Here’s the deal: receiving gifts–or payments, or praises for that matter–bothers me when I don’t feel like I’ve earned them. In fact, it makes me feel pretty terrible. Humbled, but terrible.

Backstory

December, I bought three copies of Batman: Arkham City Collector’s Edition from Best Buy for $35 each. With tax, the total came out to around $112. The intent, of course, was to sell them and make a very quick profit, since these were retailing for $75 in places like the Amazon Marketplace and eBay, and for $99 (plus tax) at most other stores. (I would have bought more, but there was a three-per-order limit, and by my second pass–six minutes after the sale started–they were sold out.) If I made enough, however, I’d keep one for myself.

This all could be yours if the price is... sufficient?

My original thought was to do a quick turn-around: post them for sale so that when they arrived they would already be sold: immediate profit. Being that this was my first time doing this, I decided against that. After all, I didn’t know exactly what condition things would be in when I got them. In theory they would be new. In theory. So I waited. In practice.

Arrival of the Fittest

Once they arrived I kicked myself: they were perfect! I could have sold them right there and then! I looked online to see how these should be priced and… OK, it looks as if a glut hit the market because the cheapest price was now $57.

Still, I wanted to learn about the business of reselling, so with a friend’s help, I went to sell them on Amazon. Because this was the first time I did this, I followed his advice regarding pricing: “To move it fast, place it $1 below the lowest price.”

I didn’t like this. Not one bit. I wouldn’t earn my copy: I’d either have to sell higher, “pay” a little for my copy (under $10, so still not bad), or I’d just have to sell all three of them. This had me pretty bummed out. At least I’d earn a profit, right? Sure, I’d have to pay Amazon their due (around $10), but then they would give me $4 for shipping, so in the end I’d get back… $50. Which meant a $12.50 profit once things were said and done. (With tax each unit was around $37.50.) Of course, then I’d have to pay for shipping, which according to the USPS website would be around $6. Can you see the problem here? Spend $37.50, earn $44. This would be great if I had a hundred of these instead of just three.

I did it anyway. Four hours later the game had sold…to some lady in North Dakota. Merry Christmas, lady.

Surprise, or Overprise?

The next day I went to the post office to deliver the package. Remember that estimate of $6? Yeah, that was off by about $5. It was $10.75 for shipping. So… $38.25 total for the unit.

A $1.50 profit.

Yay, learning.

Yay.

Sigh.

Another Approach

I didn’t want to just let these things go for the same price as I got them–that would be of no use to me, since I still wanted to, at the very least, make a profit. So instead of putting the next one back on Amazon, I decided to wait and look for other opportunities, hoping that the market influx would dry up some and the price would rise a bit. (It has, but not by much. Lowest price is still in the low $60′s. My guess is that it’ll stay that way.) Rolling the dice, I decided to put the piece up on Craig’s List for $70. This would net me a $32.50 profit, just about enough to cover the cost of the other unit at a very minor loss to me.

A few days before Christmas it sold, though the guy talked me down to $65.

The Lesson

This wasn’t enough, though, not to me. $27.50+$1.50 = $29. The unit was $37.50, so I’d still be $8.50 short. I wanted to EARN the thing, not pay for it. My wife said to keep it as a Christmas gift to myself, a cheap one. But I couldn’t. I mean, I thought about it, tried to justify it, but I couldn’t bring myself to keeping it. It would feel wrong, like I was violating some sort of cosmic rule.

This was when I learned my lesson. For years, I couldn’t figure out WHY I felt so guilty getting gifts, and why I always preferred buying things for myself. It’s not that I’m a control freak (though sometimes I can be that), it’s that receiving gifts like this feels like charity. While I’m not above receiving charity, I’m certainly not interested in encouraging it.

In this case this would be not just charity to myself, it would also be the worst form of materialism. I vowed to earn a profit. I hadn’t. To keep this would be to spend money I didn’t have, money that could go to pay a bill or give to someone who needs it more than me.

On the bright side, it would mean less crap in my house, right?

Aw Crap! It’s a Miracle!

Then, a Christmas miracle. Someone sent me a copy of another game, Battlefield 3. I’m not really into this type of game, so I told them they should keep it, that if I kept it, I’d likely sell it. “Consider it then a Christmas cash present.” And that’s what I did.

There's a reason we're the good guys.

The game sold for $50, netting me $40 in total profit.

I’d just earned my game. And my lesson.

Retrospect

When we’re kids, being good IS the work. Going to school IS the work. And that’s how we earned our payments, our praises, and our Christmas gifts. (“He knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.”) As an adult there’s really no such restriction, at least I don’t feel any. In this case, receiving gifts, particularly at a time like this, becomes empty, mechanical, expected, and ultimately damaging to the self esteem. For the past few years–2011 included–I’d gotten around the empty feeling by shopping for deals for people, helping them save money, or by giving money and gifts to charities. I guess I felt that by doing that I could earn whatever I received, at least part of it. (I’m still terribly humbled at a life I can only call blessed.)

To be frank, when it comes to Christmas, I really would prefer just to give to people: I get a far greater joy when I do that.  But other people like to give–and I actually do like receiving, under the right circumstances–so I don’t want to take that away from them. However, now that I understand myself a bit better…maybe I’ll be a better recipient. At the very least, I know this lesson has made me into a better person.

Synopsis

If you’re not at all interested in the nuances, just know that I gave the game a 7 out of 10: stunning graphics, great voice acting, good music, but pacing killed the story and gameplay. A good way to think about this game is to think of it like Lord of the Rings: very slow in some areas, but very rewarding when it finally begins to explain what’s going on. If you can trudge along for a while until the party all finally re-unites half way through the game, and if you’ve liked the Final Fantasy series then this is one I recommend. Also, if you like visually stunning games, this one’s for you. Heck, as of this writing it’s selling for about $25 on Amazon, so go grab it. Now. But, if you’re more interested in very detailed, brain intensive gameplay look elsewhere.

The Review

The story in this game is the standard FF affair: a small band of people made extraordinary by some event or choice have to save the world. There are two societies that hate each other, and through the game you visit both, you discover that things aren’t what they seem, and in the end you fight something that wants to destroy everyone for the sake of some grand, delusional goal.

The characters have the potential to be interesting, but really aren’t.

• The main character is Lightning, a soldier with the body of a model and the personality of a rock.
• Lightning has a sister (Sera) who’s getting married to Snow, who’s… this guy, you know? He’s pretty good with his fists and leads a band of lazy jackasses named NORA. Lightning dislikes him. She dislikes everything, but mostly him.
• Speaking of disliking Snow, there’s Hope, a kid who watches his mother, Nora, die after Snow fails to pull her from a falling bridge. He blames Snow for some reason and has this weird Anakin/Padome relationship with Lightning.
• Then there’s Sazh. He’s “the black guy”. He’s got a fro with a bird living inside it. A chocobo. In his hair. As in “permanent residence.” He also has a kid, Dodge, who also has a fro, though his is fowl-free. A grand total of two black guys in the game, one named after a car, and they both have fros. Also, they’re magical. No, seriously, they are.
• Then there’s Vanille, the happy-go-lucky love-a-bunch who’s 16 and also hundreds of years old. For some reason she’s also the narrator for part of the game. This whole narration thing goes nowhere. I wish it would have, because I love narrated stories.
• She has a friend, Fang, who wears this awesome sari along with a not-at-all awesome mullet. Fang and Vanille are from New Zealand, I think.

From left to right: Snow, Vanille, Fang, Lightning, Sazh, Hope, Snow’s financee/Ligtning’s sister.

Speaking of playing again, gameplay is also standard: you run around and fight enemies. The battle system really allows for fluid battle scenes, so it’s great for eye candy, especially when Lightning gets a cool ability like Army of One. Not so great for when you want to control every aspect of every character, because you can’t. You choose a party leader and that’s the only person you can control. This was problematic in some ways–only the person you control ever uses their special ability or related summon, for example–but it also made it fun in others, since it kept things moving. (Two words: Eye candy.)

The biggest overall flaw in this game had to do with the pacing. It was a complex story with a lot of threads from the start. That isn’t a problem, in fact it’s a good thing, but the character development happens so slowly that you really don’t get a chance to WANT to start caring about the characters. I didn’t care about the characters until I was already almost 35 hours into the game. This is due to the fact that character development happens exclusively in cut scenes as opposed to conversations you initiate, which is the case with other FF games. Also, the fact that you don’t really get to explore until Chapter 11 (which is about 35 hours into the game) means that the vast majority of the game is comprised of a long hallway with an orange spot at the end of it indicating either an enemy or a cut scene, thereby giving rise to the nickname “Hallways and Cut Scenes: The Game.”

Still, if you’re a fan of FF games it’s worth a try, if for no other reason than to enjoy the beautiful graphics. The fact that you can play the vast majority of the game with one finger (just keep pressing X, you’ll be fine) is debatable as a weakness. Personally, I rather enjoyed being able to watch shows on my computer while “playing” the game, especially in parts where I was mostly farming for money or points.

The Score Breakdown

• Story and Character Development: 1 out of 10.7 out of 10 if we ignore the pacing (which we won’t, seeing as it’s such a HUGE flaw). As for the story itself, unless you pay close attention to the clues in the story the ending will have you thinking “What the heck just happened?” Still, it’s not bad. But pacing… yes, the pacing is THAT bad, and it causes problems through the entire game. I lay it squarely (no pun intended) on the shoulders of character development happening exclusively in cut scenes rather than in player-initiated conversations. Also there weren’t really any enemies you could point your finger at and say “That’s an enemy,” at least not any memorable ones. A lot of characters were introduced, but they simply weren’t developed. Oh sure, you had that one Fal’Cie guy who kept showing up, but the only thing that made any other baddie distinguishable from random background characters was the (forgettable) reappearances.
  Forgettable character
  Slightly less forgettable character

  The pacing was so bad that 30 hours into it I almost dropped the game. I simply didn’t care about the cardboard characters or the convoluted story. After plowing through and finishing the game anyway, I’m pretty glad I didn’t drop it.

