Having grown up in an era which showed Japanese quality and ingenuity, I always looked back with a bit of disgust at how the Japanese were treated in the auto industry in the 50s and 60s. I’ve tried not to show similar prejudice with Korean cars (although it helps that we have not recently been at war with South Korea).

My first taste of Korean engineering was the Ford Festiva. This re-badged Kia was just plain awful. I hated it, despite it getting me through my drivers’ license test. The Holden Viva is much better. It has a CD player, 5 doors, remote central locking, air-con, a chilled beverage container, 1.8 motor and a tricky little steering wheel that controls the radio. All that with auto and a towbar for under $20K. Not bad.  A few issues though:

When taking off from nothing, it’s quite peppy. However, if you’re rolling (in drive) then floor it, the transmission gets a cup of tea, thinks a bit, then drops a few gears. Why? It only has four to choose from…

It appears that Ford sold the digital clocks used on the 1991 Crown Victoria LX to Daewoo.

The door lock knob things scream 1980s Mazda. Ugly.

To recline the seat, you have to turn the wheel thing on the side. For me, that’s hard and un-necessary, as even my Suzuki Alto uses the lever system. Pull the lever, lean back, let go. Easy. At last, one thing that my car beats my mum’s on.

Reverse parking? Forget it. (or at least forget having any fun doing it)

All in all, however, my Mum got a good deal, and apart from the parking issue, she doesn’t car about any of my gripes.

Having been back in Australia now for the last two weeks, it’s time to update the title and get some new content onto this thing.

Well, they’ve done it again. While autoblog says that it looks like a Corolla, any car with a grill the shape of a smile is just going to scream Daihatsu Charade to an Australian driver.

Flash back to 2004, when my Dad decided he was ditching his Nissan Navara ute for something else. Back then I was living at home, so we went car hunting together. I always enjoyed this, as I used to know a fair bit about cars, features, reliability etc, and I’d argue with the salespeople. Like most other Brisbanites in search of a car, we ended up at the Marooka Magic Mile, which has grown to much more than its name would suggest (I know, I’ve walked it several times).

After a while we ended up at this nice-looking place. Unfortunately the salesperson there did not match the premises. After ignoring us for a while, he ambled over with dirty clothes and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. My father’s English accent is more pronounced than mine, and the salesperson soon worked out that we weren’t natives of the area.

When we had dismissed one suggestion due to high mileage,  we were told that in Australia, all cars have high mileage, and that it wasn’t like where we were from. His next suggestion was a Daewoo Nubira. While we were inspecting the car, Dodgy Dude (as I’d labeled him) kept on at the fact that it was a “Eurohatch”. Indeed it was (a cheap decal exclaimed as much), but that wasn’t going to persuade us to consider it. He must have thought that being English, we’d warm to the European pretensions of this Korean Hatchback. Nope.

My father and I have never forgotten Dodgy Dude.  Little did we know that just over two years later my Mum would buy a Holden Viva, the re-badged successor to the Nubira.

I have the same kind of feeling with Web Analytics programs. I love StatCounter, because I use everything that it offers. In February, I tested one of my sites with Google Analytics (keeping the StatCounter code as well). My main issue with the Google product is that it’s centred around AdSense, which is fine, but I don’t want to use that. I don’t run a for profit site either, so I’ve got all these tools which I won’t use. And that’s why I’m sticking with StatCounter.

1. These people are serious about their ragtime. The competition went over two days, and there were people there for it all, I’m sure. I was there for the finals, and there were some really awesome pianists. This was the first concert that I’ve played where people really wanted to hear more – is that a reflection on the audiences, or my playing?
2. This festival will either flourish or die. There were a lot of younger people around, but they were far outnumbered by the older generation. Most of the people in their 40s and 50s seemed to be relatives of those competing.
3. If you’re going to cough, don’t forget about grand pauses. That’s right, in the final one of the contestants was playing away, very quickly and loudly. He suddenly cuts to a grand pause, which was the cue for some poor soul to hack up a lung. The MC got it right in his comments afterwards – “you should patent that cough”.

Big Al’s, the famous strip joint was next door, but I was too busy eating to visit. The food in Peoria was amazing. One night I ate four turkey and ham sandwiches that had been battered, fried and then coated in sugar. Delicious!

It’s a shame that now I’ve graduated, I’m no longer a Ragtime Rebel, but I hope that the group gets invited back next year (if only for the food).

I walked past it today, and all of the grass is gone, replaced with a “this area has been de-turfed” sign (really?? I would never have noticed). So, either they’ve thrown away some turf which has been nicely watered, or it’s gone somewhere else. If it’s the second option, then where’s it gone?

You’d never know that we’re in the middle of a desert!

I’ve become so attached to it that I’m considering buying one in the future. However, there’s a very good argument against it. For the same money, I could buy a weighted midi controller and some great soft-synth programs, a top quality sequencer and a nice sound system. I’ve already got a laptop more than capable of running the software.

The advantages to this setup are customisability (is that a word?) and the fact that I could take the laptop with sequencer and software anywhere I wanted (I’d probably buy a 25-key controller for travel). The downside is that it just doesn’t feel the same as composing at an integrated unit. I find it similar to a car that’s had tachometer, boost gauge etc added to it rather than integrated.

In the end I may well get the Clavinova. I’ve got a fascination with pianos. Along with the upright that I currently own, I would ideally end up with a grand and baby grand. Only time will tell what I end up with.

That’s enough with the short sentences. Ok, one more. Anyway, I don’t see why it’s called Dilbert Blog apart from the fact that it will generate more attention. The sentiments and the way that they are expressed are similar to the books that I’ve read by Adams. The difference, however is the fact that the books are illustrated by Dilbert cartoons – hence the justification of the Dilbert title. Don’t see that in this blog. Good content, just change the title…

Anyway, I play the gig, walk to the bus stop and wait. I suddenly realise that I’ve forgotten to change my shirt back, and so am wearing a YMCA shirt and a pair of jeans with no fly (that’s another story). Additionally, I’m catching the bus to the corner of Valley View and Sahara, a ‘dodgy’ area of town. There are several such areas in Las Vegas – I happen to live in another of them.

After avoiding a confrontation with an alcoholic who had ‘won the Congressional medal’, I managed to get back to UNLV unscathed. My friend Alex is there and comments on how good my shirt looks. Now, unlike me, Alex has great fashion sense, so it seems that I was worried over nothing…

This brings to about 20 the number of free shirts that I’ve acquired in Las Vegas over 21 months.