New car is here!!!!

I got a call today from Nissan saying that my car was ready for pickup!  Now that was a nice surprise, and especially on a Tuesday where I actually can have time to pick up the car if I try!  So I went to the bank after my Acute Pain Round, got my bank cheque and off I went to the car dealers.

After signing all my paperwork and stuff and having the car "tour" I finally got my car!  But there was one bad thing - the clock keeps resetting every time I turn the car off.  In fact, all the trip stuff seems to reset after I turn the car off.  I notified the dealers and they told me to let the service guys look at the car when I bring it around on Thursday.

Here's what it looks like on the inside (pictures from web, not my actual car)

Driving an automatic makes me feel lazy.  Taking off from the lights feels sluggish compared to driving a manual - is that due to it being automatic or is that just my engine being underpowered?  Tried it with the "manual" gear switch and it wasn't much different.

The display is distracting.  Probably because it's a new car, and I keep looking at the km on it and the fuel consumption.  I think i'll have to turn it off and not look at it.

The Bluetooth is actually really good.  I called people from my phone and they said it was good quality sound.  Simple to connect too.  I have to program some numbers into the car now to make it more useful.

Sound suppression is impressive, it was raining moderately to heavily and I could still talk on the phone.  I haven't driven the M5 to Campbelltown yet but I will tomorrow so I will get to see what it's like in terms of noise in the cabin.

I put the baby seats in, and they slip around a lot on the moulded leather seats, which is irritating.  So I put some padding under them to see if that helped, but I can sit between the seats, which is kind of cool!  There is a little more leg room in the back than my old car.

I haven't quite got my head around the car positioning, and how close I am to things.  I think I'm erring on the side of caution, and I'm worried I'll run over stuff at the back but when I put the car in the garage I was WAAAAY too far from the wall.  Will need to put it a bit closer when I park it again tomorrow coming home.

I like my glass roof.  I had it open most of the way home.  I bet Erika and Julian will like it too.

Keyless entry is cool!  It also has a key option for flat keyless battery thing which is awesome.  Not sure how that works if I can't actually OPEN the car... there must be a slot somewhere for it in the door.  I'll look for it later.

All in all I love my new car.  Oh but you know what was really cool when I first saw the car?  It was the number plates!  BSL97W... perfect for someone married to an endocrinologist!!!  Won't be forgetting that in a hurry.

I banish twit! Totally awesome.

DIY Phone repairs...

Hubby, HK and I took my phone apart yesterday and when we put it back together I found the LCD was busted!  So after that, HK took it apart again and put the replacement LCD in and it was working.  And after all that I forgot to mention, it was the touch screen which was broken initially, NOT the LCD!!!!

I should have realised that.  if the LCD was broken I'd have a rainbow swirly screen.  /smacks head

Anyway, there were some good instructional videos on the HTC website which showed us how to take the phone apart.  It was very useful.  I'll link them here in case I ever have to do them again.

Disassembly


Reassembly

iPhones taking over the world....

I have been very resistant to having an iphone... perhaps because it's an iphone!  Apple likes everyone to use their product with no crossover... effectively squeezing out the competition.  I suppose that's how you make money but you have to be sure your product is good - and the Apple product is good, or so the millions of people using iphones will tell you anyway!

And I did think that the iPad was a silly thing, people were saying it's a computer replacement and I was poopooing that idea... but after playing with one... it does do the one thing that I thought was good and that was read things, like books, the newspaper etc, at least it's big enough to read compared to reading it on my phone like I normally do.  But then one of my mates showed me his comics on it, and wow they look great!  I have digital comics too and they look cool on the computer but I'm sure they would look just as awesome on the iPad - much that I hate to admit it!

So do I give in and get one?  Obviously I only want one because... well because it's cool!  I don't really NEED one (really what do we really NEED other than water, food, clothes on our backs... internet, WoW, mobile phones, the latest fancy digital SLR... hahahaha!)... maybe I can just wait till version 2 comes out.  I wonder if I'll be able to read my books on it, since they're all saved on funny formats.

Comments that make you roll your eyes...

Operating today with my orthopaedic surgeon, and his assistant (another orthopod) was trashing the NBN, saying that it will cost lots of money and it's a waste of money.  And that the speeds of sites downloading is dependent on the US servers and not Australian internal networks...

... I immediately said that it's about connecting rural Australia to high speed internet.  And that rural Australia needs the connections for internal things - such as video conferencing, virtual classrooms - geez it's not all about ebay, amazon, apple i-store and youtube!