• Gameplay: 6 out of 10, and it’s mostly due to a huge issue with the party set-up. The fighting system itself is pretty good, and you can choose how involved you want it to be: do you want to choose every move or do you want to let the computer decide the best course of action?The problem is that in this game you only control one character at a time, which is on its face not all that bad since it makes for more fluid battles, until you realize that you can revive every other character in your party, but if your main character dies, no one can revive you. Game over. This pissed me off to no end: why in the heck can’t my healer heal me? And why can’t someone use a Phoenix Down?! I have like 30 of them!

  Edit: I forgot to mention stores, money, and points. Unlike in other FF games, FFXIII does away with the concept of gil-for-kill. (The point system, however, is alive and well.) Instead, all the animals drop something which can be used to either upgrade weapons or sell in the games stores. If you use it to upgrade weapons then the weapons get experience points. There’s no secondary development which makes the weapon gain intrinsic powers based on what you use to upgrade it. It’s just points. If you sell the item then you can get enough money to buy some worthwhile and hard-to-get items which can speed up the weapon upgrade process.

  Regarding stores, these are only available in save spots. They’re not shops in the map, but rather more like websites. This makes the shopping experience a predictable and somewhat boring experience, but it takes the annoyance of having missed a shop (and therefore an awesome item you can never again gain access to) out of the equation. I actually rather liked this change.

  Finally, there are upgrade paths. Like Final Fantasy X and XII, upgrades are done by using points buy level upgrades: more HP, different powers, higher strength, higher magic. Unlike these previous versions, however, and in keeping with the rest of this games linear proclivities, the upgrade paths are very… well, linear. There are different roles you can upgrade, but each role’s upgrade path is fairly linear. I guess this goes along well with the role-based fighting system they introduced, which is similar to the outfit system in Final Fantasy X-2: so long as you’re playing this particular role you can’t do things in other roles. So your guy is a Sentinel? Then he can’t cast cure. I’ve never really liked that system, although it makes sense, and does give the game an element of strategy.

• Graphics: 11 out of 10.Yes, they were that stunning. Make that a 12 out of 10 since this was the only thing at times that kept me playing. The game is GORGEOUS. Feel free to apply the overflow to… I don’t know, the gameplay score.Here’s a beautiful example of what I mean. This is at the beginning of Chapter 12. Fast forward to 7:45 for a great scene.

• Music: 8 out of 10. Not memorable, but certainly not bad. It fulfilled the most important role of theatrical scores: ambiance without getting in the way. During fights, I rarely noticed the music. This is a good thing. I only really noticed it when it was fitting within the story. This, again, is a good thing.
• Value: 9 out of 10. One cool feature for those of us who get all obsessive about completing every single thing and getting the absolute most out of the game is that you can go back to the game after you finish it and complete all the side quests you may have missed. (You get a chance to save your progress after the credits.) That’s a nice little bit of extra value, and just about the only real exploration you get to do in the game. The keyword here is “value”. I wish more RPGs did this. Heck, I wish I got to do this with Final Fantasy X (probably my favorite in the series). I really liked Blitzball! The 9 out of 10 is taking into consideration the after-game playability, which can go on for as long as you’d like. In fact, the game took me about 75hrs to finish, and I can see myself playing for at least another 30 if I decided to undertake all the sidequests and the upgrade paths. The only knock is that you have to trudge through the game for too long before you finally get to the fun part.

So taking all these scores into consideration: 5 categories for 50 points total. The game gets 35 points. That’s a solid 70% or 7 out of 10. (3.5 stars out of 5 is more Amazonian.)

In the end, here’s the important question: was it a fun game? Yes. Would I play it again? Maybe, if for no other reason than to watch all the cinematics. That’s one thing I loved about Final Fantasy X: you could re-watch the story’s cinematics in the Luca theater. FFXIII deserved at least as much.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I’ll pick up the sequel, Final Fantasy XIII-2. Don’t know about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but we’ll see. Hope you enjoyed this review.

Wait, You Finished the Game. How About a Walkthrough?

This isn’t a walkthrough. This is a review. If you’re looking for walkthroughs you can buy the official guide–there’s even a collector’s edition–or you can use a search engine. However, if you want a pretty great set of video walkthroughs check out Hassan AlHajry’s channel on YouTube. In fact, if you don’t want to play the game, but want to enjoy the cut-scenes and know the story you can just watch this.

While I’m usually a fan of walkthroughs (I’m the type that buys the book and tries to do everything perfectly), I found that this game lacked so much exploration throughout most of it that one wasn’t really needed until Chapter 11, when you get to Gran Pulse. (Unless, of course, you want to get top ratings on every fight, which helps out when it comes to dropped items and trophies.) After that, yeah, you may want a walkthrough. What you will definitely want, though, is a gil farming guide since there really isn’t any gil to be gained by killing monsters, only by selling stuff they drop and things you find while riding around on a chocobo.

File the following under “Fail”.

Let me say it again, just to be clear:

I understand having a window title bar and tab say the same thing, if the tabs are below the address bar, because at least in that case there’s a visual separation wide enough for it to make sense, as is the case with, say, Safari.

But having both up there seems… well, redundant. And I’d pass this off as just a Mac thing, but Chrome, even though it’s not as nice as its Windows-based sibling, has it right.

Of course, things can can sometimes get a bit crowded.

But if things really do get this crowded, close some tabs or open a new window. Seriously, you’re overloading.

As for saving space, heck even IE9 learned its lesson.

In fact, I think Microsoft did a better job than even Chrome in that respect.

But Firefox? *sigh* Maybe there’ll be a theme available that’ll remedy this. But there shouldn’t have to be.

Out of curiosity, I took the plunge.

If you read my Twitter stream over the past few weeks, you’d think I hate the iPhone. While it’s true that there are a lot of things I don’t like, there are actually a lot of things I really, really like. The following is a list of things I like and dislike about the iPhone, when compared to my previous experience with the Droid. If you want a quick synopsis, here it is: both are great. The iPhone has better apps, but Android has more functionality. Anyone asking me for a recommendation would get a long list of questions about needs before I’d make one.

Anyway, so here we go. Note that these aren’t listed in any particular order.

Annoyances

1. No way of modifying the snooze time on the alarm: I woke up this morning multiple times before I realized there was no way of doing this.
2. No home-screen widgets available: This is especially annoying when it comes to the included weather app, which includes an icon that says it’s 73-degrees outside. It’s annoying because once I thought that was actually the temperature (it’s FL, so 73-degrees in February isn’t exactly odd), so I dressed appropriately. Then I stepped out, and quickly turned around: it was actually 45-degrees. Brrr! A weather widget with the right temperature on the home screen would have prevented that, and would be rather useful. I want it.
3. Jailbreaking is a necessity: I see now why people feel the need to jailbreak their iPhones. By comparison, I never once felt the need to root my Droid. Ever. People jailbreak to use the phone to what is expected of a device this powerful (like a fraking widget). People root in order to gain access to low level functions that most users would never event think of wanting. That’s the difference.
4. Cost: The CDMA iPhone is $100 more than the GSM iPhone, and $100 more expensive than comparable Android or WP7 phones.
5. Safari: I hate it. It wastes screen space and it won’t reformat a page in such a way to make it readable on the phone. Sorry, but the retina display shouldn’t be used to help decrease font sizes. The Android web browser is far, far, far superior. Safari is the Internet Explorer (5 through 8, take your pick) of cell phones.
6. Speech-to-text: A feature I used all the time, speech-to-text was my savior during long drives when I needed to tweet something out, or when I wanted to call someone and couldn’t look at the screen, or when I just didn’t want to deal with a keyboard. In iOS, this is missing. Sure, I can download a Google app that would allow this type of search, but I’ve yet to find a free solution which allows me to turn speech into text for SMS messages.
7. Inability to tweet/Facebook pics directly when viewed: In Android, you can open a picture and immediately, while viewing it, upload it to Twitter or Facebook. Not the case in iOS, which allows you only to MMS or email the image. Want to tweet it? Go to your Twitter app, start a message, and from there select the image you want to tweet. Same with Facebook. So much for uploading on the fly. This makes putting pics up in social media sites a rather cumbersome process. (h/t to Kamigoroshi for pointing this out.)
8. (EDIT 3/14, Pi Day!) Using your own songs as ring tones is a chore: In Android it was easy to make a song into a ring tone. Long-press on the song and select “Make ring tone.” Of course, you could also go into the settings and do the same thing. On the iPhone you have two choices for doing this: you can either buy the ring tone for $.99 or make the ring tone yourself by following some needlessly convoluted procedure. Really, this is utter crap, and the kind of thing that will push me away from a platform, quickly. iOS may be generally more user friendly (and certainly more eye-pleasing) than Android, but Google’s mobile OS is certainly more consumer friendly than Apple’s.
9. (EDIT 3/14) The war against the long-press: This may just be a me-thing, but I expect that if I hold my finger to something long enough on the screen, a menu should pop up, if it makes sense for a menu to be there. Apple seems to have a hatred of this, so this kind of menu is not available anywhere, making for some rather unintuitive, ways to doing things, like leaving a screen and returning to another screen. A great example is adding songs to playlists: there is no easy way of doing it from the song itself, so you can’t just say, “Oh, this song is great for my ‘writing’ playlist, let me add it,” then click a button and have it added. You have to exit out of the song’s screen, go to the Playlist menu, select the play list, click Edit, click the Add button, find the song, then click the small Add button on the song. Talk about a mood killer.
10. (EDIT 3/14) Dropped calls: OK, so the “grip of death” doesn’t present on this version of the iPhone as it does on the AT&T version, but reception problems remain, and dropped calls are more frequent.
11. Full-screen pop-ups: Every time there is some sort of action or message, such as a text, a pop-up takes over the screen. I prefer Android’s method of just having a small info button on the task bar. Much more user friendly.

What I Miss

1. My huge, honkin’ screen: I had a Motorola Droid. After that I had a Motorola Droid X. Both had larger screens than the iPhone. In fact, the Droid X had a 4.3-inch screen, which made it a dream to watch movies, look at pictures, and play games. The iPhone has a 3.5-inch screen. That doesn’t sound like much until you realize that, when looking at the thing, one feels like a cramped phone while the other feels like a small tablet. In fact, my Droid X had become my favorite web browsing method. That hasn’t quite carried to my iPhone.

