Thinking of buying a reflex digital camera, the obvious way forward is a couple of magazines on the subject, with the expectation that a quick flick through their recommendation pages, reviews and feature round-ups would give me some understanding of what I need to be looking for.
Instant techno-babble.
I have no idea what any of this means, beyond a vague knowledge of a relationship between the number following the acronym ISO and the amount of time that the shutter must be open to get a decent amount of light onto the film (except it's a sensor now, not a film). As soon as they started talking about mounting compatibilities, I decided to give up until I can cross reference with a decent glossary that includes helpful explanations - and doesn't just define one techno-babble word in terms of other techno-babble words.
I presume they are talking about compatibilities between different systems of attaching one thing to another, and not a spiralling increase in compatibility, but until I've studied it, I can't be sure. Google is my friend, let the searching begin...
Edit...
This is the kind of thing I was hoping not to find. The first definition is reasonably good, but waffles a bit. At least it tells me what an "f-number' is, how it's calculated and gives hints as to why and how it may be useful.
The definition of "f-stop" means nothing unless you know what an f-stop is. It does say when it may be useful, but not how or why. I'm kinda hoping these were written by different people.
30 June, 2006
28 June, 2006
Sod the joints, give me lots of screws any day...
Table 1.0 did not work out.
In fact, most of it ended up in large pieces, being hurled (as in thrown with violence) out of the window into the courtyard, bouncing a few times and finally coming to a defiant rest with a smugness that I did not know wood could display.
Table 2.0 quickly followed. I would call it 1.1, but it doesn't contain much from the original (think gouges torn out, impacts, tears and general breaking), and was of a completely different design, so it gets the old 2.0
I guess the original should have been version 0.5, but it was intended for GA, so I can't use that excuse.
Things I learned.
1. When making a table, unless you are working to very fine tolerances, it's best to make the frame that the table top will then rest on, rather than making a table that the legs will attach to.
2. I wasn't working to any tolerances, never mind fine ones.
We now have table. Actually, it's a kitchen work surface, no one will ever sit at this, just stand at it chopping, peeling and shucking oysters. Now who's feeling smug...eh?
In fact, most of it ended up in large pieces, being hurled (as in thrown with violence) out of the window into the courtyard, bouncing a few times and finally coming to a defiant rest with a smugness that I did not know wood could display.
Table 2.0 quickly followed. I would call it 1.1, but it doesn't contain much from the original (think gouges torn out, impacts, tears and general breaking), and was of a completely different design, so it gets the old 2.0
I guess the original should have been version 0.5, but it was intended for GA, so I can't use that excuse.
Things I learned.
1. When making a table, unless you are working to very fine tolerances, it's best to make the frame that the table top will then rest on, rather than making a table that the legs will attach to.
2. I wasn't working to any tolerances, never mind fine ones.
We now have table. Actually, it's a kitchen work surface, no one will ever sit at this, just stand at it chopping, peeling and shucking oysters. Now who's feeling smug...eh?
26 June, 2006
Joints
No, not that kind of joint...and following my post about posture and backs, I guess you think this is about elbows and knees and knuckles and other such sub-cutaenous joints.
No.
This is about joints between bits of wood, and how much more complicated they are than you would think after a cursory glance at a table or two, or after having a few Ikea Moments (tm). Well, they are certainly more complicated than I thought after said cursory glances and Ikea Moments (tm).
My First Table (tm) seems to be coming out stable and strong and not wobbly or liable to fall apart...yet...But. There are gaps everywhere, mitred joints that are distinctly not joined up - or even aligned anywhere near each other - and bits that were meant to be perpendicular to other bits that will never know the meaning of the word.
Why this huge chasm between what Ikea manage to do thousands of times a day, and what I have struggled over the past week to achieve?
Bends. You see, the wood that Ikea have has been cut, planed, sanded and otherwise processed to fine tolerances by BIG machines. It's probably also been bred and grown specifically to make a certain type of piece that fits into their furniture.
The more predictable bits of the wood I used came from the local DIY centre, and were chosen by a person with no skill or experience in doing so (me) with criteria that had more to do with it being cheap and about the right size than anything I should have been considering.
The less predictable bits of wood came from the floor of the barn, and took 3 days worth of hard work with increasingly powerful power tools before they were in any kind of state to be called a set of four very nice, rustic oak table legs. Wood is a natural, once living thing. Unless you are Ikea (or a real carpenter), it is unpredictable, bent, mis-shapen and not the kind of thing that it's easy to throw together without planning, fore-thought and some of that skill and experience I am currently lacking.
