While I’m at it, here’re some stats and tech specs on the smart fortwo, mostly from its FAQs:

• There are three models — the smart fortwo pure coupe starts at $11,590, the smart fortwo passion coupe starts at $13,590, and the smart fortwo passion cabriolet starts at $16,590.
• The top speed of a smart car is 90 mph.
• The smart fortwo mileage is 33 city/41 highway mpg.
• Smart’s website states that, according to fueleconomy.gov, the smart fortwo is the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid gasoline-powered vehicle in the USA today.
• The gas tank of the smart fortwo is 8.7 gallons.
• The smart fortwo is 8.8 feet long (you can usually fit two smart fortwos in an average parking space), 5.1 feet tall (the smart still has as much headroom as most luxury vehicles), and 5.1 feet wide (roominess is a ‘WOW’ factor!)
• The smart fortwo has an innovative tridion safety cell design that keeps occupants safe during crashes by re-distributing crash energy.  Plus, four airbags are provided.
• The “base” smart model — the smart fortwo pure — has:

standard with convenience features such as a 5-speed automated manual transmission with manual or automatic mode, central remote locking system, 2-spoke leather steering wheel, radio-ready console, and more.  Air conditioning, power windows and alloy wheels are optional. Be sure to check out the passion coupe and passion cabriolet that offer more standard features at an outstanding value.

• The next higher smart model — the smart fortwo passion — includes:

all the features described on the pure, plus much more. Additional standard equipment includes a panorama roof, alloy wheels, air conditioning with climate control, 3-spoke leather sports steering wheel with shift paddles, power windows, electric and heated side mirrors, and AM/FM radio with CD player.

• The top smart model — the smart fortwo passion cabriolet — has:

all the features of the passion coupe plus an upgraded radio and sound system that includes an mp3 compatible in-dash 6-disk CD changer. The main difference lies in the soft top with a heated rear glass window that is fully automatic and can be infinitely adjusted to any position while driving at any speed. For the full cabriolet experience, simply remove the side roof bars – taken out in no time – and stow them in a special compartment in the tailgate.

I recently got a babysitter for our two daughters and took my beloved out on a dinner date to Danielle’s, an Italian restaurant in the Shab Row area of Frederick, MD.  Delicious appetizers, good entrees.

And dessert?  OMG.  We ordered the Banana Foster.  Our waitress rolled up a small table laden with a small portable gas stove, a skillet, several dishes, and several bottles of wine.  She then pitched an absolutely gigantic pat of butter, probably equal to two entire sticks, into the skillet.  That much butter?!  I gasped, and she sent an apologetic glance my way as if she was saying, “I know, clogs your artery, but wait, it’ll be worth it.”

But that wasn’t the worst of it.  After melting the butter down, she took a bowl with what seemed like two cups of brown sugar, and upended the contents into the skillet.   The butter and brown sugar simmered and bubbled while she stirred.  She liberally poured some Creme de Banana (or something like that) liquer into the gooey mix, and stirred some more.

For the pièce de résistance, she poured some rum on it and tipped the bowl toward the flames.  The entire concoction went up into flames!  No, only the top layer of rum – yet it was a pretty picture nonetheless. After the flames subsided, she then plopped four long banana slices into the skillet.  She stirred the whole mess, making sure the banana sides were coated with the viscious liquid.

Another waiter brought us a bowl with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, and our waitress poured and scooped the entire contents of the skillet onto the ice cream – amazingly managing not to dribble onto the sides.

Voila.  Our absolutely fabulously sinful Banana Foster!  It was delicious, lasted maybe a minute and a half, and the perfect finale to our date.

Well, at least till we went shopping.  Now, that was the perfect ending to our date.

MixonMixers has made sticky situations even more sticky!

Wait, let me explain. At some parties and nearly all conferences / workshops, participants wear name-tags. Instead of just having one’s name (and business / agency info), how about affixing a small sticker with a graphic showing what kind of personality or interest you have? Perhaps a Spock graphic showing that you’re a true-blue Trekkie, a peace symbol sticker for down-to-earth folks, a Hogwarts sticker just for the heck of it, or a Shrek sticker revealing your inner child. That way, other people would get a glimpse of what kind of person you are just by looking at your name-tag, and conversations would be begun much more easily.

That’s the entire premise behind MixonMixers. At MikonMixers, the host(ess) can select from thousands of different icons (or even design her/his own or hire others via the webpage to design them!) and then order dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of sheets of different icons. Then s/he can distribute them to participants at parties or conferences. Nice!

Pricing seems a bit steep and may be a bit confusing at first. It charges a declining rate depending on how many hundreds of sheets you order and how many icons you put on these sheets. For example, MikonMixers charges $1 per sheet (and a $9 set-up fee) of 21 different stickers when you order just 1-99 sheets, 90 cents (with no set-up fee) per sheet for 100-249 sheets, and so on.

