I went up to Stratford today and signed the paperwork. I am now the owner of a second SVX. 1992 Ebony Mica LS-L with 165,000 km, and in need of a little work here and there. I’lll post some pictures when I pick the car up next week.
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Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 2:51 PM EST

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It happened rather suddenly, though not as sudden as the last time I experienced it. Sometime around 10 o’clock last night, the hard disk in Meghan’s eMachines laptop started to make that awful, gut-wrenching clunk indicating a head crash, and imminent failure.

A head crash is when the read/write head actually physically impacts on the drive platter that holds the data. It’s amazing that this sort of thing isn’t a routine happening when you consider the small dimensions of these devices. The head itself is suspended at the end of an armature, barely a few centimetres long, but the amazing part is that the armature rides only a few microns above the disk surface. It’s a tribute to modern engineering that you can drop one of these things and it might survive.

I’m pretty surprised, the machine, and hence the hard drive, is not all that old; we’ve only had it for a year and a half. It’s not a cheap, crappy “value” drive either, it’s a Hitachi Travelstar, the same kind used by IBM, and IBMs are known for their robustness.

Ah well, these things happen, and now it’s an excuse to buy a larger, faster drive. I’m going to my local computer shop to see what I can dig up. Their website was advertising a 100GB 5400rpm drive with 8MB of cache for about 150$. Not too bad at all. It was either a Samsung Spinpoint-M or a Seagate Momentus, I forget which. I guess I’ll find out.

Posted by Ron as Computers at 9:40 AM EST

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Still not much happening. I haven’t had another chance to head out to Stratford, so I don’t know what’s going on with the job possibility out there. Haven’t made a move to buy the car either, since they have yet to get back to me with any kind of estimate on the bodywork that is needed.

My parents were down for the last couple days, so I’ve been hanging out with them, and, of course, fixing their computers. Heh. My mum got a spiffy new 250GB hard drive in an external enclosure to do backups on, and an actual legal copy of Windows. I think that’s a first in my family. I just got tired of always pirating and h4xx0r-ing it; it’s become more trouble than it’s worth to me. She knows her way around a system well enough that if it blows up again, she can reformat and reinstall everything, and now that she has her own XP key, she can.

Picked up a bunch of games recently, most of them cheaply, and haven’t had the chance to try them all out yet. I can say this though: if you are looking for some retro-action, and were considering picking up the Capcom Classics Collection, do yourself a favour and don’t. The only decent games on there are 1943, Final Fight, and Street Fighter; the rest are kind of shitty, and even the ones I thought would be great because I’d played the NES or SNES version, like Bionic Commando, were disappointing. These are all direct ports of the arcade versions, which means one thing: quarter-eating gameplay. Excluding the three games I’d mentioned previously, the home console versions have far better depth of gameplay.

Another stinker to avoid would be Macross Saga on GBA. I picked it up for less than 10$, so it’s not like I wasted a lot of money, but it’s just another subpar shooter with a catchy franchise.

At my sister’s urging, I picked up Mario Party 5 and some spare controllers for the Gamecube. That was a good decision. Despite the inherent gayness, the game is a lot of fun. I feel bad about winning all the time though.

I still have to try out Rebel Star and Sigma Star Saga (both for GBA). I’ll probably post about them if they’re really good or really bad. They both received a lot of attention at E3 last year, so that could be a good sign. Rebel Star looks like the old X-Com, so I’m hoping it will be decent. Sigma Star reminds me of The Guardian Legend, which I really enjoyed back in the day, so again, hoping that it’s decent.

The rest of my time has been spent researching the transmission swap for my current SVX. I have two different potential sources for a STi 6-speed complete with R180 rear end, and a few other goodies (mainly, taller 5th & 6th gear ratios from a JDM Forester STi for better highway cruising RPMs). Now I just need to find someone that can do the work for me. Ali at SASS in Stratford is willing but inexperienced in doing the swap, another guy in New Jersey is experienced and willing, but far away, and there is yet another in Guelph who is experienced, but I haven’t contacted him yet to see if he’ll do it or not.