As long as my table carries on doing what it is supposed to (keeping things the correct distance from the floor) without resorting to wobbling or falling apart, then I will remain proud of it.
No.
This is about joints between bits of wood, and how much more complicated they are than you would think after a cursory glance at a table or two, or after having a few Ikea Moments (tm). Well, they are certainly more complicated than I thought after said cursory glances and Ikea Moments (tm).
My First Table (tm) seems to be coming out stable and strong and not wobbly or liable to fall apart...yet...But. There are gaps everywhere, mitred joints that are distinctly not joined up - or even aligned anywhere near each other - and bits that were meant to be perpendicular to other bits that will never know the meaning of the word.
Why this huge chasm between what Ikea manage to do thousands of times a day, and what I have struggled over the past week to achieve?
Bends. You see, the wood that Ikea have has been cut, planed, sanded and otherwise processed to fine tolerances by BIG machines. It's probably also been bred and grown specifically to make a certain type of piece that fits into their furniture.
The more predictable bits of the wood I used came from the local DIY centre, and were chosen by a person with no skill or experience in doing so (me) with criteria that had more to do with it being cheap and about the right size than anything I should have been considering.
The less predictable bits of wood came from the floor of the barn, and took 3 days worth of hard work with increasingly powerful power tools before they were in any kind of state to be called a set of four very nice, rustic oak table legs. Wood is a natural, once living thing. Unless you are Ikea (or a real carpenter), it is unpredictable, bent, mis-shapen and not the kind of thing that it's easy to throw together without planning, fore-thought and some of that skill and experience I am currently lacking.
As long as my table carries on doing what it is supposed to (keeping things the correct distance from the floor) without resorting to wobbling or falling apart, then I will remain proud of it.
22 June, 2006
posture
Good posture is not something that was ever hammered home to me in my younger years, so my body has a whole repertoir of slouches, and lounges with which to torture my poor spine and lower back. It was ony last year, during the five minute training session for my new ergonomically sound office chair that I was informed of the need to ensure that my elbows are supported, otherwise I will end up with tight shoulder and upper back muscles. And there was me thinking that this was what sitting in a chair all day was supposed to do to you.
After the delivery and setup and training, my shoulder and back pains disappeared within a week. Not bad for something that hd been happening to me for over ten years. That something as simple as a pair of adjustable arm rests could have sucha startling effect amazed me.
So that's why I just splashed out on an office chair with arm-rests for when I'm working from home.
I'm now a lot less tense by lunch-time.
After the delivery and setup and training, my shoulder and back pains disappeared within a week. Not bad for something that hd been happening to me for over ten years. That something as simple as a pair of adjustable arm rests could have sucha startling effect amazed me.
So that's why I just splashed out on an office chair with arm-rests for when I'm working from home.
I'm now a lot less tense by lunch-time.
20 June, 2006
Whine-y
I can see what all those other whine-y MacBook Pro owners are saying about their whine-y MacBook Pro's, but having used mine, a few others and a couple of Dell and Sony laptops (sorry, "portable computers") and a few desktops recently, I can't help thinking something along the lines of "get a life".
Yes, if the processor is throttled back there is a distinct buzzy/whiney noise out of (mostly) the left side of the case, and I can see that if you are in a quiet place it would be annoying, but it's nothing worse (and in some cases a lot better) than things I've heard from other laptops (sorry, "portable computers").
Apple should be on top of this, and should have better digital/analogue interfaces, and should have picked this up at the design or quality control stages, but it really is not the end of the world, and is certainly not something to send the thing back over.
End of obligatory post by new MBP owner about the whine.
Yes, if the processor is throttled back there is a distinct buzzy/whiney noise out of (mostly) the left side of the case, and I can see that if you are in a quiet place it would be annoying, but it's nothing worse (and in some cases a lot better) than things I've heard from other laptops (sorry, "portable computers").
Apple should be on top of this, and should have better digital/analogue interfaces, and should have picked this up at the design or quality control stages, but it really is not the end of the world, and is certainly not something to send the thing back over.
End of obligatory post by new MBP owner about the whine.
15 June, 2006
So, I've tracked down all the paper tissues and thrown them all away
The mess is mostly cleared up, and I've had my first day riding the silver machine.
Of course, not everything is as scrummy as the scrummiest scrummy sweeties from Mr. Bonbon's Scrummy Sweetie Emporium, purveyor of the Scrummiest of Scrummy Sweeties to the Discerning Young Gentleman since 1823. Oooh, no sir.
