the daily snivel

  Rob's love affair tempestuous dalliance with the automobile

As I near closer to April, when I can take my road test and get my G2 driver's licence, I'm inevitably left with the conclusion that once all that is out of the way, I'm going to need to buy a car. I'll need one as soon as I begin my articles in September, and it seems like an awful thing to have to arrange at the last minute when I move to Toronto in August, so most likely this is something that will be done in July. Yipes.

Now, I do think driving is quite enjoyable, and I've really developed a feel for it. I've even booked more lessons in the weeks ahead just so I can stay in practice and iron out the few little things I'm not doing well (like bloody lot/stall parking), but I'm definitely not a fan of the general obsession we westerners have with our cars. You konw, the power and sex appeal and 'zoom-zoom' and driving to the corner store and all that. Given that we had a smog warning just a few days ago, in fricking February, I'm not sure we need to drive as often as we do. Nevertheless, it is a necessary and sufficient precondition of my employment (the last thing my future boss said to me after offering me the job last August was, "And, Rob, don't forget about the car!") so here we go.

But that doesn't mean I'm satisfied buying a car on terms that are not my own. I'm constrained, of course, by the fact that I'll just be starting out as a graduate and on a very tight budget, but I've thought quite a bit about whether to buy a smaller new car or go for something larger and fancier but used, but am presently leaning towards new, reliable, and efficient. The most important things I need will be fuel efficiency and reliability, because I am a smelly hippie and I do care about how much gas my car will suck and how much poison it will belch back out into the air, given that my employment will demand a heavy amount of driving each day. That said, I also need something reliable that won't break down without warning, as much as is possible. Finally, safety is pretty important given that however good a driver I may be at the end fo this process, you can't account for all the other idiots out there.

My sister, who is articling this year, bought a new Hyundai Accent, and while she got a great deal and a car that is very well equipped (with air conditioning, power mirrors, dual air bags, and a CD player) for a fantastic price with a fantastic 5-year warranty, and not to mention that it's very well rated in the Lemon-Aid guide, I'm still leaning away from it (though not definitively without a test drive and so on) because it's a bit wee, good on fuel but not great, with mixed reviews by owners and testers (you either love it or hate it), and because I'm not in love with the style.

That said, it was something I was seriously considering, and still am, but now it's taken second place to the 2005 Toyota Echo Hatchback (warning: website makes annoying vroom-vroom noises). Despite my beloved Celeste's chidings against cute cars (this weekend she was bemoaning my interest in hatchbacks at all, let alone the dreaded New Beetle that I was thinking about getting used), I think the damn thing is adorable and zippy. It really has to be seen. I've ridden in one and found it remarkably roomy for a subcompact, in large part because the car has a lot of vertical room and so the seats are elevated, creating more overall room without requiring a long car. All reviewers like its visibility, and love its fuel economy (one of its main features), since it can go a ridiculous 44 miles per gallon in the city, and 54 on the highway with a manual transmission. The only car that gets better economy is a hybrid. It also just won a 2005 EnerGuide award for low emissions. Meanwhile, it also comes standard with two airbags, anti-lock brakes, tilt steering, and the "LE" package I'm favouring gives it power steering, a rear windshield wiper, extra speakers, and splash guards, though I'll have to pay extra for air conditioning if I want a CD player upgrade (from AM/FM cassette, though I may keep it as is since I'm probably going to rely on my iPod and a car adapter kit for music anyway). It's also freakishly manoeuverable because of its compact size.

What's more, Toyota's reliability is very high and the Echo hatchback is becoming quite popular even though the sedan has had mixed results in North America (I agree that the sedan is a little plain and uninspired). Not everyone likes the fact that the instrument panel is on the centre of the dashboard, angled towards the driver (it took me by surprise) but I'm getting used to it when I see it now. The universal thing I see is that everyone who owns them loves them, and I'm quite keen to try one out for a test drive. I love the fact that they stand out, even though they're small. In a world of gray sedans, it's a distinctive and "cute" car that's still peppy and (yes) environmentally conscious and they're fun to see in traffic. I'm leaning towards blue, but red and black are also quite nice colours for it.

Anyway, if anyone has experience with either of the above new cars, or any other great new or used cars in my miserly price range, please let me know. 

  Credit where it's due

This weekend I had to copy some evidence that had been given to me by the Ottawa Police Service, as the audiotapes are due back on Monday and we wanted copies for ourselves. I decided that instead of dubbing them to cassettes, which just turns bad recordings into worse recordings, I would use my audio line-in to directly record them as high quality audio files on my hard drive and burn them to CD. I'd done this before when I'd transferred my old music cassettes into mp3 format so I could continue enjoying those lovely tunes of the mid-1990s without having to buy everything again on CD. You know, I was unemployed and looking for summer work at the time so I had quite a few dead hours to fill with tedious projects like that.

Anyway, at the time I'd managed to download some shareware audio recording software that allowed me to create the appropriate audio files from my tapes, and I hoped to use them again, when I realized that the shareware licences had long since expired. One of the packages only let you record files up to five minutes in length, and the other had only been fully functional for 30 days. So, I spent an hour on VersionTracker looking for something suitable with a more realistic licence as well.

To no avail. It was all shareware with crippled features unless you paid and registered, which was quite irksome.

Now, let me be clear. The hard work that goes into creating software should be rewarded. I'm a big believer in postcardware and donationware, for example. And if you create something swell that fills a need, why shouldn't you be compensated for that? But when you're just reinventing the wheel, and joining the two hundred other guys with audio recorders who want people to pay $29.95 for a non-crippled version, it's absolutely ridiculous. A lot more recognition would come of simply writing good, clean, software and clobbering the competition by being liberal with the distribution.

And then it was that I decided to see what the open-source community might have to offer.

I love the open-source concept. My friend Brad has an open source music website, where he freely allows people to download his songs and even his source files, even though he also has his music for sale. He figures he'll get way more exposure by sharing his creations freely, which is what he really wants and far more realistic than trying to get rich (though that would be nice).

So, when I hit upon Audacity through the SourceForge.net project, I was extremely pleased and relieved. It is distributed freely on the GNU general public licence and works like a dream. Crisp, clean, simple, easy to install. No nag windows. No crippled features. No buttons with spelling mistakes. The software made short work of my audio recording projects, and now I can make nice, non-degraded CDs out of these godawful tape recordings.

You can be sure that when I'm not a starving law student, I'm going to be donating my money to this amazing project since I don't have the programming wherewithal to donate my time. 

  What is a boy to do?

Well, I'm 29, white, slightly overweight, have no sex life, I talk to my cat, and I don't get out much. And now they've cancelled Star Trek: Enterprise.

What's left for me? Conspiracy theories? Comic books? The Republican Party?

Save me from that fate worse than death! I need a girlfriend, stat!