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Looking back
Dec. 31st, 2007 12:38 pmTwo days ago, I bought an iPod. You'd think that having a six stacker in the cab would be CDs enough, but no. Two St Germain and two Miles Davis doesn't leave much left over, especially if I put an audio book on as disc six for odd moments.
But there are times, when there are children in the cab, or the young folk ask for music that isn't elevator music or gay, that I wish I had a wider selection.
So on Friday arvo I parked in a loading zone on Bunda Street and dived into the Canberra Centre. First stop research, and a newsagent had an iPod magazine which listed the various models. Trust me, I couldn't tell a Nano from a Shuffle.
Big must was an interface that wasn't fiddly or tiny. If I have to take my eyes from the road for too long, I'll be in trouble. Big controls that I can stab at. Big pictures that I see without squinting.
iPod Touch with the big screen. OK. Look in at a couple of shops to check the price for the 16 gig model, funny enough they have the same price. JB has attendants ready to sell me one, MAC1 doesn't. I point to the model I want, ask a few questions about an in-car kit and plunk down my credit card.
My taxi is dead when I get back to it. I inadvertently left the roof light on - it's all but invisible during daylight, but in the night it's like a second set of headlights. But I'm on a main taxi route, and a minute or so with the bonnet up and a set of jumper leads in my hand, and I've got a helper. Once my cab is purring away sweetly, I give him $20 for his trouble - cabbies help each other out, but when times are as lean as they are at this time of year, pulling someone off the road for a few minutes is a big ask.
It took a bit of fiddling to get everything working. I have a USB socket in the cab, but the Touch needs a computer to begin working. The car cradle doesn't do anything more than charge it up until its activated, and there's an anxious half hour when I accidently destroy the power socket. More fiddling around behind the meter (which I discover is held on with velcro) to reconnect everything.
Apple has always had some of the best designers working for it, and they have done very well with this one. It is cool in every respect. The iPod itself is pretty "clean" in the feature set. All the hard work is done by the iTunes back end on the computer. Even setting up a playlist.
I've got hours of fun ahead of me. I've been loading up my CDs. Huge though 16 gig is, it's not space enough for all, so I've been picking the highlights. Meatloaf, For Sentimental Reasons, the Beatles, Chet Baker...
The car cradle is a neat bit of kit. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and has enough strength inside to hold the rest of the thing up. There's a gooseneck with a cradle and a swivel head. Different holders for different iPods, all neatly coded. the iPod is held very firmly. As well as supplying power, the interface takes the signal out, picks a vacant FM freq, and broadcasts it. I just tune to the number it picks and my iPod is an integral part of the sound system.
The "CoverFlow" interface is sheer genius. I just flip the cover images, double tap the one I want, and it plays. Cool.
I've made a bit of a pig of myself with the photo album feature. Perhaps my customers won't want to see pictures of my fluffy little co-driver touring the world, in front of Alcatraz, peeking out of AngelChild's cleavage etc.
Lean times for cabbies. No parliament and half the public service is out of town. Down the coast, most of them, enjoying the sun and surf. The other half are in the Dickson Motor Registry, where I went to get my licence renewed. I had to jump through a few hoops, like getting a medical and sending off for a new police check. I thought maybe they wouldn't give me my taxi endorsement before the police check came back, so I parked a few blocks away, but it was OK. Eventually.
Policy is that they don't give you back your old licence, but I conveniently lost mine. It expired on my birthday anyway, and I came in the first day after the hols. I wanted to keep it as a souvenir, showing my happy smile at passing all my cabbie tests. I conveniently found it again, it had been tucked away in my wallet all the time!
I've had the cab at my place, with my regular day driver off on holidays. I'm sure that the boss would like me to drive it about 18 hours a day, but that ain't happening. I do my regular shifts and a little extra, but I'm not going to run my fatigue level up to dangerous levels without good reason. Besides, it's slack time for cabbies, and every rank has about a million cabs waiting for a fare.
I waited on the main city rank for 45 minutes last week, gradually moving up to the front position. This young lady hops into my cab and says "I'm late for my shift! Knightsbridge Penthouse, and step on it!" All of two blocks away. I didn't even bother turning the meter on for her. Worth it for the smile, I guess, but the next day I staid home in the morning. It's not worth me getting out for four dollars fifty an hour. That barely pays for the gas I use idling on a rank. We have to keep the cab cool, you see, so we can't turn the engine off.
I ran into a kangaroo a couple of weeks back. Late at night, going exactly the limit past a speed camera, the bloody thing jumped out of the long grass and was in front of me before I could do anything much. I was able to move a bit to the side so it hit the headlight rather than square on, but really I only had half a second to react and act.
The left indicator was knocked out, there was a dent on the corner, and another on the passenger door, but really, I was very lucky. I have nightmares about roos going at full speed, up around windscreen height.
The roo wasn't so good. It gave a few twitches and that was it. Poor thing.
Kangaroos have no road sense at all. You can see foxes, bright-eyed, picking their moment, scampering straight across and running into the bush, but roos will do anything. Jump out into the road and stop, double back, run towards you. Anything. You'd think a century of being run over would have made the survivors road-aware, but no.
The car is still drivable, though I hate seeing my beautiful limousine so injured. The tail-lights go out at odd moments, like when I turn left, and I have to jiggle the controls to get them going again. The boss will call me in to the workshop in due course, I guess.
