Tyler's Taproom in Durham has Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA on tap once again!!!! A rumor is floating around that 60 Minute is on tap as well. This is a F-I-N-E start to 2009.
Could Randall the Enamel Animal 2.0 be far behind?
Friday, January 9, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
A new car in 2009?
Don't count on it, at least not in my garage. I did, just before Christmas, have a weak moment when I thought to myself "perhaps Kelly would be better served by a smaller car to use as a daily commuter". Her Infiniti G35x has been paid off for some time and my Suburban has only another year or so of payments left. Forget the fact that if I actually ran the household financial numbers it would be plainly obvious that there is no way another car payment could be absorbed. Car dealers are hurting, right? I mean, they are desperate to move new cars, aren't they? If you are looking to buy a new car, now is the time, right?
Not if you are in the market for a Mini Cooper. Yeah, yeah. Sling your arrows and call this a chick car but the fact is a Mini S is a phenomenal vehicle and a hell of a fun car to drive. The supercharged 180 hp engine gets this little car up and moving and with the wheels so far apart there is almost no understeer or body roll even in the hardest or corners. In short it drives like a go-cart on steroids and I wanted one.
So I called. I spoke to Kyle, who sounded like a 20-something fresh out of college, and we had a very brief conversation.
Kyle: "This is sales, my name is Kyle. What can I do for you today?"
Greg: "Kyle, my name is Greg and I'm interested in a Mini S."
Kyle: "That's fantastic, we have a large inventory right now and I'm sure we can find the car you want with the options and colors you desire."
(sounds good so far)
Greg: "Well, do tell Kyle, what kind of end-of-the-year incentives is Cooper offering?"
Kyle: "First and foremost Minis hold their value better than any other car on the market."
(here we go)
Kyle: "And Mini has *NEVER* offered any incentives because that would harm the resell market."
(bull shit)
Kyle: "That's why you are protected in your investment when you purchase a Mini."
(a car? an investment? that's a laugh. Maybe a 428 Corbra, but new cars devalue and that does not an investment make.)
Greg: "What about the dealership? Times are tight, right? How many cars do you have to move before the end of the year to make quota?"
Kyle: "We don't have quotas here. In fact why don't you browse the inventory on the website, find the car you are interested in purchasing and we'll set up an appointment. You can arrive, test drive the very car that has caught your eye and we'll have you on the road in less than 90 minutes."
(actually, in terms of how long it takes to buy a damn car that sounds kind of nice, but I'm not biting.)
Greg: "Well I'd like to finance through my credit union at work, so there would be a bit of extra paperwork to complete."
Kyle: "Oh that's no problem, since the prices are advertised on the website I can simply take that price, add the taxes, tags and other fees so you can have the check with you when you arrive."
Greg: "So, wait, there MSRP on the sticker is what you're willing to sell the car for and nothing less?"
Kyle: "That's right. It helps your resell value. Can we set up an appointment now?"
Greg: "I'll call you. Thanks, and have a great day."
So, folks, the good people at your local Mini dealership are NOT hurting one bit, at least Kyle doesn't think so. Goodness, here Dodge is selling two trucks for the price of one if you purchase at sticker price and everyone else has "employee pricing" and 10,000 other incentives to get you in the door and Mini is willing to do nothing?
Meh. I can do without very well, thank you very much. The last thing I need is a new car anyway.
Not if you are in the market for a Mini Cooper. Yeah, yeah. Sling your arrows and call this a chick car but the fact is a Mini S is a phenomenal vehicle and a hell of a fun car to drive. The supercharged 180 hp engine gets this little car up and moving and with the wheels so far apart there is almost no understeer or body roll even in the hardest or corners. In short it drives like a go-cart on steroids and I wanted one.
So I called. I spoke to Kyle, who sounded like a 20-something fresh out of college, and we had a very brief conversation.
Kyle: "This is sales, my name is Kyle. What can I do for you today?"
Greg: "Kyle, my name is Greg and I'm interested in a Mini S."
Kyle: "That's fantastic, we have a large inventory right now and I'm sure we can find the car you want with the options and colors you desire."
(sounds good so far)
Greg: "Well, do tell Kyle, what kind of end-of-the-year incentives is Cooper offering?"
Kyle: "First and foremost Minis hold their value better than any other car on the market."
(here we go)
Kyle: "And Mini has *NEVER* offered any incentives because that would harm the resell market."
(bull shit)
Kyle: "That's why you are protected in your investment when you purchase a Mini."
(a car? an investment? that's a laugh. Maybe a 428 Corbra, but new cars devalue and that does not an investment make.)
Greg: "What about the dealership? Times are tight, right? How many cars do you have to move before the end of the year to make quota?"
Kyle: "We don't have quotas here. In fact why don't you browse the inventory on the website, find the car you are interested in purchasing and we'll set up an appointment. You can arrive, test drive the very car that has caught your eye and we'll have you on the road in less than 90 minutes."
(actually, in terms of how long it takes to buy a damn car that sounds kind of nice, but I'm not biting.)
Greg: "Well I'd like to finance through my credit union at work, so there would be a bit of extra paperwork to complete."
Kyle: "Oh that's no problem, since the prices are advertised on the website I can simply take that price, add the taxes, tags and other fees so you can have the check with you when you arrive."
Greg: "So, wait, there MSRP on the sticker is what you're willing to sell the car for and nothing less?"
Kyle: "That's right. It helps your resell value. Can we set up an appointment now?"
Greg: "I'll call you. Thanks, and have a great day."
So, folks, the good people at your local Mini dealership are NOT hurting one bit, at least Kyle doesn't think so. Goodness, here Dodge is selling two trucks for the price of one if you purchase at sticker price and everyone else has "employee pricing" and 10,000 other incentives to get you in the door and Mini is willing to do nothing?
