"Get out of the way, peasant!"
"Get out of the way, peasant!"
"Get out of the way, peasant!"

I'm practicing my indignant war-cry, which I suspect I will be using quite often (along with angry shakes of the fist), in preparation for my new car.

As everyone will be painfully aware (if only because I can't stop talking about it), I'm becoming ever closer to owning a frankly ridiculous car.  The long awaited letter and brochure were delivered a couple of days ago...

All I'm waiting for now is confirmation on some options that aren't mentioned in the brochure, and a phone call from Audi to take an order for my allocated car.  While I'm on the topic of the brochure, I should perhaps point out the completely ludicrous option that's perhaps indicative of the complete over-the-top attitude of this car.  For a mere £1,350 - one can have the top speed of the car lifted from 155mph to 174mph.  Now - this car can do just over 200mph completely derestricted - so why on earth is anyone paying over a thousand pounds just to raise the top speed by less than 20mph?  Also - why does this option exist?!?  My current car is already restricted to 155mph and, although I have no doubts that the car can do this, I've never even considered driving at this speed.  It's just, frankly, ridiculous!  So yes - I think it's safe to say that I won't be one of those splashing out over a grand for a pointless bragging right.

Anyway - to the crux of my rant - other road users.

Maybe I'm becoming more hateful in my old age, but I seem to be getting more frustrated by inconsiderate drivers these days.  The roads are getting more crowded and traffic is getting worse.  The number of people who don't understand that the right lane is for overtaking is growing exponentially.  It's almost enough to drive one to pull an illegal undertaking manoeuvre just to prove a point!

As someone once told me (or rather, frustratedly berated me due to my incessant nit-picking) - don't criticise without offering a solution.  So - let me propose one...

I've always been a proponent that driving is a privilege - not a right.  Quite clearly, there are too many people on the road who blatantly don't deserve to be allowed to drive at all.  My solution?  Why - simple economics already has an answer.  When demand outstrips supply - prices go up.  So, let's raise road taxes, and standardise them while we're at it.

Right now - I pay three times as much road tax as, say, a Nissan Micra driver.  By Stan logic, this means that I have three times more right to be on the road than a poxy old bat in her tiny car.  So why is it that they are the bane of my driving life - frustrating me on roundabouts, junctions or - shock, horror - the right lane on a dual carriageway?  They should be forced to move aside for someone who is more deserving of being on the road (three times as much, remember)!

We need to drive the unworthy off the road (pardon the pun).  Motoring has, despite the whining of the masses, become too affordable.  So - back to the road tax.  Making everyone pay an annual road tax of, lets say, anywhere between £5,000 to £10,000 should force quite a few people to seek out alternative means of transport.

Surely this is a win-win for everyone?

A win for the environmental hippies, as less resources will be required to produce cars due to a slump in demand, which in turn leads to less pollution from manufacturing, day-to-day driving and disposal.

A win for health and safety.  One of my pet peeves it that, as a road user, I'm bound by the rules that were created to cater for the lowest common denominator.  Quite frankly - anyone who even tries suggesting that my highly engineered RS6 is as roadworthy as some crappy decade-old Volvo estate should be taken away and shot.  By forcing the pricing of motoring up, the only people left on the roads will be those who have very high disposable incomes - those who buy very expensive and over-engineered cars.  These marvels of modern technology will make a mockery of outdated information such as the minimum braking distances that are currently set in the Highway Code (a performance car with hefty ceramic brakes could probably stop from 100mph in a shorter distance than a Ford Fiesta could travelling a mere 70mph).  More lives would be saved (although I guess this is a double-edged fringe benefit given the specimens we have today) as there would be less motorists in general, and those who are left will be much better equipped than today's average driver in their poxy, build-to-lowest-cost cars.

A win for the remaining motorists.  As there will be far fewer drivers, there will be a similarly proportioned reduction for the need for me to shout "Get out of the way, peasant" during my daily motoring.

And finally, even a win for the motorists who would be priced off the road.  Such a mass migration would force the Government to invest heavily in public transport - making commuting much more accessible and convenient than it is today.  By using this new, improved public transport - peons across the country would no longer have to fork out for a car, its maintenance, and would no longer have to continually complain about the cost of fuel, fuel tax and road tax (by being forced off the road - they will be paying for none of these things, thus raising their disposable income).

Of course, there may be a small amount of backlash and resistance to the suggestion of raising road tax to £10,000/annum.  People these days have too much time on their hands, and generally protest everything - from building airport runways, to the cost of fuel affecting cheap flights (as if that isn't ironic).

Again - there's always a solution.  Bring back the death penalty.  Without spinning off into too much of a tangent (there's a whole other blog post that can be written about the benefits of bringing back capital punishment) - this should shut the masses up with their whinging and protesting (and also reduce taxes for the honest citizen).

Perfect - motoring problem solved by one fell swoop (well two, if you count the re-introduction of executions).  It boggles me to think why a visionary like me hasn't been made Prime Minister yet.  Under my leadership, motoring utopia is but two Acts away...!  Perhaps I won't need to practice my war-cry after all...

I bought a fairly obscure CD recently.  Nothing special in itself, but I did get this amongst my shipping confirmation e-mail:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, February 17th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.  Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year."  We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

--
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000

I thought it was a nice touch... ;)

Incidentally, I'd wager a Great British tenner that Top Gear will use the music that I've just purchased in the next series.  I've noticed that I share very similar tastes to whoever chooses the music for the show (they used the previous E.S. Posthumus album heavily for the last two seasons, as well as myriad other obscure CDs that happen to be in my collection).

[Blogged using Microsoft Windows Live Writer]

Looks like I've found my next mobile phone!

It runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional as well - which is a must-have for my work life.  Functionally, the phone is perfect for what I need - highlights are:

• 3-inch touch-screen (800 x480) with 65K colours
• 400MB built-in memory
• 3G HSDPA
• 3.2MP camera with AF
• A2DP supported Bluetooth
• Assisted GPS (a more accurate form of plain old GPS)
• microSD support
• an FM radio
• Wi-Fi connectivity

Interface is fairly nice - at last, there is a Windows Mobile phone with an interface which comes close (if not quite matches) the Apple iPhone.  A video of the Sony Ericsson's custom interface can be found here.

Wait...  Apple users "are more liberal, less modest, and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large"?

Surely you jest...?!?

(First brought to my attention by Engadget)

[Blogged using Microsoft Windows Live Writer]

Alright - this is an extremely narcissistic, ego-stroking blog post, so avert your eyes if you can't stand people who are full of themselves...

Excellent.

My American Express Blue Card expires shortly, so AMEX sent a replacement card to me.  To say I got a little horny about the design of the new card is putting it lightly!

Behold, pictures of the front and back of the old card (left) and the new card (right).

The photos above give you an idea of the transparency, but don't really do the card any justice.  It doesn't help that I'm drunk, the lighting is bad, and the photos are blurry as buggery.  And in a vain attempt to prevent card fraud, I've blackened various bits of the cards, despoiling their lovely aesthetics.

Maybe it looks nicer here:

That's the card sitting on my Tablet PC - note the cool transparency!

All this reminds me of a blog idea I had a while ago, but it wasn't that exciting.  Basically, I just wanted to post this:

It was both to show the evolution of my main debit card (from crappy to blacky) and also to stoke my ego yet again (I have three black-coloured cards in my wallet now - I think black is the new Silver/Gold/Platinum)...

God - it's really sad how some people (me!) can place such value on bits of plastic.

Anyway - that is all I wanted to say.  Told you it was narcissistic!