   If Verizon ever gets the Dell Streak I think I may have to grab it. A 5-inch screen? On a phone? It’s more likely than you think. And it looks SPECTACULAR. It also helps if you have big hands, so I realize this isn’t for everyone.

   Because of this, I joked with my wife that if I got tired of the iPhone, I would grab her Droid and she could have the iPhone. Her words: “From my cold, dead hands.”

2. The Android web browser: I think it’s actually Chrome, but I’m not sure. In any case, I rather liked that browser. Of course, my preferred browser across my systems is Google’s Chrome. Safari, while having some nice options, feels cramped, with a lot of wasted space. Not much different than using IE, or stock Firefox. I’ll be looking for a new browser.
3. Moving backgrounds (Live Wallpaper): Minor issue here, but I rather liked being able to select live wallpapers as my background on my Android phones. Someone recently compared to glitter trailers on a pointer in a Geocities page. I contend it’s more like having an extra tool at your disposal, since live wallpapers can be programmed to do things like track the phases of the moon, or change according to the time of day (a rather attractive effect) or, in my case, remind me of the greatest movie of all time (The Matrix, of course).

   Edit: I found a way to do live wallpaper, but it involves jailbreaking.

4. Free navigation software: I used Google’s navigation software all the time. Unfortunately, it’s not available on the iPhone. If I want a comparable navigation package, I have to pay, either $.99 plus a subscription fee for some services or $35 for something like Garmin.
5. No timestamps on texts: There are timestamps on calls. There are timestamps on emails. Why in the name of Woz is there not a timestamp on an SMS?! OK, so there are time stamps marking the beginning of conversations, which is useful, but given the format in which SMS’s are displayed in iOS, timestamps for each message could have been added. To be fair, I can see why they didn’t add them: if you’re looking for a specific conversation, then a timestamp for the conversation is far more useful than a timestamp for every item. Still, I would have liked them there.
6. (EDIT 3/14) Options in how you do things: Apple has always been known for simplicity, and over the past decade a very strong move has been made toward minimalism. While this is good in a lot of ways, it also means that they provide you exactly one way to do things, imposing a sort of “one way or the highway” feel to their products. Don’t like it? Well, too bad. (Unless, of course, you jailbreak, thereby voiding your warranty and any Apple support.) At least on Android you were usually given three or four ways of doing things. This makes it hard because interfaces aren’t as unified, but makes it better because you work like you feel most comfortable.

What I Like

1. Apps. Wait, let me say that again. APPS!: From what I’ve seen, pretty much the only reason to own an iPhone is to have access to its app market. Without its superiority in app availability, the iPhone becomes nothing but a piece of pretty, but ultimately boring and borderline annoying tech. Acquiring apps was the first thing I did when I got the phone. Also, with the improvements to the Android market, I’m not sure the Apple market really has that great advantage it once had. I can’t help but wonder how Palm (WebOS) and Microsoft (WP7) will stack up.
2. More visually appealing: This has always been one of the iPhone’s strongest suits. Too often, Android looks like Windows 3.1 reincarnate. iPhone apps, on the other hand, tend to look like someone sweat over the placement of every pixel. This has a lot to do with the framework upon which the app was built, and Apple’s framework is pretty tight, due to the simple fact that they only really need to support a very limited number of screen sizes.

   Not everything is great with the framework, though: a lot of apps don’t go horizontal on iOS. On the other hand, I can’t remember an app on Android that DIDN’T do horizontal. This bespeaks of something within the framework itself, something I see as a flaw. If I’m wrong about this, someone please correct me.

3. Uninstalling apps: In Android, if you want to uninstall an app you have to go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications, then select the application and click the Delete button from the application’s information screen. In iOS you long-press on an icon, then click on the X that appears above the application to delete it. In Android I used to be afraid to add too many apps because I didn’t want to have to deal with the uninstallation process. In iOS it’s as easy as it gets.
4. Better touchscreen: The touchscreen sensitivity on the iPhone is better than any I’ve seen on Android. That’s because Apple holds a patent on the hardware-driven touchscreen, meaning Android screens can only be software-based. The problem with this is especially evident in the keyboard and in gaming, but really only when compared side-to-side. Most people wouldn’t, right off the bat, really notice in most cases.
5. Better software keyboard: My original Droid had a hardware keyboard. Eventually, this became stiff and useless, which is why I switched phones. On my Droid X, I had a software keyboard, something I wasn’t crazy about at first, but which I quickly got used to. Luckily, between then and now the stock Android keyboard improved dramatically. Eighteen months ago it was all but useless, which is why I demanded a hardware keyboard. Now it’s pretty good, if you have enough real estate for your fingers to do their thing. The iPhone’s keyboard, while smaller, has proven far more accurate than Android’s, due in large part to the better touch screen. What really gets me is that iOS auto-correct is also smarter.

   On a side note, the Droid X had this weird bug where symbols would automatically be tacked to the end of a word. For example, instead of letting me type:

   She said “Hi”. By the way, I’m putting in $10.

   The phone would auto-correct to:

   She said” Hi”. By the way, im putting in$ 10.

   This was the single biggest annoyance about the Droid X for me. The keyboard was one of the main reasons I switched to the iPhone. To be fair, the inclusion of Swype on the Droid X was compelling enough that I almost stayed with that, instead.

6. Better call quality: Multiple times I’ve been told by people that my voice sounds a lot clearer now than it did before. Seems the iPhone provides better call quality than either the Droid or Droid X. As for receiving, the call quality is the same, although when putting the phone on speakerphone mode, the Droid and Droid X had a slight edge.
7. Better battery management: This one’s pretty much a universal complaint with Android, but I’ll air it out here, too. With the iPhone’s battery I’m not generally worried about running out of juice half way through my day. Unfortunately, with Android this was a common problem. Maybe, especially in the case of Droid X, it had to do with that huge screen I so dearly loved. (The problem was far more pronounced there.) Or maybe there’s something else, I don’t know. While I tried to curb my battery usage on Android by minimizing things like GPS, wifi, and bluetooth, the fact is that on some days it would run out of battery before the end of the business day. With iPhone I’ve only run out of battery once, during a heavy use day when I was also taking lots of pics.
8. Camera software: I’m not talking about overall picture quality here, I’m talking about the software itself. The iPhone’s picture software is FAR faster than Android’s. While on Android I might have to wait a second or two for a picture to snap after I had clicked the “Take Picture” button, on Android it’s almost as quick as my digital camera. (By the way, I’m looking for a good, cheap one. Any recommendations?)
9. Switching between calls: In Android I was almost always hanging up calls if more than one came in. The Droid X included a better interface than the Droid, but I was always hesitant to answer calls. On the iPhone I’ve yet to hang up a call accidentally. To me, this alone is a selling point.

What I’m Still Unsure About

1. Media: I rather like iTunes, so having access to my library again is pretty awesome. Of course, with the recent improvements to DoubleTwist, this point becomes almost moot, except it serves to remind me that Apple’s overall infrastructure, while sound, attractive, and beautiful in many ways, serves equally well as a pair of golden handcuffs. If I ever switch back to Android, DoubleTwist will be my media savior. (Edit 3/14: Actually I’m pretty sure this one’s about to move to “dislike” territory. I’m not liking the way iTunes works. Seems clunky: too many menus, not enough options.)

Conclusion
So, will I switch back to Android or will I stick with the iPhone when my renewal comes up in a few months? It’s hard to say at this point. Edit 3/14: I’m pretty sure I will switch to Android. Apple’s oppressive thumb is getting to me, and I don’t want to have to break the rules in order to use a product I bought in the way I best see fit. In fact, more than a month after using the iPhone, I’m still feeling like this:

That’s something I definitely don’t like. But that’s just a me-thing, as in “me used to Android” and “me no want to jailbreak to fix Apples mistakes.”
We’ll see if this changes over the next few months, though. End Edit.

I can see why people love their iPhones. I can also appreciate why people love their Android phones. But to be honest, I’ve yet to see anything in the iPhone which would hook me into keeping it. In fact, if anyone asks, here’s my recommendation: Get an Android phone with a hotspot feature and get a iPod Touch. There, now you have the best of both worlds. Of course, if you only want to tote one device around, then either one is fine, although I may have to give the edge to the iPhone just because of the iOS App market. Edit 3/14: Of course, if you value flexibility of any sort, it’s Android all the way.

In all this, one thing’s for sure: using the iPhone has gotten me excited about trying out WP7. It if really is a good balance between the strengths of the iPhone and Android, it may be the perfect phone. Of course, the same can be said for WebOS.

So now, feel free to tell me why I’m wrong.

Edit 3/14: By the way, if anyone’s looking for a Verizon iPhone 4, I’m willing to part with mine if you can offer a good price or trade.

Why I started thinking about going vegan

Weight loss, weight gain, rinse and repeat: the story of my life. After my amazing weight loss, dropping 99lbs, from 324lbs to 225lbs, I jumped back up to almost 250lbs in a matter of two months. When I saw that I was astonished. I had been exercising, but I slipped up on my eating. Still, 20 pounds? Just like that? I needed help.

You need help, fat boy!

Just to get a professional opinion on the matter, and because I thought maybe medical intervention might be in order (via drugs, not surgery), I went to a medical weight loss clinic. During some tests, it was discovered I have a a complete right bundle branch block (rbbb). In short, this means that due to an electrical issue, the chambers of my heart beat sequentially rather than simultaneously. Usually this is safely ignored (it’s the left bundle branch block you have to watch out for), but it was a show stopper: they wouldn’t do anything until I was cleared by my doctor.

Immediately, I headed to my primary care physician who re-tested and saw the same thing. After comparing it to another EKG from five years prior, he decided further exploration was warranted. (The previous EKG did not show the block.) This led to having an echocardiogram a week later and a pulmonary function test (PFT) a week after that, since right bundle branch blocks, when not benign, are associated with either heart or lung issues. Luckily, it looks as if I’m cleared of both, except for maybe some allergy-related asthma starting to show up. According to the cardiologist, the block had been developing for a long time: there were signs of development in the previous EKG, and may have been intermittent, but never previously caught.

Still, I have heart disease. Sort of. Not the kind normally associated with high cholesterol or cardiomyopathy, but the kind which may be nothing more than a statistical anomaly. Good thing my life insurance is paid up, though.

