That’s my car. Whoa. I’ve been a Google Earth fan for a while now, but thought I would check out Microsoft’s Live Local bird’s-eye view. Much to my surprise I found my MINI, parked in its spot in front of my office.

I also found my neighbor stealing my newspaper. So, lesson is, be careful what you do in public from now on. Someone will see you.

(Oh, and PS: I didn’t really catch my neighbor stealing my paper. It was actually me in the picture doing the stealing.)

As some of you may recall, I suffered from a hideous crime wave of senseless egging. My car suffered the most. If you don’t recall, you can relive all the pain here. Well, the culprits have revealed themselves. 

I left my phone charger at my parents’ house over the weekend, so asked to leave my phone to charge at my neighbors’ apartment yesterday.I figured they’d get up to something. I didn’t, however, expect to find the above image as my phone’s background when I retrieved it some 2 hours later. Mean, mean, mean. Funny, though. Of course, my lovely neighbors are not the ones responsible for the egging atrocities, but they certainly had a laugh making fun of me. Touché.

Word on the street is that there’s going to be more readily available E85 in town. And, it’s cheaper than gas. Double whammy – save the planet and your pennies. Olson Bros. Tire Factory is set to launch their ethanol pump next Wednesday, pegging their initial promo price at $.20 below the average 87 octane price in Portland. After the launch, the price will still stay $.10 under the average. You can’t loose!

Oh wait, not everyone wins, though. You have to have a so-called FFV (flexible-fuel vehicle) to load it up with all that sweet corn goodness. Turns out most cars won’t run on E85. After hours of exhaustive (car pun) research, MINIs don’t appear to make the grade. Shucks (corn pun).

So, as you may recall, there was a bit of an incident recently relating to my little MINI. Well, it’s all good and fixed. Just look at this beautiful photo. After about two weeks of separation anxiety, I got to go down to the body-shop and be reunited. In case you forgot the sheer ugliness of the smash-up, the original photo is after the jump.

Elliott is a happy boy again.

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Frightening. But, these things are built to handle any kind of impact. Still, wouldn’t have wanted to be in that car.

• photos courtesy of mini2.com

The good folks over at mini2.com have posted tantalising shots of the new new MINI (dubbed the MkII, in keeping with old Mini tradition). The blue ones are the Cooper S’s, and the red ones are the standard Coopers. The drive train is courtesy of Peugeot (vs. the current Chrysler setup), and the major difference is that the S’s are going to have turbochargers instead of superchargers…perhaps not as desirable. Also, that demotes the bonnet scoop to being purely stylistic. But, both engines should get about a 5hp boost.

Most of the redesign is subtle, but you can see the changes in the front end, back end and interiors pretty well. More luscious photos after the old jumparoo.

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This photo makes me cringe. I can't even tell you how painful it is to see any mini in distress, let along my own. This horribly graphic photo is a result of a wee accident yesterday. I was driving home from work on I-405. Traffic was normal – not too heavy. Going about 40mph, I glanced over my right shoulder to merge, and at that precise moment the driver in front of me slammed on his brakes. I caught it, but not in time. I swerved and braked, but not enough. The car in front was a beautiful early 70's Mercedes 280 SEL. The only problem with that is their bumpers are more like razors – about 2 inches tall and a few inches deep. When I hit his back end, it just sliced through my bonnet (I am contractually obligated under the owner's code to refer to the "hood" this way). The damnedest thing was that he didn't even suffer a scratch. So, now I get to go looking for a new bonnet and a new bumper. Ideas anyone?

UPDATE

I found the place to take my car, and it's not going to be all that bad. My insurance won't go up, and they can have it fixed molto pronto. So, all's well.

Someone egged my car again. I swear to god, if anyone sees these punk-ass kids doing this, shoot them for me. I will gladly take the heat. The last time, it got egged twice in one day, destroying the paint on my roof. This time they got my driver door. Fortunately, I got it washed before any permanent damage was done, but I’d still kill the rats if I knew who they were. Eggs are for eating, Minis are for loving, and the little maggoty bastards who did this are for roping to the rafters of an abandoned warehouse to be left and forgotten about.

Yesterday my super secret box showed up in the mail from Mini. Now, I can’t tell you what’s in it, but I can tell you that it relates to a small series of cryptic ads running in a few publications this summer. The first ad was out in a New Yorker a few weeks back.

I still don’t know what it all means, but I do know this: It’s advertising at it’s finest. Keeping Mini owners happy is essential, true, but it’s also killer at perpetuating the mystique of Mini ownership. We don’t hesitate to tell people about this life-altering mode of transportation, and Crispin Porter + Bogusky (the original New Mini Cooper ad agency) created that vibe ingeniously and meticulously. Crispin actually walked away from Mini about a year ago when VW came along offering more money. Notice, everyone’s been talking about the new VW marketing, and it’s because it’s the same brains that created the Mini revolution. So, well done Crispin.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the ads to put the pieces together. I’d tell you what I learn, but then I’d have to kill you and bodies don’t fit too easily in my trunk.

PS For any of you ex-adteamers out there (circa Yahoo!), you’ll notice this black box in the mail sent to a select group of people has a certain ring of familiarity to it. (That just brought back memories of brandishing a whoopee cushion in front of a panel of judges and a crowd of a few hundred…ah Boise. Good times.)