Looking for a new toy...

Sorry, I know I've not posted anything here for absolute ages. And the stuff I am posting is hella boring. But that's okay. I'll try to get something a little more relevant on here at some point. I promise something worth reading soon.

In the meantime, I'm looking to replace the Grey Blob of Dropped Calls and the Brick of Frequent Data Loss with a combined PDA/cellphone. The one that's currently on the shortlist is the HP iPaq 6315, which pretty much every review seems to indicate is an ideal device, and with the perfect set of features. However, anyone who knows how many ipaqs I've gone through probably understands full well why I don't have great trust in them anymore.

In any case, any opinions welcome. Here are my requirements (any device under consideration must have them all):

• Must be a GSM/GPRS cellphone (for you silly North Americans who think the cell phone networks are the only ones who can sell phones, this means Rogers or Fido in Canada, or Cingular or T-Mobile in the US). You can see my rants about carriers and cell technologies here.
• Must have bluetooth and support audio profiles so I can get a headset.
• Must be a touchscreen with a stylus (no "Smartphones" without this, thx).
• SD slot for music/maps storage.
• Pocket PC compatible - should be able to run Pocket Streets and Trips.
• Very good reliability, both as a PDA and as a cellphone

Aprtment Pics Up

Finally, after much delay, here are the apartment pictures I've promised everybody. They've been a long-time coming.

As you can see, my apartment is pretty sweet for a one-bedroom.

The disappointment of the day is my Canon PowerShot A610. This is the best of many many shots - it was bloody hard to get halfway decent shots of anything indoors. Eventually I found "indoor" scene automatic mode, which helped a bit. A few shots with manual mode were fun for novelty, but will take practice to do well. The above album is a mix of several types of shot.

Still, I'm getting better with this camera pretty quick, so I look forward to experimenting more when I get time.

Welcome to Kirkland

Almost as if by fate, the day after I got my camera was, much like the first day I went picture taking, absolutely gorgeous. Blue sky, and actually passably warm! So, not to be discouraged by the last trip, my new camera in hand, I went out to do a tour of Kirkland. Here are the results.

Just as a quick note, this is my first day with my camera, and also with the software that comes with it, so the quality may not be great. They are all auto-landscape, except a few where I did manual white-balance (the camera forgets your white balance setting when you power off, which is annoying when doing a series like this one). I've also done a lot of cropping, downsizing, compressing and downsampling on these pictures. I will post my best full-quality pictures later on.

Kirkland is an awesome town. It's a stone's throw from I-405, and maybe 10 minutes from SR-520, which will lead to the floating bridge to Seattle downtown. 10 minutes to downtown Redmond. 20 to work. Everything is a close walk - groceries, dozens of restaurants of all flavours of cuisine, a tranquil waterfront, a few bars, and even a wine bar! It seems like a friendly town too - a wide variety from well-off family men to kids fresh out of school sharing an apartment, and all happy to make your acquaintance. And I'm told it'll be very lively during the summer.

Coming up, apartment pics. Once I actually clean up a bit.

Camera Decision: Canon PowerShot A610

After a great deal of thought, I have decided on the Canon PowerShot A610. An interesting camera to be certain. Received a favourable review at Imaging resource and a highly recommended rating from Digital Photography's review of the 610's 7mpix cousin the A620. Of course it didn't hurt that Circuit City was having a sale on the beast for an amazing price of $220.

Here are the core stats/features.

• 5mpix
• 4x optical zoom
• SD card slot
• 4xAA powered
• Hinged 2" LCD
• 640x480x30fps unlimited length movie mode w/audio
• Zillions of manual modes - shutter speed as low as 15s.
• 1cm macro
  
• Can attach lenses (with optional adapter), external flash
  
• Fast - 1.4s power-on, 1.09s shot-to-shot (5s flash cycle time, which is apparently decent!)
• Great image quality from all reviews I've read.

"But Mike, it's so BIG!"

Ladies, I really do wish I heard that from you more! But in my defence, it is at least a bit smaller than my previous camera. Barely. But more to the point, the alternative was the SD450, and I'm sorry, those get almost TOO small to comfortably shoot photos with.

But yeah, the combination of great features and a cheap deal really sold me.