One thing I'm not too keen on so far is the extremities of the keyboard. They seem to have been chopped off a bit. I guess it's so there's room for all the wizardry to do with dimming screens, and lighting keyboards, and those magic soundy things they call "speakers" being so good for their size...but I keep trying to hit a shift key that's only half there with my left hand, and the return key is a little bit too thin for anything other than my little finger.
I'm used to a 12" iBook, a dell laptop and various full-size keyboards, but for some reason, this one seems to be too small. It's exactly the same width as the iBook keyboard, but maybe it's a psychological thing, and I expect there to be more of it with there being more of the machine in general.
I've become an obsessive-compulsive. It's this glossy screen thing. If I approach the screen from the side and catch a finger mark in the reflection, it's straight out with the nearest spectacle lens cloth and that smudge is a bad memory. I'm hoping I'll stop doing this soon - if nothing else, it's pissing off anyone using the machine when I walk past.
Then there's this iSight thing - and it's unholy relationship with Delicious Library. That kind of thing should not be allowed.It has been a mammoth effort of will to restrain myself from deleting all of the things in my DL that I assiduously typed the ISBN or the barcode for, and to then sit there with a look of blissful, assanine rapture on my face scanning them in...beep.....beep.....beep all day long. Not to mention the fun that the "mirror" widget has given me. woo-hoo, I didn't realise how deep-set my eyes have become in this heat.
Oh, and I do feel a little dirty still, after putting Parallels on and installing a copy of XP. It had to be done, though, for the freak-show factor if nothing else. Eeeeeew, what's that yeuchy grey, angular window thing doing on my lovely new curvaceous smooth, glossy Mac?
"Ha-ha-ha, look daddy, it's got a silly window that pops up *all* the time telling you that it's not secure. Silly operating system, why doesn't it just be secure in the first place?"
"Shush, junior, you'll make the poor freak feel bad, you shouldn't talk like that about the inadequate. Especially not in front of them."
So that's what happened. I love my new MacBook Pro, other than trying to squeeze all those syllables that don't seem to go together too well out instead of just saying "Powerbook". Of course, I'm not In Love with it, you'll understand. The tissues were just a temporary thing before I got hold of myself again. No, that didn't come out right...neither did that.
Go away.
Of course, not everything is as scrummy as the scrummiest scrummy sweeties from Mr. Bonbon's Scrummy Sweetie Emporium, purveyor of the Scrummiest of Scrummy Sweeties to the Discerning Young Gentleman since 1823. Oooh, no sir.
One thing I'm not too keen on so far is the extremities of the keyboard. They seem to have been chopped off a bit. I guess it's so there's room for all the wizardry to do with dimming screens, and lighting keyboards, and those magic soundy things they call "speakers" being so good for their size...but I keep trying to hit a shift key that's only half there with my left hand, and the return key is a little bit too thin for anything other than my little finger.
I'm used to a 12" iBook, a dell laptop and various full-size keyboards, but for some reason, this one seems to be too small. It's exactly the same width as the iBook keyboard, but maybe it's a psychological thing, and I expect there to be more of it with there being more of the machine in general.
I've become an obsessive-compulsive. It's this glossy screen thing. If I approach the screen from the side and catch a finger mark in the reflection, it's straight out with the nearest spectacle lens cloth and that smudge is a bad memory. I'm hoping I'll stop doing this soon - if nothing else, it's pissing off anyone using the machine when I walk past.
Then there's this iSight thing - and it's unholy relationship with Delicious Library. That kind of thing should not be allowed.It has been a mammoth effort of will to restrain myself from deleting all of the things in my DL that I assiduously typed the ISBN or the barcode for, and to then sit there with a look of blissful, assanine rapture on my face scanning them in...beep.....beep.....beep all day long. Not to mention the fun that the "mirror" widget has given me. woo-hoo, I didn't realise how deep-set my eyes have become in this heat.
Oh, and I do feel a little dirty still, after putting Parallels on and installing a copy of XP. It had to be done, though, for the freak-show factor if nothing else. Eeeeeew, what's that yeuchy grey, angular window thing doing on my lovely new curvaceous smooth, glossy Mac?
"Ha-ha-ha, look daddy, it's got a silly window that pops up *all* the time telling you that it's not secure. Silly operating system, why doesn't it just be secure in the first place?"
"Shush, junior, you'll make the poor freak feel bad, you shouldn't talk like that about the inadequate. Especially not in front of them."
