Let the wookie win
Mar. 10th, 2005 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberThe 1-year aniversary of getting my Insight passed between the 28th of February and 1st March this year. How's it been? Well, I'm still loving it.
Current mileage: ~9500
Lifetime miles per gallon: 52.1!
Best trip to gaming: 68.3 mpg (no, I'm serious: 68.3 miles per gallon over ~45 miles)
# tickets of any sort: 0
I thought when I was going to pick her up that maybe she'd be "Louis" as in "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship", but it took less than an hour of owning her to realize she was female. Then there were many months of trying on names and seeing what rang. What rang most was "Lucy", a la C.S. Lewis. Now she's Lucy Simone.
The "Simone" came about after ACNW, in honor of Simone-the-con-organizer, who gave me a lift into Portland so I could spend the last $2 I owned on a book instead of bus fare after standing in the rain. My dad allows as how it's kinda twee to have a car with two names, and I can't deny it, but it fits...
I wonder if we're quite as deep-down symbiotic as Buffy and I were; not yet, I think, but I have great hopes. It was on my birthday that she flew along for the 68.3... And it was on my birthday that the LMPG (lifetime miles per gallon) went up from 51.9 to 52.1, after months of hoping.
She's still unhit, which is a constant source of joy... Glance out the window, 'nope, no one's hit my car'... I've staked out a parking space on the street calculated carefully to have the lowest chance of car damage, and cover it religiously. She's picked up a couple of flaws; some assmunch in Berkeley put a quarter-sized ding in her front bumper on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obadiah's birthday (learn to parallel park, you fucking hippies!), and in December something scraped her back slightly. As for mechanical things, the drivers's side window channel I need to clean, as sometimes the window gets stuck going up, but other than that, she's been a perfect car.
In general, I love the two-seatedness. I mean, it's just nice to compare mpg with a succession of sad-eyed Prius owners. It means that when I'm going out with more than one friend we have to take someone else's car, which has a couple of times stuck me in the smoky car of my careless speed-freak friend, or the car of my freaked-out hates-driving friend, and once me and two friends who also had a two-seat car had to take two cars into downtown Berkeley and find two parking spots there and then hook up again... But I can number the times a two seat car has been an inconvenience without taking off my socks.
And then there are the times that having a tiny little car has been a great joy... The Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale, with hopelessly inadequate street parking: I got a spot a block away by parking diagonally across a street corner. Also, there is no parking spot that I can't fit into.
Has it made me a psycho to drive a hybrid? . . . ...Yeah, a bit. I would not have thought I'd drive the speed limit in the right lane most of the time. Drafting semis? Would I have done that before I had a mpg readout? Hell, no. Caring about the direction of the wind, and resenting 237 because it's always cross coming off the bay? Heh.
On the other hand, the cops got nothing on me now. I don't have to notice them anymore.
She's small enough that I have to roll down the window to do the Chewbacca fingers-laced-behind-my-head thing at stoplights, but the Christmas tree fit inside her without any trouble.
Oh, the sound system that came from the factory was complete crap. I replaced the speakers, and it's a bit better now.
They said there's a lot of noise from the road; I don't really notice. The neat thing is that there's so little wind drag that there's no difference in the sound of 50 mph vs. 85 mph. The really neat thing about having the lowest coefficient of air drag of any car in the world? Everything flies over me in the slipstream. Bugs? Do not splat on my windshield.
Also, I love the way she shuts off at stops. So peaceful.
In general, happy. Lovely to have, asaiyume noticed immediately, the video game of mpg to keep entertained with. Got most all the car I need.
Oh, and it's damn nice to go to the gas station, fill her with regular, 10 gallons for $22, and be good for 500-600 miles... Bwa-hahahaha! Raise the gas prices all you like, you'll never stop me! I am invincible!
Current mileage: ~9500
Lifetime miles per gallon: 52.1!
Best trip to gaming: 68.3 mpg (no, I'm serious: 68.3 miles per gallon over ~45 miles)
# tickets of any sort: 0
I thought when I was going to pick her up that maybe she'd be "Louis" as in "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship", but it took less than an hour of owning her to realize she was female. Then there were many months of trying on names and seeing what rang. What rang most was "Lucy", a la C.S. Lewis. Now she's Lucy Simone.
