Electric Josh

After seeing several of these things while commuting lately I decided to check out the actual mileage specs on the Toyota Prius. We rented one of these things when we were in California last month and found it to feel bigger inside than the big station wagon we own that burns 2.5x more fuel. The Prius would have been $2,000 cheaper, not counting another couple thousand dollars in tax breaks for having a snazzy Car of the Future, and had at least as much power as our Subaru. So check this out. We got exactly what mileage the EPA said we would get out of the thing, which is 51 highway and 60 city (yes, it is supposed to, and does, get better mileage when it creeps along in traffic than flying down the highway). It has an 11.9 gallon gas tank. That means that the damn thing goes between 600 and 700 miles on one tank of gas. My slow, trafficky, 11.5-mile commute means that I would be able to drive to work and back about 30 times per tank. Try to wrap your head around that. Assuming weekend travel equivalent to driving to work and back each day—not an unreasonable assumption—that means filling the gas tank once a month.
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In what's probably the best use of Flash I've ever seen, the Times has a super cool electoral map to explore, the highlight of which is the ability to switch back and forth between an electoral map, in which the states are sized proportionally to the number of electors they send to the electoral college, and a normal geographic map. The animation back and forth is really pretty neat.
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I categorically deny telling Lib that she needed to trim her hair. (I don't deny that she needed to—I just don't remember saying so. Alas.)
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