So that's what happened. I love my new MacBook Pro, other than trying to squeeze all those syllables that don't seem to go together too well out instead of just saying "Powerbook". Of course, I'm not In Love with it, you'll understand. The tissues were just a temporary thing before I got hold of myself again. No, that didn't come out right...neither did that.
Go away.
14 June, 2006
Please excuse the mess...
But I think I just exploded with excitement. The new MacBook Pro arrived today, and has astounded me from the moment I opened the box. I'm a many-year Mac user, and was prepared for how easy it was going to be to get things up and running...or so I thought.
Nope. 100% off the mark. Fifteen minutes after opening the box and unwrapping everything, I had my old 500MHz G3 iBook in front of me, except it was running a million times faster, had a glossy wide screen and was all silvery. Other than that, nothing had changed - everything else was the same, from the desktop picture rotations to the printer settings.
The migration wizard does whatever the opposite of "sucks" is, and it does it a lot.
I ran software update, and pulled down all of the latest versions of everything, restarted and away we went again.
The significant other pushed me off the seat, and within 20 seconds had fast user switched (with obligatory "oooooh" as my screen rotated out of the way and hers appeared), and was checking her mail, opening a podcast and pissing around in photoshop elements to her hearts content without really noticing any difference. It was all going soooooo smoothly...until...I pushed her off the seat to play with my new toy again, how dare she interrupt my fun in an attempt to do some actual productive stuff?
There were a few minor "application X has been updated, can it use your keychain still?" questions every now and then, but that's expected.
Woo!
and Yay!
Nope. 100% off the mark. Fifteen minutes after opening the box and unwrapping everything, I had my old 500MHz G3 iBook in front of me, except it was running a million times faster, had a glossy wide screen and was all silvery. Other than that, nothing had changed - everything else was the same, from the desktop picture rotations to the printer settings.
The migration wizard does whatever the opposite of "sucks" is, and it does it a lot.
I ran software update, and pulled down all of the latest versions of everything, restarted and away we went again.
The significant other pushed me off the seat, and within 20 seconds had fast user switched (with obligatory "oooooh" as my screen rotated out of the way and hers appeared), and was checking her mail, opening a podcast and pissing around in photoshop elements to her hearts content without really noticing any difference. It was all going soooooo smoothly...until...I pushed her off the seat to play with my new toy again, how dare she interrupt my fun in an attempt to do some actual productive stuff?
There were a few minor "application X has been updated, can it use your keychain still?" questions every now and then, but that's expected.
Woo!
and Yay!
12 June, 2006
Virgin
I think I finally understand the Apple hardware design ethic. It's there to remind us what grubby, filthy, hair-shedding, skin-shedding ape descendants we are, and a way for Mr Ive to show how perfect his life must be. I bet he doesn't shed skin - he must have evolved to the point where his dead skin and hair are re-absorbed into his body and formed into tiny angels that seranade him and his family to sleep and guarantee his entry into heaven.
I bet even his farts smell of lavender and his sweat never reaches that foul odour; instead the only bacteria that have adapted to living on his skin turn it into a subtle musk with a hint of refreshing lime leaves.
My two day old apple keyboard has already lost its virginity, with a few minor hairs (they look like eye-lashes) in places that only a feather duster would be able to go without dismantling the whole thing. God knows how much this is going to show me up over its lifetime. My dell keyboard at work, with its dull dark blue, never shows anything up, being designed for use by mere apes.
Jonathan Ive was sent to earth to make the rest of us feel dirty. Bastard.
I bet even his farts smell of lavender and his sweat never reaches that foul odour; instead the only bacteria that have adapted to living on his skin turn it into a subtle musk with a hint of refreshing lime leaves.
My two day old apple keyboard has already lost its virginity, with a few minor hairs (they look like eye-lashes) in places that only a feather duster would be able to go without dismantling the whole thing. God knows how much this is going to show me up over its lifetime. My dell keyboard at work, with its dull dark blue, never shows anything up, being designed for use by mere apes.
Jonathan Ive was sent to earth to make the rest of us feel dirty. Bastard.
07 June, 2006
Futility
Never, ever, ever, ever start to contemplate the utterness of the futility of what you are doing half way through a long, tedious, soul-destroying, futile task that you know you have to get to the end of in a finite time. It fucks you up.
04 June, 2006
podcasts - pronunciation and enunciation
Sometimes, it's weird listening to people on podcasts - there's stuff that I've only ever read about in magazines or on websites, but never actually spoken to a live human being about - I just don't know anyone interested in talking about them...I am geek.
