About a week or so ago I found out about Pandora. Pandora is a Flash-based streaming music site founded by some part mathematician, part musician brainiacs. What makes Pandora different from other online streaming services such as SomaFM is that Pandora utilizes algorithms and plain-old human hearing to profile music in order to suggest similar music for you to enjoy. Pandora asks you to type in one artist or song you like. I entered in “Mocean Worker,” and almost immediately started hearing music that I liked, but had never heard before, even on my beloved SomaFM.

What’s it look like?
The interface is built completely in Flash. This might be a problem for you if you use AmigaOS or some other Speak-&-Spell throwback operating system. You enter one musical entity and a default “station” is created for you. You can have up to 100 stations, but I haven’t bothered to make more than one yet. This is a neat way to customize Pandora’s suggestions to your mood. Working on something and just want vocal-less electronica? Create a “Work Zombie” station. Bashing murlocs in the face and need something more aggressive? Create a “Wrath of Doom” station. My current station is called “Relaxed,” and it seems to center around easy going trip hop or break-beat songs backed by vocals.

You can do a few things with the interface, but the most important feature is the simplistic Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down rating system. This is very similar to TiVo. If you Thumbs-Up a track, it will continue to play. Thumbs-Down something, and Pandora terminates the song and plays another suggestion. You will ban an artist if you give them two Thumbs-Down ratings, and they’ll never show up in your playlist again.

Live or die? You decide.

I’ve noticed that the first few songs in each listening session are more hit-and-miss. I accidentally terminated the session I’d had open for about four hours during the writing of this review. I restarted Pandora, and have Thumbs-Downed the first four songs. As each session goes by, the recommendations get better. At least, in my unscientifically based observations ;)

Where the hell did that song come from?
If you hear something that seems totally out of line with your previous recommendations, Pandora offers a (very brief) explanation of why the current song is playing. For example, “Victim Convenience” by The Faint sounded a little too Ministry/Industrial in comparison to my original recommendations. I selected “Why is this song playing?” from the contextual menu, and Pandora replied:

Well, I guess that’s a better explanation than “because we fucking felt like it,” but doesn’t really explain the technical reasons the song was recommended. I guess it’s all the same at the end of the day, but the inner nerd in me wants to know more about how the system works.

Expand your horizons.
After seeding Pandora with one song/artist, you have the option of adding more music to your station. About halfway through the life of my Relaxed channel I added Lamb and Weekend Players to my seed list. I got a more diverse range of music, but a lot more stuff I didn’t really care for. To be fair to Pandora, I would have Thumbs-Upped some of their recommendations would have if I had multiple stations set up. The suggestions may have been on-target scientifically, but didn’t meet my “Relaxed” station image.

Great music no one has for sale.
Pandora suffers from a similar problem as SomaFM. The music I like to listen to might be a one-off single from a local artist, or an import, or something I won’t otherwise be able to buy. It’s happened more on Pandora than on SomaFM. I don’t know if the ASCAP contract SomaFM has results in more “signed” artists in their playlists, or what. The music licensing business is three parts voodoo and one part common sense after a drug and alcohol bender. At any rate, sometimes it’s hard to buy the music that I’ve heard on Pandora. Pandora offers “buy from Amazon” and “buy from iTunes” links, but songs like “Grace” by Scheider TM are either impossible to find or wind up as very expensive imports. This isn’t really a fault of Pandora’s, but more of the underground/less-than-mainstream type of tunes I like.

Pandora keeps track of the music you liked, and the music you could have lived without.

It’s nice to share.
Pandora allows you to share your station with other folks. The default mechanism is via email (a user will receive an email from Pandora with a link to your shared station). I went ahead and sent myself an email so you can just tune in directly:

DrFaulken’s Relax Station

So what’s the catch?
Pandora is free. Right now there are no ads if you are a subscriber or not, but Real Soon Now™ there will be ads in the free version. You can buy a subscription for $12/quarter or $36/year. I think $3 a month is a great price to pay for the service. Until the ads start trickling in, however, I will remain on their free service. Pandora is also only available in the USA, although you could probably find a way around that if you live outside the United States.