Did I look at other cameras? Why yes, I did! Not in huge detail though. The Canon PowerShot SD450 is of course widely acclaimed for being a great camera at a tiny size, but has somewhat weaker image quality (including a nasty issue with purple fringing), and is generally higher priced. The Sony CyberShot DSC-W5 (and 7mpix cousin W7) were fast, a bit cheaper (minus the CC sale), and a bit smaller, but didn't stack up for image quality - and Memory Stick for teh l0se! A camera shop recommended the Nikon CoolPix P2, which they had on a clearout sale for $200. Apparently an okay camera, just slightly bigger than the Canon SD's (almost the perfect size)... but no optical viewfinder! No go!

Once I get hold of this bad boy, I'll finally get apartment pictures, as well as Kirkland pictures, and give you guys a tour of my new home.

House/town pictur.... AUUUUUUUGH!

So yeah, I got another dump of Ikea furniture today. Spent the morning assembling. Looked outside, beautiful day. Blue sky, thin wisps of clouds, and just barely warm enough for a t-shirt. So I though - what a good day to go give you blog readers a walking tour of my awesome town, all while seeking lunch food. I could then go back, clean up, and show you the apartment.

I head out, take a half-dozen pictures. Crunch-crunch-crunch-beep. Hummmm? Lets try turning it off, see if that helps. Crunch-crunch-crunch-beep-BEEP! Lens still out. Camera off. Cautious shake: rattle rattle.

Oh? Oh. DAMNIT!

Lens actuator is teh fuxxored - no zoom, no focus. Basically, unless I can repair it myself, the camera is dead weight.

So, I need a new camera. Here is my official CFP (call for proposals) specs. This is a wishlist obviously, but the more points you can satisfy, the better.

• Under $500 US. Preferably far under.
• At least 2.4 MPixel. Preferably 3. Even 4 if it's cheap. 6 may be overkill, but of course more is always better.
• At least 3x optical zoom.
• Modes: timed ("bulb") exposure, timer shots, basic white-balance and light-type filtering. Flash control. Night shots.
• Medium size (but smaller is better). Does not need to fit in my pocket, but it should be small enough to ride comfortably on my hip.
• Should fit standard tripods.
• Uses SD for storage, and includes a USB interface to the camera to access it.
• Stores images as JPEGs. No bullshit internal formats I'll have to use their proprietary crappy software to convert.
• Removable rechargable battery with good capacity, and something that'll hold it's charge over a decent length of time (NiMH or Li+??)
• Focusing should be perfect - if I see anything even a little blurry at my focal length, it's not good enough. A macro mode (special close-up focusing) is always nice, but not critical.
• Marginal speckling in low-light. I should be able to take an indoor shot with a flash and not have to worry about despeckling my image.
  

So, if you have some good ideas, post a comment. MS people - if you know of an internal EPP for your suggested camera, mention it exists, but please don't post details about the EPP offer in the comment.

Back to furniture assembly.

Rogers Wireless is great!

I figured today, having officially given my 30 days notice of cancellation, would be a good day to review my time with Rogers Wireless.

I love them. Adore them. If Rogers was a donkey... ummm... lets leave that one.

I love them doubly, because they're not Bell Mobility. I hate Bell Mobility. They made things difficult at every turn. Every phone I ever got from them had serious design defects that made them so bad as to be unusuable. They kept locking me into contracts. Even when I *wasn't* locked into a contract, they tried to penalize me as if I was, and made me jump through hoops to revert the charges. Their billing system was entirely broken for six full months - bills being delayed up to 3 months from issue date (and wasn't all that great even when it did work). When I tried to quit, I got hassled. When I called for questions, I always had to wait ages on hold. My refund took months. Finally, their coverage and prices.... you'd think they'd be cheaper for sucking, but no, they're pricey and have only average coverage.

Conclusion 1: Bell Mobility BAD.

Now Rogers Wireless, totally different. From the get-go, the experience was totally different. Got a phone which was decent for a good price, and they gave plenty of contract length options vs. phone price. Phone isn't perfect, but it works pretty well (and wow has it survived a lot of abuse!). I called up about my first bill, rather confused that I had paid less than my friend Jae. "Oh, there was a special promotion on, so we gave you a discount. Didn't your friend get it? Oh, put him on!" Bing! Jae's got the same deal. Marginal time on hold. Changing address, equally painless. I never had a billing problem with them. When I most recently quit, they helped me find the cheapest option, and they have a $20/mo contract breaking option, which while not as cheap as a Bell suspension option, was very convenient and fair. The lady understood and did not give me any attitude. And, after all this, their plans were cheaper and better than Bell's. I've never had a serious coverage issue with my phone, but as a quad-mode phone, I wouldn't expect to.