(For the record, I’m currently at 240lbs. I was told by my cardiologist that the best thing I could do right now is exercise, so I’ve upped my routine to include 6+ miles per day walking at a brisk pace, keeping a heart rate of about 135bpm. Needless to say, I’m really hungry now. Hungry, but holding steady on the weight.)

Why go vegan?

When I found out about this–the rbbb–I started to look at more heart-healthy diets. After some reading I decided that a low-fat vegan diet made sense. It’s ironic that the rbbb was found when visiting a medical weight loss clinic where the plan was to go the Atkins, low-carb route.

There are a lot of reasons why I want to try my hand at veganism, but the two most important to me are as follows:

Ethics

Maybe I’m just a bleeding heart liberal, but I’ve always had a problem eatings things with a face. Not because I’m opposed to eating meat–in fact, I think that it’s a necessity, and a big reason why we humans grew capable of taking dominance of the planet–but because I’m opposed to the industrial complex which produces meat. Hunt it yourself? Have at it. Buying it from the store? You haven’t earned the right to eat that flesh.

Yesterday someone told me how their kid is now asking questions like “where do eggs come from?” This saddened me. A kid shouldn’t ever have to ask where the eggs he eats in the morning come from. They should know, because they should have seen it already. This is not an indictment against this kid’s parent, by any means. It’s a commentary on our society. We’ve grown too far separated from our food, and as such no longer revere it for the blessing that it is in abundance. In fact, we now see it as a curse. Therefore, the ethics of meat eating is quite possibly my biggest reason. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals crystallized this for me, and put to words a sentiment that has been brewing inside me for quite some time. (To be fair, I do think he takes the sentimental arguments about the pain and suffering of hunted animals a bit too far. Note that I said “hunted”, not “electrocuted in a factory farm and put through a grinder”.)

Health

This the more contentious issue when going vegan. The first question we get is “Where do you get all your protein?!” For more informed individuals, the questions a more like “Where will you get all your zinc/B12?” Those are good questions. As for protein, the answer’s easy: some plants are LOADED with protein (spinach, beans, and quinoa come to mind). As for zinc and b12…well, I’m still learning. For the moment, those will come via supplementation.

Supplementation? What's that?

More important for me is the focus on the reduced cases of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer and hundreds of other conditions. The biggest reason, however is that my GERD doesn’t bother me when I go all vegan for a few days, although it does when I eat meat and meat byproducts. An anti-oxidant heavy, alkaline diet will go a long way in treating my GERD, as well as preventing the onset of Barrett’s esophagus. (Note that by vegan I mean fruits and veggies, not a bunch of grains. Processed or not, these still give me heartburn.)

For the record, I’m not knocking some of the other ways of eating out there, such as the so-called Paleo-diets, or the Atkins approach. I’ve done the Atkins diet and lost a fair amount of weight on it back in college. While I’m not interested in doing that now, I do find the paleo-diet is particularly attractive, and this vegan diet may shift to a paleo-diet sooner rather than later. Also, there’s evidence that higher protein diets will actually assist in the recovery of cancer. The theory is that cancer cells use glycolysis for fueling themselves, but are unable to switch to ketosis when the body reduces its intake of sugars. Without fuel, cancer starves.

Nevertheless, a far graver concern for me than cancer is diabetes, which runs strongly in my family (conversely, cancer is unheard of in my family). A low-fat vegan diet has been clinically proven to reverse and prevent diabetes, and although I am not diabetic, I am flat-line hypoglycemic, verified by a 2-hour glucose tolerance test. This means that if I don’t stop it now, it won’t be long before I do become a diabetic. Add to this the anecdotal GERD evidence and you can see why at this point in my life vegan seems like the best way to eat

What approach to take

The first diet that caught my attention was actually a raw food vegan diet. However, I’d tried this before, and after a few days without family support (no way I was selling this to anyone in my family, least of all my wife), this failed miserably. So I decided to scale it back.

Again, I actually thought that a paleo-diet would be a better way to go, but at this time my mind was flooded with the words “heart disease”. Over and over, I saw that a low-fat vegan diet (a la Pritikin) had been clinically proven to reverse heart disease. (The paleo-diet’s evidence was still not as solid.) Unfortunately, this didn’t apply to idiopathic right bundle branch blocks. Still, their claims that it also reversed diabetes, lowered cholesterol, and helped prevent cancer struck me as worth investigating.

After reading around, I found a couple of books to read on the subject matter.

• I’ll be starting with Rip Esselstyn’s Engine 2 Diet. The biggest reason was that it offered a very clear-cut way to get started, including meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists. Also, it’s an easy read, even though I have a few problems with some of the oversimplifications.
• After that I’ll be taking a look at Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman. If you know about Kurzweil, you know about his emphasis on longevity, which is why I’m interested in the book. True, it’s not strictly vegan, but I’m sure many of the recipes could be adapted, though mostly what I’m looking for is information.
• Next on the list is The China Study. This is one I’ve heard talked about over and over again, and it’ll be interesting to read the information there.

My reading won’t stop there. Books by Rip Esselstyn’s father, Caldwell Esselstyn, as well as those by Dean Ornish will probably make it to my Nook, bookshelf, or both. I’ll also be picking up The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat, because I’m honestly curious. How well I do by going vegan will determine whether I pick this up sooner rather than later.

For now, here’s how we’re starting: first, our fridge is empty. Time to shop. Second, we’re buying kitchen equipment. We needed new pots and pans because ours are ancient, and I want to move away from Teflon.

Family support

As I said, I’ve tried this kind of stuff before. this and other diets. My biggest reason for prior failures? Family.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just weak-willed, but unless I have my wife having a similar diet to mine, I find sticking to any diet difficult. For example, I’ve tried going vegan before, but having my wife bring leftover pulled pork, beef tips, and grilled from her work lunch eventually drove me back to meat. I’ve also tried the other way, going low-carb. Hard to do when chips and salsa are ever present, and when the pulled pork and beef tips are accompanied by corn bread. Given this history, if I’m going to have a chance at success, I need her on-board.

(Note: I’m not blaming my lack of will on her. It’s my life, and my choices which make it up. The fault lies entirely with me.)

Oh, just this once you fuddy duddy!

Considering her love of beef, selling her on a vegan diet wasn’t easy. Inadvertently, I found evidence that the diet could help with one of her more annoying (but not life threatening) medical conditions. Along with showing her that she could lower her cholesterol (which is ~225, although he has an HDL/LDL ratio that’s better than 1/1), and reducing the possibility of cancer (which runs in her family about as strongly as diabetes runs through mine), she decided to try it out. In fact, now she’s excited about it.

(For the record, my cholesterol is already low. Last time it was checked it was about 120 total, with an HDL of 42 and an LDL around 70.)

So what’s next?

Alright, so I’ve laid down my reasons and my plans. Now it’s time to get to work. But I think I’ll keep this on the down-low: I’ve already had people laugh at me and tell me about how they enjoyed a big, juicy burger that very afternoon, while others have, with concern and fear in their eyes, asked me ”So you’re only gonna eat nothing salads? I don’t think I could do that. I need some REAL food.” Then they laugh and try to get me to admit that plant-based foods aren’t “real” food. But this is the kind of stuff that happens whenever you want to do something which differs from what the rest of society does.

Anyway, time to get started. I’m thinking oatmeal, bananas, and all-natural maple syrup.

I am delicious. Eat me.

Side note: Special thanks go out to @thatgirlallie for kicking my butt and telling me to write something.

Before

Now

Before

Now

Note that I had lost just under 90lbs when the “Now” set of pictures were taken. I have since lost 10lbs more. Still, they’re accurate enough. My friend and I both said the same thing: Wow.

I’m planning on finally joining the 21st century and buying a new gaming console. Let me rephrase that: I want to buy a new not-almost-strictly-for-kids gaming console. (I have a Wii and, frankly, I’m not all that crazy about it.) I still have a PlayStation 2 which I absolutely adore, and for which there are still a ton of great games I’ve yet to play (Killzone, Black, Xenosaga, Shadow of the Colossus, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus…), but I’d still like to move to something a bit more advanced.

Recently, a friend gushed to me about how incredible a gaming experience the Mass Effect series was, and how I should totally play it. He sent me a few videos, and it wasn’t long before I totally fell in love with it. (Totally.) I wanted one right there and then. I almost picked up an XBox 360, too, just so I could play Mass Effect. (Also, because Amazon had the now-previous-generation XBox 360 on sale for $250 including Final Fantasy XIII.)

But then I started thinking: $300 isn’t exactly chump change. On top of that, premium titles usually run about $60. Would I buy a gaming system just so I could play one game? Actually, yeah. It’s why I originally bought my PlaysStation 2, so I could play Final Fantasy X (to this day, along with Final Fantasy VII, one of my all-time favorite games.) Still, Mass Effect isn’t in that category for me just yet. It’s enough to prompt me buying a new system, but not enough to make me commit to the XBox 360, when the PlayStation 3, which also serves as an excellent BluRay player, is out there for about the same price. (Alright, it’s $50 more. Big whoop.)

Anyway, the point of this story: I’m trying to decide between an XBox 360 and a PlayStation 3. I’ve made a list of pros and cons for each system, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to hear what you have to say about it.