SONIC BOOM!

• Tons of music from almost every genre (no classical or “world”): 300,000 songs from over 10,000 artists.
• The “music genome” technology may not be explained in detail, but it works. I’ve already discovered a dozen or so new artists to investigate.
• This is hidden in the “edit this station” functionality, but Pandora will keep track of all the songs you gave a Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down. This is a great feature for going back at the end of the day (or whenever) and seeing what you really liked.
• Extremely reasonable price. The songs are encoded at 128kbps, which is nearly CD quality sound. It’s far better than FM broadcasts, and better than the low-bit version of SomaFM that I tune to.
• Slick, Flash-based application means you can tune in from any computer with a Web browser, Flash, and a speaker/headphone jack.

Elevator Muzak

• Depending on the music you listen to, it may be difficult to buy that song you just fell in love with.
• The Thumbs-Up, Thumbs-Down system keeps Pandora interactive. While this is a good thing if you’re just futzing around on your PC, this means missed opportunities if you’re walking about and hear something you like. I felt like I had to pay more attention to Pandora than to my work, etc so that I could properly rate the songs it suggested. You can go back in your playlist and rate the songs you’ve heard, but that requires you to remember what song was what.
• I’d like to know more about the technical underpinnings of the site, but I can understand why this might give up a competitive advantage.

Pandora.com, I suggest to thee:

Five out of five STFU mugs!

Didn’t really foresee the outcome, but according to this test at OKcupid.com I’m a “Modern, Cool Nerd.” Allow me to elaborate on the results:

So, what do I think about being either a nerd, geek, or dork? I have always pegged myself as a geek, mostly because of my depth of knowledge (especially at the time) of Web technologies and all the arcane ju-ju required to make a very tightly designed page look and act the same across multiple viewing agents and environments. However, based on the definitions set forth by the test author, I’d have to agree that I am, in fact, a nerd. I was pleased to see that I was only 13% dork, as I believe my current value to my friends and employer is that I play well with others and am basically an agreeable person.

After looking at the percentages, I can’t disagree with the results. I like to think I have a wide breadth of knowledge. There are a dozen or so areas where I know far more about than the average person, but compared to a geek/guru I am still a n00b. Let’s take cars, for example. If you want a comparison of almost any segment of passenger cars in the U.S., come talk to me. However, if you want to know every last production detail of the Pontiac Firebird from cradle to grave, look for someone else. The same goes for World of Warcraft, or games, or American military history, or computer hardware, gadgets, etc etc. If you poll 100 people on the street on a variety of factoids and other crap, I’ll place very well. But put me up against a handful of UNIX zealots or fashionistas and I won’t fare as well.

But enough about me. Are you a nerd, geek, or dork?

This has been a review long in coming. I received Taiko Drum Master from Lady Jaye for Christmas last year. I immediately plugged it in, and smiled non-stop for the next two hours while I banged along to the music. I had planned on doing a review sooner, but between playing Taiko, WoW, and our camcorder being stolen, this write-up has been on the back burner for some time.

Game Basics
The object of Taiko Drum Master is to strike the included drum-shaped controller in time with the music. The drum controller has 4 “active” areas: the center is divided up into two halves by a 1/4″ dead zone, then the upper right and upper left edge of the drum is also active. There is a target reticle at the far left of the screen. Notes, in the shape of red or blue faces, cross from right to left. When the face-notes enter the target reticle, the player strikes the drum appropriately. Small red faces mean you can hit either side of the center of the drum. Small blue faces mean you can hit either side of the top edge of the drum. Large red faces require a simultaneous strike to both halves of the center, large blue faces mean you must hit both edges.

Each song has 4 difficulties: easy, normal, hard, and Oni (demon). You unlock Oni mode by completing a certain number of songs. It’s been awhile, so I have forgotten exactly how. Each song varies in difficulty. There are some songs I’ve completed without missing a beat, others I haven’t even completed because they’re so hard.

