Automobeautiful

lamborghini

Growing up in the 70’s I, like a lot of other boys, had a fascination with the Lamborghini Countach.

As an object of beauty, a Lamborghini poster or picture of some sort would have adorned the bedroom walls of many boys, alongside perhaps a poster of Farrah Fawcett (or in my case Genevieve Bujold). Unfortunately for me, I had to make do with mental imagery since my dad would not have tolerated anything this exotic on his walls, unless it was the Periodic Table or something similarly academic.

Through the years since, and even before the 70’s, many exotic cars have been produced which have excited the hearts and minds of boys and men, young and old. I cannot say for certain if it affected the female of the species as much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. Powerful engines encased in sensual curved and angled sheets of metal was for the most part a guy thing. Not any more though, and all the better for it too.

Is the Lamborghini still one of the most beautiful and desirable cars in the world? Perhaps for some, but this fascination with automobiles is hardly objective. Our tastes change with years and new offerings constantly being put out by the manufacturers.

Personally for a very long time Aston Martin (various different models) had replaced Lamborghini as the most beautiful car in the world. The one other car that I thought, and still think as stunningly beautiful, is the Duesenberg Model J.

But now something else has come along that has knocked my socks off. If beauty had a name, it would be Maserati Alfieri. It is still only a concept car, but I wish like crazy that it goes into production.

Maserati Source

Beautiful Black Dream Machine

I placed my order today for this beautiful, black, behemoth of a dream machine inspired by the F-117 stealth bomber. It’s wiped out my bank balance, and probably consigned me to being as tight-fisted as Scrooge for the coming months, but it’s worth every penny. Really!

What am I rambling on about? No it’s not the latest sports car from Lamborghini (I’m an Aston Martin kinda guy, anyway) ; it’s the latest extreme gaming notebook (laptop, to you South Africans) from ASUS. You didn’t figure me for a gamer, did you? Well, you’re right; I don’t have the requisite skills, or inclination for such a, err pastime. I’ve opted for this model because of its processing power and HD graphics card which will come in handy for HD video editing, which is a more, err worthy pastime.

I did look at a custom-built Alienware machine, but the prices made my eyes water. The specification on this beauty (the ASUS G73JW is the latest release in the G73-series that is available to South Africa) is comparable, and at a lower price; not that much lower, but so-so:

  • Intel Core i7 Quad Processor i7-740QM (6Mb cache, 1.73GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz
  • 8192MB DDR3-1066MHz SO-Dimm Memory (4 x 2048MB)
  • 1 TB (2 x 500GB) SATA HDD 7200rpm (Hard Disk Drive)
  • 17.3″ Full HD LED display (1920 x 1080)
  • Blu-ray ROM/DVD Multi Writer optical drive
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics processor with 1.5 GB GDDR5 dedicated memory
  • 2.0 MP built-in webcam
  • All the other bells and whistles such as Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, backlit keyboard, microphone and headphone ports, 3 x USB 2.0 and 1 x USB 3.0 ports and 1 x HDMI port
  • Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
  • 2-year collect and return Warranty

I have opted to fork out the fairly hefty additional cost to replace the standard boot-up HDD (500GB) with a Corsair 256GB SSD (Solid State Drive), which ASUS-SA will do for me, before shipping. All of this makes the beast weight in at around 3.85 kilograms, so lugging it around is going to be somewhat painful. Fortunately, the cool-looking ROG (Republic of Gamers) back-pack they’re throwing in, should make this task a little more bearable, for when it is absolutely necessary to take this baby along for the ride.

As you can imagine, I can’t wait to get my hands on this beaut and caress that lovely back-lit keyboard with those oh-so-spaciously-placed keys, gigantic touch-pad and rubbery black finish. Just two more weeks, and this baby will be all mine…