Javabeans!

Oh, my. Bush announced a new plan to help homeowners hit by sub-prime mortgage woes. Simply freeze the interest rate! No, I'm not kidding.

one of many articles

What's worse, he also indicated a help hotline for people with mortgage issues -- but instead of giving the correct phone number, he gave the number of the Freedom Christian Academy in Texas.

On www.msn.com's main page, an ad this morning: "Save 40% + free ship"

I want my boat!

My Saturn was the first car that I actually owned. A brand new 1994 Saturn SL sedan in medium red, manual transmission. I didn't know how to drive stick, so Dad actually test-drove it and drove it home for me. He also co-signed the loan and taught me to drive it. It generally got about 32 mpg. It was rear-ended a couple of times, and was hit while parked more than once. Each time, the space-age plastic body bounced back into shape, so it never had any door-dings or other body dents. Except the hood -- some kids walked on the car once, and bent the steel hood-supports. Oh, and somebody knocked off one of the side mirrors. I wore out the carpets and the driver's seat. The original spare tire is still unused. It had its share of major engine repairs, but they generally seemed cost-effective at the time. The odometer died at about 204,000 miles, but I've kept a record of gallons of gas used, and I estimate the final mileage at about 238,000. Not too bad.

A few weeks ago, the catalytic converter became clogged (eventually this would keep the car from running at all) and a fuel regulator valve started leaking. I'd already made multiple repairs to it this year, and another $850 was just too much. So I made the call, and about a week-and-a-half ago, American Cancer Society picked it up as a donation.

Dad's strength is improving a little each day, and he'll probably move from ICU to a "step-down" ward this afternoon or tomorrow. So this "episode" was not the end, but likely a harbinger of the days and weeks to come.

Driving on the beltway yesterday, saw a very nice car, possibly a luxery non-stretch limo. I thought it might be a Bentley, or a Rolls. But the emblem on the trunk was a pair of interlocked Ms, which I'd seen maybe once before, but I couldn't figure out what the company was. No other emblems or symbols. Not Bentley's flying B, not the angel thingy from Rolls.

Found the symbol on the web, turns out it was a $350,000 Maybach, one of Rolls' competition. Though why anyone would drive that 3-ton piece of art on the D.C. beltway during rush hour is beyond me.

Hybrid? Or Hype-ridden?

I don't dispute the idea that hybrid vehicles can get more out of a gallon of gas than similar traditional engine vehicles. Some are getting 40 to 50 mpg, or maybe more. But at a much higher vehicle cost, in general.

Here's a case study: The 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid gets an EPA rated city value of 40mpg, and 45 highway. It's sibling, the 2008 Civic LX (manual transmission) Sedan gets 26 city, 34 highway. The Automatic transmission is 25/36.

For 12000 miles, at $3 per gallon, using highway figures, that's $800 per year for gas for the hybrid, $1059 for the LX. A substantial savings, certainly, but the LX manual sedan lists for $16,960 and the hybrid $22,600. Saving $259 per year, it would take more than two decades for it to pay for itself, based on gas alone.

Despite this, I love hybrid technology. Why? Because it has brought focus (no Ford pun intended) to the need for fuel conservation in a way considered "hip" and "cool." Because suddenly, people who might were looking at a sports car will buy a hybrid that gets twice the gas mileage. Doubtless, as more hybrids are made, the technology will get cheaper, and the fuel savings better. For now, though, I'm sticking with my regular Civic.


A little Honda Civic trivia. When I was younger, I used to joke that the Honda Civic was originall called the CVCC, a name expressing the size of it's incredibly tiny engine, only 105 cc displacement. That was, of course, wrong. The original Hondas in this country (1973) were called Civics, and had a 50hp engine with 1169 cc displacement. A 1974 model had a slightly better engine, the "Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion" (CVCC) engine, which had 1488 cc displacement, and provided 53 horsepower. Even in 1973, the little engine was able to propel the Civic 40 miles per gallon. Not bad, eh?

Wally says to Dilbert, "is it just me or has the quality of good news gone downhill?"

Someone (acroyear70?) was commenting on leftovers recently. I thought today's Duplex incredibly apropos...

Duplex for 10/10/07

I've been slowly reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series over the last couple of years. This morning I finished book 8, The Path of Daggers. After finishing, I read the biographical blurb at the end, which concluded, "He has been writing since 1977 and intends to continue until they nail shut his coffin."

As most of you know, Mr. Jordan passed away a few weeks ago due to cardiac amyloidosis, the twelfth book of his WoT series still in progress.

In a series of side comments in this post of elvisolb, comments were made about football, how games of that name existed as far back as medieval, even ancient Roman times. rsteachout noted this wikipedia football reference as evidence (read section 2.1.2: Medieval and early modern Europe).

When I read the article, I noted a similarity between medieval football and a game call Ba' that occurs annually in Kirkwall (in Orkney, Scotland). Check out this description of a wild game that occurs in modern times!