K-Squared Ramblings

Why?

• Got a tech support question consisting of a single word: “Why?” #
• What genius decided dark green on black was a good way to mark up parking spaces? # To make matters worse, some of the spaces actually are 20-minute spaces…only they’re labeled on the ground, in the same color green paint. I was almost into the space before I noticed.
• Judging by the commercial, Ford’s hybrids are hippier than the Prius. # And I say this as the happy owner of a Prius. Seriously…the size of a tree indicates energy efficiency? The Prius has a bar graph.

Audio, Social Worker Spam, & Prius Hatch

• Fedora 12 claims PulseAudio improvements. Here’s hoping sound will actually work after suspend+resume again. #Linux #
• Also: iPod train wreck of the morning was the Cardcaptor Sakura theme followed by Garbage’s Supervixen. #
• What’s with all the “Be a social worker!” spam lately? It’s a change from the usual porn, pills, watches & software, but out of left field. #
• Future reference: Though there’s no lever to pop the hatch on the Prius, unlocking the doors allows someone else to open it from outside #

Line Items for 2009-10-02

• Why do people get take-out fast food, then sit and eat it in their car in the parking lot, idling with the AC on? #
• Cool! Butterfly Boucher’s “For The Love Of Love” is today’s Free Song of the Day on Amazon MP3! #
• Problem: Twitter trending topics are quickly flooded with in-jokes & spam. There’s no context if you don’t already know what they’re about #

Bad Timing and Too Short a Season

I keep putting off washing my car & then finally getting to it right before a freak storm…or the arrival of a giant cloud of ash. #

Pushing Daisies "The Complete 2 Second Season." I know it was short, but I'd swear it was longer than that! #

Rethinking the Electric Car

We’ve started watching the first season of Leverage on Netflix instant. Last night we watched the second episode. At one point the “good guy” character explains that yes, he really did give away most of the money he got from the last job, after buying a couple of things. Like a new car. Electric. Just being responsible. He then gets into his car, the camera pulls away, and you see that it’s a Tesla Roadster — an all-electric, high performance (and very expensive at $128,000+) sportscar.

I made some remark about how the Tesla was intended to make people rethink the electric car.

Katie’s response: “Every time a Prius gets pulled over for speeding, people rethink the electric car.”

Christmas Shopping

• Need to sleep. Found myself typing “Satan Claus” by mistake. #
• Symptom of car culture: I almost feel like I have to justify crossing the street on foot to go to another store instead of moving the car. #
• Sun Halo. All you have to do is look up once in a while. #

• Linens & Things: Nothing left to sell but the shelves… #
• Almost. Walked around a corner and they do have SOME stuff left #
• Virgin Megastore is closing too, but they’ve still got lots of stuff. Incl 5000 copies of Serial Mom. #
• Replica toys: I get the nostalgia factor, but at the same time it’s a weird idea. #
• Going out of business sales seen today: 4. Mervyns, Linens&Things,Virgin,Steve&Barry’s. #
• And the more stores I look at, the more “What You Own” competes in my head for the ubiquitous Christmas music. #
• Amazon’s wishlist needs a generic option. Like “I want an 8GB Micro-SD card” rather than “I want THIS Micro-SD card specifically!” #

Eternal Song & Roam If Your Phone Wants To

• Ah, security updates! On a Friday! Such fun! *grumble* #
• Watched Wednesday’s Pushing Daisies last night. “Eternal Flame” is STILL stuck in my head. #
• G1 auto-roaming explained: his phone connected to T-Mobile UK and thought it wasn’t roaming, so it kept data active. #
• Appears to be an epidemic of low tire pressure here. Waited in line for air plus another car behind me. #

Attack of the Clone Vans

There were at least five of them, but I could only fit 3½ in the photo.

Quick Thoughts on Gas Mileage

Yesterday the Los Angeles Times ran an article about the fact that, in response to soaring gas prices, smaller cars are outselling light trucks (which include SUVs, pickups, and minivans) in the US for the first time since 1996. Last night I was going through old magazines that we’d just tossed in a bag before moving. I found the September 2006 issue of Westways (the California Auto Club’s magazine), with a cover story about the new breed of small cars, wondering when the market would shift in response to the high prices. Now there’s timing.

On a related note, 9 months of driving a Prius has given me a somewhat different perspective on “good” and “bad” mileage. When I see averages of 38–48 MPG over the course of a tank of gas, and can get up to 60 MPG on straight, flat stretches of freeway, advertisements touting 25–30 MPG just don’t sound that enticing.

This Truck is Too Tired

Spotted this driving back from LA on Saturday, after Wizard World.

Well, I guess they don’t need to worry about finding the spare!

We both just sort of stared at it for a second or two. Was that really what we thought it was? Then I grabbed for the camera, snapped a shot that didn’t come out well, and handed it to Katie, who had a better view from the passenger seat.

Fortunately the traffic was terrible (now there’s something you don’t say very often) and we were able to get a shot instead of zooming past.

Ick! Sins!

According to Katie, this actually said “quick sins” the previous time we drove past it!

This shot almost cost us our new car. The sign faces the freeway, and rather than stick Katie with shooting from a moving vehicle at night, I tried to find a good angle from the parking lot. We saw that the lot extended far enough to see around the corner, and headed for the end of the lot. As I prepared to turn into the last space on the end, a truck came zooming around the corner of the next building over, a Carl’s Jr. with a drive-through and absolutely no visibility. Clearly they weren’t expecting to see anyone in the lot at 10:00 at night. Fortunately we both stopped in time.

Also, I now know that the horn works.

Driving a Prius

I’ve been driving a 2007 Toyota Prius for a little over two months now. My old car was a 1997 Nissan Sentra that I’d had for years, so just driving another car is a change. Then factor in the switch from a plain gas engine to a hybrid…

Thoughts on the Car

Very smooth, very quiet ride. Lots of nifty little conveniences, like the fact that it remembers different volume levels for radio vs. the line-in jack (for the iPod). Far roomier inside than it looks. Oddly enough, I think it may be wider than the old car.

Not big on the hatchback, though I’m getting used to it. Cargo space is limited, though it makes very efficient use of the space it has. Lots of extra little compartments, hooks, etc. Cup holders are a bit too loose* for most purposes, including my travel coffee mug (yeah, big deal, I know).

Driving it

I’ve found myself changing the way I drive. I used to focus on maintaining stopping distance. Now I’m focusing on making the most efficient use of acceleration. The Prius dashboard displays the point MPG, and a graph of 5-minute averages over the past half-hour. It makes you acutely aware of which actions are most efficient. Read the rest of this entry »

Radio Connection

They say that the Southern California car culture is isolating. It’s hard to argue with that, when everyone’s shut up in their own little boxes. But today, on my way to work (delayed a bit on account of dentist), I was listening to KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic and stopped at a traffic signal. They were playing a live version of Elvis Costello’s “Allison.” I looked in my rear view mirror, and realized that the driver behind me was singing along to the same song. Even though it only went one way—she had no way of knowing I was listening to the same music—it was still a moment of connection through shared experience.

Shut the Truck Up?

This license plate brought to you by the department of “how did they get that approved?”

I mean, it’s not even in pig latin!

No, it’s not a manipulated photo. I really saw this car on the freeway a few days ago.

For the Terminally DIY-Impaired

We both did a double-take approaching this pick-up truck a few days ago:

Once you think about it (though it helps to see the logo on the side of the truck), it’s clearly a AAA service that delivers and installs replacement car batteries.

The lack of punctuation makes it easy to read as a service that delivers and installs… AAA batteries.