Conclusion 2: Rogers Wireless GOOD!

Now, those who know Rogers would expect different. After all, anyone who's ever dealt with Rogers Cable or Rogers High Speed knows just how terribly Rogers can treat their customers. But hey, I guess that's what happens when your corporate branches are sufficiently isolated. And to be fair, all branches of Bell equally shaft their customers. What a crappy corporation Bell is.

Of course, there's another key difference: Bell is CDMA, and Rogers is moving to exclusively GSM. This makes a difference - CDMA WILL DIE in the long run, and only survives since major US companies have a stake in CDMA technology. GSM works worldwide. Plus, GSM SIM cards are great -pop in a new one, and you're on a new network! This had me up and running with Cingular in theUS in about 5 minutes, and I can make my phone a Rogers phone again simply by switching the old SIM card back in. Note, you'll have to bypass the SIM lock on your phone, see my previous post on this subject.

If you're in Canada, Get Rogers. Or at least don't get Bell. That is all.

Review: 2006 Scion tC

It's been a long time coming, but I think it's finally time I talked about my new car.

First off, it's a 2006 Scion tC in Natuical Blue - a 2DR hatchback. Base model, except for the small lip spoiler on the back.
See pictures of my car!

Cost: $18070, including the lip spoiler and handling fees. Add to that a ton of extended warranty and service contracts. Finance through Toyota Finance over five years, using their speciality "New Grad" deal: 6.5%. Long story short, $417.47 a month for five years. Which may sound like a lot, but believe me, for a new car (and NO credit in the US), it's quite a reasonable number considering that every conceivable expense on the car except gas is covered.

I've given the car a good work in, I think (about 700 miles - I bought it at 16). So, lets talk.

One of the key upsides of this car: getting it is painless. Their "mono-spec" concept means that there's no wierd acronyms referring to 100 different option sets - there is just ONE tC - and things like power windows/locks, keyless, cruise, moonroof, etc. are all base. Scion also has a solid list of additional options that are normally aftermarket - larger rims, ground effects, interior lightkits, lip or wing spoilers, and tons of others - and you can choose them piecemeal. With the exception of the side airbags, all of these options can be dealer-installed. This holds in the future too - if you come back a year later and say "I wish I'd gotten the ricer wing spoiler and skirts", then you just go back to the dealer, and they'll do it at the exact same price as it would have cost if you'd bought it that way.

The "pure-price" concept prevents negotiation, both on the price, and on the options. While this means the dealer could artifically set their prices high, most dealers interpret this as meaning they must stick with MSRP, which in this fairly well-off region, isn't a bad thing. They literally printed off my final sales price off the scion.com car builder.

I, personally, bought mine at Michael's Toyota, from "JJ" John Jorgenson. I was pleased with the experience, so if you're looking for a Scion, give them a try.

Now, the good points about the car.

• Price can't be beat. At under $17k USD, you have a value proposition over all the other comparable cars in its class ($20k+). Furthermore, the base specs are like a fully-loaded version of the other cars.
  
• Looks awesome, especially in the blue. Sure, you may not quite get looks as if you were in an MR2, but at the same time, you're not going to look like every other Corolla (okay, more like every SUV around here) on the road. The rims are sweet, and they're not even the upgrades.
  
• Peppy. 160HP at just under 3000lb. (note: not a word, Irishman!). This is roughly comparable to the other cars in its class that I drove, and it feels like it accelerates far better than any of them. It's the perfect balance for someone for whom a Civic won't be anywhere near enough, but isn't quite ready to go for the more powerful acceleration of a V6. It'll handily handle any non-racing situation you find yourself in, including the hillcliming standard all over North Vancouver.
  
• Amazingly roomy. The front is spacious, and the back is very spacious for this class of car. I'll have no problem taking passengers. While the trunk is a little small, both back seats fold down (2/3 - 1/3), to give you extra room.
• MP3 player stock, with a line in (and power) under the driver armrest for connecting MP3 players. With an optional upgrade, it'll actually connect to an ipod or other player such that you can actually use the wheel controls to control it. The digital sound processing abilities allow you to choose three modes: neutral (ie. flat), hear (boost lows, highs), feel (enhanced bass) to tweak how you want to listen to your music.
  
