There is an old adage, “He, who has the most lug nuts, wins.”

In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences released a report that concluded that “the downweighting and downsizing that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of which was due to CAFE standards, probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.” CAFE’s goal was to require automobile companies to meet fuel mileage standards averaged over the entire fleet of cars sold, under the assumption that the United States would benefit if drivers used (and therefore imported) less oil. Between 1990 and 1996, the statutory mandate set the level of average fuel efficiency to a minimum of 27.5 miles per gallon. Of course, the laws of physics involving inertia, rolling resistance, and wind resistance dictate that it’s far easier to get high mileage from small cars than it is from large ones.

Smaller, lighter cars don’t need the high horsepower engines of larger, heavier vehicles, plus smaller cars usually sport smaller rims. The wheel assemblies on smaller cars therefore do not need to handle the high torque generated by large engines. Manufacturers, trying to make smaller cars lighter and cheaper, use the lower torque requirements to justify using fewer or smaller bolts. A typical two-ton vehicle can have ten or more lug nuts, a three-quarter-ton pickup might have eight, a half-ton pickup or SUV usually has six lug nuts, and most passengers cars have four or five.

So, using the lug nut test to determine who wins means that a 1,830-pound Renault LeCar (3 lug nuts per wheel) loses to a 2,300-pound Honda Accord (4 lug nuts), an Accord loses to a 3,300-pound Toyota Camry (5 lug nuts), a Camry loses to a 3,600-pound Saturn Vue (6 lug nuts), a Vue loses to a 5,200-pound Chevy Suburban 2500, 6,400-pound Hummer H2, or 9,200-pound Ford Excursion (all of which have 8 lug nuts standard), and just about everyone loses to a big rig or passenger bus (at least 10 lug nuts per wheel).

Most pedestrians don’t carry lug nuts, so they lose by default.

An Exception to the Rule

Photo @ Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG

The $440,000, 3,043-pound 2005 Porsche Carrera GT is perhaps one of the few exceptions to the rule. With no true lug nuts at all (only a single titanium lug bolt per wheel), the sports car weighs about 700 pounds more than my 1996 Saturn SL2 with its four lug nuts per wheel.

While I may lose any real collision with the heavier GT at least I can rest in peace knowing the owner will be paying for it for a long time — just one headlight assembly on the carbon-fiber-reinforced-plastic body of the GT probably costs more than my entire car is worth, and the owner will have to ship the GT back to the factory in Leipzig, Germany, to get it fixed.

Walk carefully, and carry a set of lug nuts in your pocket!

We were lucky enough to get four tickets to the prescreening of Ice Age II: The Meltdown yesterday. Despite the fact that we had about ten minutes notice to get ready and head out (the movie started at 10:00 a.m., we received the tickets at 9:25 a.m., and the theatre was almost 20 minutes away by flying SUV) and the fact that 85% of the theatre held non-English-speaking patrons who en masse refused to adhere to the rules and requests of the theatre management — even when directed to do so in their native Spanish — we had a nice movie-going experience.

Image © 20th Century Fox

There are a couple spoilers below, so if you want the movie to remain a surprise, read no further.

Every movie needs a crisis, and this one was weak. The main premise is that the sanctuary in which all the animals are currently living is essentially a bowl of ice surrounded by water. When the ice begins to melt, the fear is that the ice wall keeping back the flood of the ocean will fail. Which it eventually does. The crisis is averted when the ice at the other end of the bowl cracks (thanks to the prehistoric squirrel, Scrat!) and the water drains out. Wasn’t it a bowl surrounded by an ocean of water?! Did anyone notice that this small party of misfits somehow managed to live tens of thousands of years through the entire Ice Age?

Speaking of that lovable squirrel, I could watch an entire movie that featured only him! His antics continue to be hysterical, and this time he is more tightly integrated into the story line than he was in the previous movie, although most of his scenes have already aired in trailers. Knowing that there will inevitably be an Ice Age III, I was terribly saddened during the final scenes of the movie in which the squirrel entered the pearly gates of the Golden Acorn, his private version of Heaven.

