Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/16/people-in-japan-are-renting-ca.html
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I love the idea of car rental as “mobile karaoke box rental”.
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I live in Tijuana, Mexico but a similar concept exists here. No rentals, but people do use their cars parked outside as charging stations, places to lounge with friends away from family, and work, nap, eat, etc.
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and discovered that people were using them to take naps, eat lunch, do work, change clothes, recharge cell phones, and store things
something is missing from this list…what is it…what is it…hmm…oh yeah. its the sex.
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Depressing News Of The World
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That’s pretty brilliant.
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According to my FB feed, probably also to take selfies in.
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When I was a new dad, I’d often abscond to my car around lunch time, drive it to a secluded shady area, and power-nap. After doing this for about two months, my manager pokes his head into my office around lunch time, and says, “What, no nap today? Is the baby finally sleeping through the night?”. Turns out my favorite shady place was right on his daily lunch time running route 
We both had a good laugh at that one.
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How many are also using it for climate control? Because an idling car is sooo efficient and clean.
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Nope, that function is already being served by…
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Makes sense. These are all normal car functions, in that they are all things people do with cars that they own. These people are just getting the full car experience from their rental.
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This is actually a big issue in cities. I’ve been getting into livestreaming. FInding a place in the city at lunch time that’s quiet, but somewhere I can make a little noise, is somewhere between hard and impossible, depending on your budget. At the library, I can be quiet in a quiet spot free. If I want a room to make noise in, that’s $30 an hour. I can also join a local coworking place for approx $35 per month and get eight hours a month of access to the basic facilities, which I believe includes a few quiet rooms.
Or I can use my car.
That’s it. A free coworking spot in some spare space at a bank was closed over a year ago. Everywhere else is noisy. Like, really noisy. Getting to me noisy.
I discovered this problem a while back, before I was regularly in the city. I was just in the main business and shopping precinct of an old suburb and I needed to do a Skype job interview. I literally couldn’t find anywhere quiet to do it at lunch time. There are some vaguely peaceful areas to eat lunch outside when it’s not raining, but the wind is no good for microphones.
Even if it’s a work thing, it’s hard to find a quiet spot in the standard open-plan office. I have a customer that has some small rooms you can close the door on, but my office has literally nowhere you can record clean audio. I’m subjected to noise all the time I’m working. It’s relentless.
It’s no surprise that a convenient, cheap environment with seats and noise insulation is being used for more than just driving around in.
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Yup. Car in a secluded spot is also good for screaming metal vocals when you’re recording directly to laptop and don’t want to rent a rehearsal room for the length of a song, much less alarm anyone near your home.
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Everything everybody else uses a car for, and I mean everything else.
Only someone else has to scrape the spooge off the ceiling.
As someone with a permanently busted body clock who’s never owned a car, I find it really weird that people don’t use their cars for lunchtime naps.
This is actually how Will Toledo from Car Seat Headrest recorded the vox for his first few albums. Not too many screaming metal growls on those tho.
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Maybe they can roll out a 
version of the 
emoji in Unicode 13
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Hence the band’s name
Oh wow, that how rich these people are?
Rent a car using it as a ride is definitely weird. 