This is fine, but it does mean that I've got my own internal pronunciation for a bunch of techy words and names, and it's very wierd (occasionally even annoying) to hear someone elses pronunciation. It's one of those fingernails on the blackboard, pulling wool through your teeth kind of moments. Eeeew.
Oh, yeah, and while I'm on it...this is a message to all podcasters. Enunciate. You put the fucking words up there for me to listen to. Fucking well make sure I can hear them. Doh.
This is fine, but it does mean that I've got my own internal pronunciation for a bunch of techy words and names, and it's very wierd (occasionally even annoying) to hear someone elses pronunciation. It's one of those fingernails on the blackboard, pulling wool through your teeth kind of moments. Eeeew.
Oh, yeah, and while I'm on it...this is a message to all podcasters. Enunciate. You put the fucking words up there for me to listen to. Fucking well make sure I can hear them. Doh.
03 June, 2006
Nothing to complain about...
Well, life's pretty good at the moment - endless small disappointments and several nagging doubts, but nothing that a grown-up person like myself can't get over without batting an eyelid. I even have a couple of whipping posts to lash in the event that it all gets too much for me - there's a couple of insurance companies who have pissed me off big time over the past few weeks, but who now want to try to do everything they can to make me happy. so I just have to keep phoning them up and being dissapointed, and they'll massage me into submission.
I've been on a big retail therapy kick since my car was broken into - an event I've taken as an opportunity to get rid of it and put a younger more racy model in its place. I mean, it had been good to me, loyal, always there when I needed it, good at what it does, but nothing so fancy that anyone would be jealous and want to take it away from me. There comes a time, however when a man is looking for something a little different, and just being there for me every morning, and looking after me every evening is just not enough.
So, it was straight onto Auto Trader, looking at all the sleek bodied Alfa Romeos and Seat hot hatches (though I'm not sick enough as to be interested in a VW golf - I never could stand posh totty, nor am I sad enough as to head over the tracks to look at anythig by Ford). Audi's held a facination for me for a while as I tried to convince myself that I was still looking for reliability over fun, but they were just too expensive for anything with any get up and go, and the ones I could afford had no immediate return. No, if I was to stray from the old dear, I wasn't about to do it with a matronly bavarian diesel - I wanted something that would give me a bit of a buzz when I woke up and caught a first glance every morning.
So I looked up a few Alfa 147's - 3 to 4 years old with 50,000 to 75,000 miles on the clock seemed to be in my price range, and looking thorugh all the online adverts, they sounded better and better as I listened to the cries of pain of the reluctant owners. Poor, unfortunate people who had to give up their bit of totty as they procreated too much, got married or were otherwise having to settle down in one way or another and buy a people carrier / Ford anything / Astra Zafira or whatever they are. This was the kind of car I wanted.
I was willing to scour the country, visiting out of the way parts of Scotland, Wales, Yorkshire and Lancashire to find the right one. It was with this fire in my belly that I made myself a little list, whittled them down to about five and started to make arrangements for time off work, hire cars and places to stay where needed.
Then the small doubts started to creep in - a report from an ex owner that the visits to the garage were often and that you were paying Gaultier prices for everything. A couple of web site reviews that said the same. The advice of an ex mechanic to make sure they hadn't been owned by a boy racer (or someone aged 45 who thought they were a boy racer). The video review that went on for 98% of its time about how good the handling is, but the engine could be a bit more responsive in the lower ranges, but then spent the last 2% warning about making sure you liked your mechanics as you'd have plenty of time to see them - and be prepared to had over a substantial part of your income to make sure they are well fed every month.
All of these dripped a little more fire retardant on the burning flame of my heart, but still couldn't quench the flames enough for me to change my mind. No, that can when I actually go t my hands on a couple of the examples on my list. They were good little cars, went well, went round corenrs well, seemed to be a good quality, but there was just something that wasn't quite right.
Then I HPI'd them. Ouch. They were both clean, and as expected with no recorded accidents, nothing nasty - but the mileage was always a little crazy. There would be at least one owner who did a massive amount of miles in a very short time, and at least one owner who looked like they just bought the car to admire it in the drive way. It didn't feel right. Each one seemed ot have had a little boy racer screaming around in it at some point...something I was trying to avoid.
I looked at the photos of those I hadn't seen with a fresh, more critical eye, and there were the little flaws I was hoping not to see - a wheel arch that was freshly painted (accident), a seller changing their mind about the number of miles (even though the odometer said 62,000) after I asked for the log book number and VIN so I could HPI his pride and joy - he admitted it had actually done over 140,000 miles so we said goodbye.
