I love China.

Those crazy bastards churning out electronics almost as fast as they can carbon dioxides. And doing it so cheap. I rebuilt my main PC (cpu, motherboard and ram) for like $240. Total. Its stupid. Stupid cheap. There was a time you'd pay that much for a motherboard by itself, and twice that for the cpu. Its not only computer gear though, LCD panels, video cameras, whatever you can think of.

Its only a matter of time before we start getting their cars over here. In 10 years we'll all be driving Soyats and Wulings and they'll be so cheap if you forget where you parked one you'll just go buy a new one. Business as usual, probably.

In the meantime though, we're driving Japanese cars. A little bit more pricey, but at least the doors open the right way (or at all). Speaking of doors not opening though, its time for a Pajero update.

I got the diff welded up, but before we could install it the fuel pump died. Specifically it happened half way up a hill, which i had to roll down backwards un-powered. I've decided that its probably a good time to do the Magna EFI conversion on it as the carby on it was a heap of shit to start with. Soon the car will less original parts than one of the cars from Mad Max 2. (Movie tip of the week, go download Doomsday, it was awesome. If you disagree, you're shit.) I'm not too worried about having it off the road for a while to be honest as I was getting a bit sick of driving it, too loud, too vague and no stereo, plus the exhaust turned itself into a piece of contemporary art.

I've been driving the Gemini everyday which brings a lot less angry looks and a lot more my-mate-used-to-own-a-Gemini conversations with randoms whenever I park it somewhere. The down time seems to have done it wonders though as not acting like its pregnant anymore (aka, not holding fluids when it should and holding them when it shouldn't). Plus I didn't have to hand over a few hundred dollars to solve that one. Bonus.

The Pajero being out of action has a downside in that moving big objects becomes a bit more difficult. I had promised to pick up an old biological freezer from work for a mate to use in a (fairly serious) home brew operation he had planned. That's on hold now, and the Facilities Manager (aka a glorified janitor) had a big teary about it. The beer probably would have been shit anyway.

On Saturday I gave Gene a hand removing and moving a Starlet GT rear axle, which meant meeting up with the lads having not seen any of them in months. A whole lot of stupid drama had passed and gone under the bridge since then, which I hadn't been involved in except for comments from the sidelines. Everyone is well over it now, so not much needed to be said except for some jokes about it all.

Anyway, the axle removal wasn't too hard even given we had to lift the car up to get underneath it, well we lifted while Gene got under it. Given that a Starlet shell weighs as much as the girl's handbag it is the automotive equivalent of it wasn't difficult.

We threw the axle in the boot of the Gemini, which isn't as pathetically small as you might imagine, in fact probably big enough to keep Ivan Milat happy. Even so, the axle hung out and the open boot sucked into the cabin plenty of exhaust fumes. Marc decided to change cars after about 300 metres. Probably a good choice.

I also saw the worlds worst kept secret too. Phil's 4-door R32. It's pretty rad. The subwoofer makes more noise than the exhaust, and probably more power than the 7 ever did. It makes me wish I had a R32 of my own to drive.

Comment:

Captcha (calculate this) :
Name to post as (not unique) : (Set default name here.)