Bought 12 gallons of gasoline

Today I bought 12 gallons of gasoline, bringing the odometer to 15786 and yielding 25 miles per gallon since my last fill.

24 miles to the gallon in my Caliber

Bought 11 gallons of gasoline today for the Caliber at the new Chevron. Apparently I am getting 24 miles to the gallon.

Gasoline for the Caliber

I bought 11 gallons of gasoline today for the Caliber.

Some Walkable Locations

I live where there are Some Walkable Locations according to WalkScore.come. I'm pretty amazed the score is this high.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

I watched Who killed the electric car? this evening from Netflix.

You should see it too. And then you should decide what you're going to do about it.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day, it went something like "if you're not appalled, you haven't been paying attention". This film reminded me of that.

I drive a Dodge Caliber. This film made me want to buy a Prius and suddenly more appreciative of people I know who drive a Prius.

A friend of mine drives a RAV4, which is just about the cutest vehicle I've ever met. It's always fun to ride in it. Did you know that there were real, working, used-by-consumers fully electric RAV4s? Not hybrids. Look-ma-no-gasoline electric cars. Electric cars are not a dream, they were a reality.

Pirates 2

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (Dead Man's Chest) at the AMC Ahwatukee last night. Ahwatukee is a local name with similar fun properties to "Wauwatosa", I suppose. Anyway, the movie was pretty fun. I hadn't seen it because I refused on principle to go to the movie alone and I couldn't seem to drum up any interest. Most of the fun of seeing the first Pirates was the crowd I saw it with. But I really like popcorn and the movie was pretty good. The little kids crawling around under the seats during the movie was kind of cute too. Not sure I'd want to take kids so young to this movie, but what do I know.

The joke goes after the first Pirates movie we came back to the house and were so giddy with piratical excitement we went to download that pirate song, "A Pirate's Life for Me". And entered "pirate music" into the music swapping engine of the week, and back came a result set of a million entries, because, hehe, it's all pirated.

Traffic getting there was awful. I mean, I suppose it was normal, but it wasn't the non-traffic I prefer. Sometimes I really miss the similicity of the not-owning-a-car, walk-to-work lifestyle. Google Maps said it would take 15 minutes to get there, it took me more like 50 and I didn't manage to get into the right parking lot, just one that was close enough I could walk there. Missed some of the beginning, and that's always annoying. Better to get it all from the start, and ideally to catch a few previews first. Chalk it up to an off night, I suppose, but the whole driving thing is a stress source. I keep telling myself I'm getting better at it.

I've optimized my living location for short commute to work. The Sunday WSJ article on happiness advises this, that commutes tend to be a significant source of lost time, stress, and chaos. I think I could stand to live a few miles further west, though, in more of a Tempe area. More coolness per square inch over there.