More on living like a nomad...

Along the lines of living more = less. I have a honda c70, which is used all over the world, top speed about 50mph. The route I go to work is all 35mph so I should be fine. It needs a lot of work still to make it truely road legal, but it shouldn't take too long. Should get anywhere from 100-125mpg. Suck that smart/prius/golf tdi cars. I hope to make it as clean as possible and it needs a good tune up as well. Check out the before picture:

Live like nomads

It seems like the people that are looked down upon most in our society are the ones who are actually using less resources than the rest of us. Think about a homeless person. They have no home, they use no electricity, and usually they aren't driving around a big car from point A to point B. Yet someone driving by them in their car or truck might look down upon them and say "What is this person doing for society?"
On the road bikers are looked at as outcasts or outcast wannabes. Once again, who is the more responsible one? The one driving by him/herself in a car, or the one driving by him/herself on a motorcycle. Its called being efficient. And us first world countries don't like doing it. We have rail systems, though not as good as Europe, but do we use them? Maybe, sometimes. The car companies know this, the oil companies know this. They know that we are going to keep driving the cars we want to drive instead of the cars we need to drive. Most of the time we are also living beyond our means as well. Driving an Escalade to work with those 24" rims. I know for a fact if you bought it new you would be paying at least $800 per month on just the car payment. All for a status symbol. Then if you only make 35k year, that doesn't leave that much for a house payment or other things.
Its not like anyone is going to listen, we had problems like this back in the late 70's. They just adjusted the price of oil again, and everyone was back in their gas guzzlers.
I want an electric car, but I can't afford one. Because none of the big auto companies have any reason to build them YET. So the prices will remain high, people will make fun of them because they are slow compared to gas cars. Maybe I will eventually be able to build my own, or buy one of my liking. The bottom line is: Sooner rather than later, people are going to have to buy things based on need of the environment if we want to stay alive, rather than 'want' of us humans to have material things. (Hey I like being different too, you can always keep that 67 vette as your weekend car.)

Guitar Hero/Rock Band making kids into fake musicians

This kid is a good example of why I don't really like rockband games. They need to invent a game where you play an actual instrument and get rated based on how you play. These kids think that because they get 1000's of points on games they can play the real instrument. As this kid in the clip said he 'couldn't get the hang of it'. Because there were 'too many strings' and you had to 'hit the notes'. I suggested to my friend the other day, why don't you get a electric drum set and we could actually make a band in my tiny garage. She looked at me like I was insane, "That wouldn't be as fun as Beatles Rockband." Wow. This is how far we have come. Another friend had wanted to get into mixing/ or scratching, that has now taken a back burner to Rockband World Tour. I would rather make real music, on my Garageband program. Sure it might not sound like Sergent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club, but at least I am being creative.
On a separate note, I think the last kid who broke the 1,000,000 point mark, was actually really good at the bass or guitar, I forget which one. That kid is ok in my book.

Automakers don't care about what we think, they care about money

Read this first.
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/11/shelby-lowering-price-of-20k-gt500kr-hood-after-web-outrage-eru/

I remember the days when mustangs were affordable. That is what they have built their name on, affordability. Thats why they still have live axle rear end, etc. etc. Evidentally Shelby is not licensing any of its parts to be built for the after market part world. They even require you to send back your damaged parts to their warehouse before you can get your new (overpriced) parts. I don't get what the big deal is, no one will ever mistake a v6 mustang for a shelby 500KR just because someone put a KR hood on it. It sounds to me like they are trying to force those people that may be on the cusp of buying a GT or Cobra and fixing it up with KR parts, into buying an actual KR which is exorbitantly priced.
Why are these people trying to make everything so inaccessible lately? Smart Cars are now around the same price as a 2009 Yaris 3dr. With 5 spd, they both get comparable mileage, yet the Yaris has more inside room, seats, and comes with an A/C. It almost seems like some manufacturers DON'T want to sell cars. Here is a thought: if we build cars lighter, stronger, we won't have to have bigger infrastructure to support them. We will not have to have massive amounts of airbags to protect us from renegade Yukons and Suburbans. Pedestrian accidents wouldn't be so deadly, etc. etc. We are living in the future, things were supposed to get smaller and less imposing not larger and more imposing. I hate "big corporation".

My new garage!

I have never had a garage of my own before I now I have one. It will be a great place to work on scooters and cars alike. I will call it the Honda Shop, or Honda Bungalow, or Honda Hut. But then again if I get a different kind of car all those names won't work any more. I will include a couple of pictures of the VAST amount of space that is my 10x23' garage!