This GeekGeek loves her TomTom.
Let me share a tidbit about myself: I have absolutely NO sense of direction. Well, I’m not totally lost. I can look at the sun and as long as it’s not within a few hours of noon, tell you what direction is what. (My dad was a leader in the Boy Scouts for years. He also accidentally taught me how to tie a hangman’s noose at age 8, but that’s another story.)
Either way, I had my big trip to Charlotte and had to get around town to various schools, apartment complexes, dinner engagements. Charlotte, by the way, was designed by drunken monkeys. You can drive straight for 5 miles and be on 5 different streets and you can make a right turn at an intersection and be on the same street you left… Thus, I thought, I should really get myself a GPS. It’s about time - and just think of all the gas money I’d save if I never got lost!!
My friend Derek chided me for getting a TomTom. “You should get a Garmin nüvi,” he said. “TomTom’s suck.” I told him that if he sent me the $80 difference, I’d gladly return the TomTom and buy a Garmin. He decided he’d let me keep the TomTom.
I powered it up and went through the tutorial. Easy enough. Not a huge selection of voices, but I found one that seemed like it would be the least irritating. I am tempted to plug into the internet and download the British voices. I’ve always been a sucker for accents!
I tested it out on a Saturday when I drove to the local dance hall. (Not club dancing, real dancing.) So far, so good.
Then it was off to make the 8 hour drive to my destination. Woot!
TomTom did a good job getting me places. Even when I messed up and missed a turn because I couldn’t change lanes (dumb traffic!), TomTom quietly recalculated my route and got me back on track. My only gripe is about the battery life. It only lasts a couple hours unplugged. My car, Xanadu*, has a broken cig lighter at the moment, so I couldn’t charge the TomTom while driving. I had to use the USB connection to my laptop when I was in my hotel.
Once I get the cig lighter fixed (*crossing fingers that it can be fixed or replaced cheaply!*), then TomTom and I will be inseparable!
* Not an Olivia Newton John reference, but a Samuel Taylor Coleridge reference. Guess the exterior and interior color of my car (and the connection to S.T.C.) and win my undying admiration of your literary geekiness.
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I can’t guess the colors, but, can I get an internet cookie for getting that you meant Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
I once bought an entire Coleridge anthology based on just those two lines. Based on this:
I’d say yellow or green out, white in?
Robartes is closest, but still no on the color
Think outside the poem for ideas.
I had a similar problem with my car (the cig lighter was non functional), and what I ended up doing was buy a cigarette lighter female connector, and directly wiring it to the battery, then just thread it into the cab. Cost about $4, and worked great. Only thing to keep in mind is that with that kind of set up, you can’t leave anything plugged in while the car isn’t running, or you’ll drain the battery.
This sounds like a DM’s D&D riddle. So do they get any fat loot for solving it?
Outside of the poem…
STC was a bit of an opium addict. Opium comes from poppy seeds, poppies are red. So, red?
STC was also a bit of a goth in his day (well, at least influence wise), so black?
Oh, I give up
Writing grad student, not an English grad student, so I won’t even guess.
But I love my GPS. I have one of the worst direction sense of anyone I know (including my family… it seems to have somehow skipped me genetically but my non-driving little brother always knows where to go.) I finally bought an attachment for my phone to use as a GPS, and it was a life-saver when going between cities in Florida a few months ago, and many times since.
The only problem is even with a splitter coming from my cigarette lighter, I can’t use it, my satellite radio, and my radar detector at the same time. Maybe I just have too many car gadgets
Robartes - you win!! It’s a red car with black interior
Wumpus - thanks for the idea! I might do that if we can’t get the lighter fixed.
Yes, Charlotte is indeed a design by mad monkeys. A lot of the old east coast towns are like that, though, especially in the south. It’s a leftover of when the roads in question were seperate dirt roads. Apparently the civic leaders didn’t want to upset anyone’s sensibilities as to which lane their family had always lived on when the roads in question were combined to make a modern street. Their rather hare-brained solution? Don’t change ANY of the names… just have each name cover its original stretch so that the families in question can keep their legacy. Which leads to your wierd-arse streets with five names over the course of as many miles.
Drives me frakkin’ nuts, too.
Drak, it wouldn’t be so bad if they’d publicize the # of the street. In Florida, I’m used to all of the streets having a # and a name. At least if the name changes, the # can be the same.
Always looked on Garmin as the cheaper brand and TomTom as the brand name in GPS. Bought a TomTom myself after checking out a few others that either weren’t very clear or seemed like a poor imitation.
Having had the TomTom for a while I think it could be better although I did buy one at the cheaper end of the range. It’s the interface that bugs me, it doesn’t seem intuitive enough for someone who is driving so I always make sure it is setup before I set off. Oh it also tried to send me across a field once at night which I did not appreciate.
I keep mine muted so the voices aren’t that important to me but I was tempted to buy the John Cleese voice. Oh and you are quite right about the battery, it lasts barely a few hours.