3 years ago (when i lived in LA), my car was broken into. now, the same car was broken into in boston.
generally, i am very minimalistic -- or at least i like to think i am. i don't have much interest in material goods, other than my camera and a few lenses. for example, my cell phone is a
$30 bestbuy phone w/ no camera, i don't buy expensive clothes, i only have 10 tv channels and an old-school tube television, and even my new computer was only $480. well, i guess all of this could simply suggests that i'm cheap, haha. well, i have the money to splurge on each of these categories, i just don't think it's worth it and don't care to, so i don't.
well, 10 years ago, while in high school, i was addicted to nice car audio, and it was my materialistic lust. (btw, i was into SQ, not SPL -- aka, sound quality, not loudness). i had a really nice sound system in my old lovely, ghetto '88 honda accord. it was probably worth more than the car. when i moved out to california for grad school, i bought my current non-special car. on my birthday, my parents shipped me
1 of my 2 old huge speakers, so i once again had a decent sound system. however, it was quickly stolen 2 months later. oh well, no biggie. i kind of out-grew the lust for high-quality car sound, just it was a nice treat.
during last christmas, i was home and noticed the
other remaining old huge speakers sitting in my closet. so, i brought it back with me to boston. it made my 1.2 hour daily commute more enjoyable. however, 2 months later, i go deaf in left ear, so i can't listen to the sound system anymore. that's fine though, as i'm grateful for at least getting one last taste of high-quality sound while i still had hearing in both ears.
the system was pointlessly living in my occasionally-driven car until last night. someone broke the rear triangular window and stole the amp, my cheap after-market cd player, and my gps charger (i keep the gps in my apartment for this very situation). but what about the speaker?
well, several months ago, my trunk release cable broke. there's no way to open the trunk. the box enclosure for the speaker is so large that you can't pull it out from the trunk through the backseats, haha. the robbers were faced with this very dilemma. here they are presented with a $300 speaker, with a perfect hand-made box from my dad (who does wood working for a living), yet they can't take it out because it's 1/2 inch too big to slide out, haha. oh, plus it weighs 53 pounds, literally.
so what do they do? yep, stab it to death with a screwdriver -- clearly, the natural choice. how pathetic and weird of a choice, right? they couldn't have it, so they didn't want me to have it. what type of mentality is this? my friend mark compared it to setting one's car on fire if they couldn't steal it.
when it was broken into in LA, my car was parked in the apartment's key-access-required parking garage. here in boston, my car is parked in the most expensive neighborhood, and i'm sure my car is the crappiest of the nearby cars. so, i'm not sure what more i can do to make this not happen again. maybe if i just leave it w/o a cd player, or if i get a cassette player :-)
i don't drive too often; just on weekends for errands and occasionally road trips. in fact, i used to drive to work, but 2 months ago i started taking public transportation to work. so, i now do street parking and rent out my parking spot for $325/month. my having to replace the car window only adds to my considering selling the car and using a zipcar instead. there's a zipcar post just 1 street over from me.
Q: has anyone ever had their car broken into? or, has anyone used a zipcar before?
the death of my 10-yr old speaker.
