Aug. 24--Unplug me, please.

After a week in an '08 Toyota Prius and an '08 Honda Civic Hybrid, I'm zapped. Don't get me wrong: These cars practically lumber down the road from the weight of their vast technologies. As you know, both can smoothly blend dinky 4-cylinder gas engines with electric motors for decent propulsion -- no small feat.

The chiseled Prius -- which I'm pretty sure is the official drive-by car for the Green Mafia -- is the real California star of the two, widely loved by eco-celebrities like Big Al Gore and some of his enviro movie-star buddies.

If you don't mind, pass me the No-Doz and Red Bull. I don't want to nod off at a red light, asleep at my high-tech wheel.

Pardon the little geezer attack, but I want to drive a car I can hear, a car that doesn't turn itself off at every red light. (My '56 Chevy often did that -- usually with a shudder or a loud pop or two -- but it would never restart.) I also prefer a car with a real transmission and something with a little mischief in it.

But that's just me. And I fully understand that most people are mesmerized by hybrids -- maybe rightly so.

In my black '08 Toyota Prius Touring Edition -- I had requested the Street Savage Edition, but it wasn't available -- the gas-electric combo was supposed to be good for 48 miles per gallon city, 45 highway. (The Prius does better in city driving because the electric motor provides most of its push at lower speeds.)

Under the hood, somewhere in there, you find a 1.5-liter, four-cylinder engine with 110 net horsepower that includes the juice from an AC motor generating a maximum of 500 volts of power. All of that energy flows through a continuously variable transmission -- one of those strange transmissions that keeps the engine at peak operating rpm but doesn't really shift.

Up to about 25 or 30 mph, the electric motor does most of the work while the four-banger sleeps. Above 30, it awakens with a slight tremor and takes over in a mostly seamless process.

Toyota also gets points for making the exterior of my $29,614 Prius distinctive. From behind, the car looks a little like a slightly bizarre shoe that Zippy the Pinhead might wear on a Saturday night at the shot bars -- very modern. I especially liked the steeply raked windshield and short, sloping hood.

However, the car's 195/55 tires and skinny 16-inch steel wheels (covered by plastic hubcaps) looked to me as if they belonged on a wheelbarrow. And those clear-lensed boy-racer tail lamps seem downright silly on a car as PC-stuffy as the Prius.

Inside, though, Toyota got it mostly right with a spare, contemporary interior.