So, did anyone get anything especially good for Christmas?
An Arduino Nano v3.0, with which I intend to (finally) do something about this.
Dependant on your final installation I can recommend the
Sparkfun Arduino Pro Mini as a much cheaper alternative to the Nano.
Yeah, I looked at that. The reason I went with the Nano is that it handles the automotive voltage range, without me having to deal with adding my own voltage regulation. I can code, but my electronics experience is near-nil. I agree that it would be nice to drop the USB interface eventually, though.