What does it look like?
Armed with our newly acquired Panasonic GS-65, I sat down and played the same song all the way through three times. I chose a cover of Britney Spear’s “Toxic,” as playing the song on the Hard difficulty features every type of drum strike.

What the screen looks like during game play

A drum’s-eye view of the same song

Floor-based perspective

Just how awesome is it?
Taiko Drum Master isn’t awesome. It is fucking awesome. I still laugh while I play it, especially after I miss a beat and watch tons of faces race by while I try to get my rhythm again. We bought another drum while my niece was here, and playing alongside someone is a blast. That being said, I have some criticisms of the game that can’t be overlooked.

The first problem is the dead zone in the middle of the drum. I understand that the drum has to have two sections of sensors, but damn if I don’t miss beats because I strike the dead zone in the center of the drum. It is really frustrating, particularly on the hard and Oni modes. Missing even one beat can result in missing several others until you get back on track.

The drum isn’t super sensitive. It can withstand a pretty good beating, but I find I have to hit the drum more forcefully than I want to. This is of particular note when there are lots of closely-spaced notes. As you can see on the later two videos, sometimes I have to hit the right side of the drum in rapid succession. Sometimes the strikes aren’t forceful enough to register with the drum, and while I’m on beat, the game counts a softer strike as a miss. I can bang the drum harder to register a hit, but then I might miss the closely-packed notes.

The American version of Taiko Drum Master has a decent number of songs, unfortunately I find myself playing the same 4 or 5 over again. While it was fun to play the Jackson 5’s “ABC” a few times, it’s not a compelling song to drum to. I wish there were more rock/pop tunes that were drum intensive. About half of the music is from the video game or classical genres. There are other Taiko games, but they are for Japanese PS2s and would require a hack on my part to play them in my American unit. While not out of the question, I just wish there were more games to choose from.

Bang that beat, bang that beat, bang it!

• Unlike Donkey Konga, you actually perform the drum section of the songs, not the rhythm section. Taiko is more like a drumming game than a rhythm game. Which I like.
• The hard songs are REALLY hard. This keeps things challenging. If I want to tune it down a notch and play without a mistake I can, but it’s nice having a game that isn’t a pushover.
• Once you’re good at a track, it sounds like you’re drumming along. When my niece was here, Lady Jaye and I would remark at how good she sounded. Donkey Konga, by contrast, is a rhythmic series of claps and beats, but often doesn’t really sound like a “song.”
• You can really beat the shit out of the drum. The drumsticks are light, hollow plastic. I’ve cranked on the drum pretty hard sometimes to no ill-effect to drumstick or drum. Sometimes I’d finish a particularly vigorous song and felt like I got something heavy off my chest. Drum therapy.

Missed beats

• It’s common for players to hit the “dead zone” on the center of the drum, or just a little too high or too low on the upper edges. This results in a missed beat, and totally sucks.
• Insensitive clod! If I miss a beat because I fucked up it’s one thing; to miss a beat because the drum needs to be hit hard every time it’s another. You can mitigate this issue by hitting the drum like an American drum (diagonal drumstick orientation) vs. the Taiko drum (drumsticks straight up and down), but then switching to hit the upper edges is very difficult. As you can tell from the videos I use my right hand for all the small reds, and my left hand for all the small blues. This keeps things straight in my mind, but can also cause trouble when the notes are closely packed.
• By putting in a little something for everyone, the song selection means you may only like a handful of the available tracks.

I’m very happy with Taiko Drum Master. I’d be happier if there were more games available in the US market, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Taiko Drum Master, I bang out:
Four and a half out of five STFU mugs!

As you most likely know, I’ve been a member of Ars Technica since 1999. While the community is fairly large, there are a core set of folks that stick out as the Ars “celebrities.” One such person is “ratm,” who recently changed his name to The GAT.

Anyway, that’s not the interesting part.

The GAT and his recently married wife put up a site to commemorate their wedding. A lady signed their online guestbook and asked what fonts were used on the site. The GAT replied, and were married in September of last year.

