moossmp3

Many of you probably have experiences where you amaze people with your car mp3 setup. Well it's not always so rosy as I found out.

Yesterday I went in to get a smog check for my car. The guy was an oriental immgrant not very good with English. As he was testing my car he noticed my mp3 gear and asked me what it was. I told him it's like a car stereo so please dont touch it. I have a 5.6 LCD on a gooseneck sticking out from floorboard. Pretty standard setup among the mp3car crowd, but surely a funky looking contraption to the uninitiated.

Anyways he decided to disregard me and proceeded to mess with it, trying to take it apart or something. I got mad of course and firmly demanded him to stop. He then told me that he is going to fail my smog check because I have a computer connected to the engine. I kept trying to explain to him that it wasnt like that but he insisted using his pidgeon English that he is going to fail me and I should contact my employer so that he can come in and explain this 'engine computer' to him, then he started typing on the smog machine, apparently to fail me. At this point my top was blown off and I snatched my papers and tried to drove away, giving him a healthy dose of the American vocabulary. The owner and some other guy rushed out as I was cussin and kicked my car then dragged me out of my car, ripping my shirt. Eventually the police came and dismissed us for this 'dispute arising from misunderstanding' but man what a day for me.

I can see why the guy freaked out; he probably have thought my setup was some kind of illegal engine hack to pass the smog test. But c'mon, isn't mp3 a household word now? Well actually as I was explaining to the police officer I asked him whether he knows anything about mp3 and he answered:
"Well not sure about mp3, but I know somethn about mp5. Are you carrying firearms?"

Godspeed, mp3car pioneers!

MP3Car.com

 

mp3pc

ouch! So did you pass your smog test......

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-+[MP3PC]+-

dos4who?

Note to self...Add remote-controlled Tazer to touchscreen

~m

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PII 266, 512 MB RAM, 10 Gig, 36x CD-ROM, 16x DVD, DeLorme GPS, 5.6" LCD Screen, Dschmidt power controller, Keypower ATX DC-DC Supply, PowerAmp Macro controller, Dauphin mini-Kbd.
Sony Head Unit, Sony Unilink input selector, rear deck Kenwood 6x9's, stock door spkrs... All in my '96 Civic, of course :}
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blkdragon6

Things could have been worse, you could have openned fire like I would have done.

Yeah, that's right, don't touch my mp3 player!

Guns don't kill people, "people that have their mp3 player messed with by idiots" kill people.

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www.geocities.com/blkdragon6

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xzol

right on......

does anyone know of a touch sensative alarm that would attach to the computer case and go off when it was messed with....

Arby

That could be quite painful if you weren't paying attention one day...

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Visit my page, http://mp3box.2y.net

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kane2g

thats some crasy shhhtt. Dont you have a way of "hiding" the screen or something?
would help avoid trouble and theives.

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"I'm as confused as a baby in a topless bar"

darkwingduck

I must say .... i am very impressed, that is one hell of a bad day ..

I did't think people would bother to mess with their engines in that way (i could be wrong).

One tiny detail that really amuse me, doesnt most new cars have some sort of a computer connected to it ??

Good luck on your next smog test, which i assume you will have get done another place now

MP3Car.com

 

Aaron Cake

I mess with my engine that way all the time. You'd be surprised what a little computer fiddling could mean in horsepower.

Anyway, I got pulled over by the RIDE program on Thursday night. They pull people randomly over looking for drunks. The guy asked if I had been drinking, I said no. Then he noticed the player. He asked what it was, and I told him "An MP3 player". He said "Oh, you mean a CD player". I'm pretty used to that now, and mostly I just ignore it. However, I felt it necessary to explain the whole thing about MP3s. He says he wants me to wait, while he checks to make sure it isn't illegal to have a computer in your car! He gets back and asks if it was dangerous. I said "Only if you drop it on your toe". At that point, he seemed to loose interest and let me through...I cranked up "Mr. Roboto" and spun the tires as I took off...

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Aaron Cake
London, Ontario, Canada

Player: Cyrix 200, 32MB RAM, 10.2Gig Quantum HD, Onboard EtherNet/Sound/Video, Custom Lexan Case, Arise DC-DC, Win95 Kernal w/Custom Player
Car: '86 Mazda RX-7 w/Basic Performance Upgrades

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Player: Pentium 166MMX, Amptron 598LMR MB w/onboard Sound, Video, LAN, 10.2 Gig Fujitsu Laptop HD, Arise 865 DC-DC Converter, Lexan Case, Custom Software w/Voice Interface, MS Access Based Playlists
Car: 1986 Mazda RX-7 Turbo (highly modded), 1978 RX-7 Beater (Dead, parting out), 2001 Honda Insight
"If one more body-kitted, cut-spring-lowered, farty-exhausted Civic revs on me at an intersection, I swear I'm going to get out of my car and cram their ridiculous double-decker aluminium wing firmly up their rump."

JamesB

Hey Aaron .. just like the OPP eh? Always _looking_ to find something illegal. I had a similar case but the dude wanted to actually seize the computer! You can guess my reaction I'm sure .. I told him where to go, and that he'd better go back to that joke of police college and re-learn the module on illegal seizures.

What a bunch of dough heads. Makes me think that any hall monitor you might see in schools today all aspire to be police officers.

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-James-

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mprover

WTF! Since I can remember, The Man , and his deciples have always been after people. In my case, the man was after be becasue Im a nerd. It took me several years, but I have learned to deal with it. For instance, if I were you moossmp3, I would have said "First, Im gonna kick the **** out of you for screwin' with my ****, then Im gonna tell your manager you broke my ****, and if your lucky I wont sue your ***". I would have been pist as ****. The people on the Florida turn pike ask me day after day what my contraption is (the same people, every day, senile old people...) , I at frist told them what it was. Now, I find it comical to make things up , "This is a tornado tracking computer, This is a radar detector , etc"

MooN

Let that be a lesson. Stupid people like to break cool stuff. Remove all mp3car equipment before state inspection and driving tests!

[This message has been edited by moon (edited 12-15-2000).]

vBanshee

Just thought I'd throw a LOL in there... hillarious stuff guys. Didn't really think about it at the time... but I'm glad I made my stuff look stock! =)

-ßrian

pacochi

Just curious, vBanshee...how is your system set up to look stock? What did you do?

I just like to see/read about everyone's various setups, because I'm still not sure how I want it.

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~Soon to be (among) the best in car audio...

Chris Snyder

I'm going to be using motorization to hide everything when the car isn't on. Hobby servos work great for this purpose.

MP3Car.com