(no subject)

After an email from moiracoon, I'm planning to sign up for some of the services that pay you (either in gas cards or cash) to drive around with advertisements on your vehicle. One of them offered $200 a month in gas for a full car wrap. That just about covers my car payment, so I'll be all over it and that $200 a month can go right into saving toward a house.

Yeah, I feel a little weird about it, but I put some thought into it. One objection I'd have is loss of individuality of my car. That is just silly. It's a means of transportation, not a vehicle (if you'll pardon the pun) for self-expression. The only other issue is this weird feeling of caving in to 'the man' that I can't quite articulate. But you know, nobody has to look at my car any more than they want to, and nobody has to buy anything because of me.

This idea could be taken to an extreme, sure. What if the goverment decided to accept a huge sum of money to put ads on the walls of the grand canyon or something? I think the difference here is the difference between public property and private property. I would have a huge objection to this sort of thing being done to public property, but when it comes to private property, it should probably be a personal choice.

And you know, as much as I complain about the stupidity of things like major stadiums being renamed after corporations who buy naming rights to them, I guess what really bugs me about them is the fact that it seems so pointless. I mean, I should be happy for the companies for being sly enough to get large amounts of money from advertisers for, basically, nothing.

Of course, I also just saw a statistic that something like 10% of people polled had actually bought something that was advertised to them via spam, so maybe it does work. That's a thought that does not lead me to any higher opinion of humanity in general.

(no subject)

Looks like my server at home lost power. My UPS is being flaky too, so it didn't ride it out. I'm not able to get email today. Sorry about that.

akreaveter, if you see this, any chance you could go over to my place, reset the UPS (you have to push a little sliding switch on the front so the blinking green light goes to solid green) and then power on the server (it's the black IBM Intellistation)?

(no subject)

I had a nice outing at Goodwill tonight with megmoves. I found two pairs of jeans (bought) one really hideously bad plaid shirt (shown to Meg and then put mercifully away) and one shirt that I was going to buy but it disappeared from my cart. Also picked up a bunch of books including one on how to solve a Rubik's cube that looks fascinating! I'm still stuck on them since spending some time playing with one that belonged to a friend of mocha_mephooki's in a mall in Milwaukee. Does anyone have one that they aren't using? I think I'd like one. Maybe I'll ask on Freecycle.

After that, she and I were joined by moiracoon to hang out at Mo's and chat for a while. I borrowed a book to read and gave one of my thrift store finds away. Plus, I gave Andrea a copy of "The Oldest Profession: A History of Prostitution" from the thrift store. That was a cool find along with the Larry Niven and various other things.

Oh, posicat; I have a couple surprises for you too. I'll ask Andrea to give them to you tonight at the coffee meetup.

Ok: the moment you've all (and by you all I mean probably none) been waiting for! I filled up my gas tank today after spending my time behind the wheel carefully modulating my speed and doing a great deal of coasting with the engine on (that's N-ICE on coasting: Neutral-Internal Combustion Engine On as opposed to N-ICE off, which involves turning the engine off and coasting) down from the tops of hills and up to red lights and such (not to mention turning the engine off as well if I do get stuck at a red light). I've also been carefully parking at high points in parking lots to conserve potential energy as well as pulling through one parking space and into another to make sure no one can park in front of me and make me waste gas backing out. Speaking of that, I've found a way, both at home and at work, to use the contour of the driveway or parking lot to roll backwards into my parking space without ever having to shift to reverse and burn gas doing shifting.

The result? 338.5 miles on 9.225 gallons of gasoline. That's 36.694 miles per gallon during my normal, daily commute; up and down hills, through multiple stop signs, red lights, and rush hour jams. Not only is that my best score yet, but it beats the EPA combined rating for my Aveo by nearly 11 miles per gallon! And, it beats my score on my return trip from the Keweenau (36.574mpg) , which was 99% non-stop highway driving, by close to a quarter mile per gallon. That's around 140% of EPA spec; kick ass! I can't wait 'till I have a Scangauge; I'm sure I can get to 40! I'm getting in on the next group buy of them at www.cleanmpg.com.

Considering I was getting an average of around 30mpg on my commute when I first got the car, that's pretty compelling evidence to show that simple modification of habits can make a huge difference in your fuel efficiency. No complex mechanics involved; you just have to adjust the nut behind the wheel.

And now, to bed. Is late. Dog is tired.