How many times have I written all this crap before? How many times will I do so again before anything actually gets done? Who knows… but it helps me think.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 11:18 PM EST

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Just took in a Nine Inch Nails show at the John Labatt Centre. This is the third time I’ve seen them live, though it’s been over 10 years since the last time. They have yet to disappoint me; the light show alone was worth the price of admission. They covered all the ‘classics’ right up to some material from the latest release, though even the old songs weren’t boring, as they often end up sounding like a mild remix when done live.

One interesting thing I’ve heard of but never witnessed until tonight: normally at rock shows, when a band plays a ballad, slower song, rocking anthem, or anything introspective, the crowd will flick their lighters; it’s a ‘thing.’ Well, at a NIN show, as you might expect, a lot of people substituted their cell phones for lighters, so there was this sea of both orange flame, and blue-backlit LCD. First time I’d heard of that was from a live recording of the video game cover band, the Minibosses, at MAGfest. Definitely not something I saw at the NIN shows of last decade, though it is fitting.

Anyway, that’s it for me; sleepy time, work tomorrow.

Posted by Ron as Music at 11:48 PM EST

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Last Wednesday, we returned to Stratford to have a second, more detailed look at the ‘92 SVX that was at the Subaru dealership there. They dug it out of the snowbank the previous week (sadly, scratching the paint on the front end in several places), and boosted the battery so we could take it for a drive, as well as put it on the hoist so I could have a look at the underbelly. I meant to grab some photos, but again forgot my camera at home.

It starts and runs well, and just about everything, inside and out, works like it should, with a few exceptions; the power window switches need to be replaced, the sunroof sticks, the front brake rotors are shot from sitting so long, and there was a nasty oil leak from the valve covers on the engine.

They will fix the mechanical issues, but the other stuff, I will have to take care of myself, which should not be a problem. They’re also going to get me a quote on fixing the rust, doing the bodywork that needs doing, and getting it repainted. When they get back to me with that, then I can try to make some kind of deal with them on it, or walk away if I don’t like the estimate of repairs.

The test drive itself went well enough; I got to test out all the mechanical bits. The car, unlike mine, tracks straight and drives vibration-free, except when the brakes are applied, but as I mentioned, those will be fixed. The all wheel drive system works like it should (I took it to a snow-covered gravel parking lot to try it out, hehe). Curiously, despite being almost exactly the same as my other SVX, this one sounds just a little bit different under acceleration. I looked at the exhaust, and it differs in one area, but only slightly. Interesting that it would make that much difference.

The car itself was owned by the owner of the dealership, but he had given (!) the car to his son to drive for a while, and it shows: the headlights were switched over to the blue-hued fake-HID bulbs, there is a subwoofer speakerbox in the trunk with some Sony Xplods in it (that has to go - dead weight as far as I’m concerned), and there were some attempts at repairing the interior that just didn’t work, making it worse, actually, and will require complete replacement of the affected components.

An interesting sidenote: while underneath the car, I was chatting with Ali, the mechanic. He really seemed to like SVXes, and it seemed that he was likewise impressed by my knowledge of them, and the fact that I have another one at home. He also seemed impressed by the thoroughness of my inspections. I was full of confidence, and forget exactly how it came up, but at one point, I flat-out asked him if I could have a job there. His response was an encouraging, “are you serious?!?” Then he told me to bring in a résumé and talk to “the bosslady” in the front office, as she has the final say on such matters.

So, with any luck, I may be making an upwards career move, hopefully leading to an apprenticeship. I can’t think of any brand of cars I’d rather work on than Subarus. Stratford is a nice little town (pop: ~30,000), and unlike London, the real estate is actually affordable, so when the lease is up here, I could be headed for Stratford. Nothing is for sure, obviously, but it seems like the best opportunity I’ve had in a long time.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 10:17 AM EST

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…and it was good. Just got back from the show: Devin Townsend Band, and Dark Tranquility opening for Opeth. Awesome show. Everybody was super cool, and interacted a lot with the crowd, made possible by the small-ish nature of the venue (a little dive called Cowboys, formerly The Drink).
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Posted by Ron as Music at 1:39 AM EST

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