This is Jott thing I just signed up for. Basically, it let’s you talk into your phone and it will post the text anywhere you likes so actually, this is finished. It’s gonna go right to my blog that you’re hopefully reading right now and it will get sent to my inbox. It’s a free service, it’s incredible to use. Super easy and unfortunately, pretty addictive. So, you maybe seeing a lot more of this in the coming weeks. listen
Powered by Jott
Today was my first drive in the Infiniti EX35 wagon. Well, not wagon…SUV? Crossover? I don’t get why we’ve got to categorize every vehicle on-sale — because inevitably something won’t fit. The wagon-like EX35 is one of them.
And, despite committing a cardinal sin (it’s marketed as a crossover), it’s alright.
Once they leave the restaurant, this clip really picks up. The highlight?
“What kind of gas mileage am I gonna get?”
“52.”
“52 in the city?”
“Depending on the city, of course. Duluth is considered a city, but it’s not as big as Brooklyn, or whatever.”
To everyone with an RSS feed (or on my FriendFeed): sorry. I decided to return to a more conventional theme, which caused huge problems with text display and usability.
It’s fixed, but I’ve lost some comments. So feel free to chime in.
I’ve been browsing the presentations on TED for a few hours now, and decided to check out some of the new videos posted. One of which is the World Wide Telescope which, incredibly (in Spring 2008):
WorldWide Telescope … enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.
Why do you not lie awake at night yearning for the day when you can own a Hyundai? Simple. Because Hyundais are not made to plunge their hand into your pants. Only to plunge their hands into your bank account. – Jeremy Clarkson
I’ve been driving around in a Hyundai Elantra Limited since Monday. No, it’s not the soon-to-be-released (and possibly amazing) Touring model, it’s just a regular sedan that someone spec’d to the milligram. Clarkson, as always, has a point. The worst crime a car can commit is by having no discernible soul.
I took this shot somewhere slightly northeast of the city. I spotted this pristine green field, flat, and full of colour. Besides doing static stuff in front of old buildings, the Bentley is very hard to photograph. It’s a sense that whatever shot it’s in, it’ll be the dominating factor.
Especially in robin’s egg blue with a butterscotch sundae interior.
If you’re not up on the latest Web 2.0 trends, fear not: neither am I. But RSS aggregates seem to be a huge traffic-driver these days, mostly because people still like their date categorized. Just like a newspaper. And searching requires typing? Oh noes!
Read the rest of this entry »
…Is the Mitsubishi Toppo BJ Wide. In this case, BJ means “Big Joy“. Toppo is apparently some sort of chocolate-filled, bread-based snack. Neat.
Read the rest of this entry »
This video is wonderful for a few reasons…
Looking back at the larger, more interactive video on the TED site, I noticed an interesting comment, by Larry Pipitone:
This is a wonderful talk about art and design, but Bangle didn’t design the Pagani Zonda. The Renaissance art reference is out the window for me.
Chris Bangle speaks of passion and history, but he has stripped BMW of both elements. A marque of engineering triumph and purposeful design has turned into an illustrator’s display of his careful linework and American machismo – an utter failure in the evolution of the company. Dare I say, the last true BMW was the E46 M3.
Thanks again for the design talk, but I don’t buy the follow-through.
Ben Kunz of Thought Gadgets discusses the pros and cons of a future with free services:
“Free” has a challenge, because most free models are underwritten by advertisers — who only pay if they get results. The problem is consumers are paying less and less attention to peripheral marketing messages as they begin to control the social conversation, and this undercuts the entire model. Deep in the heart of “free” a cancer is forming called diminishing advertiser response.
From Adage:
The country’s third-largest advertiser is getting ready to shift fully half of its $3 billion budget into digital and one-to-one marketing within the next three years. And as GM goes, so goes the entire automotive industry — the leading advertising category that pumped some $9.42 billion into the ad economy last year.
I took this while on a drive with my friend Nauman. North of Toronto there are some wonderful driving roads that are just two lanes of tarmac laid upon the countryside.
This is a shot I took of Doug Andrews, owner of a racing tours company. My friend Dan and I traveled down to Talladega, Alabama to watch the Nascar race. Saturday night, however, was spent at the nearby short (dirt) track.
It was also the first outing for my trusty vintage rangefinder camera.
I joke around with my friends and family that I came out of the womb programming a VCR. It’s probably close to the truth, though. I had my first Nintendo at five, and from there on in I was hooked on the burgeoning virtual potential of computers and video games.
Over the hood of a Mercedes-Benz SLK55 AMG en route to Sarnia, Ontario.
From Wikipedia: Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, “happy accidents,” and alternative film processing are often considered part of the “Lomographic Technique.”
So what better car to photograph using my new Holga 135 than the new and apparently ugly Impreza WRX sedan? My shots and analysis after the jump.
A simple track shot I took while in California. How was the car? Quick, but really needs a sixth cog.
Within metres, this car will tear every superlative in the English language to pieces.
Say hello to the Ariel Atom, more of rocket sled than a car. Given its extruded tubular structure, the fact I was strapped in so tightly and its ferocious acceleration, you can forgive me for fantasizing that I was Lt. Col. John P. Stapp.
Who’s Stapp? He was a voluntary human guinea pig who still holds the record as sustaining the highest known voluntary acceleration force, at 45g. The U.S. military sent him down a rail, attached to a chair with a battery of rockets as lumbar support.
My Twitter FeedThis is the home of award-winning Canadian automotive journalist Michael Banovsky. Through words and photos, it’s a no-fuss look at what I’m thinking and doing. Contact me at michael (dot) banovsky (at) gmail (dot) com
|
amg, leather, mail, marketing, mercedes, mercedes-benz, metal, motto
Comment: Mercedes is crazy
In Comment on March 20, 2008 at 9:43 amApparently, this envelope and marketing message is part of a direct mail campaign in the UK. I personally enjoy the look and feel of metal, leather, and high-quality paper. But surely they could have just sent a German engineer out to each house? Maybe it’d be a take on the AMG motto of: “One man, one engine.”
Mercedes-Benz: “One cow, one ingot, one mailbox.”