What are you listening to?
“Air America.”
What are the listening options for that?
“Stream over the web or download.”
What else do you enjoy listening to?
“I love straight news reporting shows, like Democracy now, a daily show that comes on Pacific Radio Network – they’ve got a website. Their station is four blocks from the World Trade Center, and they continued to broadcast during the whole 9/11 thing.”
Do you have a car?
“Yes.”
What kind?
A red Jeep Wrangler from 1998.
Where did you get it?
“I think it came from Kraft Motor Car in Gainesville. It just showed up one day.”
For you to drive?
“Yes, they (parents) got it for me while I was still in rehab.”
Do you like it?
“Well, I never really wanted a Jeep in the first place. I’d rather have a Jetta or something with better gas mileage.”
Why a Jetta?
“It’s a nice car – safe, not too big, it handles well, gets good gas mileage, and doesn’t seem to fall apart.”
Did you know someone with a Jetta?
“My girlfriend Janine in South Florida. She’s now a professional dominatrix in the New York City area. She’s got a website called The Den of Iniquity.”
What other cars have you driven?
“A diesel Mercedes from 1972, 240E -- the swamp monster – it had an extra gear on it from the previous owner, and it spewed out smoke when it was stopped at the light. Sometimes when I was stopped in traffic in front of a convertible I’d press on the gas to ‘smoke them out.’ But diesel fumes are better for the environment than regular invisible gas fumes. I’ve driven four or five diesel Mercedes that my parents owned. I think most cars are just too flimsy.”
What do you do in your car?
“Drive around, listen to radio, run errands, smoke cigarettes. On an average day, I guess I spend about an hour in the car.”
Do you like being in the car?
“Yeah, when it’s not too hot out, especially since the air doesn’t work.”
If you have five or six hundred dollars to spend on the car, would you spend it on fixing the air conditioning?
“No, I think I’d get a sub-woofer for the back.”
So if you had some money to spend on your Jeep, in what order would you fix or upgrade things?
“The first thing I’d do is put in a good stereo system and a sub-woofer, then bigger wheels that look cool – not puny wheels. I feel inferior when I see another Jeep with bigger wheels in traffic. I’m just kidding.”
What about if you got a new Jetta?
“I’d want an mp3 player, more speakers, maybe nice wheels. I like the mp3 player I have – a JVC discplayer. I wish you could use plug-in flash memory cards in the mp3 player.”
Do you want a portable one or one built-into the car?
“I have an iPod, and I don’t use it, so probably built-into the car. Walking around with headphones disconnects you from the world.”
How is your music organized at home? What does your music collection look like?
“I have four thousand vinyl records. I bought most of them at stores, and I use them for mix tapes when I’m deejaying. I don’t sit around listening to records at home.”
Do you buy CDs?
“I’ll buy independent music at the CD store. I don’t believe in paying for downloads. Usually I buy CDs, copy them, and sell the originals. I download them to my mp3 player. I store music in the computer or on DVDs. I prefer to make compilations of my own.”
Would you like to access your music collection from home?
“No, I’ll just burn something or buy a CD.”
Do you listen to music in the car?
“Not anymore. I mostly listen to talk radio. I’d like more.”
Would you be interested in satellite radio?
“I don’t really feel like paying for satellite radio at this point in my life. I don’t spend enough time in the car.”
What music have you listened to in the past week?
“A 1999 album that I purchased for a car trip last week; I got it at the store. I would like to have access to music controls on the steering wheel.”
Would you want to adjust the stereo system for each song or have it all set up the way you like it – bass, treble, etc. – when you drive off?
“I’m an amateur audio engineer --- actually, I would probably start the car and drive off without thinking about it, and then I’d adjust the sound.. I don’t want to adjust for each song.”
Would you like GPS?
“Yes, and I want the heads-up display that bounces off the windshield.”
Verbal directions?
“When I want them, and I want to turn it off when I want them off. I don’t like that lady’s voice, the one you get when you call the bank for your balance. They need to fix the voice.”
Where would you like things positioned on the dashboard?
“The middle is fine.”
What about cell phone usage in the car? Do you have a cell phone? Do you use it in the car? Do you have a handsfree set?
“I’d like a handsfree set built into the car.”
Would you like it to have its own display built into the car?
“It’s not necessary.”
Do you like taking calls in the car?
“Sometimes. I don’t really like driving and making or answering calls. I don’t always want to answer the phone.”
What if the radio or stereo automatically muted when a call came in, and a voice announced who was calling?
“That would be great.”