The GAT’s wife was googling her name and found the wedding site of the anonymous woman who signed their guest book. The woman and her husband copied the site almost completely, and even forgot to remove The GAT’s wife’s name from the ALT text tags in the HTML. The GAT was pissed off, posted this thread about it on Ars, and the hounds were released. Several members posted in the rip-off artist’s guestbook, and somehow the affair got posted to Something Awful. Next thing you know there are pictures from goatse all over the guestbook (meaning, really vulgar dag nasty pictures of dag nasty private parts), flames, and a good old fashioned World Wide Web beatdown.

As of this writing, the offending couple’s site has been pulled completely. They are most likely trying to weather the storm of being beaten down by the angry horde from Ars and SA.

Hacktivism like this seems a bit extreme, but I have to say this just warms my heart. People do stupid shit because they think they can get away with it. Given the ginormous number of sites out there, the plagiarist probably thought they could get away with a nearly pixel-by-pixel rip-off. I think this epitomizes default human behavior, on both sides of the issue. If there’s even a hint of anonymity, people will behave like asshats.

At the end of December I bought one of the infamous “Bags of Crap” from Woot.com. In my miscellaneous box of junk was this refurbished, but apparently working, Virgin/Pulse cordless phone answering machine.

I don’t need this for two reasons:

1) It’s 2.4 GHz and would probably interfere with my home wireless network.

2) I already have a cordless setup in the house.

So, if someone wants this I’ll send it to you as long as you pay postage. I’ll even sign the box for ya :P

Throughout all of last week we were forecast to get up to 5″ of snow. This is a big deal to the Richmond area. The idea of 5″ of snow sent the town into a panic. The grocery stores were completely ransacked. OMG SNOW! Suburbanites stocked their pantries with Teddy Grahams and other vital survival food. In rolled the cold temps and clouds …. Then Great Richmond Blizzard of 2006 threw down a mighty 1/2″ of snow. Followed by a day of rain and then temperatures in the 60s. It’s February, and I saw some guy wearing shorts. Thank god we bought up all the bottled water, Betty Lou Rae!

I took advantage of the nice weather and motored down to see my friend Stilts for the day. I dressed for a cold ride, just in case there was a big temperature difference between here and Williamsburg. I wore a long sleeve compression shirt, a tshirt, my fleece vest, then my leather jacket and pants. Even though I would be riding during daylight hours I wore my reflective vest anyway. I swear that thing wards off evil.

I took Route 5 to Williamsburg, which meant I took a toll road along the way. At first I thought I was going to get the gas-face for holding up the process (I have to put my bike in neutral and fish out some cash from my vest pocket). However, the tollbooth attendants were super friendly along all of the stops. This is my opposite experience from traveling in a car. Maybe bikes don’t blow lots of exhaust in their face, or maybe people just like to smile at bikers. Anyway, it was a small pleasure.

The weather, of course, was beautiful. Route 5 is a single lane highway that winds through some farmland. Aside from a drawbridge, there’s nothing too terribly noteworthy, or dangerous, about the drive. The posted limit is 55 in most spots, and I cruised right along with little interruption at 70+. Just like with every car I’ve ever owned, Cylon has a “sweet spot” at which he likes to run. By yesterday’s jaunt I’m guessing it’s 72MPH. I had to pass a few vehicles, and I was pleasantly reminded at how fast this bike can wind up. In the span of four car lengths, I could blast up to 90+ MPH. This was particularly important during the very short period I was on I-95. I hate being next to semi trucks or SUV/vans with mommy + babies inside. Neither of those vehicles really pay attention to motorcycles, and a quick burst of speed can get me away from those troublemakers.

Driving in Williamsburg was actually the most dangerous part of my trip. Right before I hit the town proper, a gravel truck came barreling out of a construction site and into my lane. I don’t think the guy saw me, he just hammered the gas. By the time he merged into my lane he was probably 60 feet away and doing half my speed. The only reason I didn’t wind up in trouble was because the truck was churning up a huge amount of dust. I said to myself, “Self, what the fuck is all that dust?” and started to slow down.

