Pocket Change

Car thieves are getting more and more sophisticated.  Gone are the days when they would simply bash in a window and drive off in your car.  Today thieves are just as likely to use a machine-tooled copy of the dealer’s keys or a SIM clone for your electronic locks.  Now, you can get a ultratow wheel j-lock 60314007 to protect your vehicle, or perhaps  a Tire Claw.  But if you want to combine protection and convenience, how about a remote car-starter?  Then you could get a device that would allow you…

You’ve been there, I guarantee it. You’ve misplaced your cell phone, and you need to call someone, and you have no freaking idea what anyone’s phone number is. They’re all in your cell phone–and you haven’t even been using that extra brain space for anything useful. (Congratulations, you can recite the entire Macintosh product line by order of introduction. You’re a nerd. No one cares.) And now, to make things worse, Lexus is introducing a self-parking car. You just pull up ahead of the space, tell the car to park,…

I’ve been dedicating a lot of time, money and knuckle skin to my project/childhood dream car, a cherry red 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible. I bought it with the intention of doing all the work on it myself, so that I’d really appreciate the time I spent cruising in it. And as far as I can remember from last summer, cruising was a lot of fun. I think. These days I’m mostly to be found underneath or bent over it, cursing, banging, swallowing the odd bit of fluid, and generally taking…

Wired has an interesting story about the difference in popularity of diesels between the US and Europe. (Actually, it seems to be from Forbes, but I can’t seem to find it on the Forbes site. Media consolidation confuses me.) Half of Europe’s new car sales are diesels–who knew? I wouldn’t normally have paid much attention to the story, since my main memory of diesels is of my grandmother’s old Mercedes, which belched smoke like a factory, shook like a Magic Fingers bed and was routinely trounced off the line by…

With the cost of gas averaging $3.31 here in California, my wallet is starting to feel the effects of my weekly fill up. I’ve been trying to economize, but it doesn’t help that I’m planning to drive cross country this summer. I’ve found that Gas Buddy helps me find the cheapest gas stations, along with AAA’s Fuel Calculator to help calculate the cost of my trip. Or maybe it’s time that I trade in my faithful Saturn for a car that can run on biodiesel. What’s not to love about…

My love affair with RVs began as a child, with trips in my grandparents’ motorhome along the California coast. But they never took the Winnebago right INTO the California coast, and that’s where the gloriously over-the-top Cool Amphibious Manufacturers International comes into it. Man, do I want one of these. You can drive this baby right into the water and just keep going. Think about it. With enough food and about a 3000-gallon fuel tank–or one of those refueling tankers that they use to keep planes in the air forever–you…