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Here’s why I call shenanigans and call this snakeoil:

First, it makes no sense. Unless they are not telling us something, or in other words are misrepresenting the device, the power just isn’t out there to do what they claim. Charging a battery, means putting power in. POWER. Measured in watts. Feel the charger on most battery-operated devices. It gets warm. It’s doing a lot of work, putting a lot of power into the batteries. It’s just not there in thin air. If it was, we’d all be getting cooked like food in your microwave, which incidentally, works in the same range of frequencies.

They choose wi-fi as their source of power. Why? How do they restrict the power going into it out of thin air to just that coming from wi-fi? You can’t. Cordless phones, microwave ovens, wireless security cameras, dozens of other things all use the same frequencies. Does this use them all? If it does, why not just say so? If it doesn’t, why be so selective? Isn’t my cordless phone’s power good enough? My microwave certainly produces more power… They’re not telling us something here and just using the term wi-fi as a buzz word. Most people don’t really understand how wi-fi works, so it’s kind of magical. They capitalize on that.

And why use microwave spectrum at all? Certainly, there is a huge amount of electromagnetic energy around us all the time. Why not harness the power of all those AM, FM and TV transmitters? What about leakage from our 60Hz power system? All those are potentially much larger sources of energy than wi-fi hotspots.

But the real alarm bell is the use of the RCA name. Most people don’t realize RCA (Broadcating, RCA Victor, etc.) ceased to exist in the late 80’s. The name is held by Thompson SA, a French company and licensed to various people. RCA Records is really part of Sony, for example. This is just some little start-up buying credibility by licensing the RCA name. I’m not buying it any more than I’m buying a RCA TV anymore.

Supporting links:

Engadget

Oh Gizmo!

Boing-boing

Popsci.com

RCA in Wikipedia

I found some interesting ones in this year’s batch:

They’ve updated the little slogans for the modern day. They’re catering to the smart cell-phone crowd, apparently. The first heart in the photo says “CALL ME.” Okay, that’s probably not so new.

The second and third say “TEXT ME.” Now, that’s definitely very 2000’s.

The third one, though, just proves the end of civilization is near and we’ve just gone too far. It says “TWEET ME.” Go figure. Candy that Twitters…

The vehicle I bought is an Isuzu Ascender, which almost nobody has even heard of. I hadn’t. Isuzu doesn’t even sell vehicles in the U.S. anymore. So why would I take a chance on a lame-duck used vehicle?

Simple. It’s just a rebranded Chevy Trailblazer/GMC Envoy. If you don’t look at the badging on the truck, you’d swear it was an Envoy. Inside, it’s almost identical to the 2003 Envoy I had and the trim details on the outside, that I think are “different,” I’m not so sure they’re not just due to the 2005 model year as much as the different name.

Some minor details – again just as likely to be model year variations, or not – no OnStar. Boo Hoo. I didn’t want it anyway and never used it in the old Envoy. It would have been expensive to update anyway, as it was the old analog cellular system. And there is a weird ignition interlock that you need to use to start the truck. You can’t just turn the key. I’m not going to give it away, because it’s kind of a neat security feature, but even the dealer had never heard of it before.

My wife bought a Jeep Liberty last week. We decided we needed another vehicle NOW, rather than keep using the rental we had picked up the day after the accident. I looked at a couple of Trailblazer/Envoy replacements, but didn’t really find quite what I was looking for. But she saw the Liberty and liked it. I have to admit, I like it too. It’s a bit smaller than the Envoy was, and I really like having a roomy vehicle these days, but it will get her to and from work in the wilds of Northern Niagara County no matter how nasty the weather gets. I like not having to worry about that too.

We only got one key and remote with the Liberty. We found out that it’s a high-security key with some kind of chip in it that needs to be programmed. you can’t just cut a new blank and go. A locksmith can do it, but they have to have both keys to make another. With one key you have to go to a dealer. So I stopped at the local Jeep dealer to get the key made. It cost $100. I bought another remote online for $30. The dealer took the vehicle information and a recall notice popped up. Guess, what, we got free lower ball joints. All I had to do was wait an hour and a half.

So, I killed time by looking at used cars. That’s how I found the Ascender.

So, we are now at three cars. Plus Albert’s, that makes four in the driveway. I don’t know if they will fit. But it will be nice to have my own vehicle and be able to go where I want when I want again.

I went skiing last Thursday and on the way home, I had a mishap. I can’t explain it, just all of a sudden, the truck was spinning and hit the snowbank, not nose-first, not back-first, but full on sideways and flipped over. It caught the running board in the snow and rolled, ending up sitting on the driver side in someone’s side yard.

No one was hurt. No other vehicles were involved and no property – other than mine – was damaged.

I’d never been in a rollover crash before. I was leaning against the driver door window with the seatbelt still holding me in the seat wondering what to do next. I wasn’t confused, nor did I lose consciousness, but I just needed to assess the situation and figure out the best course of action to a situation I hadn’t encountered before. Once I had decided that the vehicle wasn’t about to burst into flames or explode imminently, I decided to get out. I suppose that would have been the same decision, had the truck been in flames, but I had time to decide how to do it elegantly. I turned off the ignition and was annoyed that the radio kept playing. It does that. The Envoy doesn’t turn off the radio until you actually open the door.

Opening the driver door was out of the question, the truck was sitting on it. So I decided to go up, to the passenger side. I released the seatbelt and immediately fell into a heap on the door. I got up and stood up. The door was still what seemed like far away. I decided to see if the window would roll down. I then realized that to operate the window, I had to turn the ignition back on. I could reach the button for the window and it went down a bit sluggishly. Somehow I found a foothold and managed to climb up and out and sat on the side of the truck before jumping down to the ground.

The first thing I saw was a guy with a mountain bike on the shoulder of the road talking on a cell phone. He asked if I was all right and if anyone else was in “there.” He was reporting the mishap to the police.

I won’t drag out the whole story any further other than explain eventually, thanks to the help of the guy on the bike, a NY State Corrections Officer, two Erie County Sheriffs Deputies, the driver of the Tow truck who was on the way home and came upon the scene and his other driver who brought the second truck needed to flip the truck back upright, I had a long ride home with the Envoy on a flatbed.

Since I climbed out the window without opening the door, the radio kept playing, as if to taunt me, until they had flipped the truck back onto it’s wheels and we could get back inside…

I didn’t realize how bad the damage was at first. I could have had it towed to someplace local, rather than spend $120 to bring it back to Lockport, if I had known it was a total loss. When the appraiser called to give me the bad news (which I already knew from the body shop anyway) we had already bought a new vehicle.

We’ve been struggling with two vehicles shared between three drivers for quite a while. Inertia and a shortage of parking space in the driveway had kept us from buying another vehicle. We got through the weekend with a rental car, which the insurance company will pay for slightly over half, so much for “rental coverage.” But we found a vehicle that Bobbi liked at the right price and took it home. She’s now the owner of a blue Jeep Liberty.

Once I get the check for the insurance and get the bank loan paid off on the Envoy, I’ll get another vehicle. We almost bought two at once, but I’m glad I waited to see roughly what the insurance will cover. I should be able to replace the Envoy with another similar model and upgrade by a few model years at the same time.

We were really sad to lose this car. It was like brand-new condition when we bought it. Sure, they clean up a used vehicle when you buy it, but this one was extra clean. The mileage was low too, and I chose it over one that was a year newer because of that. We’d kept it in good condition as well, with the biggest blemish before this having been the Bird-damage episode, which we had repaired.