Minis Motorcycles and Chipstands

The Big Apple – revisited

kraigar — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:52:20 +0000

This family day weekend I had occasion to cruise down the 401 and drop into The Big Apple restaurant. You may have seen it on the south side of the 401 near Colborne.

The restaurant is really a small pie and cake factory, but it also makes French fries, which qualifies it for this site. I was however, there for the apple pie. I have previously tried the traditional apple pie, and it was quite uninteresting, but this time we tried the caramel apple pie, which has a crumble topping, it’s quite tasty you should check it out.

I took a look at the fries and poutine offerings, while I didn’t try them they didn’t look appealing, and certainly weren’t up to chip stand quality. I think I’ll stick to their apple products.

Civic Hybrid Owner Wins Small Claims Court Battle Against Honda, Awarded $9867 (via MOTOR TREND iPhone App)

kraigar — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:41:47 +0000

Here is an interesting article about the power of small claims court. This story is about a Honda owner who’s hybrid didn’t provide anywhere close to the advertised fuel economy. The owner went to court and won the case. Of course Honda will appeal. Kind of makes me happy I have a plain old gas powered car.

Civic Hybrid Owner Wins Small Claims Court Battle Against Honda, Awarded $9867

Is this bike stolen?

kraigar — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:35:15 +0000

What a great find as spring approaches.

Do you live in Toronto? If you are have your eye on a used bicycle, you can check out the stolen bicycle registry at

http://isthisbikestolen.com/

Recall- Mini recalling certain Cooper S and JCW models over water pump

kraigar — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:06:36 +0000

It seems that Mini is recalling turbo charged Coopers over a potential water pump failures and a fire hazard.

Check out: ” Mini recalling certain Cooper S and JCW models over water pump”- http://www.autoblog.com/2012/01/16/mini-recalling-certain-cooper-s-and-jcw-models-over-water-pump/

Article- Volkswagen Beetle and Mini Cooper – Motor Trend – Mobile

kraigar — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:43:49 +0000

I’ve often wondered if then current crop of tiny cars was worth looking at. So it seems, Motortrend felt the same way. Motortrend has gathered together a group of nifty little hatchbacks and put them though a battery of tests. They looked at tiny cars from Scion, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Mini. At the top landed the ye olde Mini Cooper.

Check out the comparison
http://m.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/1202_mini_cooper_vs_scion_tc_vs_honda_crz_vs_volkswagen_beetle_vs_hyundai_veloster_vs_fiat_500_comparison/volkswagen_beetle_mini_cooper.html

Hank’s fries

kraigar — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:23:40 +0000

On the way into, or out of, the town of Smiths Falls you will find a chip truck known as Hank’s Fries.
Open year round you are met with a pleasant and rather chatty fellow who makes a pretty decent poutine.

Using proper curds and the magic “poutine gravy” you end up with a yummy delicious helping of heart attack in a bowl.
My only reservation is that the fries are a smidgen too thick and the result is an imperfect fry texture, but it still tastes pretty darn good.

Article :The Electric Ride: MINI E #217 Road Test | Adventures in a Solar-Powered, 90-mile Daily Commute

kraigar — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:56:54 +0000

There’s much chatter about electric cars these days. The ongoing question come down toe the concept that people should be willing to pay a signifincant premuim over a gas powered car for the privilege of using battery power. Personally, I’m not sold on the idea. I figure that power has got to come from somewhere, and in an age where cities are experiencing browouts and a huge push for electricity conservation, it seem wrong to put more strain on the grid. Making more electricity requires some sort of new generating capability, and it seems no one wants to add that capacity because it will be in their own yard.

Windmills apparently cause all manner of hardship, from dead birds to headaches and lowered land value (especially when you put a sign that says as much on your lawn). Nuclear, however safe it is on a daily basis, can apparently cause spontaneous mutations and ruin a city for years on the event of an accident. Hydro electric requires dams and turbines and water, which can’t be good for fish. All that’s really left is burning of fossil fuels if I want to use “non-poluting electricity”. And with an electric car, I would pay a significant premium for the priviledge.

Frankly, I prefer to have a gas powered machine, that will get me anywhere I need to go, whenever I need to go. Check the link to see a real world experience in an electric version of the lovable MINI.

The Electric Ride: MINI E #217 Road Test | Adventures in a Solar-Powered, 90-mile Daily Commute

Article: Smart Car Is World’s Smallest Food Truck

kraigar — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:26:20 +0000

Cool street eat’s idea. Still, I doubt you could get a decent poutine here.

Smart Car Is World’s Smallest Food Truck
http://www.odditycentral.com/news/world%E2%80%99s-smallest-food-truck.html

Older Hidden Gems

kraigar — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:42:21 +0000

I was looking through my library and found a few pictures worth sharing. I hope you enjoy them

Ford Sync powered by Microsoft

kraigar — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:46:03 +0000

Lately I have been plagued by my clock insisting that the time was an hour and 17 minutes off, and the calendar insisting it was January 2010. Any attempts to change the time were met with instant reverting to the wrong time. Some message board research led me to the conclusion that I should pull the battery cable to purge the memory. It seems that even though I didn’t buy navigation, the car knows where it is and talks to some satellite from time to time. Very interesting and sneaky Mr. Mullaly.

So apparently myfordsync is riddled with bug, Ford once again admitted this today and announced they will be issuing an update via USB to customers. Well, This evening I decided to take a chance and pull down then latest version from then syncmyride website. The process is quite straightforward.
The site loads a series of files onto a USB key and instructs you to take it to your car. “Installation is automatic” just plug the drive into your USB port and it installs automatically. Installation may take 4 to 45 minutes. Hmmm.

And so off I went to the car and followed instruction. Plug in. Turn on car. The radio started, no indication of installation.
5 minutes later I came back, nothing happened.
Turn off car, turn on. No automated install. I wasn’t exactly shocked.

I figured it needed some help, so I went to the install applications feature and prompted it.

The key was detected and the car then took about 20 minutes to extract the files from the and then everything went blank.

The next order of business was to install the service pack – as a longtime Windows user, I am very familiar with ye olde service pack. You can’t have a properly running operating system without a service pack after all.

After about 40 minutes total, the system came back up.

My first thought are that the fonts are bigger. And the system feel somewhat more responsive. In had to re pair my phone, but otherwise all seems to be ok. Seems to be a worthwhile exercise after all. Just hope that the clock doesn’t get screwed up again.