like her perspective, as well as the things that we as enthusiasts need to change and speak out against.

Thank you Alanis, we really appreciate you coming on our show to discuss everything. You're welcome back any time!

Episode 125 - Kids Icarus

In the psychological realm the term projection is used to describe a scenario in which you interpret someone's emotions or actions in a way that describes something that you are truly feeling yourself. In this week's show, we blatantly use a random Audi vanity plate as inspiration for a new automotive term. Are we correct? Probably not, but that doesn't mean the outcome is at least entertaining.

We also learn a bit more about our hosts this week, Dave's collegiate transcript sheds a bit of light on why he is where he is in his life. Some light gets shed on Ian as well, specifically what he thinks about in the shower (but not, you know, in a gross way), in the first of a new segment that we're er...one of us is calling Getting Wet With Ian.

Lastly, we paint a picture as two sides of a Venn diagram slowly move apart, we use Ian's Saab TurboX Wagon as an allegory for American politics. Don't worry, Ian describes it in a way that Dave almost understands, so you should be fine.