Meh. I can do without very well, thank you very much. The last thing I need is a new car anyway.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Well shucks.
Apple's last keynote is over and done with at Macworld and there was no announcement of a new Mac Mini. Darn.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Movies!!
It was a big movie weekend at the old Brown household. Let me start by giving a mini-review of a movie we actually watched in a theater.
Kelly has been wanting to see Four Christmases for a while now so we decided to head out to the Saturday matinee. The movie itself centers around Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, a married, childless couple who want nothing more over the Christmas holidays than to escape the families (you can't spell 'families' without 'lies') over the holidays by jetting off to exotic locations for scuba diving and relaxation. Just to keep everyone from getting too upset about their absence they tell the families they are helping third world children, building schools, voluteering at clinics, that sort of thing.
I don't want to spoil the movie for you (everything I've said so far can be learned from watching the trailer) but I did want to share some interesting thoughts. This movie contained a fairly large well-known cast. In addition to the aforementioned main actors other Hollywood notables were featured including Robert DuVall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Kristin Chenoweth appeared as well as country musicians Dwight Yoakam (who I recogizned from Slingblade) and Tim McGraw who I couldn't have picked out of a police line-up (mostly because I don't list to country music).
Two very interested castings came in the form of Jon Favreau (director of Elf and Iron Man) as Vince Vaughn's extreme fighting brother (Jon hit the gym for this role and sported what I think are a lot of fake tattoos). The real bizarre person to make an appearance was number two worldwide ranked Donkey Kong player and star of King of Kong Steve Wiebe. Granted Steve didn't get any lines but it was strange for who I think is a non-union non-actor to be given a role in a union Hollywood movie. As it turns out the movie director, Seth Gordon, also directed King of Kong so the two had worked together perviously.
Overall I'd give this movie a 2 and-a-half out of five stars. Middle of the road picture. Well made but predictable in places, not to mention fraught with a few major continuity problems. If you are dying to see a movie, yeah, go ahead and catch it while you still can but if you, like me, are a fan of Christmas movies I'd wait until it rolled around via Netflix.
Next up: my new Blu-Ray player!!
I have joined the Bill Vinson's of the world and gone Blu-Ray. We also purchased a new 47 inch Sony Bravia HD TV but that's not the story here. The wickedly cool Blu-Ray player comes with built-in Netflix streaming capabilties! Very cool. We tested the Netflix streaming out and it works splendidly. What about the Roku player? The Roku player is heading for a life at the beach.
Work calls. Bye.
Kelly has been wanting to see Four Christmases for a while now so we decided to head out to the Saturday matinee. The movie itself centers around Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, a married, childless couple who want nothing more over the Christmas holidays than to escape the families (you can't spell 'families' without 'lies') over the holidays by jetting off to exotic locations for scuba diving and relaxation. Just to keep everyone from getting too upset about their absence they tell the families they are helping third world children, building schools, voluteering at clinics, that sort of thing.
I don't want to spoil the movie for you (everything I've said so far can be learned from watching the trailer) but I did want to share some interesting thoughts. This movie contained a fairly large well-known cast. In addition to the aforementioned main actors other Hollywood notables were featured including Robert DuVall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Kristin Chenoweth appeared as well as country musicians Dwight Yoakam (who I recogizned from Slingblade) and Tim McGraw who I couldn't have picked out of a police line-up (mostly because I don't list to country music).
Two very interested castings came in the form of Jon Favreau (director of Elf and Iron Man) as Vince Vaughn's extreme fighting brother (Jon hit the gym for this role and sported what I think are a lot of fake tattoos). The real bizarre person to make an appearance was number two worldwide ranked Donkey Kong player and star of King of Kong Steve Wiebe. Granted Steve didn't get any lines but it was strange for who I think is a non-union non-actor to be given a role in a union Hollywood movie. As it turns out the movie director, Seth Gordon, also directed King of Kong so the two had worked together perviously.
Overall I'd give this movie a 2 and-a-half out of five stars. Middle of the road picture. Well made but predictable in places, not to mention fraught with a few major continuity problems. If you are dying to see a movie, yeah, go ahead and catch it while you still can but if you, like me, are a fan of Christmas movies I'd wait until it rolled around via Netflix.
Next up: my new Blu-Ray player!!
I have joined the Bill Vinson's of the world and gone Blu-Ray. We also purchased a new 47 inch Sony Bravia HD TV but that's not the story here. The wickedly cool Blu-Ray player comes with built-in Netflix streaming capabilties! Very cool. We tested the Netflix streaming out and it works splendidly. What about the Roku player? The Roku player is heading for a life at the beach.
Work calls. Bye.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
New Mac mini rumors are kind of cool
If the rumors are true the new Mac mini will have a black top (to bring it in line with current Apple color codes), a "lip" much like the Time Capsule has, and a SATA optical drive that can be deleted and replaced with a second internal hard drive supporting RAID 1. That's kind of cool. If you need to install software or back data up to an optical disk you'll have to connect one via USB 2.0 or use Apple's Remote Disk from another Mac much the same way you would with the Macbook Air.
The so-called lid lip will hide the optical drive slot so it won't be obvious if the drive has been deleted or not. Kind of cool. I guess.
I need to replace my aging yet still running splendidly 1.5 Ghz G4 mini. A mini sporting internal RAID 1 would be a compelling replacement.
The so-called lid lip will hide the optical drive slot so it won't be obvious if the drive has been deleted or not. Kind of cool. I guess.
I need to replace my aging yet still running splendidly 1.5 Ghz G4 mini. A mini sporting internal RAID 1 would be a compelling replacement.
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