Idoru.us

So I finally did it. Sort of. I bought my father’s Celica (for an incredibly good price I might add). Its a great car, 2003 Celica GTS, more or less loaded (in 2003 terms) with super low miles. Hasn’t even hit 55k yet. In other words it is a long way up from my beloved 1992 Toyota Paseo in terms of new. 11 years, roughly 160,000 miles. No matter how you slice it, newer.

Which brought about a super interesting reaction out of me. I love that Paseo. I have turned it into a part of my identity. Coming up on 14 years, 135,000 miles. That’s a long time to spend with a car. Never once did it leave me stranded or even give me a rough time. Oh there were some proverbial bumps in the road, shocks, the starter, a rusted out exhaust, batteries (actually only one now that I think about), oil leaks and so forth. But it never once let me down. In some ways I had turned it into a badge of honour that at 30 years old I was still driving the car I bought for $3,500 when I was 16. Well maybe not honour but it was certainly a me thing.

And that has subsequently left me with a dilemma. A really really stupid dilemma I will admit. Do I remain a 3 vehicle household (Celica, Paseo, Motorcycle) or do I sell the Paseo? The straightforward answer that everybody else would have no problem saying is “Sell the Paseo. Its a car, they come and they go.” Instead I am sitting here going “Would I actually get anything out of a 21 year old car with a salvage title other than $500 at the junkers?” And the answer is most likely no. I have it listed on craigslist but am not expecting to really hear back from anybody. And quite frankly, between the bare minimum insurance and the super minor maintenance that needs to be done (I drive something like  7,000 in an average year) it only costs me, presently about $300 to keep on the road normally. With even less wear and tear (lets be honest here, I would drive the celica more) it would cut that figure even further. All I need is a place to put her. Conveniently I can park a car at my ladies place more or less indefinitely. For free. And to be completely honest? That $300 a year is in no danger of breaking me any time soon.

What I find really fascinating about this is the fact that its only the Paseo. I love my motorcycle. I would be able to sell it and purchase a different one without any real emotional qualms I think. Maybe that will change if I hold on to her long enough, I don’t really know truthfully. But right now, if I had a second motorcycle, I think I could sell my first bike without too many issues. Hell, I could probably even turn a decent chunk of change I suppose.

I should take a lesson from the dalai lama and cut ties with my Paseo. Its only a thing. But its a thing that has been there for a great chunk of my life (almost a majority) and a thing that I have a severe, irrational, emotional investment in. I am not sure whether its a guy thing or a me thing or what, but it makes me very very sad to consider selling the Paseo. Hell, it makes me sad seeing it parked in front of my parents house with a For Sale sign taped to the window. Maybe I just don’t want to move on. Its no secret that I am not nearly the impulsive young man that I once was, instead I am the man who thinks twice before I leap these days. I don’t do many things that are likely to lead me down the path of regret. Hell, some would argue that I don’t do much period. there is truth to that but its more deliberate than people realize I suspect. Regardless I do my best to not do things that will lead to regret down the line. And so far, even with all of the negative stuff in my life over the years, I have done fairly good at that. The things I do regret are all things I didn’t do rather than things I did. I didn’t push as hard to get that promotion or a different job. I didn’t travel as much as I wanted to in my 20s. Shit like that.or

Its no Model A but I can relate to this guy way too easily. Or any of the other thousands of stories you can come across googling things like “Emotional investment in car” or “Regret selling first car” etc. Its irrational. But she is my first. Once I sell her, if I sell her, that’s gone forever. And I don’t know whether I would regret that or not.

At least, for whatever its worth, I realize this is irrational. that doesn’t resolve the debate at all.

More and more I have been dealing with this sort of thing lately. But fuck that noise, today is a great day to do whatever the hell it is that I want to do. Whether that is to take a motorcycle ride or watch a wu tang movie, its a good day for it.

Speaking of motorcycles, two weeks ago my bike caught fire while I rode it. Quite literally sitting in the hot seat. I don’t recommend it myself as its slightly unnerving (once you realize what’s going on) to see smoke coming up from your crotch. 2 weeks later she is repaired, new chain, checked out, for a better than expected price and after a ~200 mile ride yesterday, she is in good shape.