New Years Eve tonight. A long shift. A busy shift.
But there are times, when there are children in the cab, or the young folk ask for music that isn't elevator music or gay, that I wish I had a wider selection.
So on Friday arvo I parked in a loading zone on Bunda Street and dived into the Canberra Centre. First stop research, and a newsagent had an iPod magazine which listed the various models. Trust me, I couldn't tell a Nano from a Shuffle.
Big must was an interface that wasn't fiddly or tiny. If I have to take my eyes from the road for too long, I'll be in trouble. Big controls that I can stab at. Big pictures that I see without squinting.
iPod Touch with the big screen. OK. Look in at a couple of shops to check the price for the 16 gig model, funny enough they have the same price. JB has attendants ready to sell me one, MAC1 doesn't. I point to the model I want, ask a few questions about an in-car kit and plunk down my credit card.
My taxi is dead when I get back to it. I inadvertently left the roof light on - it's all but invisible during daylight, but in the night it's like a second set of headlights. But I'm on a main taxi route, and a minute or so with the bonnet up and a set of jumper leads in my hand, and I've got a helper. Once my cab is purring away sweetly, I give him $20 for his trouble - cabbies help each other out, but when times are as lean as they are at this time of year, pulling someone off the road for a few minutes is a big ask.
It took a bit of fiddling to get everything working. I have a USB socket in the cab, but the Touch needs a computer to begin working. The car cradle doesn't do anything more than charge it up until its activated, and there's an anxious half hour when I accidently destroy the power socket. More fiddling around behind the meter (which I discover is held on with velcro) to reconnect everything.
Apple has always had some of the best designers working for it, and they have done very well with this one. It is cool in every respect. The iPod itself is pretty "clean" in the feature set. All the hard work is done by the iTunes back end on the computer. Even setting up a playlist.
I've got hours of fun ahead of me. I've been loading up my CDs. Huge though 16 gig is, it's not space enough for all, so I've been picking the highlights. Meatloaf, For Sentimental Reasons, the Beatles, Chet Baker...
The car cradle is a neat bit of kit. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and has enough strength inside to hold the rest of the thing up. There's a gooseneck with a cradle and a swivel head. Different holders for different iPods, all neatly coded. the iPod is held very firmly. As well as supplying power, the interface takes the signal out, picks a vacant FM freq, and broadcasts it. I just tune to the number it picks and my iPod is an integral part of the sound system.
The "CoverFlow" interface is sheer genius. I just flip the cover images, double tap the one I want, and it plays. Cool.
I've made a bit of a pig of myself with the photo album feature. Perhaps my customers won't want to see pictures of my fluffy little co-driver touring the world, in front of Alcatraz, peeking out of AngelChild's cleavage etc.
Lean times for cabbies. No parliament and half the public service is out of town. Down the coast, most of them, enjoying the sun and surf. The other half are in the Dickson Motor Registry, where I went to get my licence renewed. I had to jump through a few hoops, like getting a medical and sending off for a new police check. I thought maybe they wouldn't give me my taxi endorsement before the police check came back, so I parked a few blocks away, but it was OK. Eventually.
Policy is that they don't give you back your old licence, but I conveniently lost mine. It expired on my birthday anyway, and I came in the first day after the hols. I wanted to keep it as a souvenir, showing my happy smile at passing all my cabbie tests. I conveniently found it again, it had been tucked away in my wallet all the time!
I've had the cab at my place, with my regular day driver off on holidays. I'm sure that the boss would like me to drive it about 18 hours a day, but that ain't happening. I do my regular shifts and a little extra, but I'm not going to run my fatigue level up to dangerous levels without good reason. Besides, it's slack time for cabbies, and every rank has about a million cabs waiting for a fare.
I waited on the main city rank for 45 minutes last week, gradually moving up to the front position. This young lady hops into my cab and says "I'm late for my shift! Knightsbridge Penthouse, and step on it!" All of two blocks away. I didn't even bother turning the meter on for her. Worth it for the smile, I guess, but the next day I staid home in the morning. It's not worth me getting out for four dollars fifty an hour. That barely pays for the gas I use idling on a rank. We have to keep the cab cool, you see, so we can't turn the engine off.
I ran into a kangaroo a couple of weeks back. Late at night, going exactly the limit past a speed camera, the bloody thing jumped out of the long grass and was in front of me before I could do anything much. I was able to move a bit to the side so it hit the headlight rather than square on, but really I only had half a second to react and act.
The left indicator was knocked out, there was a dent on the corner, and another on the passenger door, but really, I was very lucky. I have nightmares about roos going at full speed, up around windscreen height.
The roo wasn't so good. It gave a few twitches and that was it. Poor thing.
Kangaroos have no road sense at all. You can see foxes, bright-eyed, picking their moment, scampering straight across and running into the bush, but roos will do anything. Jump out into the road and stop, double back, run towards you. Anything. You'd think a century of being run over would have made the survivors road-aware, but no.
The car is still drivable, though I hate seeing my beautiful limousine so injured. The tail-lights go out at odd moments, like when I turn left, and I have to jiggle the controls to get them going again. The boss will call me in to the workshop in due course, I guess.
New Years Eve tonight. A long shift. A busy shift.
