Lunch With George!

February 20, 2003 - El Pollo Loco

Agenda

• RX-8 Is Here
• Pedal Power
• More on XM Satellite Radio
• George is a literary genius!
• Show and Tell

The Return of the Wankel

George received a sales brochure from Mazda offering him a chance to pre-buy a new

The new RX edition sports a twin-rotor Wankel rotary engine (like all its predecessors), but has a very different appearance. George and I agree that it is not a very inspiring design, and that is seems to borrow style elements from other existing sports cars. The most amazing thing to George was the price: It is significantly cheaper than what his RX-7 sold for many years ago, yet it provides comparable features and performance.

Is the U.S. ready for another addition to an already crowded market segment? Perhaps Mazda can cash in on all the loyal current and former RX-7 owners who are looking to set the odometer back to zero. Time will tell!

Pedal Power

A

The people of the village of Ban Phon Kham have lived without electricity or telephones for years, but soon many of them will be pedaling their way onto the information superhighway.

Lee Thorn, a Vietnam war veteran from San Francisco, is taking used computers, large batteries, bicycles from India, generators, and WiFi (i.e., IEEE 802.11b) technology to connect the villages to a dial-up Internet connection at a nearby hospital. One minute of pedaling yields five minutes of surfing!

More on XM Satellite Radio

George noted that Andrew Tobias referred to a Walter S. Mossberg "Personal Technology" column in the Wall Street Journal. The topic? XM Radio (We discussed XM Radio back on

Now, Mossberg says there's a tuner that finally matches XM's great channels: The Delphi XM SkyFi Radio. For around $200, you get a palm-sized receiver which works in the car or at home. It has a large easy-to-read display, and intuitive controls. For more info, checkout Walter's article in the WSJ Archive.

George is a Literary Genius!

Here are the lyrics:

Riot on the streets, the touch beneath the sheets
It's only gonna make me love you more
The cops they got the guns, the night destroys the sun
It's only gonna make me love you more

This old world, well, it was mine to take
Faith can keep you warm, but I'll teach you how to shake
And I'll come to you like a little girl
It's only gonna make me love you more

Moonlight on the beach, sweet amphetamines
It's only gonna make you love me more
Bottles and the cans, the idiots go dance
It's only gonna make me love you more

This old world, well, it was mine to take
Faith can keep you warm, but I'll teach you how to shake
And I'll come to you like a little girl
It's only gonna make me love you more

They say love is hell,
But I've only been laughin' ever since I fell
It's only gonna make me love you more
The lord will have his way but I'm just a call away
It's only gonna make you love me more

This old world, well, it was mine to take
Faith can keep you warm, but I'll teach you how to shake
And I'll come to you like a little girl
It's only gonna make me love you more

Show and Tell

Leash Beeper

It was a big show-and-tell day for George. He brought along three goodies to show me.

Million-dollar Idea

George has often built prototypes of great inventions he has created. One of them was a device to help his Golden retrievers learn not to pull on the leash-- a "leash beeper". The leash is threaded through the device, and if sufficient pressure is put on the leash, it will depress a switch causing the device to emit a loud beep. It turned out to not work very reliably (aparently the leash was not able to move freely enough through the slots in the beeper), and since then commercial version have appeared on the market from other inventors. *Sigh*.

Hot Nuts

George is into spicy nuts, and he brought along two varieties. An interesting choice are the Wasabi Hot Nuts. they are tasty, and don't seem to be "hot" until you've downed a few. George really likes them, but they're also not that easy to find. In a pinch, you could try Planter's Seasoned HEAT nuts in the $.50 pack.

The Best Maple Syrup