• Climate control is great. Windows (including blowers for the side windows) defog almost instantly when you tell them to.
• It's a Toyota. So Toyota service, Toyota warranty, and the legendary ability for Toyotas to hold their value over time.
  

I must mention, this car isn't perfect. These are mostly minor points, but they subtract from it being a perfect car.

• Fuel economy is average for its class, but by no means impressive. It's meant to be 22/29 MPG. My last tank (commuting, and a bit of highway driving) was 21.5. Meh - if I wanted economy, I'd get a Civic hybrid - but the engine on them is just too weak even for me.
  
• It's a stiff ride. While that can be fun, combined with the thin tires, you feel everything on the road. Driving to Vancouver was genuinely unpleasant in some places as you bounce and shake. An interesting observation by Matt though: it's not just the car - lots of the highways around here really suck! I'd have to agree - once across the border to Canada, it was smooth sailing.
• It doesn't maneuver as well as I thought it would at parking speeds. While I can take an on-ramp loop at ridiculous speed without so much as blinking, I can't park the damned thing for the life of me. Again, partially Seattle's fault - most of their parking is designed for midgets on bicycles. Don't expect it to slip into tiny spots like an Echo.
  
• The car is a bit TOO helpful, to the point of nagging. For example, if you don't wear your seatbelt and accelerate, it starts beeping. If you still don't put it on, it beeps faster. For those 30-second "I need to move the car across the street" kinda use, it's annoying as hell. The lights aren't automatic (doesn't even seem to be daytime running lights). They'll also turn themselves off if the engine is off and door is open. This is good, since you can never leave your lights on, but I don't trust any system I can't override.
  
• No rear wiper. With the angle of the hatch, it'd be nice to have. Especially in Seattle.
  
• Keyless entry doesn't honk - makes it harder to find your car.
  

And finally, the general observations. Not good, not bad. Just comments.

• The worst issue most people complain about is rattle. While I've gotten some rattle for a bit after I shut the hatch a bit too aggressively, I've yet to hit any persistent rattle issues.
• People also complain about blind spots. It's true, the driver's side spot is a bit obscured, but really, it teaches you to use your mirrors properly! If you've checked your left wing mirror, there's only a small area it could hide in, and if it's there, no post is going to hide the fact that there's a car right beside you.
  
• The stereo has great specs, but when starting it up, it sounded... well... muffled. Downright disappointing in fact. I'd call this a bug. One of the service coordinators at Scion showed me a trick to fix it. The sound processing is tuned for each model of car, presumably to direct certain frequencies and power towards speakers that can best make use of them. However, since it'd be expensive to make three models of stereo, it's an option you can change! Hold down the SSP button until it beeps, use the volume knob to change the mode to xA (the Scion version of the Matrix) for a far clearer sound, or xB (the ugly-ass "box") for a richer sound. I've been using xB's feel mode - while I wonder if I'm getting the most out of my system by tuning to a sound mode for a car so different from mine, the tC mode is just too sucky to use.
  

Well, there you have it. Overall, I give the car a 9 on the Mike's money well spent scale. It's not quite perfect, but out of everything I've considered, it certainly was the best choice for me by a fair margin.

Oh yeah, and you can get, from the DEALER (at least in theory), a supercharger that will boost the HP by 40 for about $3500. That would be just nutsy cool, but it's only available in stick. Having said that, if I start talking about a stick shift in that performance range, there's other options worth considering more.
I did briefly consider the Civic Si even for this purchase, but it's hard to find a dealer that actually has one, and a car doesn't even hit my radar until I've been behind the wheel of it. Plus I'm fairly anti-Civic - it comes from the mental association with my high school full of HKers with rice rockets, rather than any real objection to the brand.

Right, enough rambling. Still up, an MS blog and a house blog. The latter will have to wait until I clean up enough for pictures.

Ciao!

Poor Harper

You know, I may not like Harper, his party, his politics, or his views on many subjects.

But damn, I just gotta feel bad for the guy, when he has complete buffoons like this one trying to associate themselves with his politics.

