New car time!

 So, for the obligatories... yes, Russia is still fucking around in Ukraine, and continuing to find out, more than 400 days later.  Getting no traction there, they've gone and arrested a U.S. journalist on spying charges... obviously, I can't say they're wrong, but their past history makes them highly suspect.  Also, this falls under the category of "somebody being somewhere dangerous and knowing the likely consequences", so here's hoping the Russian regime doesn't get the leverage they so obviously desire, this time around.

Right, that out of the way, the big change here is that the Bolt EV came in!  I've spent a fair bit of time familiarizing myself with all the extra features it has, compared to by decidedly bare-bones Yaris of yesteryear, and I've got to say, I could get used to this (which, since most of this stuff is standard on pretty much any new vehicle nowadays, I guess I can let happen).  Setting aside all the ooh and aah of, well, any time you get a new car, here's the bits that I've picked up on that aren't all that:

• Single-pedal drive mode - honestly, this is likely to be more of a "needing to get familiar with it" sort of thing, but, with as strong as the regenerative braking can be on this car, the jerkiness of it all gives me strong "remember when you were learning to drive stick shift?" vibes.
• Storage - one thing I always loved about my Yaris was the copious storage scattered throughout the interior, especially up front, where there were multiple "glove box" enclosures in the dash, cup-holders for driver and passenger near the windows, plus another in the center along with some open-air storage options both in the center and in each of the doors.  In the Bolt, it's one glove box, a pair of cup-holders in the center island, a "storage bucket" under an arm rest, and some smaller open-air storage in the doors.  The downside of all the new tech and controls is the loss of places to put things.
• Steering wheel - another "gotta get used to it" item, the steering wheel feels... small.  How much of that is the actual size, and how much of that is controls embedded in and around the wheel, that I'm not sure.
• Internal rear-view mirror - this piece and its surrounds, I get why they are the way they are, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  There's two main issues I have so far, first being that the mirror is small, for all its field of view covers the back window fully.  The second issue is that it mounts into a sensor suite for all the techno-wizardry the car supports, which takes up windshield space directly behind the mirror - so, if you have something that needs to hang from the mirror, like a parking pass, good luck getting that to be visible.

However, setting aside those petty grumbles, make no mistake, I'm actually liking the Bolt quite a lot.  Once I've adjusted to the new normal of charging up instead of gassing up, I should be quite happy with it for years to come (assuming, as always, nothing changes drastically due to, say, an over-the-air update of the car's systems or something like that).

Beyond the new-car thing, I did find one more thing to add to my Steam Deck that might be of interest - Tiny Civilization (Compatibility: Unrated). I like Civilization-style games, but they tend to be massive time-sinks, so I'm always on the lookout for Civ-like things that don't take much time.  Tiny Civilization is probably as good an embodiment of that concept as I can imagine, using match-3 mechanics to cover much of what makes a Civ game.  I could say it's been pared down too far, in some respects, but, for the style of game, the choices made in what to keep and what to simplify or eliminate just make sense.  For $2, I'd recommend it to almost anyone to try out.