The Urban Assault Vehicle

[tsm1@domain.elided (Tom Mandera)]

Sorry to be a little off-topic, but..

Not that this thread didn't die last week, but I was just thumbing through
PointCast's Seattle Times and came across this, excerpted for brevity.. the
author starts out by defining Snow Wimps as driving lightweight sports cars
w/o chains or old mid-70s behemoth beaters with bald tires, and the Road
Warrior drives a 4x4 with chrome running boards (guess I don't qualify) that
goes careening over, around, and through whatever stands in the way...

-Tom

>            Copyright © 1997 The Seattle Times Company  Friday, Dec. 26, 1997  
>  Perfect snow car is green, mean, seats a rifle squad  
>  by Hunter S. Fulghum 
> Special to The Seattle Times  
Snow Wimp has an opposite number, the Road Warrior. These are the guys with
the four-wheel-drive sport utility vehicles, the ones with the chrome
running boards, gun rack, fog lights, CD player, the whole tricked-out shebang. 
>
what I want for the drive on snowy days. I've considered a Jeep, but that
would qualify me for Road Warrior. And I've thought about a Snow Cat or
Bombardier, but both miss a certain something. No, what I need is something
that is just the right combination that sensibly gets me to work and back in
one piece and still allows me to travel with complete indifference to Snow
Wimps, Road Warriors and everyone else. 
>
> Which is why I am now in the market for a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. 
>
> Nevertheless, it is exactly what I need, perfect for ugly days on 405. 
>
> A Bradley has treads, so while I may chew up the pavement, I'm never going
to lose traction. And with reactive armor, anyone who bounces into me is
going to bounce off of me, too. Minor dings and scrapes in the paint are
easily corrected with a can of Rustoleum Olive Drab. 
>
> And then there are the extras. I might not be able to get it with air
conditioning or a CD player, but how many cars sport a turret-mounted
.25-millimeter rapid-fire cannon? Perfect for clearing fallen trees that are
too big to go over, around or through. And for really rough days on the
road, how about those antitank missiles? 
>
> (Hunter Fulghum lives in Bothell and is the author of "Like Father, Like
Son." His father is writer Robert Fulghum.)