That article was an important reality check for me: Harper isn't that bad. In the end, no matter how much I may gripe, even the worst Canadian conservative is far better than what we'd have if a US conservative ever got their way.

So, Stephen, thanks for not sucking as bad as American conservatives.

Follow-up: Hum, he's also apparently an avid hockey fan. +1 point. Ding!

Election post-mortem

A fitting title. We have a conservative minority. A weak one, but conservative nonetheless.

Sadly, this is the best we could have hoped for, but it still sucks pretty badly, and I'll explain why in a second. Here are the numbers, out of 308 seats.

Election	Liberal	Conservative	Bloc	NDP	Independent/Other
2006	103	124	51	29	1
2004	135	99	54	19	1
Change	-32	+25	-3	+10	0

This is pretty good. The Bloc lose seats, which is a feat in of itself that few would have guessed - the prevalent theory is that Duceppe was busy fighting the Liberals, and was late in realizing and reacting to the fact that the Conservatives actually were getting Quebec support for the first time. Also the +10 NDP seats is HUGE! With 19 seats in 2004, they were a major player in parliament, so more seats can't be anything but good.

But the downside: while the Liberal minority could survive with NDP and Independent support (if only to maintain government), now the NDP can't successfully defend either the Liberals or the Conservatives. In fact, the only way to be successful on any motion is with Bloc support. Basically, we've now got what should be physically impossible any other way: a SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT! Of course the Liberals and Conservatives could co-operate, but anyone who's even passingly observed the Conservatives knows they'll cooperate about as well as Americans cooperate in the international scene (ironically, America won't have problem finding a Yes man from now on).

So basically, you have a government that'll be financially provincialist, and socially as religious right as a George W. Bush wet dream. Joy.
[[ ed. note: is Bush even allowed to have wet dreams? or is that immoral? ]]

A couple of interesting battles. Landslide Anne has lost her riding of Edmonton Centre to the Conservative contender, fittingly, by a margin of 3500 votes (okay, more funny than significant). Parkdale-High-Park (PHP) was lost by Liberal Sam Bulte to the NDP contender. This is significant considering that Sam Bulte was essentially a bought and paid for lackey of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (== EVIL). She was a rather whiney loser too, good riddance! Two of three Kitchener-Waterloo ridings went Liberal. In particular, Waterloo voted for Liberal incumbant Andrew Telegdi by a huge margin, likely since he's a major veteran with a strong record, while the Conservative candidate was new, and the NDP candidate wasn't that strong. The one Kitchener riding that went blue was by a fairly slim margin.

And for all of you voters who think that voting for the Conservatives punished the Liberals: thanks! Congrats, you punished Martin, so badly that he's giving up leadership. I'll get to think about my punishment while serving my drafted tour of duty in <american-unfriendly-arab-nation-x>.

Okay, I'll lay off the hyperbole. Enjoy your GST rebate!

May these gates never be closed

Sorry for the lack of interesting posts lately. I've been quite busy setting up for work, and none of my upcoming posts are quite ready yet. In the near future, I'll have posts on the Scion tC, my new Kirkland apartment, and starting at Microsoft.

But until then, you'll have to make do with the answer to a frequently asked question:
How long does it take to get to Vancouver?

Short answer: 3 hours.

I made my first trip to Canada since arriving here, driving up to Vancouver to go catch a Nickelback concert with Dan at GM Place. Of course, getting distracted by work, I left at 4:45pm from Microsoft.

This should already raise flags with some people.

Traffic bubbles. Around the Seattle area at any major residental exit. Around Everett. Around a few places I don't even know what they are. Even around Vancouver, there's the crowd heading in for Friday night recreation in Richmond and Vancouver. At each location, the traffic can slow to a fraction of the speed limit.

Regardless, I made it from my office to the downtown core in about three hours. This includes a measely 10 minute wait at the Peace Arch border crossing. The Canadians are fairly nice about these things. The traffic slowed things down a bit, but as for how much difference it would make, I'm unsure.

Coming back was bad. While traffic was moving at a good clip all the way back, I had an hour's wait at the Peace Arch. Possibly because the American border guards are not that bright. Okay, I'm just bitter that they referred me to immigration. To their credit, the guy in immigration admitted that the guy at the booth was an idiot and apologised for the inconvenience. I was returning from Dan's house in Pitt Meadows, which is actually quite a fair bit of additional travel (plus stupid drunks all along that stretch of Hwy 1). Total miles: 163.1, time > 4hrs.

