I’m not in the same bucket at Raymond.  He doesn’t like driving a manual and doesn’t care to improve his ability at doing so.  However, when I bought my car I had a choice between the faster dual-clutch race transmission that Audi calls ”S-Tronic,” (which can work like an automatic or be controlled via paddle on the steering wheel) and a regular old-fashioned stick shift with a clutch pedal.

I chose the stick.  It’s what I was used to from my previous car, and it makes me feel more in control of the vehicle.  It wasn’t a simple choice, because the S-Tronic isn’t a regular automatic.  It’s lightning fast, way faster than I ever could be.  But ultimately I decided against it because I didn’t like having control and information taken away from me.  With an automatic I can’t just disengage the clutch and let the car roll forward or backward.  And with the paddle-shift option, I can’t easily tell which gear I’m in unless I look at the dash.  With a stick, I know just by feeling.

Taking that away would be like taking my debugger, my command line, or some other source of control or detailed input which I’ve come to rely on.  If you’re going to do that, you better offer something awfully compelling in return.

Of course, I’ve known this since I moved here.  And you probably know it if you read this blog.  But it’s nice to more public acknowledgement of the problem.

I don’t really have complaints about the service.  But since I no longer have the car that had the XM radio built in, it didn’t make much sense to pay for it any longer.  The new car has Sirius, although I’m not yet sure if I’ll bother signing up considering how little I used the XM radio in the last one.

They made a quick attempt to sell me a new radio at a discount, which is perfectly fine.  But they weren’t insistent, and seemed quite understanding of my situation when I mentioned why I was cancelling.  They take calls on Sunday, and I spoke to a real person with hardly a 30-second wait.

So even though I’m no longer a subscriber, XM and I are on good terms in my book.

If anything makes me trade in my A3 in the next year or two, this would probably be it:

Audi A5 / S5 details

It’s almost unreal how unlucky my car has been since moving out here.  However, if this is life’s way of balancing out all the other amazing things in my life, I think I’m making out pretty well in this bargain.

Now whining about this isn’t really going to make things better.  So instead, I’m going to post some guidelines that I think every Seattle area driver should really take to heart.

• Somewhere on your steering wheel, usually on the left-hand side, you’ll find a lever.  Moving this lever up or down will enable something called a “turn signal” or an “indicator.”  But those are really just fancy words for “flashy light on the side of your car.”  If you push up, the light on the right hand side will blink.  If you push down, the left one will.
• Using the “signal” mentioned above, you can actually tell other drivers what you’re thinking.  Like, “Hey, that’s my exit coming up.  I really need to get to that lane over there.”
• If you’re thinking, “Brandon, I know what turn signal is.  But why would I use it if I don’t see anybody in that lane?”  The answer here is quite simple:  Your use of the turn signal will provide extremely valuable information to the person you didn’t see.
• You turn signal doesn’t do any good if you only use it after you’re already halfway into your destination lane.
• If you see another car with a blinking light on the side of it, that does not mean you should:
       A)  Dash from behind him, into the lane he’s trying to get into. 
       B)  Close the gap that you left while you were accidentally not tailgating the person in front of you, because the worst thing you could possibly do would be to permit someone else to get where they’re going, you asshole.

Study hard, because next week there will be quiz!

Seriously, they have the best Ad agency in the business.