Posts by Paul Campbell
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Well my hybrid is certainly uses less petrol than a comparative mid-sized car - and certainly generates lower emissions - the real reason we bought ours, we'd just moved back home from California, we bought it 4 years ago and weren't really that concerned about petrol prices at the time
I agree diesels have gotten a whole lot better recently, (is the local fuel the low emission sort though?) no reason why you can do a diesel hybrid of course
Best thing about a hybrid though is the near-inifinte torque from the electric motor, living in Dunedin I love being able to drag off hoons on the hills
Mind you most of the time I go downtown I walk, and catch the bus back up the hill - not actually driving still uses less petrol and makes lower emissions
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So before I bought the Prius (in NZ) I drove an SUV (on US freeways) - you have to understand, we're up so high we can't actually see you
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I drive with the CC on all the time, esp up thru Central Otago - stops my lead foot slowly pushing the car up into the ticket writing range .... sure it pops off every so often when you have to slow for curves (or sheep) - but maybe every 5 minutes or so
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But I drive a Prius, it does all this stuff for me - meanwhile my glove box is filling up with supermarket petrol coupons, I'm sure I subsidising someone somewhere by not using enough petrol
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Some red traffic lights in the US have a smaller red light on the other side so that cops can tell you've run a red light - same with freeway onramp metering lights
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Well after 20 years of driving freeways in California (without a single ticket I might add) I just have to laugh - coming from NZ those first few times were hard but people are mostly polite, understand about taking turns and letting people in and tend to have a finely honed idea of when someones cutting in line and being a dickhead - the traffic engineers have also learned about how to stripe stuff so that those spots seldom really happen.
I've seen scary stuff happen, especially late at night (nothing quite pops the adrenaline than seeing the face of someone spinning out at 80k across in front of you, or the person running across in the dark, or ....) ... BUT for some reason I find Auckland really hard to drive in there seems to be an annoyed intensity that makes it much harder for me to judge what people are intending to do (so please do use that indicator, and get your brake lights fixed).
Mind you here in Dunedin people gripe about the traffic all the time, all I can do is laugh, it's bad for 20 minutes in the evening - in CA if I tried my commute at peak times it was 2 hours each way (rather than 1), on a Friday, during ski season, before a long weekend it could be 4 (breaks into a rendition of Fred Dagg's "we don't know how lucky we are mate" and heads off for the weekend ....)
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oh and how could I forget while we're passing stuff around - best thing ever: Gogol Bordello
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOWx5G76pkU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_81l4DXlwM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oynHMmq8PBA -
actually that's the single - the album cut is much better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jznfI0O2v9E&feature=related
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Russel - for your workout (and the latest thing that both the adults and the kids have taken to together):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6hL6fkJ1_k
Infected Mushroom: Becoming Insane -
And just to day I ran into this page explaining how that iconic Grace Jones Cover was created (pre-photoshop)