Saturday, 4th of August, 2001
I went to Webster Groves Subaru today with Amie (she loves the WRX too) to check out the new 2002 WRX turbo. Wanted to see what Subaru has done to improve on this Impreza platform. It was pretty awesome. They had a nice silver 5-speed wagon in, and so I got to spin that around for an hour. Wow, first of all, the turbo effect is outstanding, the whole kicking in at 3400 rpm and stuff. And the exhaust note is thrilling. At low revs, it's got an awesome rumble, and the highs have the turbo effect, of course. Handling is impressive, definitely better than Dad's Outback Sport, lol. But it still feels Subaru, which is awesome. The Momo steering wheel and leather-wrapped shifter finished off the driving experience, really making it feel like a nice performing car under the wagon skin. The improved the horn too (I had to use it, some people were running red lights). It's nice and loud and two-tone now. And this wagon had some sort of restraint system in the trunk too, maybe to secure cargo items? But there are a total of 7 seat belts now, 2 extra ones back there. Interesting. I should make test-driving Subarus some sort of hobby, that's all I've really ever test-driven, new.
So my conclusion? I feel soooo home in the new Impreza WRX. The new Impreza kept a lot of the same feel of the old, I didn't feel like I was driving anything strange or new at all. It was just like Dad's Outback Sport, but faster and better handling. That also kinda makes me feel good about the Outback Sport too, since now I know they didn't strip down so much out of it that it's not even remotely related to the Turbo version that sits on the same platform.
Tonight I went with Beth to see My Fair Lady at the Muny. I guess this is the first time I've viewed a production there, the only other time I've been there was on a backstage tour with the Chamber Music Camp 6 years ago. The production was pretty cool,
Friday, 3rd of August, 2001
To park at Wash U overnight on campus is going to cost $325 a year. Geez. So I went down to the transportation department today and bought my $325 square sticker.
I decided to drop in on the monthly St. Louis 2600 meeting at the Galleria tonight too, and it was kinda interesting to see some sort of gathering of like minds so close to where I live. It's cool.
Thursday, 2nd of August, 2001
I spent a good portion of my day playing with the new laduestrollingstrings.com website. I tried to implement a little more Javascript, and the result is interesting. I took a different approach to this altogether, and I don't know if the result is better or worse. I'll have to let it sit a little and see. Maybe I just need to tweak it a little. But something is on that domain now, finally.
And I also went shopping. I bought some needed things for computers downstairs, like a USB controller and a serial mouse, and I bought what I think will be a useful toy for me in college, a webcam. It does 640x480, which is what I use on all the photos on this website anyways, and it'll do videos up to VGA res too. It even has a motion detector for use as a basic security camera of some sorts. For $49, it'll do a lot of things my digital camera does for me now, without having to go home and borrow it from Dad when I'm @ college.
Wendesday, 1st of August, 2001
Well, I bought a Viewsonic A75f today at Best Buy. The prices there are really good right now, it was $219 with a $40 mail-in rebate. Sitting side-by-side with the Samsung and Sony Trinitron FD natrually flat screens, this one looked a lot better. The Samsung was just plain gross, it was fuzzy and didn't look flat, though it physically was. The Trinitron FDs have had some reliability problems lately, and wasn't as bright as the Viewsonic. It's got the two lines in it, so I suspect this to be the Mitsubishi Diamondtron tube, but I haven't found documentation to support that yet. But I am extremely happy with the price I got it for, though for a 17" monitor, maxing out at 1280x1024 is a little low. But that's ok, I might get it to work higher than it's documented. It has a .25mm AG. I'm definitely happy I wanted now for this thing to get to a reasonable price range, totally enjoying this.