The town of Williamsburg, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the place, is populated by three kinds of people: college students, tourists for Colonial Williamsburg, and really really old people. They may have been the original settlers for all I know. If you combine the demographics of the place you wind up with some unfriendly motorcycling conditions. Students anxious to get to class stepped out in front of me . Tourons speed up and then come to a full stop in the middle of the road, signal left, and turn right. The elderly put their blinders on and gunned it through intersections, unwilling to turn their heads to look for oncoming traffic.

I didn’t let this get me down, though. Living in the area for five years had conditioned me to this kind of asshattery, and I laughed more than I shook my head. What did I care? The weather was awesome and I was going to see one of my best friends.

Stilts and I had lunch at 2nd Street, one of my old haunts. They make really good burgers. We had lunch, I downed some water and some coffee, and then I made my way home. The trip back was just as beautiful as the way down. I got home just in time for Lady Jaye to go to work, and instead of wishing her goodbye I drove her to work in the Solstice. I hadn’t seen her all day and I didn’t want her to start her shift without getting a chance to chat.

All in all, an awesome day. Dear Weatherman: please forecast more snow :)

While was working her double today, I called Verizon to see if FIOS was going to be available any time soon. They finished construction on our street some time ago, and I called in to see what the deal was. It turns out that Verizon has yet to light the fiber, even while work in our development is complete. The lady on the phone said it would be another month or two before the strands were lit and I could schedule an install.

Two months? I wonder if we’ll still even be here by then!!

My sweetheart is starting a new job at one of my favorite restaurants in Richmond. I used to hang out there all the time when I worked at The Ad Agency™. She’s at training this afternoon, and then will start as a server. It’s the rite of passage for the restaurant/bar industry, and hopefully Lady Jaye will be behind the bar again soon.

I can’t believe it’s been a month since she quit her last job. It was wonderful to have her home. When we first moved to Richmond we spent a lot of time together, but it was a frenetic time. We had to buy appliances, furniture, close on the house, all that stressful stuff that gets in the way of fun. This time around, it felt like I was on summer break from school. The time flew by. I’m excited for my gal and sad at the same time. Even though working at a bar will give her more “DrFaulken-like” hours than her desk job, it’ll be a little lonelier in the house without her.

Good luck, sweetheart! :*

After trying to sell my 2004 Element since last October on Autotrader.com and craigslist.org, I started shopping around for a replacement vehicle. The 1995 Montero graciously bequeathed to me by Alexa still sits proudly in our driveway, and while he’s still very serviceable, Monty is much happier when he’s not a daily driver. Low gas mileage aside, the more I drive him in rough-and-tumble city traffic the more likely something is going to fail. Camping/family trips and foul weather duty for you, Mr. Mitsubishi!

So, among the hopefuls were the Scion xA, the Subaru WRX, the MINI Cooper S (both hardtop and convertible), and the Pontiac Solstice.

If you know me, you know I love cars. I’ve had nine cars in the fourteen years I’ve been driving, and have averaged less than 18 months of ownership on my last three vehicles. One of my favorite hobbies is advising my friends on what cars to by, and keeping up on upcoming models.

Out of the cars I investigated for my daily driver, only the Solstice and Scion xA were completely new. I’d owned a hardtop Cooper S and a WRX before, and liked them for different reasons. I traded my WRX in for my Cooper S because I was driving an absurd amount and the hard, WRC-style seats were taking a toll on my ass and circulation. I loved my Cooper S mechanically, but electrically it was a piece of shit and the dealer in the DC area was horrible. Plus I had a baby on the way — Porter — and there was no way Genghis was going to do proper duty as a family car. Enter the Element, which until I traded it in was a very good vehicle. Now that Monty is in the picture I could return to my favorite place in the world: Funcar Land.

