:: human are less than dolphin when it come to music ::

“When was the last time you just close your eyes and really listen to the music?” Jeremy Clarkson once wrote in his Sunday column. Now-a-day, it doesn’t matter if we are driving boring commute, or busy cranking at the office, we have can access to our music collection in many ways at anytime. Subconsciously, our favorite tunes have become background music for the task on hands.

In the past, music used to be luxury, you either know how to play it yourself, or you go to see someone play at a venue. As soon as the first recording machine created, music could than be reproduced; live music event become something for occasion.

In daily bases, music has becomes ambient noise; it is no longer pleasurable. Dolphin might be the only mammal that pleasure for sex; very soon, the only living organisms that will enjoy music are our household pets. Because while we are busy browsing the web, doing dishes, our pets just lay back and chill along the tunes we put on.

That was why I had decided to spend 2 hours on this lovely summer afternoon to take my time and enjoy some of my favorite tracks over all these years. It took an hour to compose a track list of eighteen, with most of the track being 320 kilobits per second, burnt them on a high-sensitive “red coated” CD-R at 4x write speed.

Afterward, I migrated to my living room where my Yamaha digital receiver, and Pioneer analogue amp, resides along with its 5.1 surround sound speakers. Dropped my freshly brewed demo disc onto a disc player tray that it was connected via optical cable to the amp unit.

The disc started playing and I spent the last few moment to switch the Yamaha to the SCH Stereo profile; beyond this point, all I did was to relax on a dark brown leather couch with eyes lightly shut, and let the rhythmic sound flood the dwelling. No iPhone,, no MacPro space heater, no exhilarating exhaust G35 node, just music and music only.

I did not even sing along like my usual self-driving within the isolated confine; every spectrum, every detail, of the audio track came to fruition. Like a well-engineered automobile, it communicated with you. It told you every bump on the road; it warned you as the tire begin to lose traction.

A song, at its purist listening pleasure, does exactly that. With eyes closed, you pick up notes once never aware; the variation of instruments separate, collide, and layer on top of each other; vocal unfolds like silk slipping from bare skin.

Of course, I cannot afford to just sit and listen to music all day, I have other mission I must accomplish; like this blog. But I can tell you, I never listening to music when I write, mainly because I find it distracting to listen to another voice while I am jogging my own down, more importantly, I am saving the pleasure of music for an occasion that is plain monotonous, calm and task-free, a moment when music deserve its audience.

shift smart, S-Smart

Gas prices continue to go up, but people can never stop driving in the deep-south backcountry of America. However, for the first time being in a long drive for three weeks, I realized something has changed.
As I drove on the interstate going toward Charlotte this afternoon during early rush-hour traffic (4:00 p.m.-ish), the driving momentum on the open road was fairly different. Through out my one hour thirty minutes drive, there wasn’t loads of traffic, but everybody remained at a constant pace of 62 mph. I wasn’t only talking about those old people whose would not be driving nor those idiots talking on their cell phone and eating t-bone stakes at the same time; the whole damn motorway was moving at a speed of 62 mph. Sure, the speed limit is 65 mph and 55 mph, but in this part of the interstates, it really translated to be 75 mph and 70 mph.
Usually I would be annoyed and start to find passing opportunities within traffic, but somehow, I slow down today; I was moving at the same pace as everybody else, 62 mph. With my calculation, I was actually rather surprise by the mpg when I arrived in Charlotte; with no A/C, I only burned 3 gallons of fuel in a 90% highway and 10% city driving condition. That was 26.6 mpg in an Infiniti G35 Coupe, which is… a lot.
So, I had to do a few things in town, had a lovely yet massive dinner with my friends, had a nice walk a long the water’s edge of an artificial pound, then it was time to drive the same trip in reverse.
The traffic out of the city was moderate, and yes, everybody was still driving at about 62 mph. Not to long after, however, the traffic really seems to clear up; there was nothing, except the empty interstate, a cool summer evening and my G35 Coupe. So I decided to bring the challenge up a notch, pushing the vigorous V6 to 68 mph.. Beyond any expectation, the range of my vehicle actually slightly increased. As time accumulated, the fuel gauges dropped so slow that I almost forgot I was driving a proper 280 horsepower V6 power-panzer.
At the end of the trip, I calculated my mpg; despite the extra weight from my massive dinner, my G35 Coupe managed to pull of an astonishing 30 mpg, and that was with about 50% of the drive time going at 68 mpg. That is totally exceeded the factory mpg assumption.
Maybe Top Gear top tips suggested at a 53 mph is the optimum speed for most vehicle, and yes you have to shift smart, S-smart; but ultimately, if you are driving a car that have decent mechanical engineering (in this case the VQ35 has better than decent engineering) and a very though out aero design, driving slow does not necessary to mean saving fuel. Of course, I cannot blast down the highway at 120 mph to shoot for a better gas mileage, but by modifying your driving style slightly do makes the biggest saving for petroleum shopping.
This is a good way to end a day, really, not only having a superb driving experience at a very chill summer night with windows down, but it also proved a 280 hp powerhouse does not necessary mean its need more fuel to be feed. And this simply concluded my next automobile shopping analysis; I don’t have to fall for the Smart Car nor Prius, as long as I can drive smart, I can save fuel in a CLS 600 with no problem.