TMoney

Damn, man! Hang in there!

The WRX came with Dunlop summer performance tires. I'm not 100% sure if they are the same ones that are on the STI, but I'd bet they are awfully close. The long and short of it is with the AWD and the summer performance tires you will be howling in a corner long before the tires do . I live in the SF Bay Area, so winter tires aren't necessary. The worst we get down here is rain and light flooding. I do go up to Lake Tahoe in the Winter from time to time, but not enough to buy a second set of tires. The summers will be fine. The Forester is the sensible choice. The turbo XT and the WRX have essentially the same engine from what I understand. You've got about 20 years on me (and a wife and kids!) so obviously our car priorities are a little different. The exhaust I have is just the STI performance one Subaru offers as an option on the WRX and STI. I wanted it to be under warranty. I think I'll get used to it after a week or two, but its a makes a whole lot more noise than the 4-cyl Legacy I had rented while I was waiting for the WRX to show up.

So Cartelligent really was hassle free. That is their selling point and they did a great job of taking care of the process. If you know what you want and don't want to deal with all the dealer crap then they are a great option. They handled the trade in of my broken-down 2005 VW Passat and got me exactly what I would have expected for it. Cartelligent only saved about a grand or so vs. MSRP on the new car, which was less of a discount than I expected. In their defense, there are basically no unsold WRXs on dealer lots in the US and most WRXs have to be custom ordered from Japan so the Subaru dealers they deal with probably aren't going to cut that great of deals on them. My guess is that if you are a tough negotiator you can probably beat their price with a little hard work. They got me 2.90% on the car loan though. Hard to complain about that rate.

Oh yeah. That was the plan. I had the road to myself 80% of the time until I caught up to a PG&E truck that didn't want to let me by. I picked up the car in Sausalito and work in Larkspur so I had the road to Stinson and Sir Francis Drake penciled in as my "first drive" for months. This car is so much more capable than anything I've driven before. My hands are literally sore from the death grip I had on the wheel.

Completed my first drive without killing myself. Wow. This is a capable car. Never driven a car with turbo before so that is going to take a little getting used to. Getting performance exhaust may not have been one of my brighter ideas. Its friggin' LOUD. Pics:

As much as I like more high-minded stuff, without question this is my favorite show on TV. Every week I tune in and every week I am crying with laughter. These four guys are just so funny. They have the best chemistry together of any hosts of any live-action program I've ever seen, sports or otherwise. I DVR it every week regardless of whatever game proceeds it.

Sorry to hear about your daughter, HPA. Regardless of whether we all approve or disapprove of the protests I would try and be as supportive of her as possible. She seems like a smart girl who just ended up in to a bad situation. We all make choices that don't turn out the way we had planned. I wouldn't give her anything but support and well wishes to get through this. Good luck to you and your family.

Tomorrow, after just short of two and a half months of waiting for it to arrive from Japan, I get to pick up my brand-new car. Damn, I'm excited! It'll be the first new car I've ever had.

Banging out some work to prepare for Monday with Bowie and Eno on in the background. What a great album!

Senn. factory tour focusing on the HD800 assembly line.

I have the same case on my 6+. It helps a ton with being able to grip the big phone and I would highly recommend it.

Not music, but I've been listening and now I'm finally caught up. It is very good. Highly recommended.

Listening to the (RED) concert in the background. http://youtu.be/HzI_UN8_MOo

Sorry to disappoint everyone who wanted to see the 009s dissected, but I'm going to take the easy way out. Yama's ended up negotiating the trade-in price for a new pair down to a number I could stomach. It will be below what a new pair would have cost from PJ, but my wallet is still going to be absolutely crushed for the foreseeable future. Heres hoping for an X-mas bonus at work.

Thanks the the HBOGo app on the XBone I was able to finish the last season of Boardwalk Empire over the weekend. This show really needed its last season. Boardwalk has always been a difficult show to get through and the ending didn't deviate from that formula. Like the rest of the show, its conclusion is depressing, but oddly satisfying. I also really enjoyed reading along with the history I watched the show. As usual, the truth of these characters is both stranger and often far more interesting than how they are portrayed in the show. What a fun period of history to look back on. This wouldn't be the first HBO show I'd recommend to people, but if you do get in to it you won't be disappointed. 4/5

Watched Frontline's new episode "Firestone and the Warlord" on Firestone Tires and their latex plantation in Liberia during the rise of Charles Taylor. As with basically everything Frontline does, it was terrific. I highly recommend it.

Madness! Sure, it isn't as good as the book, but it is one of Arkin's great performances. Really enjoyable movie. RIP, Mr. Nichols.

Thanks for all the advice, gang. I emailed Yama's back to see if they can't be a little more flexible on the prices they sent me. I will have to ask them about the possibility cleaning the damaged driver as well. Given that they communicate at the speed of a carrier pigeon, I hope to hear back from them in the next 2-4 weeks. It was good to take a night to sleep on it. When I first got the email I was ready to throw something across the room.

I think I'm basically down to two options. 1) Try and bargain them on the trade in to see if they can match or preferably beat the PJ price. 2) Cut my losses and consider selling my Stax setup. If I take this route you are welcome to try your luck at fixing them, Spritzer. I'll have to sleep on it. I'm about to take delivery of my new car (after two months of waiting) and I was planning on putting all my available savings in to that so I'd have to finance as little as possible.

FML!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no idea what I'm going to do. EDIT: Any advice would be appreciated!

^ Good luck with it, Ric. Most brutal (in a good way) book I've ever read.

It has now been a week since my 009s were delivered to Accutech/Yama's and I still haven't heard anything. I'm starting to get worried. I called and left a message and sent some emails. I hope they get back to me soon.

Has anyone else here dealt with Accutech for a repair? How was the experience? My 009s arrived there on Friday the 7th and I still haven't heard anything from them yet.

RE: new version of the 009s. I've noticed at meets the earpads on some of the newer pairs of 009s are different from my pair. My pair was the first one Tyll measured (SZ9-1207).