Those who have been estimating two hours are definitely considering an optimized time/location scenario, and even then, it would require a rather dismissive attitude towards local traffic laws. That being said, with a little forethought and flexibility on departure time, 2.5hrs would not be unreasonable at all. In Canada, the speed limits are largely ignored. In the US, pretty much everyone drives consistently between -5 and +10mph.

The drive's a bit rough. My tires are not meant for smooth riding over less-maintained sections of the I-5. Still, highway all the way is nice. And the Canadian sections are very well-maintained indeed.

And of course Canadian gas.
Gas Price (Pitt Meadows): $0.926/L
Gas Price (Blane, overpriced): USD2.499/us.gal * 1G/3.785L * $1.153/USD = $0.76/L
(btw: I can get gas at about USD2.10/us.gal around here)

Addendum: Mike to work (parking spot to parking spot): 6.2 miles, 15 minutes, no traffic.

English Leader Debate 2

As promised, my completely biased uninformed coverage of the second English leader's debate, held in Montreal, to follow up my posting on the first leader debate. Now some of you may wonder "How on Earth did Mike watch the debate from the US?" Well by miracle of modern technology, I watched it on the Internet. Sadly, with Realplayer (*shudders at evil bloatware technology*), but for those that are interested, here's the debate link from cbc.ca.

The format changed this time: while last time the format was very rigid with recorded questions, this time it was much more freeform with the moderator posing questions. They also gave them a few more opportunities for followups and responses, which made things interesting. There was lots of duelling between the candidates, making for some revelations.

Of course, scandal was still heavy on everyone's minds, with regular references to the sponsorship and more recent scandals. Martin was of course harassed over the sponsorship scandal, and for not asking Gooddale to resign pending the income trust investigation. Martin shot back quoting his action with the Gomery commission, and basically said that Gooddale didn't have to resign because in the end the RCMP wouldn't investigate him due to lack of evidence of any wrongdoing! Mentions of limiting campaign contributions came up, which quickly backfired because Harper said he'd made public all of his contributors, but the other three leaders immediately agreed that if he had, they hadn't seen it yet. [ed. note: according to a CBC article, he has released this information in the past, though no mention of recent details]

There was lots of talk about budgeting, in particular, everyone wanted to claim to support low-income people with their tax break. Harper supports corporate tax cuts to keep jobs in the country (so does Martin but he didn't admit as much), but thinks the GST cut is the only way to benefit everybody. Plus he intends to give benefits to transit riders, students, and a few other special groups. Martin's sticking by his own income tax cut package story, which I think is really meant to appeal to the middle class votes despite his arguments. Martin in particular emphasized his desire for a childcare system, though the others criticized him for not doing it yet, after years of promises. Harper's childcare plan (ie. cash to parents) was pretty thoroughly mocked. Duceppe reminded people that Quebec has the best childcare, which everyone seemed to agree with. Duceppe brought up points about money taken out of EI by the Liberals, and generally supported better EI stuff.

Almost a topic of its own right was the fiscal imbalance - getting the money back to the provinces and the municipalities. This is of course Duceppe's favourite topic, becuase it gives more money for the provinces, and he wants the Quebec to maintain a strong hold on the cornerstone money programs of education and health. Others supported various committees and renegotiations already in progress, but generally didn't SAY much.

Of course healthcare was an issue, and Layton was heavily against any for-profit healthcare at all. Harper wanted waittime guarantees that would allow people to go outside Canada on Canadian dollars if the wait was too long. And Martin was all about supporting the current Canada Health Act and preventing any Canadian tax dollars reaching private for-profit institutions. Duceppe turned this into his standard fiscal imbalance complaint - why is there 10,000 federal healthcare workers if healthcare is a provincial matter? Martin thinks there are certain things that benefit from co-operation in healthcare, and that the provinces shouldn't go it all on their own.

While not all that relevant, the national unity section was funny. First question: exactly my observation in my first post - how can Duceppe say we don't need to rediscuss same-sex marriage, while working towards a third referendum? He made the distinction between collective rights and individual rights to justify this. Also, he said if we should all join up, why not all join the US as well? The response: because we have different values than the US, but we (and Martin got pretty snippy about this) share values with Quebec, and Quebec helped build Canada. And a good followup: if we can split Canada, can we split Quebec too? Of course not, says Duceppe, Quebec came in as a nation, and leave as a nation. Heh, separatists make funny arguments. Martin argued very passionately here as he always does.