• Games: Arguably, this is the most important aspect, but I start with it because it prompted my search. The great part is that most premiere titles are made for both systems, so the subject of exclusive games doesn’t hold the weight it once used to. Still, there are enough exclusives out there to make it a factor to consider. In the XBox 360 camp the only titles that really call my attention are in the Fable series and the Mass Effect series. (I’ve never been much of a Halo fan, so the new game doesn’t hold much appeal for me.) PlayStation, on the other hand, has a number of exclusives I’m interested in playing: God of War 3, the LittleBigPlanet series, the Uncharted series, and the Metal Gear Solid series are among these. And as far as downloadable games go, the fact that I can download Final Fantasy VII onto the PS3 makes that all the sweeter. Most of the other titles I’m interested in (Red Dead Redemption, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Final Fantasy XIII, Madden 11, and even Mass Effect 2) are available for both systems, so this isn’t as big a deal as it once was. Still, I have to say it: Advantage: PS3, overwhelmingly.
• Backwards Compatibility: The XBox 360 can play games from the original XBox. The PS3 is limited to just PS3 games. (The originals had PS2 compatibility, but this was redacted in later versions.) Therefore, the potential game library for the XBox 360 is MUCH larger and MUCH more affordable than the PS3′s game library. This is a pretty big selling point for me, since I don’t mind buying older (but not used) titles. (They’re cheaper and the money still goes to the developer.) Advantage: XBox 360, overwhelmingly.
• Play pals: Networking in games is HUGE these days. HUUUUGE. It’s an important feature in modern games. As such, the fact that most of my friends have an XBox 360 rather than a PlayStation 3 means that I’m far more likely to use these features on the XBox than the PS3, since the systems can talk to other people using the same system. (Sad, but true.) Still, here’s the deal: I don’t see myself using this feature all that often. I may be proven wrong, however, once the opportunity presents itself, and it’s a very tempting opportunity. Advantage: XBox 360, overwhelmingly.
• Motion Controls: Kinect is getting ALL the press these days, and for good reason: it looks awesome. In fact, it could potentially put my Wii completely out of business. Thing is, I’m not interested in it, especially since it’s a $150 peripheral, nor am I interested in the PlayStation’s Move controller. If I want to play a motion game, I’ll probably do something like go outside and play a sport. Or, you know, turn on my Wii. Advantage: Wii. (Hey, my list, my answers. Shaddup.)
• Controllers: Since this IS the way I will be interfacing with the system, it’s an important consideration. I’m used to the PlayStation controllers. I’m not crazy about the XBox controllers, although I’m sure I could grow accustomed to them. Advantage: PS3.
• Movies: I know, physical media is dead. Whatever, I still like owning my stuff on disks. Call me a Luddite, I don’t care. HD DVD lost. BluRay won. Sad, but true. (I was rooting for HD DVD.) Buying a PS3 saves me from having to buy a BluRay player, especially since it can be updated to the latest standard version. In short, the PS3 may be the world’s greatest BluRay player. XBox, on the other hand… uhm… well, I can buy used HD DVDs for cheap, right? Oh, that’s right NetFlix…which both of them have. (I stream movies using my Wii ALL. THE. TIME. So yeah, this is a really useful feature.) Advantage: PS3, but only barely: I plan to keep buying DVDs for a while, since I get most of mine used anyway, and from what I understand XBox’s NetFlix functionality doesn’t require a disk while PlayStation’s does. (I may be wrong here.)
• Cost: XBox 360S is $299. (I can get the previous model for $250 which includes Final Fantasy XIII, but the tradeoff here is no Kinect connectivity and no native wireless networking.) For the same stats, PS3 is $350, although it also includes a BluRay player, which saves me $100, so $350 – $100 = $250. Practically speaking the XBox is cheaper. Potentially the PS3 is cheaper. Therefore, I’m calling it a tie. Advantage: None.
• Upgradability: In either case, I can upgrade the hard drive. I don’t think there’s really much else I can upgrade so I’m calling it a tie here, too. Advantage: None.

So that’s my list up to now. I’m leaning heavily towards a PS3–mostly because of the games–but the XBox 360′s popularity among people who I’d likely play with weighs very, very heavily, despite my lack of familiarity with it. (In short, it’s a gamble.) There are other aspects I know about but haven’t mentioned here (XBox’s Windows Media compatibility), but these don’t matter to me so I didn’t mention them. Feel free to talk about them, though: I’m sure there are things I’m not taking into consideration.

Your turn, dear Internet. I seek the wisdom of your crowds. XBox 360 or PS3? (I would especially love to hear from people who’ve owned or currently own both.) While you think up your answers, if you don’t mind, my new copy of Shadow of the Colossus for the PS2 is here. Time to check it out.

The brown book I carry says there is nothing stranger than to explore a city wholly different from all those one knows, since to do so is to explore a second and unsuspected self. I have found a thing stranger: to explore such a city only after one has lived in it for some time without learning anything of it. — Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor, chapter two, Upon the Cataract

Moving back to Tampa has been a rather interesting experience, proving the second statement very, very true.

Them: “What do you do?”

Me: “Oh, I’m a writer?”

Them: “Wow, really?! That’s incredible. I could never write…”

This works great, especially among members of the opposite sex. Were I not married, I’m sure this would have inevitably led to at least a handful of dates, most of which would end once they realized how terribly boring I am. (Me: “So,what do you think of the discovery o–” Her: *thunk* “Zzzzzzz…glug glug glug…” Me: “Waiter, I think my date is drowning in her soup.”)

Now here’s how I completely and almost instantaneously destroy that intrigue:

Them: “What kind of writing do you do?”

Me: “Mostly technical. I write computer manuals.”

Them: “Oh… well, uhm… okay… I’ll be over there.”

I can’t tell you how awkward that gets in confined spaces, or when people have to keep talking to me. I’ve even had sales people try to continue their pitch, only to stop within minutes to explicitly outline the many ways I’ve disappointed them.

In order to salvage the interest, I would sometimes apologize by explaining that I also write short stories and am “working on a novel.” As it turns out, this just made the disappointment worse. Not only were they dealing with a technical writer, someone who was only technically a writer, now they were dealing with an aspiring novelist.

This is almost as bad as telling someone that I blog, in itself almost always a huge mistake.

The most common reaction the stunning revelation that yes, I am a blogger, involves their looking at me with eyes that convey or their telling me outright that “blogging is not real writing, you self important jackass!”

Another common reaction is their giving me a look which says, “you poor, deluded soul.” They usually try to cover this reaction up by asking me whether I make any money. If they’re either inclined toward masochism or still actually clinging on some semblance of hope, they may press on and ask, “What kind of blogging?” At this point everything breaks down, and I have to answer with, “You know… stuff,” because I’ve never been able to come up with a better explanation of what I do here. I might as well tell them I write in my diary.

Regardless, they’ll almost inevitably end the conversation by saying, “Oh… well, uhm… okay… I’ll be over there.”

I once made the mistake of answering a woman asking what I wrote about by saying “I write fiction.” This was during a time when, yes, I did focus most of my attention on fiction, which would have made it technically true if people didn’t define “truth” as actually getting paid for that type of work. As soon as I answered, her eyes grew three sizes too big, her smile nearly tore her head in half, and with sweaty, nervous enthusiasm she continued: “Anything I’ve read?” The answer, of course, was no. I tried to salvage the situation by explaining that while I had been published as a journalist (in industry publications she had never heard of and for which she likely held less than no interest), my fiction was still in its infancy.

In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising that her eyes glazed over, the color drained from her face, and she mouthed “Dear God, why me?” before I could finish my circuitous apologetic denial. I eventually confessed that technical writing paid my bills, but by that time she had already started hallucinating about having met Steven King or J. K. Rowling. Either that, or thinking up ways to kill me using inspiration from those two, I’m not entirely sure which.

Today just about anyone can publish a book, even a terrible one, using services like Lulu and Amazon. I suppose this could give any aspiring novelist a license–or at least a learner’s permit–to say, “I’m a published novelist.” This despite the lack of any discerning publishing entity and lack of sales. Garrison Keillor put it best: with technology allowing us to go from a society of literary consumers to one of producers, “We’ve become a nation of 13 million authors, each of whom will have 36 readers — and half of those will be blood relatives.”

Because of this, it won’t be long before novelists are as universally reviled as bloggers. That is, unless someone has heard of you, a hope to which bloggers and novelists may yet aspire. Lucky for both, neither will be as immediate a mood killer as someone who raises people’s hopes by calling himself a writer, only to dash those hopes by eventually revealing this to be only a technicality. That’s because, unlike novelists and bloggers, no one ever hears about technical writers.

By the way, I’ll give you three guesses as to what happened to me this week. Multiple times.

I’m only 30. I’m really not linking this.

Yesterday, after discovering a rather long, white hair hanging right at the top of my forehead I decided to take it, along with a few of its buddies scattered about my head, out with a pair of scissors.

Mission accomplished.

When I was a kid, I took more than a few blows to the head. Big ones. Doc informed me recently that this put me at pretty high risk of developing Alzheimer’s in the future, along with a slightly elevated risk of developing Parkinson’s. So while I don’t know yet how and when I’ll die, front-runners are starting to show up.

The effects of aging and how I react to them have very suddenly became more than just an intellectual exercise.

Last night, I dreamt that my hair had grayed in a matter of days. It was as if the rest of my head was taking revenge for the treatment of those few hairs. In the dream, I came to the conclusion that these few hairs were somehow plugs in a dam, and by cutting them off I caused a deluge of white to spread all over my head, concentrated in the areas where the hair was located. This not only meant that I was getting old, it meant I was going through the sand in my hourglass far faster than anticipated.

I’m aging. I know it. I can fight its effects through exercise, diet and supplementation, but the fact remains that I’m aging. The idea is a hard one to embrace, but one which I must in order to continue growing as a person, overcoming adversities, and becoming what it is within me to achieve. I’m not one in the “live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse” camp. I’m in the “live as meaningfully as you possibly can, as long as you possibly can, weighing any risks to your longevity before taking action (or inaction) versus the possible returns, and when the time comes, make sure you’re in good enough shape to be successfully cryopreserved” camp. Not as catchy, I know, but I wasn’t about to stick it in any bumper stickers anyway.

Recently I’ve been trying to refocus. Long story short, my life was going in one direction then something hit which pushed it in another. Turns out things like that happen throughout your life. Who knew? Except everyone who has gone through it, I mean. For the past few years, I’ve been in limbo due to this. People in limbo don’t dream. They sort of fill their existence with things, hoping to find something, anything, to give them a direction. “Man without dreams shall perish.” This realization jarred me, so I started forcing myself to dream.

I’ve since moved to limbo’s edge; I can see how to get out.

First and foremost, I’m going back to college. Not necessarily to get any degree, mind you, but to learn for the sake of learning. (Pursuing an MFA has crossed my mind.) This is something I love doing, but which I’ve denied myself, much like when I denied myself the pleasure of a novel for 5 years. Lots of books, yes, but no novels. I’m still recovering from that.

