Finally beat a video game

This may take a while to explain. I promised sometime ago that explaining a Honda would come. Well, thanks for waiting, here it is. About a year or so ago when the price of gasoline went above a four dollars a gallon, I got this idea. You see, I have this 80-mile commute five days a week and that gets pretty expensive at $4.35 a gallon even in my Vue that got up to 27 mpg. So, I thought i need a good commuter car but i also need something tough for banging around Alaska, towing trailers and handling heavy snow. There are no compromise vehicles for this sort of thing, although the Vue handled the trailer just fine, even with three snowmachines on it and all our gear. So, why not buy two. Get a good high-mileage car for the commute and a used pickup or Jeep or something for the fun stuff. Shortly after that a Toyota dealer here came up with a deal where you could lease a pickup and a high mileage car for about $550 a month, so i wasn't that far off base. It kind of confirmed for me i was on the right track. But I sat on that idea for about a year and then one day I had some time in Anchorage and was passing the Honda dealer. Honda had risen in my estimation after a conversation with a friend. We wondered, given that we loved our Honda four-wheelers (mine is 15 years old and going strong), their generators, snowblowers, pumps -- everything they make is strong and reliable and lasts, even though it is often a little more expensive. And my friend chimed in with just about all the cars at Indianapolis are Honda powered. So, why don't we ever think of their cars? All that came to mind was a '72 rusted out Civic. Well, with these parallel thoughts festering in my mind, like i said, there was the free time and a Honda dealer right there. I wandered in just to look and before I left I had bought a 2010 Honda Insight hybrid and a 98 Jeep Wrangler. Ever try to drive two cars home from a dealer? It can happen.

Now, the technology on this hybrid is amazing. And there are so many gauges and readouts to look at I almost drove off the road a couple of times. I still haven't figured out the radio although i did get it play a Zip drive from the USB port. While you are driving it tells you your immediate mileage and your average over the course of your trip. It does a lot of other things too, but i have been boring people with too much information lately so I will forego that part. However included in all those readouts is a video game. As you drive, the car scores the efficiency of your driving. It measures things like speeding up too fast, slowing down too fast, steady driving, use of the air conditioning, all kinds of things that affect your efficiency. The digital speedometer is backlighted -- green if you are doing well, blue-green if you are stretching it and bright blue if you are very inefficient like when you speed up to pass. In the readout you are scored by the number of plants and leaves and flowers you accumulate. In the first level there are five plants each with two leaves. In the second the plants can score four leaves and in the third it is four leaves and a flower. When you finish each level, the display shows a kind of medallion trophy. Tonight when i got home and looked at my score --- I HAD BEATEN THE FINAL THIRD LEVEL. The medallion in the picture is my trophy and the other picture is the score displayed ... all the bottom bars filled and all four leaves and a flower on each plant. This is a milestone. At the tender age of 67 I have finally beaten a video game. And, in the process, I have passed gas stations 497 times as i rack up 50 mpg or more every day on my commute. PLUS: The Jeep is sooooooo much fun. Yet to be seen is how this little car handles winter cold and snow.