Maybe there was one out there for me, the perfect, not too unreliable, uncrashed, honest, unmodified Alfa 147 that I could hope to drive without breaking my patience and credit history, but for now I've given up the chase.
So what did I do? Well, I'm back with the old Peugeot 306, but I've gone for a younger one with a more sporting engine and gearbox (not good for those long cruises, but much more fun around town and out in the countryside). It should be almost as reliable as the last one, but will gie me a few thrills when I feel I need them.
There's a deep and meaningful insight in to humanity and society in there somewhere, but I can't be fucked finding it.
I've been on a big retail therapy kick since my car was broken into - an event I've taken as an opportunity to get rid of it and put a younger more racy model in its place. I mean, it had been good to me, loyal, always there when I needed it, good at what it does, but nothing so fancy that anyone would be jealous and want to take it away from me. There comes a time, however when a man is looking for something a little different, and just being there for me every morning, and looking after me every evening is just not enough.
So, it was straight onto Auto Trader, looking at all the sleek bodied Alfa Romeos and Seat hot hatches (though I'm not sick enough as to be interested in a VW golf - I never could stand posh totty, nor am I sad enough as to head over the tracks to look at anythig by Ford). Audi's held a facination for me for a while as I tried to convince myself that I was still looking for reliability over fun, but they were just too expensive for anything with any get up and go, and the ones I could afford had no immediate return. No, if I was to stray from the old dear, I wasn't about to do it with a matronly bavarian diesel - I wanted something that would give me a bit of a buzz when I woke up and caught a first glance every morning.
So I looked up a few Alfa 147's - 3 to 4 years old with 50,000 to 75,000 miles on the clock seemed to be in my price range, and looking thorugh all the online adverts, they sounded better and better as I listened to the cries of pain of the reluctant owners. Poor, unfortunate people who had to give up their bit of totty as they procreated too much, got married or were otherwise having to settle down in one way or another and buy a people carrier / Ford anything / Astra Zafira or whatever they are. This was the kind of car I wanted.
I was willing to scour the country, visiting out of the way parts of Scotland, Wales, Yorkshire and Lancashire to find the right one. It was with this fire in my belly that I made myself a little list, whittled them down to about five and started to make arrangements for time off work, hire cars and places to stay where needed.
Then the small doubts started to creep in - a report from an ex owner that the visits to the garage were often and that you were paying Gaultier prices for everything. A couple of web site reviews that said the same. The advice of an ex mechanic to make sure they hadn't been owned by a boy racer (or someone aged 45 who thought they were a boy racer). The video review that went on for 98% of its time about how good the handling is, but the engine could be a bit more responsive in the lower ranges, but then spent the last 2% warning about making sure you liked your mechanics as you'd have plenty of time to see them - and be prepared to had over a substantial part of your income to make sure they are well fed every month.
All of these dripped a little more fire retardant on the burning flame of my heart, but still couldn't quench the flames enough for me to change my mind. No, that can when I actually go t my hands on a couple of the examples on my list. They were good little cars, went well, went round corenrs well, seemed to be a good quality, but there was just something that wasn't quite right.
Then I HPI'd them. Ouch. They were both clean, and as expected with no recorded accidents, nothing nasty - but the mileage was always a little crazy. There would be at least one owner who did a massive amount of miles in a very short time, and at least one owner who looked like they just bought the car to admire it in the drive way. It didn't feel right. Each one seemed ot have had a little boy racer screaming around in it at some point...something I was trying to avoid.
I looked at the photos of those I hadn't seen with a fresh, more critical eye, and there were the little flaws I was hoping not to see - a wheel arch that was freshly painted (accident), a seller changing their mind about the number of miles (even though the odometer said 62,000) after I asked for the log book number and VIN so I could HPI his pride and joy - he admitted it had actually done over 140,000 miles so we said goodbye.
Maybe there was one out there for me, the perfect, not too unreliable, uncrashed, honest, unmodified Alfa 147 that I could hope to drive without breaking my patience and credit history, but for now I've given up the chase.
So what did I do? Well, I'm back with the old Peugeot 306, but I've gone for a younger one with a more sporting engine and gearbox (not good for those long cruises, but much more fun around town and out in the countryside). It should be almost as reliable as the last one, but will gie me a few thrills when I feel I need them.
There's a deep and meaningful insight in to humanity and society in there somewhere, but I can't be fucked finding it.
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