Oh la la

We're coming towards the end of week #1 (of 2) of the Paris Auto Show. In my opinion, it's been a smashing success thus far. (Smashing, operative word - nah, I joke.) Things have been great, which probably means terrible events are just around the corner, but I'm trying to be a glass half full kinda guy here, so let's say that everything is just peachy. The crowds watching the car everyday continue to grow. Maybe word is spreading - 'dude, you gotta go see that robotic car, it's sooooo groooovy.' - or maybe it's just my ego inflating and thinking the crowds are getting bigger. But there's usually 200-400 people watching every time we run. They seem to dig it, some overheard quotes:

"C'est belle" -Pretty French woman with pointy shoes and way too much makeup.
"C'est pas mal, non?" -Neanderthal looking French guy.
"Oh la la." - Seriously, I just heard that, no shit.
"Look, it's turning into a car!" - Little kid in Brooklyn with chocolate on his face.
"Oh, it's just like a real Citroen." - as Dan and I were making some adjustments to the car yesterday and a Frenchman asked me what we were doing - I says: "oh, the mechanism of the car just needs a little fixing."

I think they like it better most some of the other car booths anyway. See - these car shows are all about attracting people through whatever means necessary. Every car manufacturers exhibit is full of young attractive sales women, every car exhibit has bright flashing lights and water fountains, music, djs, blah blah blah. Ford has a cheesy salsa band and little kids that perform a song and dance every hour. They've also got a guy carving the newest Ford car out of ice. (I think they're trying to compensate for their crappy cars. - sorry MK) Peugot is launching midgets out of cannons across their exhibit floor. But do they have a transforming robotic car???? Noooooo.

I'm watching the video tech do a serious head bobb as he's falling asleep in front of the video monitors right now, it's awesome.

We had a little part of the car flip out on us yesterday. We've got a whole bunch of gas shock springs mounted all around the base structure to assist with some load carrying (totally ghetto engineering, but that's what you gotta do when you're desperate, and we were, and it sort of works, except when it doesn't), and yesterday one of them decided to get caught on another steel part and thusly bend the hell out of itself - accompanied by a nice crunching sound. Dan and I had the pleasure of trying to fix this thing at mid-day - which involved lifting the car about 10 feet up in the air and crawling underneath, over, and inside of the lifting structure (yes, it's sort of safe to crawl beneath it, sort of.....not really). This turned out to be quite a show in itself. For the 3 hours we were in there, there was never less than a crowd of 50 people watching and taking pictures. I'm not perfect on my french translations, but I think I heard a couple people say: "Hey, check out the funny looking, funny sounding Americans sticking their little white asses out at us. How cute!" Dan and I certainly felt like animals trapped in a cage.

More later from the funny looking, funny sounding american in paris.