Second, I think I’ll be joining some sort of sporting activity. Preferably, I’d learn some type of martial arts with forms–T’ai Ch’i, Quigong, and Kung Fu top my list–but something as simple as flag football would do. I walk every day and do resistance training for 30 minutes 4 times a week, but I need something which gets me around people, something which demands strategy, and preferably something which involves repetition. (It’s a brain plasticity thing.)

Third, I need to return to my music and leaning other languages. Both of these defined me in my youth. Both of these were things I intended to carry with me throughout my life. Both of these I’ve put aside as if they were childish things.

There’s more, but this is a start. I’m only 30. It won’t be that long before I say that I’m 60, but will I still be prefixing that with “only”? If so, will this be because I’m excited about my future and where I’m going, or because I’m still waiting for life to start?

One day, my head will probably be full (or half full) of white hairs. What will I be dreaming about then? Will I be defined by my dreams and actions, or will I just be another white haired dude?

Background

A while back, I had a conversation with a friend (my old college roommate, as it so happens) about Net Neutrality. I defended the idea that no one should have control over what people choose to do with their bandwidth (so the idea that telecoms could throttle VoIP services from competitors in order to bolster their own offerings, like what Comcast had done for a while, was out). He argued that ISPs were private businesses, and as such had every right to do whatever they wanted: the market should decide. Part of that conversation involved an explanation of WHY ISPs and telecoms got it wrong, and why trying to fix the problem from their end may be as futile as trying to stuff toothpaste back into the tube.

Just to frame my thoughts on AT&T’s move, I’ve decided to copy over a part of the text from that exchange with my old college roommate. (The thread can be found on Facebook. However, my FB account is private so you probably won’t be able to see it. Sorry.) Here I talk about the magic of unlimited bandwith and how Time Warner tried resolving the issue. It should ring reminiscent of the current situation.

I notice that’s what’s not at question is the ISPs current (for the most part) structure of unlimited bandwidth, which IS being abused by, for example, those downloading hundreds of torrents (to use your example), which is way outside the norm (although I’m guessing a very large part of all torrents are actually copyright infringing and therefore illegal; I doubt there are that many people downloading Linux distros, as much as that would tickle my funny bone, and think they are instead downloading the latest leaked movie).

Of course, the reason for this “abuse”–and I’ll use the term loosely–is simple: ISPs have been selling themselves on “unlimited” for years, which for the layman is the equivalent of magic. For years they could make that claim because there was “no way anyone could ever use [X] amount of bandwidth!” (“No one will ever need more than 640k!”) Now that people can and do test the limits on that unlimited magic, via games and video and all that jazz, ISPs are starting to say “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” Time Warner attempted to remedy this by creating bandwidth packages–use this much, pay this much, with an overage fee of this much–but with very negative results, probably because they started throttling customers who had already bought service at a certain price and under the condition of “unlimited”. The concept was good, the execution not so.

Despite disagreement to the contrary from many, given the capabilities of the Web, the model as it currently stands is unsustainable in the long run as more and more demands–video, gaming, and VoIP come to mind–will be placed on the network. (By the way, whatever happened with Google and all ther “dark fiber”?) Capping will eventually have to happen. This doesn’t prevent ISPs from simply selling more.

There’s a lot more to the text, but I don’t believe it’s immediately important to the matter at hand. (It involves net neutrality, and it has some pertinence to the issue which may not be directly evident.)

The Problem

As anyone keeping any sort of tab on the industry knows, AT&T has gotten its butt kicked time and time again because of the iPhone. Sure, it has the world’s most popular single smartphone. But it has long been lacking the infrastructure to support the iPhone’s data demands throughout most of its network. (With respect to Luke Wilson, it’s called the iPhone 3G, not the iPhone 2G/EDGE. AT&T shouldn’t muddy the waters by comparing its EDGE coverage to Verizon’s 3G.) The rate of upgrade isn’t keeping up to the increase in demands on their bandwith, so what do they do? The only thing they really can, cap it. The fact is that most users will probably benefit, at least in the short run, by getting lower prices. Yet as more and more services come to smartphones, and as we increasingly rely on these devices and devices like these (think iPad and other slates) as our primary computers AND entertainment–that is, our primary sources of media consumption–the cost to the user will increase, and because the infrastructure to not only support, but profit heavily from that growth will be in place, AT&T and any telecoms that follow suit will see their profits continue to rise unless customers move to providers willing to give them unlimited coverage

Will unlimited data plans be needed? Maybe. Will they be around? I think so, in one form or another. This will probably come when the technology is advanced enough that there’s no possible way that anyone could ever use as much bandwith in a certain period of time as it would cost to support it under a reasonable flat rate plan. But that’s only considering today’s technological requirements for transporting things like current games and internet video. Eventually this will go the way of the AOL dial up floppy, so there’s really no telling what requirements will be when we all regularly enjoy holographic projection or advanced forms of telepresence (holographic telepresence, maybe?). I’m guessing the arguments may sound very similar.

Now, there was a good justification for the format, outside of just running away: I wanted to leave a legacy of some sort, a place where descendants could come to and read about my experiences and world. I know, a web page isn’t the best place to do it, but I’m slowly storing it away, printing certain pieces and collecting them for future readers. My point was that it would be easier if I emphasized the important things and stored the trivial in places not many would look. In theory, this was supposed to work great. In practice, it ended up becoming rather stifling. As it turned out, a lot of what I wanted to say was rather personal, so I began keeping a journal. In essence, the thoughts and memories that were supposed to be coming here got put there because they were simply too personal. Although I love sharing a lot of my life with you, the fact is that you only see a very small portion of it, and while I do still wish to leave a trace of myself behind once all is said and done, I’d rather some aspects stayed private.

The second big reason for the setup involved quality: I wanted pieces of great quality to hit the front page, while others of lesser quality stayed hidden. Again, didn’t work that way. Turned out that I churned some rather high quality stuff that, due to its content and length, got shoved away in the stack of writings that would never hit the front page. On the other hand, pressure to create quality pieces created a threshold that was simply too high, resulting in not only the lack of posted articles, but eventually the lack of writing altogether. Heck, even my personal journals took a hit, despite the fact that I don’t censor myself in any way with those.

Just in case you’re wondering, my censoring is not about the language: I rarely use obscenities, even in my private writing. The censoring here boils down to whether or not I’m sharing too much: would I want someone responding to a post, or worse, coming to me in the street and telling me, “hey, I have some advice about the incredibly personal situation you’re writing about.” Thanks, but no.

I’m digressing. Back on point: quality. Expectations were too high. Pressure kept me from doing that which I should be doing and that is putting thought to words. This format just wasn’t conducive towards that.

So what does this mean? For you, if you’re reading via RSS, it means absolutely nothing. I’ll still keep the RSS just the way it is, still keep the featured stories, still keep all of that. For me, it means time for another redesign, something that’ll fit what I want to portray and which will be conducive to writing, whether that be about typewriters or cars or social media or even memories. It also means I can stop focusing on being great and simply focus on writing. That’s what’s important.

By the way, feel free to make your own captions. Heck, if you’re so inclined I’d even appreciate a few photoshops.

With all the recent news about Toyotas and Lexuses (Lexii?) careening out of control and killing millions of innocent bystanders, while evil genius Akio Toyoda spits in the face of the US Congress and laughs maniacally, you’re probably wondering why I decided on the Camry. After all, there are better cars out there, cars that don’t purposely seek to destroy the living, cars made by people working for companies in North America that are just as high-quality. The short answer is, “this is what my wife chose.” The long answer is, “ttthiiisss iiiisss wwwwhhhaaaaattt mmmyyyy wwwwiiiifffeee cccchhooooossssee.” The even longer answer is that after trying out a number of cars, the Camry came out on top as striking the best balance between great looks, reliability, low maintenance costs, a comfortable ride, and all the options we wanted. Instead of me telling you just that, though, I’ll give you a quick review of the cars we tried: the Honda Accord, Ford Fusion, Chevy Malibu, Nissan Altima and finally (of course) the Toyota Camry. Neither of us likes Hyundais, so those were out of the question, and the only other car in this class, the Mazda6, is so notoriously unreliable that we didn’t even consider.

A Little Background

I’m sure that after comment about my wife choosing the car some of you think things like, “Boy, talk about p-whipped!” and “Look at that jerk, blaming his wife!” But in reality, it’s a lot simpler than that. See, my wife has never owned a new (not just new-to-her, but actually new, as in ain’t-no-one-broke-the-leather-but-her new). With her birthday and our 6th anniversary coming up, I decided this would make one heck of a present, especially since she’ll be the one driving it daily to work. Despite my getting a voice in the decision making process, I told her that the final call would be hers, hence the comment. Not p-whipped, not blaming: letting her choose a very nice present.

Because of this the reviews will feature my take and hers.

2010 Honda Accord (and Why We Will Never Return to Wesley Chapel Honda)

The car we’re replacing is a 2002 Honda Accord we bought used in 2006. It has proven to be a great car, but despite that it’s time to replace it. Considering our experience with that our 2002 Honda Civic–the combination of which has taken us over 240,000 mostly trouble-free miles over the past 8 years–at first we thought we would be replacing our old Honda with a new one. Although we loved the Accord Crosstour, our budget but us squarely on the road to an Accord sedan. This was our default choice. We were, after all, Honda people.

Test driving the 2010 Accord didn’t deliver us any surprises: it looked, handled, and felt like a Honda. The decor inside wasn’t spectacular, but it felt solid. It was a comfortable ride throughout. Two things took it out of consideration.

First, the cabin noise. Of all the cars we tried, the 2010 Accord was by far the loudest, letting in not only a fair amount of road noise, but also a surprising amount of engine noise. While Hondas are known for that, the 2010 model was noisier than even our 2002 model. Even though at this price range we expect some road noise, engine noise was a big no-no. Despite this, the Honda was still not only under consideration: it was our default choice. We knew we’d be safe buying a Honda.

The second reason had little to do with the car and far more to do with the dealership, Wesley Chapel Honda. (Yeah, we could’ve found another dealership, but we didn’t like the Accord enough for that. It just didn’t impress us.) After test driving, we still weren’t sure about the car, but we wanted to get some numbers: how much was the car, what they charged for their warranties, and the approximate cost of the total package. This would allow us to get a complete picture, something we could consider. However, despite the great service we got with the sales person (Ed), the finance manager didn’t want to meet with us. The conversation went something like this:

General Manager: “Alright, what did you think?”