How do you want your dashboard set up? Dials? Digital?
“I prefer dials, but I might want to reconfigure the standard dashboard.”
Steering wheels? Gear shift?
“I don’t really have any preference on steering wheels. I’ve never really given much thought to the steering wheel or the gear shift.”
Would you like internet access in the car?
“I would like to be able to download stuff like movies, music for home use, while driving. Sometimes I would like to drive on campus to finish downloading a file. I’m not interested in email from the car dash. I would be interested in an online directory of businesses – stores, restaurants, movies – but ONLY if it is not advertising pushed on me. That is, I don’t want the listings by advertisers. Reviews need to be trustworthy. Advertiser influence would cause me to drop the service. There can be ads present though…they just shouldn’t affect the content. For instance, if I look for restaurant listings, I want to look for restaurant listings. I don’t want restaurant ads pushed to me without my asking for it.”
What about designing the car for your deejay jobs?
“I always wanted to be able to put turntables in my car so that the passenger could deejay while I drive. I know this couldn’t be technically done, but it would be cool. On that note, I like elongated trunk space so that I can fit DJ equipment in it.”
Would you like to have one car for road driving and one for around-town driving, or do you want one car for both?
“I’d like two cars, but more one for “normal” use and one for “special” use. I’d get the Jetta for normal use but a sports car for special use. A two-seater convertible.”
On which car would you spend more money?
“The daily use car.”
Would you want people to watch movies in the car?
“I don’t want to watch movies if I’m driving, and I wouldn’t’ really want the front-seat passenger to watch movies while I drove. That would be really rude. I don’t mind having it in the back seat, though.”
Do you want passengers to have access to music and GPS controls?
“It would be useful for passengers to have access to both, but I still believe that the general rule is, driver is king.”
What do you hate about car trips?
“Nausea, and they’re boring. And you can’t read, because you get carsick. My brother and I sometimes played Legos on the seat.”
Were your parents up front?
“Usually there was only one parent on a car trip, since the other was busy, so sometimes we rotated around. The only person who never sat in the back was Dad.”
Did you fight in the car with your brother?
“No.”
Did you ever take a long car trip with the whole family?
“We went on a long trip to Texas. It took Dad three days to pack the car. Everyone took turns in the back except Dad. We listened to music that was kid-and parent-friendly.”
Handheld games? Walkman?
“Sometimes I had a Walkman, but no handheld games. The whole family talked.”
Were you cramped at all?
“Yes.”
Would you be willing to purchase a van or SUV someday to keep your family happy on long car trips?
“Yes, either would be fine, with backseat conversion, recliner seats that swivel around.”
DVD players, monitors in back for kids, with or without headphones?
“I think it’s really bad to put kids in front of the TV, but I guess it’s utilitarian, so maybe I’d want it. But I think I’d want one parent to watch the movie with the children so that we could talk about it in the car after it was over.”
Video games?
“Multiplayer games where everyone but the driver could play would have been cool.”
Did you ever try books on tape?
“Yes, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – after about six hours I went crazy. I might pay for a download of one of these things sometime, but I wouldn’t ever buy a physical one again.”
Once you get a permanent job, what would be your spending priorities for different areas of your life?
“I’d a house and stuff for it first, then a stereo system for the house, new speakers for the house, maybe some particular computer item I needed, records, CDs, food. It would depend what I felt I needed. I’d buy a car if mine were broken, but not until then.”
Would you buy a car with everything you wanted installed upfront, or would you buy a car and install things over time?
“I’d buy a basic Jetta and add things over time.”
“Would you like media features that you could switch in and out of different cars?”
“As the victim of three stereo thefts, no, I want something solidly built into the car. Maybe a portable GPS would be useful, but I’d rather just have one built in the car. It would be more important to have that in the car I used for road trips than in the one I drove around town. And the stereo doesn’t really matter for road trip cars – I’d be fine with whatever was in it.”
(Subject asked to make the following statement several hours after the initial interview):
"I hate bulky cheap plastic consoles like in police cars – they are unnecessary and ridiculous. You see them in American cars like Fords. It affects the perception of legroom, and I’ve heard that other people hate these consoles too. From outside the Jeep looks small, but it has more interior space than most cars.”
Would you make a significant commute for a job you liked?
“I would probably commute an hour or more for work, if it was worth it.”
Would you change priorities for your car preferences?
“Gas mileage would still be the most important priority, no matter what car I was in.”
Why?
“Economic and environmental reasons.”
Would you buy a hybrid?
“Yes.”