:mattLandia:

Posted by mattLandia at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Five glorious years in the rockin' Hyundai Elantra GT are over. Done. Kaput. Alas, commuting in rush hour traffic day after day in an manual car drove me to the edge. So I decided I'd trade her in for something new, automatic, and just big enough to tow the Harley. My criteria: automatic, best gas mileage possible, large enough to haul the dogs around, powerful enough to pull a trailer with a Harley on it, and no more than 25k new. I slowly narrowed the field of candidates, landing at the Toyota FJ, Honda Element, Scion Xb, and the Saturn Vue.

The Toyota FJ won hands down on looks. The test drive was really nice, it was reasonably affordable, and looked bad as hell. But I just couldn't buy one knowing how many miles I'd put on it and how average/poor gas mileage it gets.

The Scion Xb was a promising candidate. At 16K, definitely the most affordable. However, it was just too small, didn't offer enough room to seat 4 and the dogs, and largely handled like a mini van. If I didn't have the dogs or the motorcycle, it may have made it further along the process.

The Honda Element was a strong second place finisher. It drove moderately well, although I thought it still drove a little squirrely at high speeds, perhaps due to it's rather short and tall profile. The Element wins the "most configurable" back space award. It can handle dogs, bikes, tents, etc.with ease. It's EPA estimate was also pretty decent on the highway at 27mpg, but still weak in city driving at 22 mpg. I went so far as to sit down and crunch numbers with a dealership. However, I have to say that I left Honda with a bad taste in my mouth. The whole pitch seemed to be "Um, yeah. We're Honda. You'd be an irresponsible citizen to buy anything else." I should also point out that I had already test driven the Vue once earlier in the week and gave Honda the opportunity to match every offer that Saturn was extending me (including almost twice the trade in value on my Hyundai).

So back to Saturn I went. I test drove the Vue again, hours after the Element, so things were fresh in my head. There was no comparison. The Vue just felt better to drive. Smoother, better visibility, and a really powerful V4. The interior appointments were classier, but not too much. It could handle the dogs and could handle the Harley. Check and check.

Which brought me to the price tag and gas mileage. I test drove Green Line Hybrid (a gas/electric model) which really blew me away. It was powerful, but smart. When you come to a stop, the gas engine stops quietly and runs on electric power, but as soon as you take your foot off the brake the engine comes on like it was never off. I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW COOL THAT IS. At 27 / 32, this was by far the best option in terms of gas mileage. However, I had to suck up an additional 3K for it. After a lot of number crunching, I decided I would rather pay a little more knowing that I was doing my part to be more energy efficient.

And thus we enter the VUE ERA. I'll have to post a photo of my own in a few days. Here are the highlights: Black exterior, tan leather interior, moonroof, power everything, heated seats, 1 year of OnStar included, XM satellite, 170 hp, 2.4 Liter, Dual VVT, 4 cylinder, 4 speed auto.

And enough new car smell to keep me high for days.

Posted by mattLandia at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Thank iTunes shuffle feature for this revelation. Juke Box Hero by Foreigner is totally shaking my music snob foundation. Here are five reasons why this fiery hot-lick rock nugget should be purchased from iTunes or emusic.com immediately. (Oh wait, emusic doesn't have this delicious mp3 track.)

Reason 1: "Standing in the rain, with his head hung low. Couldn't get a ticket. It was a sold out show." This may be the most melodramatic opening lyric of all time. It just begs for a killer anime version, or maybe a Robert Rodriguez black and white digitial interpretation.

Reason 2: At 0:33, the most amazing wall of amp driven guitar power erupts out of my high end PC gaming headphones.

Reason 3: "Yeah, he's needs to keep-a-rockin, just cant stop, gotta keep on rockin, that boy has got to stay on top... AND BE A JUKE BOX HEROOO!" This morale building anthem is the stuff of myth; distilled choral essence of teen spirit. For you youngsters out there, replace "Juke box" with "iPod Hero" and maybe you'll get my drift.

Reason 4: The sweet sweet 10 second hot lick from 3:10 to 3:20. Dudes at Guitar Centers everywhere turn into pillars of salt when they displease the Guitar God with unworthy "$299 cherry-red US made Fender knock off" hot licks. Seriously dude, trash your Nickelback shirt, pawn your guitar and go learn JavaScript. I know programmers who are way more rock star than you'll ever be.

Reason 5: Is it coincidence that the most entertaining character on my Tivo Box is "Hero" (from the break out NBC hit "Hero")? Or is it fate testifying to Juke Box Hero's utopian rock worth?

You be the judge.

Posted by mattLandia at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Finally, a little honesty how the losing award nominees really think!

Posted by mattLandia at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm not lax. I'm not lazy. I'm not bored with my blog.

What I am is totally tweaked, amped, taut from working - nay - living, sleeping, dreaming, and communting cloaked in the experience of developing the final stages of a Web 2.0 retail app at work. Outside of a primitive prototype, we've been in stealth mode for months, but we are sooo close to have our first beta release. That's not to say we aren't living long hours of fixing bugs, which create other bugs, which we fix, which sometimes stick, which we then enhance, which then break, which we then fix, etc.

Still, the countdown is on. Tick tock tick tock.

ExchangeFrame cometh.

Posted by mattLandia at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another small step towards crushing 'America's Next Top Model'.

Posted by mattLandia at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)