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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: December 7, 2016

It's 32 outside. It was 21 overnight.

I'm drinking half-italian, half-french roast O'Houri's.

I'm typing on a 104-key CODE.

I'm listening to Adham Shaikh over Genelecs.

I'M HOME MUTHAFUCKAS

It took approximately 3 hours to terminate 18 runs of CAT5 on one end. The rack shows up this afternoon which means I can terminate the other end, install the network and have the phone system up and running. So that's about $5k I managed to save myself. I'm in such a good mood that I'm over the fact that the dentist next door to our unit killed the sump pump again by flushing tampons, thereby filling the crawlspace with sewage. 'cuz see, we now know it was tampons. And as there are only two units that use that sewer line, and as the only people in my unit are middle-aged male contractors, we can say with 100% certainty where the blame lies. And as this is the 2nd time she's killed the sump pump in as many months, perhaps a more long-term solution will present itself to our landlord which will not come out of our triple-net.

Fired up Pro Tools for the first time in six months (thenewgreen - you'll be happy to know that "charcoal" was my test project of choice) and got three computers updating just in time for a new Eventide plugin to test. Unfortunately Avid's licensing schema has changed such that I now need them to bless me with another set of licenses but it's not like I'm in a hurry. Simply writing five hard drives to the server for backups feels so... normal.

The Swampmonster Stealth is apparently all better now that I shopvac'd the pine needle out from under the seal. It's been in the rain for four days and has yet to develop a lagoon. Not only that but I decided to kludge the headliner back up with a hot melt glue gun. Elegant? hell naw. But it isn't dripping disintegrated foam on me anymore. And in an example of "when it rains, it pours"

A WILD 10 GRAND APPEARS. Opened a letter yesterday from my aunt. Enclosed was a cashier's check. Apparently my grandma said "I don't wanna give the grandkids anythang but if you do, it's on you." As the bonds have matured and my father has settled the estate, my aunt saw fit to bestow the grandkids with a little scratch.

My first instinct was to set it aside for my kid's private school next year. My wife, however, pointed out that it could easily replace the Swampmonster Stealth. She also met with a client today who mentioned how criminally cheap Leafs are these days. So. steve. rd95. Here's the battle royale:

- keep the Swampmonster Stealth, maybe change out the stereo, and throw the money at my kid (option 1)

- Buy a Nissan Leaf for ridiculously little money.

- Buy an FR-S for not too much more. That was the one useful thing about the LA auto show - it contradicted my firmly-held notion that FR-S have no back seats.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to change out my surround controller. I bought a second one (for CHEEP) to replace the first, which has a leaky cap somewhere that keeps it from firing the first few times. If I can get them both working, I can actually build a viable Atmos 7.2.4 monitoring setup, which will make me the one Atmos house in Seattle, which I might just have to do considering I know the Atmos guy at Dolby.





coffeesp00ns  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    half-italian, half-french roast

that's some dark-ass coffee. Love that charcoal taste?

I'm super happy for you that you're home.

kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So O'Hori's was the coffee that my best friend's mom made, back when I was trying to emancipate myself from my parents at 16 and sleeping in cars and shit. When things were good I got to stay at his place and the smell of O'Hori's half'n'half was the thing that woke me up most mornings. It was also the first coffee I ever had that wasn't Folger's Crystals so it's safe to assume that I imprinted on it.

It's not my favorite coffee in the world but it's my "comfort" coffee, particularly as I got three pounds as a gift from the aforementioned best friend's mom.

steve  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

that is a RIDICULOUS price on that LEAF. If you don't imagine the need to drive further than 100 miles in a day - consider it. If you need more than that - steer clear of the LEAF. I loved having it. I bid adieu in a few days. It really is a great (albeit ugly) commuter. Super fun to drive. Great cargo space. all torque. fun

and at that price - i would have bought out mine at the end of the lease... but Nissan is holding out for about 10k. So I went a different direction.

EDIT: Welcome home. That was hard-earned time away. I'm glad you're back. Soak it in.

ButterflyEffect  ·  2667 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Welcome back to WA! Hope you're looking forward to snow...

Once the holidays are over, let me know if you have the time/desire for a beer. I owe you at least one at this point.

