Cars: Remote Control and Free Parking

Two great car-related Pow! pieces:

Off to Boston to see the ageless Loretta LaRoche tape her new PBS special next week and in making my reservation at the venerable Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, I was most pleasantly Surprised by the grand ol' palace's parking policy:

CARS, TRUCKS, SUVs: $42.00
HYBRIDS: FREE

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And how cool is this?  Remote-control shock and ahh from Skoda, the Czech car company that's promoting it's new Octavia model by letting consumers turn on the wipers, honk the horn, flash the lights, bark out orders and generally confound people from the comforts of their home. 

The company has parked a car on a street in the Netherlands, given people the power to Surprise (yes, that's Kia's slogan, but much better used here) with a web-based remote control, and planted a few video cameras to stream the results, much to the delight of viewers all over the world. 

You can make some mischief by clicking here first and then clicking on the Octavia link, or watch what others hath wrought by heading over to YouTube.  Uh, it may help matters of you speak a little Dutch...

P.S. Can you imagine an American automakers' version of this?  Cars that plead "Help!" and beg for handouts ("Uh...can you slip a fiver under my windshield wiper?  Please!").