So he said as well, well don't live in rural Australia, why would anyone want to live there?  I said someone has to grow food for the populace.  He said buy it from overseas, it's cheaper...

No wonder people think doctors are idiots.  I wonder if there anybody out there thinks like me, that food produced in Australia will support our local economy, and that with a strong local economy that DOESN'T rely heavily on mining, logging and whatever unrenewable resources there are around as primary industry will build a stronger country for us all.  I think patriotism is something that people don't believe in these days.  I have taught Erika the Australian national anthem and I will make sure my daughter understands the importance of showing support for your country, local business and jobs.  Geez even now I think orthopods are idiots (though you really shouldn't be biting the hand that feeds you if you know what I mean).

Also when I was at Liverpool I have people going on and on at me about voting Greens/Labor.  "They'll take all your money", "They want to support all the dole bludgers", "We'll have an emissions trading scheme coming in and that's bad!"

Why shouldn't we have some environmental conscience?  Why shouldn't you pay more tax if you earn more money?  Perhaps it's unfair for the lower income people to be slugged with the high energy bills, but perhaps if you invest more money in green and renewable energy or subsidise it then perhaps we can have better electricity for everybody.  I am still struggling to come up with a concept that would make electricity more affordable to lower income populations, sometimes I think I'd like to put solar panels on my investment properties so that the electricity bills there would be smaller and have a smaller carbon footprint.  But I don't know, I can't go around saving the world, I'm just one person, with grand ideas and no possible way to carry them out!

NBN rollout

I've taken a fascination with the NBN since it was a clear winner for the government.  Reading a lot about it on whirlpool forums and in the paper, and since Internode support it's obviously the real-deal good thing and not some funny fancy promise that they used to win votes...

So I decided to look at the rollout maps

There was an inciteful headline in the paper stating that city dwellers will have to bear the costs of the NBN for rural communities - basically saying they will start the infrastructure rollout in the regional areas first.  Which of course I think is the right thing to do - why should they start it in the cities when we already have high speed internet?  And the poor country folk have dialup and crappy ADSL?  I think it will be great for communication as well as education for kids in the country areas - information will be available at fingertips for homes far from access from the services we take for granted - libraries, bookstores, community services.  Most of the comments after the article said the same thing - they don't mind if they do the regional areas first.  After all, we already have nice broadband here in the city.  What would people want with more speed?

And Labor is in by a nose!

I sat down today at 3pm to watch the press conference that the 2 independents Windsor and Oakeshott held, which after listening to them talking for about half an hour finally let us know they had chosen to side with Labor, and a Gillard government.

Lots of people have lots of things to say I bet.  Here are my interpretations of it.

One thing that I did notice was that Oakeshott made it clear that though he was not mandating either party and that he could swing either way.  He also took a long time justifying his decision and he mentioned that he had to go home and discuss something with his family which to me suggested that he was offered a cabinet position or something.  And he did come out with that at the press conference, and made no effort to hide it.

Windsor was (relatively) quick to say he would support a Gillard government.  I was happy that he said that NBN was the major factor in it, and I think that he made the right choice - now only to hope that the fibre starts getting laid in the next few years.

Oakeshott was ... dramatic to say the least.  Though as soon as Windsor said he would support Gillard I knew that Oakeshott would support Labor also, as they said stability was important.

Interestingly they think that Liberals would want to go to the polls relatively soon.  I can't remember why I felt like they thought that, but somehow that seemed to filter through.  I wonder if the Libs went to the polls quickly they would focus on those seats to take them away from the independents.

I am sure that many in Australia are bemoaning the fact we have Labor/Greens working together, and whinging about climate change, mining taxes and NBN.  To be honest I couldn't give a poop about boat people coming in ... selfish perhaps but those boat people can't take my jobs or my houses.  Though they may take my tax money... a price on carbon is something I think Australia should look at for our responsible future and I wish that there was more money invested in renewable energy, and I hope the Greens can give that kind of future that I want for my children.

Dualis it is!

Today took the plunge and bought the Dualis+2.  Getting it in black.  There were no Ti models there for hubby to look at, but he got a look at the ST model +2 as well as the non +2 model.

Trading in my car got me 10k off the RRP.  I'm excited now, can't wait till I get my new car!

Interestingly I keep asking Erika what colour car to get and she has consistently said Red.  I have tried wording it differently or giving her different options and yet she still says red.  I hate to disappoint her, but I've never had a black car before!

Here's a picture of my new baby... which will probably be here around mid October.