There were other topics, that I really didn't touch on. Agriculture I ignored. I don't care about farmers. Well.... I CARE, but I'll leave the farmers to consider those options.

Some interesting quickies: Harper's view of the constitution came into play a few times, particularly around the notwithstanding clause. Harper supports the current balance between a US constitutional system, and a British parliamentary supremacy; here rights become a dialgoue between the courts and parliament. (An interesting side note, he'd amend the constitution to enshrine property rights). Martin made a rather bold statement: he would remove the federal notwithstanding clause from the constitution! This is huge - basically, this would be a move towards a more US-like system, where nothing short of amending the constitution (which is hard) could get around the rights guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But then again, removing the notwithstanding clause is of itself the same hard problem. Layton was particularly disappointing here, entirely avoiding these sequences of questions.

Electoral reform came up once too. All three leaders said "Hum commission... yeah... um... studies... soon yeah...." except Layton who of course has proportional representation as part of his platform.

Crime was a biggie at the start. Most of the parties are big on increasing minimum sentencing, even though one leader (forget whom) observed that police officers don't think it'll help. Harper is big on the harsh sentencing, Layton is big on addressing the underlying (poverty?) issues, though surprizingly also supports increased minimums too. Martin wants to BAN all handguns, which is a rather controversial plan. There was brief mention of the lack of armed border guards and preventing the increased smuggling of guns from the US.

When asked about who the parties would ally with in a minority, nobody gave a straight answer, but of course, Harper insisted to do anything, you had to be in power. However Layton made fun of that pretty good, quoting his own track record the past session with far fewer MPs than the Conservatives, who have done nothing but bitch for years.

Sorry for the rather random hammering of topics. I found in this debate that the little points were the bigger news.

Well, now you're ready. Vote, or shut up and don't whine to me afterwards.

Testdriving Part 2

So, the testdriving continues.

I took a Scion tC out for testdrive. For those that don't know, Scion is essentially a Toyota brand, and sold quasi-independently out of the Toyota dealerships. The Scion brand has a no-haggle policy - the price on the website IS the price you pay - we'll see if that is true in practice though. The tC looks like most of the other sports coupes, almost like an elongated 350Z, or an Eclipse (though nothing quite beats the Eclipse on sporty body style!). I took one out for a testdrive. The first thing I noticed: it's quite peppy for a 4-banger. It drives like a small car, which makes it feel like you're getting a lot out of it. Handles beautifully, but there's only so much you can get out of the busy Bellevue streets. The biggest thing you notice: there's lots of space in the back! Apparently this is at the cost of trunk space - admittedly, I didn't look at that, so I'll have to check that out. Apparently for $6000 extra, you can throw a supercharger on. That'd hella go!

The next day, the long trek down to Renton to drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse GS. A friendly dealer was very eager to sell me - huge MS discounts, which would hopefully counteract some of the $4000 dealer markup over MSRP. The Eclipse is dead sexy. Nothing else I've driven comes close in a body style that'll turn heads faster than Pamela Anderson on a slip-and-slide. However, the drive was disappointing. While perfectly understandable, the back seat was a joke - I would never subject anyone to such cramped conditions. Even the front was quite low, but again, this is what you expect from this sort of car. What I didn't expect - visibility was shite, from all angles. Couldn't see a damned thing outta that car! I was also expecting a car that would really perform. Sure, it drove well for a 4-cylinder, but it was nothing as impressive as I was expecting from a Mitsubishi. The only advantage to driving - it was the only car with techtronic (sp) 4-gear auto. The sound system (an optional upgrade I think, an MP3 deck) was pretty impressive. They unleashed three salesmen on me to try and force an impulse buy. Sorry guys, nice try!

