Author: Stagger Lee

…while I angst about getting a new car and bemoan the thought of giving up Danny after 205,000 miles of loyal service, the thought occurs to me that the best way of figuring what I was is not to think of it in terms of “what car do I want?” but “what do I need from my next car?” So in no particular order:
* Sunroof or convertible. Prefer convert, probably get sunroof.
* Satellite radio. Prefer factory; don’t want to tamper with car’s electricals from day 1.
* Plenty of room in front; sufficient room in backseat (if any) that I will not be utterly miserable when I inevitably wind up back there. (Happens more than you’d think.)
* Sufficient handling characteristics to deal with the two classes of Horrible California Driver: the ones who cut across three lanes at once and swerve through anything, treating their Honda Civic as some sort of manned cruise missile, and the ones who hold their three-ton SUV at a steady pace irrespective of the flow of traffic or the presence of other vehicles in their path, barely able to see over the wheel of their Hummer H2.
* Better mileage than my current ride. In reality, this probably means about 26 or 27 MPG in the aggregate. The thing that really bugs me about the Rabbit (heretofore my first choice) is that its 22/30 city/hwy mileage is scarcely better than some V6 cars. (And at only 150 hp, it makes me wonder what the point of the 5-cylinder is – V6 mileage with 4-cyl performance is quite the reverse of what they were looking for, I think…)
* I do like the blue dash lighting of the VW, but I’m not wedded to it.
* Ideally, I’d like to err on the side of smaller and easier to park. A Mini Cooper or Nissan Versa would be ideal, if cost and fuel permitted. (The Mini has remarkable mileage, but the need for premium fuel leaves a little to be desired.)
What I really need is a US version of the Smart Roadster, which I think was around as a concept as the Dodge Slingshot. 3-cyl engine with 100 hp and 49 mpg, in a lightweight spaceframe body that would survive a crash without having to weigh 3000 lb. Yeah, good luck with that…

“…it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
Things I need to do:
* See that my MacBook fits my existing Timbuk2 grip sleeve. It’s a close one, but it does fit. The MB is basically 13x9x1, which just fits the Small-size grip sleeve I originally bought for a 12″ PowerBook. (The Small is actually a little snug for a 12″ iBook, I discovered, but it works out OK for the MB.)
* See about replacing the lining in my Indy jacket. (The duct tape isn’t working anymore.)
* Settle on a browser I think OmniWeb 5.5 is the browser of record at least until OS X 10.5 ships – its newer version of WebCore and fast rendering of multiple pages puts it ahead of the Gecko browsers. Now if only they could put the tabs on top instead of on the side…
* If my car had fifty thousand fewer miles and a sunroof, I’d work on getting the door replaced but good, and maybe put in a new head unit and sat-radio tuner. As it is, I’m not sure about the value of putting more than $500 into a car with 204K miles on it. Although as long as my usage is still less than 500 miles a month, it also seems foolish to put too much stock in buying a new car.

…or do I? I have tried ecto and MarsEdit, and neither strikes me as bulletproof intuitive. I mean, after all, it’s a text editor with FTP built in, how hard can it be?
Maybe I should just stick to the web interface. I’ll probably have a live connection anytime I’d want to blog, anyway.
The less said about today’s football, the better.

FIve minutes in and Vandy is already down 7-0. I think I speak for all of Commodore Nation when I say that moral victories are out of style. 5-6 and beat UT was a good year, but we need actual wins, not just covering the spread and keeping it close.

* Graham Norton didn’t take off in the US.
* Celtic and Rangers aren’t in the Premiership.
* Timbuk2 discontinued the Ace pack.
* We’re out of soda with actual flavors in it.
* My car is still at work.