The "Simone" came about after ACNW, in honor of Simone-the-con-organizer, who gave me a lift into Portland so I could spend the last $2 I owned on a book instead of bus fare after standing in the rain. My dad allows as how it's kinda twee to have a car with two names, and I can't deny it, but it fits...
I wonder if we're quite as deep-down symbiotic as Buffy and I were; not yet, I think, but I have great hopes. It was on my birthday that she flew along for the 68.3... And it was on my birthday that the LMPG (lifetime miles per gallon) went up from 51.9 to 52.1, after months of hoping.
She's still unhit, which is a constant source of joy... Glance out the window, 'nope, no one's hit my car'... I've staked out a parking space on the street calculated carefully to have the lowest chance of car damage, and cover it religiously. She's picked up a couple of flaws; some assmunch in Berkeley put a quarter-sized ding in her front bumper on
obadiah's birthday (learn to parallel park, you fucking hippies!), and in December something scraped her back slightly. As for mechanical things, the drivers's side window channel I need to clean, as sometimes the window gets stuck going up, but other than that, she's been a perfect car.In general, I love the two-seatedness. I mean, it's just nice to compare mpg with a succession of sad-eyed Prius owners. It means that when I'm going out with more than one friend we have to take someone else's car, which has a couple of times stuck me in the smoky car of my careless speed-freak friend, or the car of my freaked-out hates-driving friend, and once me and two friends who also had a two-seat car had to take two cars into downtown Berkeley and find two parking spots there and then hook up again... But I can number the times a two seat car has been an inconvenience without taking off my socks.
And then there are the times that having a tiny little car has been a great joy... The Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale, with hopelessly inadequate street parking: I got a spot a block away by parking diagonally across a street corner. Also, there is no parking spot that I can't fit into.
Has it made me a psycho to drive a hybrid? . . . ...Yeah, a bit. I would not have thought I'd drive the speed limit in the right lane most of the time. Drafting semis? Would I have done that before I had a mpg readout? Hell, no. Caring about the direction of the wind, and resenting 237 because it's always cross coming off the bay? Heh.
On the other hand, the cops got nothing on me now. I don't have to notice them anymore.
She's small enough that I have to roll down the window to do the Chewbacca fingers-laced-behind-my-head thing at stoplights, but the Christmas tree fit inside her without any trouble.
Oh, the sound system that came from the factory was complete crap. I replaced the speakers, and it's a bit better now.
They said there's a lot of noise from the road; I don't really notice. The neat thing is that there's so little wind drag that there's no difference in the sound of 50 mph vs. 85 mph. The really neat thing about having the lowest coefficient of air drag of any car in the world? Everything flies over me in the slipstream. Bugs? Do not splat on my windshield.
Also, I love the way she shuts off at stops. So peaceful.
In general, happy. Lovely to have, as
aiyume noticed immediately, the video game of mpg to keep entertained with. Got most all the car I need.Oh, and it's damn nice to go to the gas station, fill her with regular, 10 gallons for $22, and be good for 500-600 miles... Bwa-hahahaha! Raise the gas prices all you like, you'll never stop me! I am invincible!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 06:12 pm (UTC)Wasn't Beethoven's 6th the Pastorale?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 07:24 pm (UTC)Sad-eyed Prius owner
Date: 2005-03-12 09:15 am (UTC)Anyway, 52.1 MPG! Congrats, that's amazing.
Re: Sad-eyed Prius owner
Date: 2005-03-16 05:53 pm (UTC)So, yeah. Of all the hybrids on the market, I think you've got one of the best. I mean, the Honda Civic Hybrid would also carry kids, but it's boooring. And it doesn't have stealth mode!
Re: Sad-eyed Prius owner
Date: 2005-03-16 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 07:18 pm (UTC)My last Honda (old 4WD mini-wagon) was a girl, but she never had a name besides "the old girl." :-) Perhaps it was because she was already a little over-the-hill when I got her...