This 2/3 scale version of Jaguar’s 1955 “long nose” D-Type will be featured in Bonhams’ Goodwood Revival Collectors’ Sports Cars, Motor Cars and Automobilia auction on September 17.

A four stroke 110cc ohv petrol engine and four speed automatic gearbox drive the “Junior”, which boasts an all-aluminium chassis.

Bonhams price estimate is around CDN$17,500.

After officially taking early retirement in January, I found that my life began to lack structure. In a move designed to get me out of bed in the morning and to earn a fluid income - gas and oil for Grace and various tasty brews for me (coffee, that is) - I’ve taken on a new career.

Following a great deal of classroom and on-road training, I passed by B class driving test last week, and soon will be found manoeuvering a 40 foot school bus and occupants around town.

It’s surprising how small the road becomes when you shift from a car to a school bus - especially when making turns!

I test drove my route this morning and was only cut off once - by a lady in a black Mitsubishi Lancer (BJFM 673) who dived in front of me from the right lane to beat a couple of cars only to hold me up half a block later when she decidided to make a right turn and stopped in the left lane with her turn signal on until traffic cleared in the lane she’d recently abandoned. Idiot!

Warning to drivers in Owen Sound: I do take notes and I will out you, so please drive carefully near a school bus in case it’s mine!

I was finally convinced by the promised 8½ hours life of the 9-cell battery of the MSI Wind U-123, and the very reasonable price of $309.97 at Tiger Direct. The red cover is a bonus!

This is my first post using the wee beastie - and the last one using the Windows 7 Starter Edition operating system that came pre-installed - I’ll be installing Linux (Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04) tomorrow.

The MSI Wind U123-025US Netbook features:

• Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz processor and 1GB of Memory
• 10.2-inch diagonal widescreen display with 1024 x 600 maximum resolution
• Intel GMA 950 Graphics Solution
• 160GB Hard Drive, integrated media card reader, 802.11b/g/n wireless

Engadget has a post today entitled My So-Called Laptop that features pictures and memories from Engadget staffers of their first laptop computers.

I guess that most of them are just children, because my 1982 MAI Basic Four S/10 “laptop” (really, a “portable”) appears to be the oldest. Of course, I started off in the mid-sixties, programming punched card sorters with patch cables, so I have a different perspective.

The S/10 was Z80 based, running BB/M or CP/M. There were two double-sided, MFM encoded, 96 track-per-inch, 622K 5.25″ floppy drives, with 64k RAM and a terminal screen with optional display of 24 or 28 lines of 80 or 132 characters. It was bought with my first cheque as a freelancer, and I first used it to write an Equipment Maintenance & Activity Costing system for a municipality. Oh, it cost $6,000 in 1982 dollars!

Read the full story on Grey Brits. ]]> http://www.alanbrand.com/?feed=rss2&p=415 http://www.alanbrand.com/?p=414 http://www.alanbrand.com/?p=414#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:13:06 +0000 admin http://www.alanbrand.com/?p=414   Today is St. George’s Day, and I have celebrated by starting my day with a Full English Breakfast … I shall finish it by drinking one or two cans of Lahn Pri’ aka Fullers London Pride ale.

The BBC does a much better job by giving a little background and talking about the Great Revival of St. George on their website.

Or you could got to http://www.stgeorgesday.com/ and read more than you probably want to about England’s patron saint. ]]> http://www.alanbrand.com/?feed=rss2&p=414 http://www.alanbrand.com/?p=409 http://www.alanbrand.com/?p=409#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:48:48 +0000 admin http://www.alanbrand.com/?p=409

Hold the cheese is one thing, hold the anus is another -AsianMartin has found some interesting new items on the McDonald’s menu in Atlanta. I’ll not ask a tasteless question, butt I’d rather go hungry, thank you.

It’s been years since I played chess, and I’ve always preferred the traditional Staunton chess pieces (shown below) as I found the often fanciful collecter sets to be a distraction. This set, from the Oregon Culinary Institute, may just have changed my mind. Thanks to GeekDaddy at Wired for blogging about it.

Autocar reports that Spyker’s Peking-to-Paris luxury SUV is back on track after first appearing at the Geneva Motor Show four years ago.

CEO Victor Muller said that development would now be accelerated due to due to the facilities, parts and technology it has at its disposal following the Saab deal with GM.

At an expected price over a quarter of a million dollars, it’s more than a bit out of my league, but it sure would help with the Owen Sound Winter Blues!