Us: “We liked the car. Now we’d like to get a few numbers so we can think about things and compare notes.”

GM: “Well, let me ask you, would you be prepared to make a decision today?”

Us: “Not today, but within the next 48 hours. Again, we simply need to be sure we really want to proceed with this car. It’s a big decision after all: $30,000 is a big chunk of change for us.”

GM: “Alright, let me talk to the finance manager then.” He goes out. A few minutes later… “Alright, I spoke to the finance manager, and honestly, he’s interested in one thing: it’s the end of the month, and we need to fill up that board back there with names.”

Us: “I understand and appreciate that, but before we can make any decision we need numbers. We’re very deliberate people; we don’t make decisions like this solely on emotion. I just need an idea of what costs are, what payments would look like, etc.”

GM: “OK then, let me see what I can get.” Again he steps out, then a few minutes later comes back with, “Listen, my manager here is very busy. He’s working with a lot of people and he says unless you’re ready to decide something today, he won’t bother with this right now. He doesn’t need the practice.”

Us: “OK. Let me be clear then: I get the numbers, I think about it. I don’t get the numbers, I don’t think about it. Understood?”

We stood up and walked out. We spoke to Ed on the way out who was visibly shocked by the way we were treated. He later tried to salvage the sale by getting us our numbers, but by that time we had already decided we wouldn’t be going with a Honda, and if we did, it wouldn’t be from Wesley Chapel Honda. Furthermore, I will never again be returning there for any services or future purchases.

Finally, I’m tempted to drive by, see the manager, show him my new car and tell him, “This could have been your sale, and despite the great effort your marvelous sales person went through, your shortsightedness and inability to seek the relationship above the sale cost blew it.” I’m not vindictive enough, however, although I do take pleasure in knowing that the dealership is currently for sale, and losing about $250,000 a month.

2010 Nissan Altima

One night, near the end of our selection process, we drove down the road to check out and test drive a Ford Fusion. Unfortunately, the Ford dealership was closed (an hour earlier than they advertised) so we wondered on over to the Nissan dealership (which we later found out was closed, but they worked with us anyway). Originally, we hadn’t even considered Nissans, despite the fact that my sisters and my brother all have Nissans (two 2008 Altimas and one Sentra). But they were open, so why not, right?

We ended up going on a test drive that very night, to my surprise. The 2010 Altima was very roomy despite the moonroof(I’m 6’1, and sit taller than most people). The seats were comfortable despite them being cloth (we were looking for leather), the interior well polished, and the car included numerous user-friendly features we didn’t see in any other vehicle that didn’t include a steep markup. Of all the cars we tried, the Altima was easily the quietest, and Nissan’s CVT (continually variable transmission) technology made the ride marvelously smooth, far smoother than anything else we tried. As is the norm with Nissans, the car had a very sporty feel to it, something which my wife loved. So much, in fact, we considered buying the car that night.

But we don’t work that way.

For a couple of days, it looked like things were settled: would get an Altima, despite my trepidation. We started looking around the net for competing quotes, asking my siblings about their experiences, and figuring out negotiating tactics. As we did, we started reading the reliability reports and rankings on the car, as well as talking to other Altima owners. As we did, we grew increasingly hesitant about it: as awesome and enjoyable as it was to ride, the overall cost of ownership seemed higher than we wanted: there were more scheduled maintenances than we were used to and the insurance for this car was higher than any of the others in our list. Eventually, we decided not to go this route.

Would we have regretted doing so? Not for a second. But five years down the line, would I be saying the same thing? Six years? Ten? It was our inability to answer that question as a definite affirmative that gave us pause, and eventually made us reconsider. (And yes, we were well aware that the Altima was voted best mid size sedan in initial quality by J.D. Power and Associates. Initial quality and quality at 7 years, 140,000 miles are two different things, however.) Still, if you’re looking for a family sedan while keeping a sporty feel, you need to make sure the Altima’s on your shortlist.

2010 Ford Fusion

Ford’s come a looooong way. A few years ago this wouldn’t have even been a consideration. In fact, a few years ago, when I was buying a car, it wasn’t, at least not seriously. Sure, I played with the idea of buying a Five-Hundred for a while–especially because I loved the Volvo S80–but a Fusion? Too new, and it was a Ford. Today, just saying “it’s a Ford” gives no negative indication of its quality. In fact, the Ford Fusion has taken over as one of the top quality cars, matching and beating the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord for the past few years. Even J.D. Powers agrees, as does US News & World Reports. Oh, and let’s not forget that the Fusion is Motor Trend’s Car of the Year for 2010.

I say all of this so you know that I didn’t try Ford out of some sense of patriotism, like I could justify buying a sub-par car simply because it was made by an American company. I tried the Fusion because it is a great car, period.

By the time we tried the Fusion we had already taken a peek at the Camry, fallen in love with the Altima, and been chased away from Wesley Chapel Honda. We tried the Ford Fusion mostly for the sake of being complete, and giving everyone who deserved it a fair shot. (Also, partly, because we’d feel odd not trying at least ONE American car, especially one which had received so many high marks.) Still, my wife cringed at the the thought of having a car brand she associated with hard seats, dead engines, and rednecks. (Her parents always owned Fords and she hated every single one of them. The Fords, I mean, not her parents.)

Once we got in the car we forgot all about nationality and focused on the ride. It was engaging without challenging you to be fierce, comfortable, and relatively quiet. The design of the controls was clear, uncluttered (unlike that of the Honda Accord), and utilitarian. The only issues we encountered were visibility–the design feels like it blocks out some small, seemingly unimportant part of your total view–and the internal decor, which looked somewhat cheap, especially the door handles. My wife also had an issue with the comfort of the cloth seats; replacing them with leather helped somewhat, due to the extra padding afforded to these. Still, she wasn’t totally happy.

Had it been up to me, this probably would have been the car we bought, which is why it was such a heartbreaker. Still, she’ll be doing the bulk of the driving in this new vehicle, not me, so she gets the final call; despite every incredible feature offered, and despite Ford’s newfound reputation for quality in the Fusion, she decided to pass, her reasons being comfort (she still didn’t like the way the seats felt) and the internal decor, which felt overwhelmingly cheap to her. I’m sure her prior experiences with Fords didn’t help, either.

Sigh. Maybe next time, Ford. Maybe next time.

2010 Chevrolet Malibu

Actually, like the Altima, the Malibu was tested on a mere whim. Really, it was my whim, much like the Altima was mostly my wife’s whim. A few years ago I rented a Chevy Malibu and fell completely in love with it. At that time, however, there seemed to be an issue with the car’s steering column and I was surrounded by (and depended upon advice from) people who refused to buy an American car, so I never went forward with even considering it. This time I figured, “Why not? It can’t hurt.” It helps that my dad loves his Chevrolets. Loves them. In fact, any of my childhood memories involve time spent riding around town in my dad’s old Chevy Nova. Maybe that’s why he tends to discourage the purchase of Fords.

The ride on the Malibu was what could be expected: smooth, quiet, and enjoyable. The car included a lot of features, such as dual-heated, power, leather seats, wood trim, OnStar and bluetooth plus home link with a price tag lower than any other maker. But there were a lot of tiny issues that worried us.

First and foremost, the positioning of the driver-side functions. Even with the telescopic feature, the steering wheel was positioned oddly in relation to the seat and pedals, at least for me. As for my wife, she had major problems with the gas and break pedals: the break felt a lot higher than the gas, so switching over wasn’t just a matter of rolling the foot, but actually a matter of lifting it in order to hit the break. The pedals felt just fine for me, but she has far smaller feet.

Another issue was the visibility, especially through the rear window. Because of the car’s shape, rear visibility is hampered severely enough to make backing out more of a guessing game than usual. (Yes, we know we can install rear sensors, but if those should fail we need to be able to use our eyes.) Again, this was more of an issue with my wife than me, although I did notice that the visibility was not as open as I would have liked.

Finally, an issue for me was the way some of the materials were applied. When I pulled on the door handle inside the car, I actually saw and felt it move–along with the rest of the door panel–towards me, independent of the door itself. It felt like I was pulling a giant toy. In the trunk, I felt the same way, when I noticed that the coverings weren’t glued on, they were bolted on; being very soft, they felt more like very thin, malleable cardboard barely attached to the car’s frame. Reminded me of our old 1987 Chevy Cavalier, which also had this type of covering, until it fell off. Like that, this just felt cheap.

Basically the Malibu experience can be narrowed down to this: Great ride, mostly comfortable, but cheap interior.

2010 Toyota Camry

Finally, the car we started our search on and ended up going with. Now, I know people are talking about Toyota’s quality having gone down while they tried to rip the #1 car manufacturer prize from GM’s cold, dead hands, (GM: “I’M NOT DEAD YET!”) but they’re still quite good, quite reliable, and now, because of all the reports, cheaper than it would’ve been otherwise. (I was able to get mine $2,300 under invoice, over $4,000 under MSRP.)

We tried the Camry because I’ve always wanted to a Toyota. Yeah, I know, weird. It helped that the night we started looking around they were the only dealership still open. (All the others closed at 8:00 P.M.) I’ve been a Honda guy for a while, and while I’ve loved Hondas, I’d always wanted a Toyota. (In fact, I almost got a Toyota last time I bought a car.) This time around, I wanted an Avalon, my wife wanted a Venza, and with both of those were just outside our price range we decided to check out the Camry.

First and foremost, the car was smooth ride, to the point that it’s easy to forget you’re driving. For enthusiasts, this would be a huge negative, but for someone looking to get from point A to point B without many thrills, this is perfect. As for the cabin itself, it wasn’t as quiet as the Nissan Altima’s, but it was quiet enough. (I’m considering buying some sound dampening material to make it a far quieter ride.)

In the looks department, the 2010 Camry is a win. It is elegant and has a bit of a timeless quality to it. The creature comforts our model came with–XM radio, leather seats, power seating, rear sensors–and intelligent design decisions make going somewhere an enjoyable, usually relaxing experience. In fact, the ride is so smooth and the creature comforts are so nice the Camry reminds us of the Hyunday Azure we rented during a trip to Montana a few years ago. But, you know, with better gas mileage.