The quality of the animation matched — if not exceeded — that of the first movie. But some of the story line fillers spoiled the sense of continuity; they felt like they were inserted just to fill up time. The worst and most pointless scene in which I fully lost the sensation of being immersed in the movie was one in which dozens of prehistoric turkey vultures sang and danced in the air like a chorus of synchronized swimmers. Granted, seconds after the scene, John Leguizamo’s Sid the Sloth pulled it back with a quick one-liner. I also couldn’t buy Queen Latifah as the voice of the potential love interest of Ray Romano’s Manny the Mammoth. Sid seemed to have more air time during this movie, and it became a bit tiring. On the other hand, Denis Leary’s Diego unfortunately seemed to have far less voiceover time this go-round.

The humor in this sequel is much less subtle and is obviously geared more to the younger crowd than the original. However, there are many laugh-out-loud — although predictable — scenes. My favorite was King Sid as the “sacrificial sloth”. And I am still laughing about the mammoth who thought she was a possum. Once you’ve seen a mammoth hanging in a tree upside down by the tail, you’re not likely to forget it!

All in all, an enjoyable, funny, albeit pedantic experience. The kids enjoyed it, and that — to me — is the most important review of all.

I recently received an offer from Citibank for a second mortgage. It was an almost impossible deal to pass up, so I filed an application electronically. As seems usual in these cases, the credit check came back that did not include an account at Wells Fargo that I wanted to pay off, so I filled in the information manually on the electronic application. I specifically indicated that the account did not have a lien on the subject property.

So about three days later, I got a call from a Citibank representative. “Is the Wells Fargo account you added an unsecured account?” “Yes,” was my response. That was the only question they had, so we hung up.

Almost a week passed and then I received a phone call at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday, a cruel thing to do for ANY reason. On a side note, it should be a legal requirement that any representatives or support personnel for any company should be located no farther than three time zones away. It was obvious that the person was from India; she could barely understand me, I could barely understand her, and the one-to-two second delays caused by the distance were highly annoying. The first thing they did was ask for my social security number. Fortunately, despite being woken up after only a few hours sleep, I had the presence of mind to wonder why the heck they wanted my social security number when THEY were the ones that called ME. Warning sign number one: unrecognized number from an unrecognized area code. Warning sign number two: someone with a question about my account doesn’t have the information that I would expect them to have. Warning sign number three: an obviously foreign accent. After several minutes of jockeying back and forth, I was able to verify that they truly were Citibank and not some shmoes in their garage trying to steal my identity.

Anyway, the conversation went something like this:

“Is the Wells Fargo account an unsecured account?” — “Yes, which is the same answer I gave when someone from Citibank called earlier this week.”

“Is it a secured account?” — “No, I just told you it is an unsecured account.”

“Can we get any information on any liens associated with this account?” — “It is an unsecured loan. The loan is not secured. There is no property associated with the loan whatsoever. It is not a HELOC (home equity line of credit) and it does not have a lien on any property. It is an unsecured line of credit.”

“So it’s a HELOC. Which property has the associated lien?” — “It is NOT a HELOC. It is just an unsecured line of credit. No property, no lien. It’s a line of credit, not a home equity line of credit. This account has nothing to do with home equity. It is unsecured.”

“The loan is unsecured?” — “Yes! Exactly!”

“We just want to make sure that there are no problems when we take over the existing second position [of the mortgage].” — “There is no second position. There is no second mortgage. We only have a first. There are no other liens on the property. The Wells Fargo account is an unsecured line of credit. They simply loaned us money. No mortgage papers, no liens, nothing. This information is all on the application you have in front of you.”

“But it’s a line of credit, isn’t it?” — What I ACTUALLY said was, “Yes, but it’s NOT a home equity line of credit. It is unsecured. It has nothing to do with our house. All I want to do is to pay it off.” What I WANTED to say would have been undoubtedly laced with colorful epithets and derisive remarks about her immediate ancestry.

“Can I put you on hold while I speak with [someone else] for a moment?” — “Sure.”

About 45 seconds later she came back on and asked, “Is the line of credit unsecured?”

Oh, my God! Unbe-frickin’-lieveable!