Trombone  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I love it when people appreciate a good keyboard. What kind of switches does your CODE have?

(For the record I use a KUL ES-87 with Cherry browns)

veen  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

MX Blue fan here on a Ducky keyboard, although I am more a fan of Das Keyboard.

Trombone  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've always wanted to get one of those Dases with the blank keycaps and confuse the hell out of people.

veen  ·  2667 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Good idea! The amount of people I know that can't type blind is sadly too high. (They're also almost always older than me.)

kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Cherry MX clear with o-rings.

Trombone  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Do the rings actually cut the noise at all? I've been considering getting some.

kleinbl00  ·  2667 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Enough that I spent an hour retrofitting the keyboard, yeah. I mean, it's not like it's silent? but it's about as close as you're going to get with a bunch of mechanical switches.

user-inactivated  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Hmm. I don't know about that one in particular. It looks like the air intake has been modified and it is listed with a rebuilt title. That car might not be a good deal.

Here's my (dirty) engine bay for comparison.

kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't know about that one in particular either, but there's a blue slough of FR-S and Leaf up here. Sing me the praises of your whip.

user-inactivated  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Performance

If you want a daily driver that’s good for handling, it’s really hard to find better than this without getting fancy and expensive. The steering is tight and responsive, the car turns in an intuitive manner, and the wheels/tires really transmit a lot of road feel. It’s an absolute blast to drive on nice, country roads. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, because it’s so responsive and because the suspension is nice and stiff, driving it for more than a few hours can get a bit tiring. This can easily be remedied by taking the recommended 15 minute breaks for every 2 hours of driving.

Brakes. The brakes on this car are amazing. ‘Nuff said.

The engine is not a high torque engine. It’s not gonna compare to V8s or Turbo 4s and if you want to get any action out of it, you can’t be shy of the higher RPM range. There also really is a torque dip around 4k. For some reason, if you get around 4k you’ll get a lot of engine noise but not a lot of power to the wheels. Some people get around this by installing unequal length headers, a modified catback exhaust, and reflashing the ecu. That sounds like a lot of money, work, and risk. So, uh, I just don’t worry about it myself. Though if you have some free time, check out FR-S/BRZ videos with modified headers and exhaust. They got some great sounds there.

This is not a good winter/adverse weather car. It’s light and low to the ground with wide tires. If you get a car that still has the stock Michelin Primacy Hps, I recommend you get rid of them. I use Kumho Ecsta 4x for my three season tires and Bridgestone Blizzaks for my winter tires. No one is going to have the Blizzaks in stock for your wheel size. You’ll have to order them in advance. Keeping this in mind, even with winter tires, winter driving isn’t always the most fun. There have been a few times where I’ve had to have people drive me to work and home because I wasn’t willing to risk the trek in my car. That said, because winter driving in that thing isn’t fun, you’ll be safe as hell about driving in the snow because you’ll quickly realize how extra cautious you have to be. It should be noted that winter tires are tires for safe driving. They’ll suck all of the fun out of driving your car and make you wish for spring real quick. When you put your three seasons back on, your car will seem like a whole new beast again. It’s actually pretty awesome.

Also, with winter, the power windows stop working if they get ice on them and get stuck when you first open the car. To fix this, you’ll have to let your windows thaw out completely then roll them all the way down by holding down the window button, keep it down for about five seconds, then roll them all the way back up. If your window button is blinking, that’s when you know they’re stuck.

Maintenance

PLEASE NOTE: DOUBLE CHECK THE MANUAL ON ALL OF THIS BECAUSE I’M RUNNING ON MEMORY AND HEARSAY HERE. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR MANUAL. ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR MECHANIC. I’M NOT A CAR EXPERT. I AM AN IDIOT.

Sorry. Had to put that disclaimer in for any non-KB readers.

