Linkmeister@25: Would that also give you PDA functionality, or does that take a second imp?
Brooks Moses @ 41: This is one of the areas where the analogy between "copyright violation" and "theft" is least useful. In the world of physical printing, if you have not committed a copyright violation then no one comes after the volumes you've innocently purchased.
On our last trip to southern France (mentioned earlier in this same thread) we rented a car with a navigation system. Two memories stuck with us:A third navigation memory from that trip was really a vocabulary lesson. We started our trip in Lyon, where I learned that my restaurant French isn't nearly as good as I though it was. In Lyon we learned that the word bouchon* refers to a small restaurant. Once we got on the motorways, though, we started seeing electronic signs warning us of upcoming bouchons. It was hard to imagine any restaurant bad enough that it would get an electronic warning posted on the motorway, but we were in France after all...
- We didn't get a choice of voices, but we did get a choice of languages, each of which came with a distinct female voice. The English was very crisp and almost schoolmarmish. The French was much softer -- seductive by comparison. All place names were in the French voice, however, so we constantly heard an alternation between the two: "You are now approaching...Carcassonne..." We kept intending to try the German, but never did.
- For the most part the directions worked, although they did have a tendency to prefer going through every village center rather than the motorways. Once, though, they clearly disagreed with the road signs for whatever site we were aiming for. The first time through we followed the road signs, which were correct. The second time we were in that area we had a "what the heck" moment and decided to see where the GPS would have taken us. The answer, after a series of increasingly narrow and twisty roads was: straight into someone's vineyard. Not even onto a trail through a vineyard, but pointing straight at a row of vines. We were, at least, pointed in the direction of the site. I still wonder whether there used to be a road through there or not.
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* literally, "cork", I believe.
Carcassonne is fun, but the one time I was there I kept having my perspective jump around between the original structure, the reconstructed/re-engineered sections, and the general theme-park surroundings. It was a little dizzying.
(Of course the shops sold the game Carcassonne. I was a little surprised that they missed the marketing opportunity to have a special "really purchased at Carcassonne" edition produced.)
Our favorite site during our visit to the area a couple of years ago was Peyrepertuse. It's a beautiful (ruin of a) Cathar castle, and in surprisingly good shape all things considered -- probably because it's a pain to get to, on a steep pinnacle, so less tempting for people to mine for ready-cut stone. A lot of the defensive features are still very clear, and we had a ball wandering around the different levels of the structure.
Peyrepertuse is a bit further south than Carcassonne -- whether a lot or a little brings us back to the earlier discussions of distance. According to Google, it's about 150km on the A roads, or 85km as the crow staggers from town to town on local roads.
Elise @ 173: I walked in to find all 70 copies of Heinlein's JOB face-out in Business and Careers.
A friend's only response to this story was, "A chain bookstore had 70 copies of Heinlein's JOB? Wow!"
Daniel @17: One corollary is that when you have guests who don't drink a lot, do warn them about the fruit. I've known people to make the "I'll just have some of the fruit" mistake.
On white wine-based sangria analogues (safe enough?): one good use for cheap non-oaky white wine is to mix with equal amounts of guarana (Brazilian soda based on fruit of the same name) and add brandy-soaked fruit. Extra sugar isn't necessary in this case; and it makes a good punch without the brandy too, for that matter.
My strongest sangria memory is on the prep side, not the drinking side. We threw a party at which we served (among other things) a rich lentil soup and sangria, and proceeded to go through a large amount of indifferently-stored red wine: each bottle we opened was immediately sampled and classified into one of "drink straight", "sangria", "soup", or "drain", and disposed of appropriately.
To add to all the useful references with a completely useless but entertaining one: http://xkcd.com/574/
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