Picked up new car

I picked up my new car today.

I wonder if that "new car" smell is real or comes from a bottle?

The good thing about a bright yellow car is that there aren't too many of them around. Looking at the other cars in the traffic, I realised that most were white or silver. This means that they all look similar in some way. I've already discovered one benefit - when I went to point out my new car to someone I worked with on the 6th floor - looking out the window, there was a single yellow car in the carpark below. I don't know how many times in the past I've stood in a carpark and wondered where I left my car; hopefully this will happen less now.

One disappointment has been the lack of an iPod dock. The salesman didn't even know what an iPod was. When I asked about an iPod dock, he pointed to an 3.5in audio socket and said "you can plug any MP3 player in there". I said that I wanted an iPod dock and he went off to ask the spare parts folks. He then said that I should go to a car radio shop and get them to install one because Honda don't have one. Oh well, I thought.

A few hours later I was reading the car radio part of the manual, and low and behold, you can get a USB socket installed to plug your iPod in. The radio even has an iPod mode that allows you to control the iPod from the steering wheel controls. It looks like this is standard on the next model up. Lousy salesmen !

No other gripes with the car so far. Fingers crossed.

I bought a new car

I bought a new car today.  A Honda Jazz.

I don't think that my wife likes the shade of acid yellow that I've picked.  But at least it's safe.  I read somewhere that yellow is the safest, followed by white.

I just want a small, fuel-efficient car to get me to and from work in comfort.

I had a bright red car once.  I'd only had it for about 3 months when somebody ran into me, on a bright sunny day.  The other driver said that they didn't see me stopped in the middle of the road with my indicator on waiting to turn into another street.   So much for brains registering red.

Unfortunately there's no way that Matthew (our almost 18 year old son) will be able to drive it - the added insurance premium for under 25 drivers  is prohibitive.  It increases the premium from about $500/year to about $1,600.

It's been about 5 years since we bought a car, and its still overly complex, arranging the car loan, insurance, etc.  Everyone in the process is keen on cross-selling you another product.  The car dealer wants to finance the loan, and sell the insurance, and insurance on the insurance.  The credit union wants to lend us the money and also wants to provide the insurance.  Presumably the insurance companies will want to finance the loan as well just to make it more complex.

Karyn did a fantastic job negotiating a price.  She told them what she wanted to pay, and stuck to it.  The salesman said that he couldn't go that low, and wheeled out the sales manager.  The sales manager said that he couldn't go that low either.  He even got to the stage of offering a full tank of fuel and a promise to wash the car every time I brought it in for a service.  But Karyn stuck to her guns.  They (the salesman and the sales manager) then had to go to the Dealer Principal who agreed to go further and meet her price provided they transferred the extra $ to someone else's purchase.

I reckon I should rent Karyn out as a negotiator, except there wasn't any negotiation from her.

Now we have to wait a week to pick up the car.  I just hope that we can get all the paperwork done on time.

Beach volleyball court replaced

Someone came past today and covered the new beach volleyball court with artificial grass. It ruined my dream of getting some of those Speedo-clad volleyball babes to come over and play.

I think that my wife was behind it.

A new beach volleyball court installed

I came home today to find that half of our back garden has been turned into a beach volleyball court.

Shopping for a NetBook

Today we bought a NetBook for Karyn.

We didn't start shopping for one; I just wanted to show them to Karyn as a potential Christmas present.  Because she often wants to access the Internet while watching TV, I thought that she might like something that she can sit on the seat next to her and put on her lap when she wants.  

I didn't anticipate the level of enthusiasm.  It took all of 30 seconds for her to get excited, especially when she realised you could get white ones.   She'd previously said that she'd like a MacBook because they looked nice and you could get white ones.

We had to do the "shopping around" thing, and then spent the rest of the day going from shop to shop, mall to mall, comparing prices and models.  Then low and behold, we ended up where we started from because (a) the price was OK and (b) they had white ones.

We ended up with an Acer Aspire One (in white). It has a 9" screen, a good sized keyboard, and 1GB of memory running Windows XP Home.

The photo doesn't do it's size justice.  It is a bit wider than a piece of A4 paper folded in half.  It fits comfortably in Karyn's handbag.

What surprised me during our shopping trip were the comments from the various salesmen. 

"We only get them in blue," said one.

"We recommend this one because it has twice the battery life"  The one he was pointing us at was twice the price and twice the weight and seemed to be more like a conventional laptop than an ultra-portable netbook.

"You should consider this one because it has a bigger screen with a wider viewing angle"  As though you were going to use one of these babies sitting on someone else's lap.  Let me tell you, you need good eyesight to use one of these without squinting.

Anyway, my surprise Christmas present is now ruined and I guess I'll have to find something else .

But at least she can't complain when I buy myself a new quad-core machine next week.