Speaking of Wu Tang, I watched The Man with the Iron Fists. It is exactly what you would think a Kung Fu flick made by RZA (of Wu Tang Clan fame) would be. And I don’t mean that in any sort of derogatory way. Strictly modernist homage, oddly racially blind yet racist in some ways. Over the top action. The plot is … thin. I recommend alcohol but that’s not unusual.

Made a few decisions today and I am confident that I made the right choices. That’s all that needs to be said there.

Studying is continuing. It ain’t easy and I am amazed at just how much I have fallen out of the habit. But perseverance and all that…. I like to believe that this will pay off one way or another further down the line and that is what keeps me going here. Getting closer tow hat I desire rather than just keeping on.

Messed around a lot with my Nook today. The big thing that prevents the nook from being awesome and a must have  is the lack of ability to organize stuff. There is the ability to do it item by item on shelves on the device itself. Nothing else. Come on Barnes and Noble, this is 2013, people are used to a folder structure now for over a decade. At least give us the option to make shelves on our computers? Because that was tedious as all hell. Still its my primary e-reading device, over my Nexus7 by a significant margin. And not just because I have 400+ books on it already.

Plenty of things in life for me to look forward to. What about you?

So I recently decided that I was going to join the technological revolution and buy myself a tablet. Felt that it was time that I get a new toy and this was going to offer me a chance to figure out a few things.

So I went ahead last week and ordered the brand spanking new Nexus7 running Android4.3. If I am going to jump on board its going to be with something new. There was an ulterior motive in buying the N7 rather than an iPad however. Specifically I have an iPhone 4 that is rapidly approaching 3 years of age and is starting to show its age. Badly. It ill occasionally lose 3g. It will occasionally lose edge. It will occasionally cry in the corner as though I beat it. It will be unable to accommodate a number of apps because I haven’t upgraded the OS (for multiple reasons which I will get into). In other words its getting near time for me to update my phone. Although it has been nice being out of contract.

So one of the reasons I bought the N7 was as a chance to dip my toes into the Android pool and see whether or not I like what I see. Primarily because Apple has done some things I don’t care for: namely their OS revisions seems toi intentionally break older hardware. While this is partially a factor of time and nothing else, it seems to happen almost laughably fast with iOS devices. Look at my iPhone4 running iOS4 still. The hardware seems to be wearing out but the software didn’t break it. One of the other things I don’t, generally, approve of is Apple tendency to lock things down quite so far. That will prove to be ironic.

So it arrived yesterday and like any kid on Christmas day I got to playing with my new toy. General impressions to begin with is that the hardware is pretty slick and at a $230 price point its really hard to complain about little things. The screen is bright and certainly HD in all of its glory. Things seem to be relatively intuitive to begin with. 2 OS updates immediately out of the box but ok things happen…. Start to install software and some things simply won’t install. As a matter of fact I still can not install the update for Chrome that has been prompted since I took it out of the box. Seems strange that google doesn’t even support their own device. Also there are apps that show up, for example Amazon mobile for tablets, that are “Not compatible” with my N7. Seems… backwards?

On the other hand right out of the box it allows one to do something that I had to jailbreak my iPhone to accomplish. Things such as display whatever the next item on my calendar, the weather, etc on the lock screen. Things that I am interested in seeing at a glance and don’t, generally, care if other people catch a glimpse of. As a matter of fact I probably look at the lock screen of my phone more than anything else. The widgets, which to my knowledge are not supported on any iOS device, are fantastic. The app selection is similar to iTunes, if they work.

I suppose my final impression is this: Android more or less begs for the existence of iOS devices. The reverse is just as an accurate of a statement however. Android is such an open expiereince and allows people to do, more or less, whatever they want that it has created an incredibly fragmented environment. Between the million different screen size/res combos, the thousands of different OS Flavours and everything else that has encouraged the ability to do “whatever” it more or less demands the existence of an environment that is much more tightly controlled. One that will, simply put, work. In a lot of ways it comes down to personal preference for how you are going to use the device itself and what you want out of the device. I will say that using the google branded device rather than some random tablet is probably preferable at least for me.

I think that, for me, an Android tablet was the right call. There are quibbles and things that will annoy the hell out of me I am certain. But the build quality is there, its something that will be different, and its not something that will destroy me if I break it for a while through futzing with it. Will it be the right call for a phone? It could be but in many ways I somewhat doubt it. Unfortunate that I am not crazy about the newer versions of iOS though. And my privacy concerns about both remain more or less the same. So there you have it.