Remember The Awesomeness Of Small? This was a “stealth” MINI advertising campaign with strange encrypted adverts in magazines, a “spy package” ending with a gift Toggle Switch re-label kit, and a reward medallion.

It turns out that some new MINI owners are still receiving the decoder kits, but of course can no longer find the adverts needed to decode them … so I scanned at high resolution and uploaded the advert which needs the Magic Window Decryptor (right-click here to download it) … if you print this at 300dpi (7.583″x10.43″), you can then use the decrpyor successfully to send you to a certain website about Citizens for Fair Insect Treatment (have your cars VIN # ready, and turn off pop-up blockers!)

I also uploaded a 300dpi scan of the advert for which the Super-Secret Decoder is needed (again, print at 300dpi = 7.533″x9.48″)

I suppose the ViewMaster itself is normal (except for the added on logo), but the image disc is surely unusual, featuring MINIs in unusual locations across America … to my surprise, scanning it was successful:

(click for higher resolution)

I was also surprised to be able to take an image through the ViewMaster:

“… or to Coltsville, Massachusetts, where there’s a shipwreck in a parking lot …” - since this is in my home state, I really should go and visit (oh, but Google says it’s gone from MA)

Other images:
The world’s largest fire hydrant in Beaumont, TX
The world’s largest covered wagon in Milford, NE
A drive-through donut in La Puente, CA
The world’s largest kaleidoscope in Mt Tremper, NY

Places to visit during MTTS’10?!

Also note the display differences - both iPhones are set to the same brightness …

Of course, most of the links will go to (this) current GBMINI.net, but if you manually go to the old weblog you see the last post about the first MCSa at MINI of Peabody - this was back when I was driving Indi Blue GBMINI#2, before GBMINI#3 was ordered and of course way before my current MINIs were built!
It’s funny to see this data still sitting in 1and1’s servers, when I now only use them for domain registration … I wonder if I could use the storage there?!

Still, one app - Pandora - is mind-blowing incredible! You create a (free - for now?) account, and tell Pandora one or more music artists you like (I started with Electric Light Orchestra, Genesis, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton), then you let it play.
It’s cool enough on a PC/Mac, playing music from artists you specify and others that it thinks you’ll like (and so far in an hour, I’ve thumb-down’ed just one track) … but installed on the iPhone, it’s just EXCELLENT:

I shut down WiFi on my iPhone, and it happily streamed music using AT&T EDGE … great sound through the iPhone speakers!
I plan to hook it up via AUX input in the car tomorrow, and see how it handles playing during my journey to work (very unfair, since AT&T is basically awful in Essex) … if it works, it makes me wonder why I’d still pay $13/month for Sirius, when I could pay $36/year for Pandora …

The only disappointment (imposed by Apple) is that it doesn’t keep playing when you switch to a different app

UPDATE: I’m not the only one that thinks this

Read more over at the New York Times Wheels blog

… My father … is a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan and I am a New York Yankee lover … every year we go to a Red Sox/Yankees game and have a great time …