It’s pretty rare a vehicle leaves me completely flustered days after I’ve driven it, but the Lexus LFA did just that. Essentially, it’s a test bed for Toyota’s future products, but the price ($375,000) and somewhat lackluster performance (0-60 in 3.7 is nothing to sneeze at, but in this day and age…) means it doesn’t fit snuggly into a specific supercar segment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for warping traditional ideas of performance and value, but writing the review required me to step back and look at the larger picture before delving into the details. Not entire unconventional, but something different. Another reason why this has to be one of the greatest gigs in the world. If you want to read the finished product of a seven-hour marathon writing session, click these oddly colored words.

So here I am, on a Tuesday night, with my thumb up my ass watching every English language buff book in the world (plus one online only pub) release their first drives of the Lexus LF-A. Completely. Fucking. Shameless.

When is this shit going to stop? When is the paradigm finally going to shift? When are the world’s automakers going to realize that simply because you don’t put out a dead tree edition – months after the news breaks – you somehow don’t need advance access to a vehicle? More to the point: every single automotive outlet has a web presence. Everyone wants – no, needs – to be first. So how does that warrant nearly three weeks of advanced time to research, write and process photos? It doesn’t. And they’ve got video! Video?!

Obviously, Lexus set an embargo for initial driving impressions to lift just as the Tokyo show was in full swing. Maximum exposure and maximum saturation. Smart. So why is it that one of the largest online auto news outlets was left out? Money? Doubtful. Prestige? Maybe, but that’s debatable. Cronyism? Am I getting warmer? I don’t know, but I plan to find out when I touch down in Miami tomorrow afternoon and get a chance to talk to Toyota’s PR team.

This continues to be patently ridiculous and inexcusable in the New Media Order, and it’s an insult to the online medium and its dedicated readership. It has to change sooner rather than later, but nobody seems smart enough to take the first step — so everyone suffers.

Four flights, two delays, one unscheduled night in Chi-town and I’m finally back from Georgia/South Carolina after driving the new X6M around Road Atlanta and taking a tour of BMW’s factory in Spartanburg. The ‘ute was… simply epic and the tour was thoroughly dull, but enlightening and easily offset by hot-laps in a variety of vehicles at BMW’s Performance Driving Academy. Thankfully, this is the last trip involving an airline until the Frankfurt show in September. Two trips to Laguna in August and one to Infineon, all within driving distance and all mercilessly devoid of airports, security screening and 757s. I’m quietly weeping with joy. Until then, check out my (apparently) highly divisive review if you’re so inclined. Yeah, I called it the GT-R of SUVs. Deal.

Undoubtedly, it revolutionized the world of mobile phones, issuing in a new era of “superphones” (not my term, but I’ll gank it) and requiring every phone manufacturer to step-up its game from a design, UI and feature standpoint. It was great and I bought two.

But a scant six months after my 3G purchase, the iPhone began loosing its luster. Maybe it was the lack of a dedicated Gmail app (undoubtedly it would be labeled as a “duplicate” feature competing with the iPhone’s own Mail program). Maybe it was the absence of customization (can a brother get a background wallpaper?). Maybe it was the iPhone’s inability to multi-task (I’d like to open something else while writing this email). Maybe it was the iPhone’s failure to allow even the simplest tasks my Blackberry could perform over three years ago (push mail and copy-and-paste). Maybe it was Apple’s ruthlessly absurd limitations on developers that wouldn’t allow a video recorder, or the ability to uninstall a useless app (ahem, Stocks), or labeling certain programs as “obscene,” or just the fact that Apple’s restrictions seemed to stifle creativity for some unknown and ill-defined Greater Good. All of these things (and more) began to grate and a few months later I picked up a developer G1 and handed off the iPhone to the misses.

And it sucked too.

The hardware was cheap. The software was buggy. The browser was cut-rate. The app list was scant, and since it was a developer phone, I couldn’t – for one of most idiotic reasons known to man – download paid apps. But my God was the Gmail integration good. And, well… that was it.

So I’m at a crossroads. Buy into another iPhone (at a hyper-inflated price) or ditch the G1 and AT&T and pick up the newest hotness from Palm. The Pre has a lot of what I want, but it’s missing some fundamental features (true universal search, a dedicated Gmail app, video recording, more than eight – okay, seven – gigs of memory, etc.). Plus, it’s on Sprint, a second-tier provider… on a good day.

So what’s a smart/superphone user to do? I’m not sure/convinced of anything at this point. While I’m still a fan of Mac computers and their ease of use (even if reliability has suffered recently and customization is still frowned upon by the corporate mothership). But with my rampant fanboism waning, I’m confident that my money won’t find its way into Cupertino’s coffers – again – until something changes. And I’m unconvinced it ever will.

With less than $15.00, a few hours of work and no lost digits, I was able to build (with a little help from my master DIY father-in-law) a budget monitor stand to free up some desk space and get my 23-inch screen at eye-level. It’s not the prettiest solution, but considering the wall mount for the Samsung was $50+ and it doesn’t seem to be available anymore, I’m pleased.

You know it’s going to be fun…

Well, that took too damn long. The Jaguar reviews are finally live over at The Site, so if you’re interested in my first, second and third impressions of Jag’s newest hotness you can click these oddly colored words to get an eyeful.

For more coverage of last weekend’s event, you can hit up the Twitter feed I set up exclusively for LeMons.