It’s like a sickness or something
Hilarious video. Nice watch on the high school newsletter editor. Thanks for the link Seb!
Flexcar and Zipcar are merging
I found the following email in my inbox today. Let’s hope their ease of use and great customer service continue post merger!
Dear Paul,
We’re thrilled today to announce some big news: Flexcar will be merging with Zipcar, another U.S.-based car-sharing company.
This is good news for you for several reasons, including: more markets, more vehicles, and enhanced technology. Your membership will soon enable you to reserve shared cars in New York, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver—even London! We’ll be incorporating Zipcar’s award-winning technology, which will make it even easier to find, reserve, and unlock cars.
We’ll be keeping you posted on the wheres and whens via email and on the website, with links from the reservation pages. In the meantime, you can check out this page for more details or, if you have specific questions that just can’t wait, email us at merger@flexcar.com.
We’re pretty excited about being able to continue developing car-sharing as a truly viable alternative to car-ownership for more and more people. Thank you for being so supportive — we look forward to returning the favor.
The Team at Flexcar
Software incompatabilities with Mac OS X Leopard
Well I took the plunge and installed Leopard. Spaces was reason enough for the upgrade. But with any upgrade… well you know. So I hope this list remains short.
- Apple Mail.app v3.0 - Attempting to resize a maximum window causes it to go blank. Restarting Mail.app seems to be the only fix. But I still have a maximized window. Also, bundles seem to be turned off by default. A quick edit to EnableBundles in com.apple.mail.plist fixed that. Letterbox.mailbundle still works. Whew!
- Screenshot Plus v2.3 and v3.0 widget - It just doesn’t work.
- Coriolis iDefrag - Received the email today from the developers.
Flexcar experience
One really important last minute change to my schedule prevented me from driving to the Dragon with my CMMC friends. No problem. Gota have my cake and eat it too 
So I booked a flight for Friday afternoon from Chicago to Atlanta and around 9pm I was in my Flexcar (a brnad new MINI Cooper Cabrio) headed for Fontana Village.
I really liked the whole Flexcar experience. After a background check, Flexcar sends you an card with an RFID chip embedded in it. It’s the key that unlocks any Flexcar!
The coolest best part about Flexcar is that gas and full insurance are included in the price of the rental. If you run below a 1/4 tank and fill it up, there is a gas card in the glove box for you to use. They’ll even deduct a small amount from your bill as because it was an inconvenience to
you 
All in all, if I’m visiting a city with Flexcar, I’ll look them up first. Chances are I won’t need a call the whole time I there.
Food in Tokyo
What do I eat tonight? Sushi? How about curry - Japanese or Indian? Cute, little “I could die from asphyxiation” Fugu? Maybe some French moules frites? How about American hamburgers with Champaign in a place where I’ll have stand and eat below crystal chandeliers? Yakitori from a street vendor? So many choices. So little time… and 34″ pants that don’t expand at the waist line.
I’ve enjoyed this week what I’d consider some of my most memorable meals. It’s all bitter sweet in a way; I return back home next week.
Toilet fires break out across Japan
Well maybe not that widespread - only 3 have caught fire with a handful of others only going up in smoke.
If you’ve been to Japan, there’s a good chance that you’ve experienced the wonders of Japanese automatic wash and dry toilets. Yes, toilets with automatic seat covers, heated seating surfaces, warm water, fans, music… and probably a dozen other things I’ll never know about because I can’t read the Japanese on the Saab like array of buttons and dials attached to the toilet.
So I was a little surprised (and perhaps worried??) when I saw on local Tokyo news tonight that 180,000 warm water-spraying toilets were being recalled. Yikes! A Toto spokesperson is quoted as saying that, “fortunately, nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out and there were no injuries.” That’s a good thing, as I’d hate to explain to friends that I suffered burns and injuries while sitting on my toilet!
My lunch at らーめん おんぱと
Ok… so I should have taken the picture before I started eating! This shop is right around the block from my apartment.
The shop is located here.
Winter shoes for the MINI
Can you believe, it’s still snowing in Chicago. It’s April already… the Cubs should be playing!
Good thing the MINI is still wearing its winter shoes!
It’s not uncommon for Old Man Winter to dump a lot of snow on us here in Chicago. But with super efficient snow removal and the fact that I’m rarely far from home during the winter months, a set of pure snow tires (Blizzaks for instance) are probably not necessary. So after some focused research I settled on buying a set of Nokian WR in 185/65/15.
While not a real snow tire, the WR provides much better snow performance than regular all season tires. One salesperson person I spoke with said that he’s able to drive through a foot of snow in his WRs with no problem, though probably not in a MINI At www.snowtire.info, it’s reported that the WR are “marketed as a high speed snow tire” in Europe.
So after a full winter of running on them I can say without a doubt that these are terrific tires. First off, they handle well on dry, slush and snow covered roads. At highway speeds, they’re extremely stable. Rain performance is good too. They’re also really quiet - so much so that I hear the wonderful exhaust burble all the time now. My MINI is a treat to drive in the summer and with appropriate shoes in the winter the fun continues year round.