Be sure to give yourself enough time when ordering this for your next event. Up to 7 business days are required for shipping small orders, and longer for larger orders.

Go forth and create sticky situations!

Here’s what a half mil buys you:

• 617 hp @ 6,500 rpm (will someone tell me what that means?)
• Top speed of 206 mph (who-ah, that’s like breaking the law several times over!)
• Swing-wing door design (good for swingers out there)
• Fully retractable semi-automatic soft top (handy for lazy folks trying to look cool)
• Bi-xenon twin headlights (as if just being gay or straight isn’t enough)
• 7-speaker Bose sound system (making for more than 3 speakers per seat and a higher proportion of late-deafened Mercedes drivers)
• Flip-top start button (just don’t go crazy thinking it’s a missile launch thing)
• Carbon filter bucket leather seatings (oooh-la, what a feeling)

• 0-60 seconds in under 3.8 seconds (don’t you ever want to be first when the light turns green?)
• 6 airbags with 8-way protection (you can’t be too careful nowadays)
• Ultra-light, ultra-rigid carbon filter frame can absorb 4 times more energy than steel in the event of a crash (but still, ow, bye bye $500k)
• Intelligent design makes commanding control within easy reach (but I thought Intelligent Design was a cover story for teaching of biblical creationism in school)
• Dry-sump lubrication system allows for a low center of gravity (I’m sorry, maybe it’s me, but this sounds vaguely pornographic)

Honeybear, I want one. I don’t care how much it breaks our bank account, and I don’t care that there are no backseats for our young daughters (even though I know they’d LOVE this car).

I. Simply. Want. One.

This is a Japanese Toto toilet. Google has these installed in some of its bathrooms. It has settings for cleaning your (ahem) rear and your (double-ahem) front. It can even dry your bottom. The warmth and pressure of the cleansing water can be regulated with the rear-cleansing option receiving (triple-ahem) stronger pressure than the front-cleansing option. Vibrating and pulsating jets of water (raising eyebrows here) can be added as options. The seat can be heated, the lid can be automatically raised or lowered (a boon for women everywhere!) with proximity sensors that can tell whether the person is facing forward or facing away (I wonder if it’d clam shut before my cat could get in to drink?), music can be played to relax the user, deodorizing spray can be released, etc.

My question is thus: what’s the (quad-ahem) wand cleaning function for? And dammit, how do you flush?

(Thanks, TechCrunch and SFist!)

Nice touch, Google!

(Click image for a larger view)

Thanks, David, for the tip!

On a related note, I think it’s irritating that the Google ads to the right of the rainbow sidebar are for adult- and sexual-oriented dating websites.  Oh, wait!  I had Google’s SafeSearch set to “Do not filter my search results.”  After I changed it to “Use strict filtering,” most of the sexual-oriented ads went away.

One of my favorite Treo applications developer, Hobbyist Software, announced two nights ago that he has developed Bar Booster, a new Treo application (still in beta) that would increase my signal strength by one or two bars – at the expense of a slightly increased battery drain.

Since I take a commuter train through farmland and then the subway through underground tunnels, the signal strength of my Verizon Palm Treo 755p can go from 4 to just one or none in a matter of seconds. I’d wished that I could boost my signal strength. And so, Bar Booster seemed to be a godsend!

So, yesterday, I installed Bar Booster. Just 11k, which I thought was very small — yet I knew also that this is typical of Hobbyist Software’s other applications – they all have small “footprints” as well.

Maybe it was my imagination, but I could see a slightly better signal strength as my train choo-choo’ed across pastoral farmland. Emails continued to arrive, signal strength continued to fluctuate, I continued to browse the web. All was normal, yet I thought I saw a bit better signal strength.

When I changed trains and took the subway, I felt that signal strength was about the same as my train went thru the various underground tunnels. What a disappointment.

So, this morning, April 2nd, I got on the commuter train once again and opened Bar Booster to see if I could configure some settings. And what did I see but this message:

Ok folks, you probably guessed it. This was pure April Fool.

I hope you enjoyed it, you should probably disable it now!

Rob, the Hobbyist developer, certainly got me! Grumble grumble laugh. It certainly was too good to be true. Good one, Rob.

(I currently use several Hobbyist Software’s more legit offerings – Butler, Power Hero, Initiate, and Genius!, and have written about Genius! in the past.)

For the record, I understood EVERYTHING. Yes, honey, you have reason to worry.

This video was subtitled for us fellow deafies and posted onto Overstream. Thanks, grwebguy! And thanks, Bill, for pointing me toward this terrific video.