The car runs on premium gas, but you’ll get an average of about 28-32 mpg depending on how you drive if you don’t stomp the throttle after every red light. Toyota/Subaru recommends 93 octane fuel. People say you can run 91 if that’s all you can get your hands on, but they really want you to run 93. I’ve heard people say that the car will retard its timing and even go into limp mode if you run less than 91 or put bad gas in it, but I wouldn’t risk it myself. If the gas near you has ethanol added (almost everywhere does these days), make sure it’s 10% or less to keep it from damaging the engine and understand that on summer days your fuel pump will play host to a chirping noise that has been lovingly named “crickets” by the 86 community. Mine’s been chirping away since about 3,000 miles with no problem. Pretty sure it’s a none issue.

Speaking of noise, there’s not a lot of sound proofing in the car. Enjoy your highway noise. The car has decent speakers though, so if you want to drown it out with music, you’ll be able to do so just fine.

I bought my car brand new, but maintenance-wise, this is probably the cheapest car I’ve ever own. Oil changes aren’t expensive, tire rotations, spark plug changes, blah blah blah. All in all, it’s not bad. Definitely cheaper than a BMW or something.

If you want to know about any major maintenance issues with the car, this is a good place to look.

Wear and tear

The clearcoat on my paint is thin and shitty. I have paint swirls and rock chips up the ass. I have tail light condensation (fixed by drilling a few holes to let the water escape). My interior has a few scuffs. I’ve learn to accept the fact that it’s a daily driver and won’t stay perfect forever, so I’m okay with this. When you’re sitting in the driver seat, going down the highway, you won’t be looking at your paint anyway. You’ll be grinning your ass off and being happy you own this thing.

Space/Accessibility

The backseat is the perfect place to put your coat. I think it can theoretically hold a babyseat. I’m pretty certain if you can get one to fit, you’ll be reluctant to take it out until you have to. I’m sure it’s probably a chore. The back seat isn’t really meant for adults unless you’re desperate and/or they’re short and happen to be missing their legs. The car is low to the ground, so getting in and out takes a little extra effort, but if you do it daily you’ll soon become a pro and not notice.

The trunk is like that phone booth from Doctor Who. It looks small on the outside. You can CRAM that mother fucker no problem. I have yet to find myself in a scenario where I’ve said “Oops. Well, looks like this can’t come with us. There’s no more room in the trunk.” As an aside, you’ll enjoy cornering your car. Don’t put loose/breakable stuff in your trunk. Don’t put paper bags of groceries in your trunk. Things will tip, roll around, or otherwise get displaced. If that happens, don’t feel too bad about it. It’s not your fault. It’s the car’s. The car wants to be driven.

Unlike the trunk, the glovebox is small as shit. It’s good for your ownerbooks, your insurance and registration, and maybe a pair of sunglasses. The car technically doesn’t come with cupholders. Mine didn’t. It comes with removable cupholders that you put in the center console. The front of the center console has a power jack. Put the cupholders to the back of the console or you’ll cover this power jack up.

Visibility

Make sure your mirrors are properly adjusted. It does have a pretty decent blind spot on the driver side. It’s not Camaro bad, but it’s not four door Civic good either.

You will be visible to everybody from the police to boy racers to bros in pickup trucks. Since you currently drive a stealth, you kind of know what that’s like. BE CAREFUL AROUND 18 WHEELERS AND CONSTRUCTION TRUCKS! I can’t confirm this, but I half suspect around them I’m extra invisible. Seeing as how you ride a motorcycle too, you’re familiar with this feeling.

Uh. That’s all I can think of for now. If you have any questions, just shoot them to me. I have to go run some errands, but I’ll get back to you tonight.

kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You may find this link entertaining.

By specs, your car has more horsepower, weighs less, has more rear room and better gas mileage than what I'm driving right now. It's also taller.

user-inactivated  ·  2667 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The HP/Torque profiles for those cars are almost mirror opposites. If you get an 86, you'll like how light and crisp the car feels. If you ever start to take it for granted, find a friend with a Buick or a Cadillac or a truck or something and borrow it for a day. When you get back in the 86, you'll appreciate it all over again.

user-inactivated  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ah. Gotcha. Stand by.

OftenBen  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't know where you get all this energy.

kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

OftenBen  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wait you're actually on amphetamines?

kleinbl00  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  
OftenBen  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I miss caffeine.

ButterflyEffect  ·  2668 days ago  ·  link  ·  

meanwhile, in bfx cubano land