Fear Complex

Merry 2010.

A couple of weekends ago I got to drive a JZX100 Chaser to Wellington. must say I was quite impressed with the car overall, and I’m currently in the middle of writing a little “review” of its merits, but in the meantime here’s the complete album of photos I took of the car on Sunday: flickr album

I’m quite pleased with the results from the venerable old OM-Zuiko 100mm, given that I was shooting in gale-force winds, manually focused of course, and the lighting/weather was a bit questionable. I guess that’s Welly for ya…

As for the car, I don’t think it’s quite convinced me to go modern, but as the story goes I’m a bitter, nostalgic bastard who can ignore certain shall we say quirks of older technology if it means the bigger picture is still acceptable.

Selective bias, if you will.

Other than it being the month of my birthday, there’s always at least one decent band playing. Observe:

17th Feb 2010 - Clutch, Kings Arms Tavern, Auckland

18th Feb 2010 - Faith No More, Vector Arena, Auckland

can’t wait!

from the desk of ed…

- started writing for another blog this week. Battle to the max, baby…

- Red Cliff and Moon are out at the movies. Missed them both during the limited-time film festival run earlier this year, so must go see them while I can. Red Cliff, especially so.

- Still working through the itinerary for December’s TX3 summer shakedown roadtrip. retro-classics has the low-down on what’s up here. Basically it involves a shitload of driving, and catching up with people I haven’t seen in ages. Of course this all hinges on whether I can get the time off work to do so.

- bought Fallout 3 GotY edition and resurrected Little Miss Lysergia for another trip around the capital wasteland. I’d almost forgotten how sweet this game was!

- NFS: Shift is actually a decent game; refreshing given the wiggerized garbage the franchise has been spawning for the last umpteen years. there’s no chance in hell of me ever buying an Xbox 360 just to play Forza 3, and GT5 ain’t due until March next year, so this will do the trick for now.

Am I seeing things or is my twatter working again? Dare I try logging in, in fear of having it crap out in the middle of loading?

**edit** nope, still broken… but my tweets seem to be working again?

neither of my accounts are currently working, so I haven’t been able to log in and do any of that social networking stuff for at least a week now.

It’s a sign, I tells you. good excuse to start updating this blog-thing a bit more.

now I remember why I never got around to upgrading to ubutnu 9.04 earlier… the bloody fglrx drivers got removed post-intrepid, and installing the linux ATI Catalyst drivers was always a right pain in the arse. Gonna have to figure that out tomorrow.

Windows 7 on the other hand, seems to make amends for the downright rottenness that was Fister. Been using it as my main OS for a few days now, and I can pretty much last a whole session without swearing profusely at it. There are still a few irksome things about it (the new ‘improved’ windows firewall for example) - but overall, it’s not the huge bloated pit of fail its predecessor was.

from the day I bought my latest AW11 MR2 I’ve been slightly annoyed by its lack of interior t-top shades, which makes driving in direct sunlight a bit of a drain at times (the sunvisors are of limited use).

So ever the completist/OCDist (depending on who you talk to) I set about tracking down a decent pair of the blasted things. Now most AW11 owners will tell you the t-top shades along with the facelift front lip valance are the two most incredibly difficult items to obtain replacements of. Turns out they were only partially right, as within a day I had tracked down a brand new front lip valance (ex Toyota Japan, no less; those people I see whinging on MR2 forums ought to do their homework better!) but the shades proved to be far more elusive, and what I hadn’t prepared myself for was the pricing: a whopping $925 per side provided Toyota still had new old stock lying around… screw that idea.

But then upon some random incredible stroke of luck I came across a wrecked AW11 at Pick-a-Part one day not long after, which happened to have both t-top shades… except they were lying in a puddle, and looked like they had been for some time. After extracting them from said puddle and spending the next three days drying them out (and a further week getting rid of the saturated-cardboard-in-oily-puddle smell), the passenger side one turned out saggy and completely useless, but the driver’s side returned to a somewhat usable state. Incidentally, the total cost was only $12.00!

However OCD kicked in, and I couldn’t bring myself to use one t-top shade: it was both or nothing. The search thus continued. After being offered a pair of t-top shades by some random gouging bastard (who shall remain nameless), on some forum (which shall also remain nameless) for the exorbitant price of $300/pair, I turned to that last gleaming bastion of hope: Yahoo Auctions Japan.

I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t do that to begin with, instead of shitting around for weeks trying to deal with Toyota, Pick-a-Part, and AW11 owners with overinflated self-worth… because after typing in the search parameters this is what greeted me:

a quick email to the proprietor of hayatonka (an auction middleman service) secured my interest, and this morning I received a reply stating that we’d won the auction… for the measly sum of 2000 yen.

Yep, that’s right, $30 + shipping and commission. More expensive than what I paid for the Pick-a-Part pair, but complete and in better overall condition.

and the best thing? I ain’t have to pay some greedy gouging NZ fucker $300.

Great Success!

currently listening: GWAR - Lust in Space / Various - Galaxy News Radio Soundtrack (Fallout 3)

as part of my daily work routine I find myself spending a disproportionate amount of time in various buildings around the CBD waiting for lifts to arrive, and then standing in the damn things waiting to be shuttled to the floor of my choice. (I would use the stairs more often than I currently do, but a lot of buildings now have the annoying ‘feature’ of locked/carded stairwell exit doors on each floor in the name of security).

Over the last few years (spent in the same role) many of the lifts I’ve travelled in have actually undergone ‘modernization’ as part of a greater push to spend money conform to H&S standards or whatever, to the point where even the most run-down office tower will often possess a couple of state-of-the-art liftcars with mood lighting, indiglo LCD floor displays, heated buttons, and soothing feminine voices that tell you to stand clear of the bloody doors you idiots. Which can be nice at times, but sometimes I consider it unnecessary - especially if it ends up altering whatever character the building may once have had.

anyway, it occurred to me recently while riding in one particularly crowded liftcar that even with all the modernization bullshit going on there’s probably any number of older, decrepit lifts out there in some of the less trafficked, smaller and/or less glamorous office towers. some crazy part of my brain decided that it would be fun to discover the slowest lift in the CBD in overall travel time (from one floor to the next) and perhaps also with other criteria factored in: most noisy, most annoying call tone, most likely to rattle itself to pieces, and so on.

A few people have suggested also trying the lifts in and around uni/AUT, and those in various other public facilities such as the Civic/Skycity and central library; while I guess I probably should (in order to present a fair comparison), the goal is to find the quintessential cruddy corporate lift that annoys the hell out of its office workers on a daily basis…

So at the end of last week I headed down to High St - home of fashionistas, expensive boutiques, one of my favourite bookstores, and conveniently, a high concentration of customer sites located in quaint buildings which I’m actively involved with for work purposes. Good place as any to begin my quest!

Another trackday done and dusted… and my poor little track car soldiers on without (too many) issues

however I do get the feeling that my $100 turbo is finally on its way out, judging from the amount of oil it’s starting to blow past the seals. Should I do the ’sensible’ thing before I replace it, and get my spare one (which cost me all of $60) reconditioned? Ah well, I got until 31st August to decide.

So. Trackday. I let Gar loose with my E-500 yesterday, here are some of the results:

and the full gallery is here.

meanwhile, Tom is off on an intrepid journey to Yurop and won’t be back until November. If he remembers to update his blog you can follow his travelogue here.