Feeling Smarmy

JWise Photo of the Day

Gasoline reaches $3.05 a gallon here in Phoenix, Arizona

“I drive a Hyundai, I drive a Hyundai. I get 35 miles to a gallon – ha ha hah haaaa ha” – sung to the most annoying rhythm you can think of. Yeah, look who’s laughing now, Mr. Hummer Driver, Mister “It Costs Me $98 to fill my 32-gallon behemoth tank”. Ok, so you can still crush my little tin can and I still hate your headlights illuminating the inside shallows of my skull, but at $5 a gallon I’ll have peace from your obnoxiousness and you will have to pound, crush, and destroy that mighty ego of compensation to crawl into your new Prius – har har har – suckers.

In With The New

JWise Photo of the Day

Our new Hyundai Accent

Rated at 32 mpg city and 35 mpg highway we went from small and gutless, well……we continued the theme! This is our new Hyundai, a 2006 Accent. Another 100,000-mile warranty so we are comfortable that we can drive around the block a few times before the manufacturer pretends the vehicle was never really the responsibility of their engineers. I can’t wait for the Chinese to start bringing cars into America, if they offer a 250,000-mile warranty I’ll be the first in line to buy one. I have got to tell you though, I feel mighty strange being the only white American in the United States not driving an SUV. Many a person expressed their discomfort knowing one of their own was driving a four-cylinder Korean “Wok Racer” – not my words. For me, saving 200 gallons of gas a year worth $550 is worth the small amount of humiliation I have to endure for being a treehugger; my wife being a vegetarian doesn’t help our poor public image either. Just kidding, Caroline.

Out With The Old

JWise Photo of the Day

Our Hyundai Elantra at two and one half years old with 92,300 miles moments before we traded it in

This is our Hyundai Elantra two and a half years after we bought it. Today it has 92,330 miles (149,500km) on it and the warranty will run out at 100,000 miles. The car has been a gem, perfect every day we’ve driven it. The brakes are still factory brakes, we changed the battery, the tires, and windshield wipers along with the oil on a regular basis. On average we got 29.4 mpg, But now it is time to retire this car for another. Tomorrow’s photo of the day will be that of our new putt-putt.

Nirvana Pictures

JWise Photo of the Day

Screen captures of Nirvana from a show at Ku-Ba in Hanau, Germany performed on November 18, 1989

These four screen captures are from a video Caroline and I shot back on November 18, 1989, at Club Ku-Ba in Hanau, Germany of the band Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was nice about giving us permission to tape the show, it only required a small trade. Two years after this event the band would be world-famous. I promised Nirvana that I wouldn’t bootleg the recording and so far have honored my word – not that I wouldn’t like to. I’ve asked the label who said do what I want with the images as I own them, but the music is owned by their publisher and I can’t do a thing with that. A silent video? Oh well. I’m posting this old image as some guys at a Nirvana Forum have asked for more screenshots. Don’t forget to click the image to see a larger version. By the way, that’s me down in the bottom right.

Another Year

JWise Photo of the Day

Another year and another bloom from the same cactus on our balcony that delivered as beautiful a bloom as last year

On April 14th last year I posted a similar photo. The same cactus as featured today gave us three blooms last year. This cactus had fallen over in a wind storm recently but it keeps ongoing. Another of our cacti fell off our rear balcony last month and is now three new cacti. A large chunk of cactus we found in a parking lot last year is doing ok, we weren’t sure how well until Caroline transplanted it last week and found the entire bottom of the pot filled with roots. You may never appreciate how beautiful cacti are until you have lived in the desert and taken the time to familiarize yourself with how unique these plants are.

Peking Acrobats

JWise Photo of the Day

Final bow of the Peking Acrobats as performed at the Scottsdale Center of the Arts in Arizona

This evening Caroline and I drove over to the Scottsdale Center of the Arts to see a performance of the Peking Acrobats. The show was great, but, unbelievably, it wasn’t sold out. Here in Arizona they only did one show; when we lived in Frankfurt, Germany, the show would have its own tent and would go on for an entire month. If you look closely at the photo you might notice that the girl center top and just below the dragon head is actually riding a unicycle on top of an umbrella supported by one of the male acrobats.