It took us 2 test drives to make our decision, but after having tested everything else, and considering long term reliability issues, this is what we went with.

Conclusion

Of course, while these were the cars we tried out, we considered a number of others, mostly hybrid versions of the vehicles mentioned here when available, as well as the Buick LaCrosse. Something always got in the way of those: cost, mileage, reliability ratings and estimated cost of ownership, etc.

In the end, the decision was between the Nissan Altima and the Toyota Camry, two cars we both loved for completely different reasons. The Altima we loved because of its sporty feel and creature comforts. The Camry we loved because of the stately feel. (Odd thing to say with a Camry, I know, but at our price range…) In the end, the decision was based on maintenance costs, and there the Camry was all win.

I know, wisdom dictates that I either keep fixing up what I have or buy something used, preferably 2 years old, because values drop most during those first years and if there are any major defects they’ll have shown up, probably. However, this wisdom is faulty, outdated, and doesn’t account for my admitted control issues. (I’m OCDelightful!)

Our Situation

Currently we have 2 cars, a Civic and an Accord, both (obviously) Hondas, both from model year 2002 (and both which have recalls on them for some airbag issue).

The Civic, which I bought new in March of ’02 for around $13,000 (including tax, tag, and title), is at 160,000 miles. Overall, it still runs great, although maintenance issues have slowly become costlier. (For example, I just spent $600 in non-regular maintenance related issues.) Still, the car doesn’t cost me more than $2000 a year in total maintenance, which is pretty decent considering I own it outright. Fuel economy is still excellent and for the exception of a faulty fuel pump sometime back in late 2003 I’ve never had any issues with it. (The fuel pump was under warranty.) This is not the car I’m looking to replace.

The Accord, on the other hand, I bought used in September of 2006 for $13,500. Includes extended warranty, taxes, tag, and title. At that point the most important things for me were to get a reliable car with a payment of about $250 per month, and to get a car I felt comfortable driving long distances in. (I love my Civic, but being 6’1″, I can’t quite stretch out my legs.) The car had 43,000 miles when it was purchased. Just under four years later, it sits at approximately 122,000 miles, meaning that I average about 22,000 miles per year on the vehicle. This is the vehicle I’m looking to replace. Why? Because I can’t trust it (and its starting to cost me).

Don’t get me wrong: the car has never left anyone stranded, and it’s a good car, but before I got to it someone drove it for 43,000 miles, meaning I can’t account for its care history for the first 1/3 of its total mileage life (or half its age, although whoever had it obviously drove it a lot less than me). Recently it started having transmission issues, nothing big, just shifting harder than before; once in a while (very infrequently, actually), mid shift, the RPMs shoot straight up and the car quits accelerating. A second or two later, it catches and goes, pulling the car forward and threatening passengers with a mild case of whiplash. Due to this, we took the car to a transmission shop to get it check. The mechanic said that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong externally with the transmission, but that he thinks there’s something inside that needs repair. Minimum cost: $800, just to take the transmission out, look inside, put it back together and put it back. (This includes taxes.) Parts and additional labor would be extra. Add to this the need for new rotors, a timing belt, and a few other miscellaneous items and suddenly this car threatens to cost me around $2000 in repairs, not including the paint job I need to give it because of some major scratches on the side of the car (there when I bought the thing and are begining to rust) or the $900 I just recently spent on its 120,000 mile maintenance and getting it new tires. My father, formerly a car repair shop owner, says I should try a transmission flush, although the transmission mechanic said he doesn’t think that would help. Still, that’s at least $100.

The value of the car, in its current condition, is about $3900 for sale in the private market, according to Kelly Blue Book. We still owe about the same on it. If I can get that much for it it’ll be a miracle.

Can you see now why I’d rather get rid of this one?

The Fallacy of the Used Vehicle

Cars depreciate, that’s a fact. However, some cars depreciate far more than others. American cars, for example, have a far steeper depreciation after the first two years than either Hondas or Toyotas. (Some claim this is changing, particularly with Fords, but I haven’t really seen the evidence: I don’t know how much of that sentiment is based on fact and how much is based on patriotism.) This means that if you’re going to buy an American car, you might do well to go ahead and buy something used. If you’re going to buy a foreign car, though, chances are you’ll pay nearly as much with the used as you would with the new. There’ll be a few thousand dollars difference, true, but if you’re financing then this difference is offset by the financing deals banks and car dealerships give new car buyers. (For example, Honda currently has 0% for 36 months and 1.9% for 60 months on all new Accords, while Ford is has 0% financing, 60 months, on all new Fusions, plus $2500 cash-back.) Here’s a concrete example:

A 2010 Accord EX-L starts at about $29,000 according to Honda.com. Go to Cars.com, and do a search for used Accords and here’s what you get:

• 2010 Accord EX-L, 72 miles on it, $29,815
• 2009 Accord EX-L, 9,256 miles on it, $24,980
• 2009 Accord EX-L, 6,266 miles on it, $23,998
• 2008 Accord EX-L, 36,086 miles on it, $23,991
• 2008 Accord EX-L, 28,295 miles on it, $23,703
• 2009 Accord EX-L, 9,500 miles on it, $23,279 (although my first question becomes, “what’s wrong with it?”)
• 2008 Accord EX-L, 19,356 miles on it, $22,987 (Honda Certified Used, which is excellent.)

Looks good, right? If I was paying cash then this would be wonderful! Now lets look at monthly payments, comparing the last vehicle on that list (the Honda Certified Used) and the new Accord. (I’ll be using the Cars.com Auto Loan Calculator. Note that I round up for prices.)

• Used: At $23,000, no down payment or trade-in, 6.5% sales tax and 6.96% interest at 60 months my monthly payment is $480.
• New: At $29,000, no down payment or trade-in, 6.5% sales tax and 1.9% interest at 60 months my monthly payment is $540.

Alright, so there’s a $60 dollar difference. Not huge, but nothing to balk at. Now comes the big one: maintenance. (I’m using the AOL Autos calculator and presuming, quite safely, that I’ll be driving 20,000 miles. Yes, AOL still exists; I was surprised, too.)

• For a 2008 Accord bought in its third year, my estimated maintenance costs would be around $1,610 for year 1. Year 2: $210. Year 3: $3,700. This breaks down to around $153 per month.
• For a new 2010 Accord my estimated maintenance costs would be $120 for year 1. Year 2: $353. Year 3: $1610. This breaks down to around $57 per month.

This means that by buying used I’m spending, total, about $90 per month for the used above the price of the new, with the diference being purely maintenance. This doesn’t include efficiencies provided by new technologies introduced into the later model, or the fact that while the bulk of maintenance cost rise for the new will occur after the loan has been paid off (and the car is a mere 5 years old), the maintenance cost rise for the used car combined with the monthly payment will make the auto increasingly more expensive in the later years of the loan.

To put it simply: if you’re going to do a long-term (60 month) payment, buying new allows you to separate car payments from increasing maintenance requirements: you’re either paying for maintenance or for financing, but not both. Buying a used car, however, means that towards the end of the loan you’ll be paying for maintenance AND the loan itself, leaving you in the same place I’m at now, feeling like you’ve been taken for a sap.

Finally, there’s the whole control issue. I don’t know who did what to that car for the first 20,000 miles of its life. Did they change the oil on time? Do routine maintenance? Drove it around mostly in the mid-western and northern states, ensuring that rust would become a factor once it made it down to Florida? (Interesting fact: cars that spend their entire lives in FL develop far less rust than those which are brought from up north.) When I buy a car new I know exactly what goes into that car and what kind of care it has had; if something goes wrong, thee’s a pretty good chance I’ll know whose fault it was. (This is why I always either go to the dealership or find someone recommended in the CarTalk Mechanics Files. In fact, this is how I found my favorite Honda shop in Ft. Lauderdale, ForeignTech (formerly HondaTech), located on State Road 7/441, just north of Broward Blvd.) In other words, I control the environment that car exists in and there are few if any unknown variables. That’s piece of mind a new car will give you.

Of course, there is a third option: just keep what’s already here. Fix it up, pay it off, and keep it for a while longer. This has been heavily considered, but we decided that having two very high mileage cars, no matter how well maintained, put it at risk of finding ourselves in some future date needing to buy two cars at the same time. The last thing I want to do is have to buy two used cars in a hurry. While I love sparring with used car sales people, (seriously, I LOVE it!) I don’t care to do it at gunpoint.

Sidenote: There are a few points I’m sure some of you more financially astute folks are thinking, like “why not just save $500 a month and pay cash when you’re ready?” and “why not get a cheaper used car but finance for a far shorter term to avoid the maintenance cost overlap?”

With the first question its a question of practicality: we didn’t start saving for a car years ago (even though we do have savings, a rainy year fund NOT to be spent on cars). Had we successfully done so, it would be fine, probably. $500 for 4 years would be $24k, just about the right amount for a new midsize sedan. But starting now, even at $500 per month would still mean that it would be 2 years before we could buy something as cheap as a Smart Fortwo, which my wife refuses to drive around here (lots of trucks) and is impractical from the standpoint of our parenting plans (don’t read into that), or a used vehicle, which we would rather not buy, due to the aforementioned control issues. I really don’t think we have 2 years. Combine the repair and finance costs for what we do have and we wouldn’t even be able to start saving any appreciable amount for the next year.

The second question is actually a great one, and something we’re considering. I used a Honda Accord for my example because it was our default choice, since that’s what were replacing. Smaller, more inexpensive cars are also options. We also plan to put a down payment. The examples were simply for the sake of having some numbers to play with.

Alright, So Buying New. What Are the Options?

Although I used the Honda Accord for my example above, we’re far from making a final decision. We’re still considering the Ford Fusion and Taurus; Toyota Venza, Matrix, and Prius (yes, I’m well aware of recalls), Honda Insight, Civic, Crosstour and Fit, and others we haven’t yet really looked at. (One car, the Smart Fortwo, was eliminated, sadly, because we need a back seat. Oh, but how I want one of those little skates.) It’s still nebulous for us so the answer to this will come in another article sometime in the near future. For now, if you have any recommendations, especially about the cars I’ve mentioned here, I’d love to hear it.