So, to keep this short, I busted these vehicles off of my “buy list” for the following reasons:

• Subaru WRX:
  
  Definitely the top performer out of the cars I was interested in, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend $26,000+ on a car I’d already owned. I bought my original WRX when it was first released in the USA. I’d been following the Japanese version for a long time and had even considered getting the lesser strength version until the US WRX was announced. At the time, you had to either be a gearhead or a World Rally Championship follower to know about the car, so owning one in the US was a big deal. Until now, when they are so widespread and coveted by the 21 and under crowd it’s no longer a unique vehicle.
• Cooper S:
  
  A real fun car, especially now that I live in Richmond again, home to the best MINI dealership in the state. For a twist on the original 2004 model I owned, I test drove the convertible. As my friend Bond (also a Cooper owner) aptly put it, “it’s like driving a coffin.” The car has such an enormous blind spot on the right hand side I was afraid to drive it in the relatively light Richmond traffic. Despite being released in the US for 4 years, there’s still a waiting list to order a car from the factory. If I wanted the Element out of my driveway right away, I couldn’t wait until April for a custom-made S.
• Scion xA:
  
  The “badboy” arm of Toyota, Scion made a name for itself for two things: 1) offering no-haggle pricing on extremely customizable cars for the young adult/tuner crowd 2) introducing the unsightly xA and xB. You’ll remember the xB as the boxy, Element-esque people mover; the xA is like an escape shuttle for something off of Star Trek. Good news on the xA: configured as I wanted it, the car was only $14,000. Bad news: an extremely anemic 98 HP engine and less-than-inspiring handling, according to reviewers and current owners on the Scion forums. There’s an aftermarket supercharger available that boosts the car to around 140 HP, but that’s another $3000 + install and voids the warranty. Pass.
• Pontiac Solstice:
  
  Photo courtesy of
  I’ve been following this car for the last two years. I tracked it on edmunds.com, the Ars Technica forum, and every car Web site I could find. The initial concept of the Solstice was this: a Pontiac exec wanted to make a roadster for around $20,000 stock. Pushing 177 HP out of a 2.4L Ecotec engine, rear-wheel drive, and a limited slip differential, the Solstice is an obvious rival to the Mazda MX (previously known as the Miata) and side-rival to the Honda S2000 and MINI Cooper Convertible. The Solstice had exactly what I was looking for: an inexpensive, fun, streetfighter of a car. And unlike my WRX, the Solstice is exclusive. There were only 20,000 made this year, and while the car had a paper launch in August of 2005, one of the Richmond-area dealers has a waiting list going as far back as this May — if you put down a deposit last month.

On a whim, I pulled up our local Pontiac dealer’s Web site and checked their inventory. After coming up with jack shit since last August, I was amazed to see not one Solstice but three on their lot. I called them up to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. Similar to my Cooper S, the three models on-lot were orders gone bad. They were also almost fully loaded, which pushed the car up into the MINI S and WRX price range. However, I’d never seen the car up close, let alone driven it, so Lady Jaye and I hustled off.

The dealer had three colors: red, light silver, and dark metallic silver. Who could resist adding yet ANOTHER dark silver vehicle to our driveway? The unique thing about the Solstice (for now) is that the car’s curvy shape is made by hydroformed steel. This allows the car to have its beautiful curves and still retain the rigidity of metal. The car could have been done in fiberglass at the expense of body strength, or in traditional steel/alloy, at the expense of weight. The companion “kappa” platform car, the Saturn Sky, will be of traditional metal construction. The Sky is much more angular in comparison to the Solstice.

The interior is spartan but utilitarian. Storage space is extremely minimal, it makes the Cooper look like a station wagon. Then again, the Cooper had 4 seats and a hatch. The Solstice only two seats and a tiny ass trunk, half of which is eaten when the top is down. The rear window in the convertible top is glass and has a defroster — this is an expected feature for you hardtoppers, but it’s a rare feature on convertibles less than $50,000. The Solstice has a five-speed manual transmission. The stereo is a plain-jane single disc CD player, but at least it has an auxillary jack for an iPod/whatever. Everything else on the car was a factory installed extra, from the black leather seats to the mundane power windows, locks, and air conditioning. The wheels were stock 18″ rims; chrome wheels were available on the red Solstice but I didn’t care for them.

