short takes

[cellio]

I moderate a mailing list and reject a lot of posts for being off-topic in various ways. Every now and then I'm tempted to have "open the flood-gates day", just to show subscribers what I'm up against, but I never do it. :-)

Dani's '99 Saturn has failed him once too often (and most recently -- and most frequently -- with a Heisenbug), so he's now car shopping. He's at the "read everything Consumer Reports and Edmunds has to say about cars I've heard of" stage. Well, maybe not everything he's heard of, but you know how it works. I wonder what he'll end up with. He knows to stay away from VW :-), and it would be hard to find a new car that'll treat him as badly as his current one has.

Erik gets daily medicine, which I mix up in canned food. He's absolutely loving this, especially when the canned food is fish. A consequence of this is that while he's eating this, I let Baldur and Embla share the bits that remain on the spoon. So, more evidence that Baldur is not one of the brighter cats around: he will push Embla aside so that he can get better access to the spoon, and then lick such that he pushes most of the food bits off onto the floor. Embla, observing this, doesn't even try to maintain a claim on the spoon; she gobbles up the dropped bits while Baldur gets the smaller bits that don't drop. Since Baldur is overweight, I see no need to interfere with this dynamic.

Quote of the day: "I bought an axe for Valentine's Day. The checkout clerk at Canadian Tire, and the guy in line behind me, were quite amused at the implications... (Hey, a girl's gotta right to keep herself warm, right?)" -- aliza250

Random thought while browsing the news: Michael Jackson has got to be one of the ugliest white girls I've seen in a while.

Comments

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth on the car-shopping question, we've been very happy with our Accords and with our treatment by Valley Honda. And if you buy from them and tell them we referred you, they'll give us some money.

[cellio]

I'll pass that on to him. (Which one is Valley Honda -- which location?)

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

On Business 22 in Monroeville, near the easternmost exit from I-376.

[cellio]

Aha, I thought the name sounded familiar. (Went there to look at the Honda hybrids last year.) Do you have a favorite salesman?

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

We've dealt with Gerry Anderson both times and been satisfied.

We haven't haggled; both times, his first quote has been on the cheaper side of the range of ads in the area.

He's so friendly and solicitous that at first I was suspicious that there was some trick afoot. But I've come to believe that it's just that he really is pretty darn nice in a way that makes him well-suited to be a salesman. (I'm sure the manner is cultivated as well as being a natural aptitude, but I don't think it's a cover for particularly dastardly doings.) And even if he's been unctuous, he has listened to our stated needs and responded appropriately to them.

So he's solidly in the "acceptable" zone. He may be even better than that; I don't have enough experience to have a really informed opinion. My general dislike of car-shopping is so severe that "known to have once not been abhorrent" was enough to earn some loyalty from us.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that sounds like I'm damning with faint praise. That was not my intent.

Let me be clear: I would (and indeed already have) seek out Gerry when buying a car again.

I'm just aware of how weak my evaluation criteria are.

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

You probably already know this, you can not beat the Japanese cars in general for reliability. Having just gotten rid of my Saturn for a Toyota Prius I am slightly biased toward recommending the Prius, if he is looking for a new car and can afford to wait in line for one for a few months anyway.

[cellio]

He's interested in the Prius in principle, but doesn't know yet how long the wait is. (And, of course, he'd want to test-drive one before committing.) He wants to buy before his registration runs out in May.

I was in a similar bind last year (but with a shorter fuse); I wanted to look at the Prius but couldn't even find one to test-drive within my window. They told me at the time the wait would be around six months; I had about six weeks. I reluctantly passed this time around -- but the Golf has given me enough trouble that I might end up trading it in on something else the day the warranty runs out instead of driving it into the ground. So there may be a Prius in my life in a few years; we'll see. (We'll see if Dani gets one and, if so, how it works out.)

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

If you are not picky about color, trim line or options the wait can be a lot shorter. I got mine in six or seven weeks. They will not guarantee that of course.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

You probably already know this, you can not beat the Japanese cars in general for reliability.

My parents have always bought American cars out of principle. The last time the subject came up in conversation, I pointed out to them that my Honda was made in Ohio, but their Ford was made in Mexico.

[spiritdancer]

Haven't had a chance to see a Scion in person, but considering the story related folk performers Pete and Maura Kennedy (see http://www.kennedysmusic.com/ ) ...

Well, let's just say that Daniel and I will be doing our darndest to find one to test drive the next time we're out car shopping.

_M_

[cellio]

I looked at the Scions last year (they were offered as a "no Prius for you!" booby-prize, or something). They look kind of weird, but they're attractive (I don't mean physically) in a lot of ways. (And I didn't know about the safety features in particular.) The XA (if I don't have them mixed up) had a miniscule trunk; the XB had a much larger one (and lower gas mileage to match, IIRC). I had some usability issues that are particular to my own quirks, but of course every driver is different. But I'd definitely give them another look if I were shopping now!