Last on the list, I went to the Renton Honda. Took a Honda Accord EX (4-cylinder) Sedan out, just to get a feel for the non-V6 (no, I don't want a sedan). The Accord is the antithesis of the Eclipse. It's big, very roomy, visible, and drives very smoothly. The power was decent, but of course not the manly thrust of the V6. The Coupe is still kinda sexy, but it's hard to get the ones I want. If I was looking more in the luxary car direction, I'd go with the Honda - it's comforable to ride in, very comfortable to drive. I scared the shit outta the dealer, who had me pegged as a conservative family man, by blaring Godsmack on the hellas sweet 6CD changer. Not sure if it rivalled the Eclipse's deck, but it was close for sure.

Discounting the Eclipse for now, lets get some heads-up play going here. I'm going to custom-build cars for comparison.

	2006 Scion tC	2006 Accord LX Coupe
Price	$20,095	$23,112
Body Style	2-door Hatchback	Coupe
Colour	Nautical Blue	Sapphire Blue Pearl
Transmission	4-speed auto	5-speed auto
Engine	160hp@5700RPM 163lb.ft@4000RPM	166HP@5800RPM 160lb.ft@4000RPM
Weight	2970lb	3122lb
Economy	23/30 MPG	24/34 MPG
Tank	14.5gal	17.1gal
Tires	18" alloy wheels w/ wheel locks	15" chrome w/ wheel locks
Audio	Pioneer 6-speaker 160W w/MP3/ipod/aux	6-speaker 120W w/MP3(?aux)
Safety	blah: todo: me!	sama sama
Warranty	36/36000 basic 60/60000 powertrain 60 rust	?? 60/60000 most things
Other:	Many available. Pure price. I could drop this price way down by dropping some of the silly toy features. Reviews consistently complain about blind spots and rear rattle.	Hard to get automatic transmission coupes

The Scion looks like it will win out. I will take one last visit to the dealership, and if I still like it, it becomes mine. Hooray!

Car Shopping

I am here! As of now, I even have Internet. I was never really disconnected; I was borrowing some wireless, but I guess I'm just too honest to rely on that for an entire month.

But now, let's talk cars.

The rental they gave me is called a "Chevy Classic". From what I'm told, this is the equivalent of a Chevy Malibu. What a shitbox. It has a turning radius of approximately Prince Edward Island, accelerates like shite, crappy brakes, bad interior design, etc. etc. Horrible car.

Today I went testdriving. Only really had a chance to testdrive at the Kirkland Honda dealership; Bellevue Acura was a bunch of jerks and wouldn't let me drive w/o my own insurance. I went to the Toyota dealership, and they were much nicer, but I ran out of time before I could testdrive.

In any rate, the first car I tried was the 2006 Civic coupe. With 2006, they have completely revamped the Civic. Very slopey, to look more like a sporty car I presume, or maybe for aerodynamics. The Civic's fuel economy is an insane 30/40 MPG. Inside, it sports a fancy digital dash, and a drool-worthy sound system, even an ipod dock! The downside? It's a light car. And a weak car (apparently Si's are next to impossible to get). So it's very delicate to drive, and damned if it can accelerate to highway speeds in a reasonable time.

Next up, the 2006 Civic Hybrid. Basically, the same Civic, with regenerative braking and acceleration assist for a massive 49/51 MPG. Very stiff (kinda touchy) brakes and it occasionally made some odd noises, but otherwise not that much different than the base Civic. Yeah, the engine turned off at a few stop signs, but meh. The novelty wears off fast. Despite what you'd think tho, there's no lag for the engine to kick in, and the 2006 even electrically-powers the AC and steering so both work as normal if the engine turns off.

Finally, the 2005 Accord V6. Wildly more expensive, but worth every penny. It's a fair bit bigger, but not particularly more roomy inside. Still, a brilliant car. Drives like a big boy's car, with an engine that'll give acceleration you can really feel (the salesman said "You don't want to get a ticket" over a dozen times during my testdrive). I have no complaints of any kind, except the price and the difficulty of getting the lower-end car.

The only Acura that I'd consider is the Acura RSX. More sporty and respectable than the Civic, but I was put off by the jerk of a salesman. And WAY cheaper.

Finally, there was newcomer to the car shortlist, the Scion tC. Basically, take a 350Z and stretch it a bit, you'd know what this car looked like. Very cute, a bit more muscle than the Civics with a tuned variant of the Camry engine. I didn't have time to testdrive it, but it's quite a car compared to its price.

Next on my drivetest list: the Mitsubishi Eclipse. I'm hopeful, but we'll see. A little money for a solid Accord could be indeed worthwhile!