With nothing but a copy of my driver’s license, Lady Jaye and I were off on our test drive. I eased out of the dealership, made a right hand turn, and immediately punched it when we were out of sight. The car felt about as snappy as my old Cooper S, but definitely didn’t have the visceral punch-in-the-chest as the turbocharged WRX. The Solstice was written up as having a near-perfect weight balance and as such was highly maneuverable. While not as go-kart as the MINI Cooper, the Solstice slips through corners like they were nothing and performs U-turns with ease. The MINI Cooper drives on razor blades, the Solstice drives on roller blades. The transmission is more notchy than any car I’ve ever driven. I guess this will change with after a break-in, but I had to blip the throttle in order to perform a hard downshift as I exited hard turns. It was in the low 40s, but Lady Jaye and I put the top down anyway. With the windows up and the heater on, we were more than comfortable. That is, except for my right hand, which was so cold I could have kept a hamburger patty in good shape for a week.

We zipped around on our test drive circuit for five miles and brought the car back. Did I like the car? Of course I did. I told the salesman Nat that I had been following the car since it was in development and all I was waiting for was a chance to drive it. The problem wasn’t with the Solstice. It was with my Element. I was upside on my loan — I could have easily covered my outstanding balance on the Element if I sold it private party, but if you’ve been reading Gibberish you know what a pain in the ass that’s been. By the time the negative equity of my car was figured in, the Solstice was very close in price to a kitted out Cooper S convertible or the Special Edition WRX. The dealer offered to come down on the price of the car by $2000 and give me an extra $1000 on my Honda, but I was still looking at an Element-sized payment for a tiny roadster. In the back of my mind was the super cheap xA.

Fiscal responsibility or fun? Lady Jaye and I talked it over. She said something very apt: that if wasn’t the Solstice, I would be spending my money on an equally expensive car at some point. The only difference was that I would buy one of the 20,000 Solstices built this year or one of the more mass-produced alternatives like the WRX or Cooper S. I turned back to Nat and smiled. We started the paperwork, and a few hours later, Lady Jaye and I drove home in my new car.

She doesn’t have a name yet, but I figured that’ll come when it’s ready. I was all stoked to drive it up to DC tomorrow, but with the impending snowstorm I’m forced to make my “unveiling” here on Gibberish instead. I’ve kept my purchase under wraps from all my buddies except Alexa who was a credit reference and Lady Jaye’s friend Strawberry Shortcake and her husband Hawk. We had big plans to surprise Bond with a visit Thursday but his dental surgery and my teleconference kinda got in the way.

Without further ado, my new 2006 Pontiac Solstice:

I’ll do a full write-up later (with more pictures) but for now I have to hit the road — in my Montero, thanks to this winter front >:(

I’ve been tagged by my friend Fish Sprout. I’ll tackle the same questions she answered.

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Assistant Manager at Timberland
2. Gun salesman
3. Coffee shop manager
4. Web monkey

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Tombstone
2. True Romance
3. Iron Giant
4. Aliens

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Richmond, VA (twice)
2. Salt Lake City, UT
3. Ashland, OR
4. Rockville, MD

Four tv shows I love:
1. Date My Mom
2. LOST
3. Battlestar Galactica (in a domestic abuse, I-can’t-leave-you kind of way)
4. American Chopper

Four places I’ve vacationed:
1. Sante Fe, NM
2. Aspen, CO
3. Key West, FL
4. 4 Corners region

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Hamburgers
2. Pizza
3. “The Scramble,” a dish I make with eggs, hash browns, cheese, and ham
4. Cheese fries

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Ars Technica
2. FIOS availability form
3. Sportbikes.net’s FZ6 forum
4. Badmagic’s LiveJournal, new entries permitting.

Four places I’d rather be right now:
1. In bed
2. Oregon
3. Riding my motorcycle
4. In bed, in Oregon, after riding my motorcycle.

Four people I’m tagging:
1. I
2. don’t
3. spam
4. kthxbai