Hopelessly Addicted

There are some things in life that I feel I just cannott live without. One of them is coffee and the other is my car. But in recent years it seems that fast or large cars are the new smoking. My sister, who used to smoke and stopped in the 90s by the way, used to be all about the flash-glam sports car of the moment and now she drives a Smartcar. I am, however, not so easily moved by the winds of change. I don't have a complex about needing a really big engine like most American men my age, but I am addicted to a swift, well-engineered, refined and responsive performance car. Literally, it must perform in all areas well or I don't like it, and generally this makes it bad for the environment. The Prius, the Smartcar these are not options for me. I'm not saying they are not absolute technical and engineering marvels, but they don't handle.
I'm a consumer and it makes me feel better when I'm told my coffee is fair trade and is packaged in recycled paper, but I could just make it at home if I were more organized and didn't have to spend so much time in the car. So when I get myself together and start getting up early enough to make my own coffee and use my own washable cup before getting on a commuter train in the near future I'm sure I will still want a car. Which in this day and age is like saying, "oh I gave up smoking, but I'll have one on the weekend every now and again." That's why I'm glad there are companies like BMW that are working on giving me an alternative to fuel my dirty habit. I am especially fond of BMWs because I've owned several, and let me just say some very nice people drive BMWs. BMW has been working with hydrogen as an alternative fuel for as long as I can remember and have refined the technology to a system they say is production ready. They use a conventional combustion engine that runs on liquid hydrogen and emits nothing but water. The only problem is with the production of hydrogen. The same with the electric car, of which BMW has developed the very limited production Mini E, where does the electricity come from. Ethanol, biodiesel all the alternatives are problematic, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years in this arena. Cars make people crazy. They make people homocidal, cause them to get divorced, get hidden in times of war, they can be incredibly evocative and historically significant pieces of art, a time-capsule, a manifestation of the drive of a culture or a source of national pride.