Contest results and pimpin' my ride

CONTEST RESULTS

Thank you to all of the contestants for name that van! I really liked reading all of them. I have to say that the contest winner, i.e. the one that has the best chance of sticking is (drum roll please...) "The Silver Bullet". It applies for several reasons that I thought were all amusing. (The shot to the machismo, and the fact that it is not fast at all but very mildly resembles the bullet train.) Thank you to everyone who played along.

PIMP MY RIDE

My car, which used to be Karen's car, was in a sad state of neglect. It has needed 4 new tires for five years and a muffler for over a year. The long lead time on the tires was becaused the last set of tires were crap from the moment we got them. They gave very little traction on dry pavement, and none on wet or snowy pavement. They were Cooper Lifeliners, and I guess they were supposed to be decent tires, so maybe I just got a bad set? They were horrible. The muffler has had a gaping hole that has been steadily increasing in size. It was loud, but not horribly loud, so I let it go for a long time. I didn't mind the noise at all. The only reason that I replaced the muffler is that I was worried that the hole in the muffler was possibly directing the exhaust gases into the garage when I left the house. There is an air intake for the furnace from the garage, so it is easily possible to send exhaust into the house. Here's how the story goes:

I got up at 6:20AM to drop the car off at the tire store. I got there in plenty of time to make sure I was first in line so I could get the tires on and make it over to the muffler shop for the noon appointment that Karen made for me. It worked, I dropped off the car, walked home, then walked back at 10:30AM to pick it up when it was done. $500 later, I had a nice new set of tires that stick to the road like glue. Over to the muffler shop I went, right across the street. I dropped the car off and walked home. I went back much later (they finally got started on my car at 4PM) to look over the estimate and sign on the dotted line. They had a standard steel muffler for $85, and a polished stainless steel muffler for $90. I went with the $90 shiny one, street-racer pimp style. My car now has a 3-inch polished-tip exhaust, and it is kinda loud. It is a lot quieter than it was, but it is not as quiet as it was originally with the stock muffler. I think it's hysterical, and Karen thinks I am goofy. I started pimpin' my ride. Karen is getting the windows on Daddy's Junk tinted for Father's Day. I am not kidding at all. I wonder what's next...