Category: Gadget lust

Big wheels keep on turning

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
In which I break my own commandment: Thou shalt not use thy iPod while cycling. It's actually an iPhone, and I wasn't listening to music, but that doesn't make it right.
In which I break my own commandment: Thou shalt not use thy iPod while cycling. It's actually an iPhone, and I wasn't listening to music, but that doesn't make it right.

Our long national nightmare is over. Well, mine, anyway. Sorry about yours.

My nine-day, extra-credit stint in the VeloBarrel came to an end last night, so I slept in this morning, enjoyed a medium-heavy breakfast and then went for a ride. The big yellow ball was back in the sky, and I wasn’t the only one enjoying it, but the path was not crowded and so I had time to snap a quick pic of myself — actually on a bike instead of in an office chair — without endangering anyone, including myself.

It was a short ride, because I needed to get busy spending some of the extra money I made. The Forester needs service, the iPhone needs a hands-free kit and I’d really like to buy a new camera. I don’t much like my Canon PowerShot S5 IS — it’s bulky without the corresponding feel of solidity, the battery life is terrible, and the four rechargeable AAs and SD card sit in the same bay, so when you need to pull out the card to transfer pix, well, the batteries pop out, too. Plus the lid to the battery/SD card bay is a pain in the ass.

I’m thinking about the Canon PowerShot G11, but not very hard. The sucker costs a ton, and even with extra money burning a hole in my pocket it’s hard to justify spending $500 on a camera when I already have two of ’em and a wife-slash-accountant who is very aware of this. Ain’t no flies on Herself. She’s small but fierce.

Solstice me arse

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
The 2010 VW California, which is not available there.
The 2010 VW California, which is not available there.

Again with the rain. ‘Tis a fine soft day so, as my people across the water might say. This filthy weather (and the English) is why the smart Micks risked the long coffin-ship trip to America. How much worse could it be? they thought. At least they got a chance to dry out a bit before they croaked. Well, their clothes did, anyway.

What a guy wants on a day like this is a road trip, and wouldn’t you know that the Germans have been hiding my dream vehicle from me. Dan Neil, the only reason I can think of for reading the Los Angeles Times, drove the 2010 VW California during a recent visit to the Black Forest, and the only news more depressing than the price of the updated Westfalia camper (upwards of $50K) is its availability (not in California or anywhere else on this side of the Big Ditch).

Writes Neil:

Did you go to Humboldt State? Did you vote for McGovern twice (once as a write-in candidate)? Did you stop following the Grateful Dead because they became too corporate? Brace yourself. This is the Westy of your dreams: a state-of-the-art camper van with a gas stove, running water, an electrically deployed pop top, a fold-down double bed, rotating front captain’s chairs and a staggering number of reading lights, climate outlets, cabinets, storage bins and convenience features, and all of it executed with the kind of aerospace precision one might associate with Piaggio corporate jets.

For a guy who on the road used to nap under a leaky topper in an ’83 Toyota truck and today drives a Subaru Forester only rarely, this is the Holy Swiss Army Grail of multipurpose vehicles. Small and fuel-efficient enough for a daily driver, capacious enough to live in for short stretches when one’s hometown weather can no longer be borne, the VW California would be my Rocinante — if only its diesel engine met U.S. emissions standards.

Well, there’s Herself to consider, too. I proposed the purchase of an iPhone today and I’m still picking pieces of my piece-of-shit Samsung cell phone out of my left ear.