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

I moderate a mailing list and reject a lot of posts for being off-topic in various ways. Every now and then I'm tempted to have "open the flood-gates day", just to show subscribers what I'm up against, but I never do it. :-)

I've had that urge many a time. Actually, the urge I'm having now, which I'll potentially bring up on MLJ in a few months, is to convert MLJ into an LJ community, with moderation and screening. Make it easier for me, and likely make it easier for other folks, with more discussion going on.

What do you think of the idea?

[cellio]

It's an interesting idea, though I'm not sure it's actually appropriate. People on MLJ signed up for a mailing list; they're probably on a bunch of other mailing lists too, and they probably treat them in about the same way. Asking them to change how they interact with one particular list, making them go to a web site to get the content that used to be served up to them automatically, will cause some of them to ask "so what's so special about this that I should go to all that trouble?" and drop out.

Now what could work, IMO, is to use both email and LJ. Go ahead and start a community on LJ (though you might browse existing communities first to see if there's something close already), post your content in both places, ask others who are so inclined to do likewise, and see what happens. It's easiest to introduce new communication protocols when bidirectional gateways exist (remember FidoNet-to-Usenet?), and that may not work so well in this case, but maybe a suitably-clever person could make it work.

Now, all that said, I personally would rather participate in either an LJ community or a single-message-at-a-time mailing list than in a digest-based mailing list. Too often I let the digests pile up unread because, while I would have time for one or two single messages, I don't have time for an entire digest and there's no way to easily "mark your place". But I understnad the appeal of digests to those who produce them, too; it feels more like producing an edited publication than just handling the mechanics of a mailing list.

I think that eventually RSS is going to be the "next big thing" in communications, because it allows people to get the content they want but all through a common interface, like email does now. In fact, given that MLJ is a digest and not a discussion list, if you could write an RSS-to-email doohickey that would mail out the digests as you do now, but with the content "living" on LJ (with comments enabled), that might make everyone happy. You'd need to make sure your contributors agree to this, of course; some people who'll send stuff to mailing lists get funny about having their stuff on the web, because while both are archived the mailing list is seen as "ephemeral" while the web is not.

Anyway, lots to think about here.

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

I have thought about this a bit. I'm concerned because the mailing list model is failing: I've had like 30 digests this year, and the pool of actual contributors is down to 5-6 regular ones.

If it moved to LJ, people could see it via an RSS feed, such as bloglines. They would get email when people responded to their comments. Paid users could post to the community via email (and I might be able to set up some form of alternative for those that won't pay, where it is sent to me and I post it... of course, they wouldn't see the email responses).

About the only thing that I might not have is review of comments, and I think I would get that via screening.

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

Michael Jackson has got to be one of the ugliest white girls I've seen in a while.
You know, the saddest thing about that is that once upon a time, before he allowed the plastic surgeons to make their fortunes on his face, he was actually a really decent looking guy. The afro left a little something to be desired, but we all did silly things to ourselves in the 70s.
I have a girlfriend with a thirteen year old and a nine year old. They were watching coverage of some MJ thing on the news about a year ago. The news story showed pictures of Michael over the course of his career. The kids asked her who the black guy was. When she told them it was Michale Jackson, they thought she was joking. I think to this day, they still don't believe her.

[cellio]

You know, the saddest thing about that is that once upon a time, before he allowed the plastic surgeons to make their fortunes on his face, he was actually a really decent looking guy.

That's what I remember, too. Yeah, the afro didn't work, but almost anything done to hair is recoverable in time. Plastic surgery is basically forever, though.

[rani23.livejournal.com]

Michael Jackson has got to be one of the ugliest white girls I've seen in a while.

HEH!! You made me snarf my tea with that one!! :)

[cellio]

My work here is done. :-)

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Michael Jackson has got to be one of the ugliest white girls I've seen in a while.

Heh. I never understood why someone rolling in so much money couldn't find a better plastic surgeon.

[cellio]

I don't know what's scarier -- that he couldn't, or that he actually thinks that what they produced is attractive.

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

I love my Toyota Camry. At this point I plan to stick with Toyotas or Hondas the rest of my life. I hated my Saturn. It was 18 months of annoyances and break downs. Never again.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

I have a '98 Honda Civic. I lent it to my sister for a few months; she bought another Honda before giving it back to me.

While I have many good things to say about Honda, you can get all that from Consumer Reports. However - many people really dislike the seats that Honda puts in their cars. (For others, it's not a problem at all.)

If you get into a Honda and the seat doesn't feel right, it's not just your imagination, it's probably a sign that you shouldn't buy it.