David Gessel
Rental Car Review Lancia Ypsilon
Rental Car Review: Lancia Ypsilon
The Lancia Ypsilon is a surprisingly spry little car. It’s a typical Euro rental, a very compact little car with a manual transmission and a tiny diesel engine. But this little guy has a very turbo charged little mill that is quite zippy, even with four people in the car, very important in Italy where two lane mountain roads are shared by powerful BMWs, funny little farm three-wheelers, tractors, and large lorries.
The car is entirely functional in every important way: it is quiet, it is zippy, it holds four people comfortably, it actually holds some luggage. The lack of a trunk of any sort means you can’t store anything in the car when parked though.
We got the rental while taking a language class in Lucca – we picked it up in Florence and had no trouble driving it along the A11. We used it all week to commute between Pieve di Cerreto, where it made fine time up and down the hill, and Lucca. We had no trouble passing. We met a few couples in class and took them out in the back of the car, even a full-size Australian couple who fit just fine.
- Quiet – Fairly quiet for a small car.
- Comfortable – I didn’t try the back seats, but the fronts seats are fine, except for having the wheel well where your left foot should go.
- Basic amenities – Power everything, but no outside temperature reading. I like knowing the outside temp.
- Stereo – not bad for a single speaker solution.
- Security – no trunk, can’t leave anything in the car.
Sunbeam in Venice
We visited the Santa Maria della Salute in Venice early in the morning and a beam of light from the window was illuminating the statue.
Please help stop the Pro-IP act
A relative of mine was once worked in government. For years we’d argue about whether government was really for the people or simply an instrument of corporate interests. He always took the side that government was for the people and that while special interests had excessive clout, government was made by people who genuinely wanted to make the world a better place and fulfill the mandate of our constitution.
Then came the Sonny Bono copyright act, an act that made no concession what so ever to either the Constitution (Copyright is a limited monopoly offered for the sole purpose of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts and is not, and never was a “property right”) nor to the public good (entirely selling out the public interest for private gain). He lost confidence in government and now works as a lobbyist.
As disheartening as the fundamentally unconstitutional direction copyright law has taken in recent years in order to prop up a largely unnecessary publishing and distribution business, a model that has been obviated by the technology of the internet, it takes a far more sinister turn with the Pro-IP act.
This act does more than merely turn the government into a strong-arm profit enforcement agency for the entertainment industry as recent bills such as Sonny Bono, NET, and the DMCA have done by criminalizing what is fundamentally a civil complaint, it creates a Stazi-like federal enforcement agency with the power to seize property in a way that seems on it’s face to violate the 5th amendment.
The irony of violating the spirit and letter of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 by creating a false property right that retards the progress of science and the useful arts and enforcing that false property right by violating everyone’s Fifth Amendment right to real property is extraordinary.
I cannot help but imagine entertainment industry lobbyists falling out of their chairs laughing and snorking their champagne.
Retarded in Canada
Why is Canada Retarded? My flights from Toronto are often retarded. Now I find that in Motreal there’s a whole store for Couch Tards. What up with that? What up with the politically incorrect language?
Bonus Plane
Our flight from ORD to DEN was cancelled. They let us know we could fly tomorrow on a ORD-LAX-OAK flight and get in either on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning or something. I probably could have made my OAK-YYZ flight… But we got lucky – on flight 11 originally from JFK to SFO somebody’s leg exploded, clots or something; apparently there was blood everywhere so they had to land. Then they couldn’t clean all the blood up so they had to find another airplane. For reasons we don’t understand this plane is now going to DEN. Instead of arriving in SFO at 2:30 they’ll be getting in around midnight.
Our 747
Our 747 relected in the glass of the gates at FRA.
Heading Home
After a lovely visit to Italy, Austria, and Germany. The upstairs of a 747 feels like a private plane but with more comfortable toilets, a bigger kitchen, and a bunch of boring old men (as a rule).
Vienna Austrian air club
Not a bad club, stylish and quiet but the liquor selection isn’t very good (limited, mostly well-drinks) though it is free and there’s food.
There is good free wifi with no hassle (not even a log-in screen, so you can use it with a skype phone).
Vienna Purple Escalator Lights
You know you fly too much when…
… at check in your friend Laura gives you a big hug because you haven’t seen her for a few weeks. Then you talk about your travel plans with Cedric at security who’s the coolest DHS employee there is. Then you’re glad to see the purser is Elisabeth who asks where you were last week and you compare flight schedules to figure out the next flight you’ll be on together. Then you get on the connecting flight and the purser is Lou Ann and who is really surprised you didn’t get upgraded and brings you some treats in economy. Then you get to customs and line up with one of the agents you know (but Canadian customs agents don’t tell you their names or have name tags, just numbers)….
United has some good employees. All it really takes to be taken care of is if, when things go wrong, you’re not a total dick.
My best travel advice, this from someone who’s flown about 1.5 million miles, is simple: don’t be a dick. When things go wrong, and something will most of the time, just be pleasant and patient and figure out your best option on your own and you’ll almost certainly get it because you’re helping while everyone else is being a dick with attitude.
And really, what’s to like about a dick with attitude?