by "Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
Published 12/06/2017 at 19:05
by "Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
Published 12/06/2017 at 19:05
Tags: Why would a male stripper need a level?
STARS: 5
Overall, an incredibly pleasant experience.
Though it is a seriously small car. My 6' level sticks out over the front center armrest. Doesn’t affect me, but if I had any friends they would be pretty cramped up there with it. Getting in and out frequently is a small adventure, as it’s so low to the ground. And not suitable for full time duty, since about a third of the places I visit usually have torn up roads or no pavement whatsoever.
However, it sticks much better than the Taco on slick or icy roads. I pulled up a hill in Kirkland that was bright white in the shadows with zero fuss. Setting in 405 or I-90 traffic was relaxing. And if traffic was moving, I was zipping around those “5-under-in-left-lane-for-no-reason” motherfuckers with an internal smile.
"CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever" (carsoffortlangley)
12/06/2017 at 19:16, STARS: 3
Taco shop mmmm
"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
12/06/2017 at 19:34, STARS: 2
Something something checking straightness
"Highlander-Datsuns are Forever" (jamesbowland)
12/06/2017 at 19:36, STARS: 0
Why does a home inspector need a 6’ level? That is a huge long implement rarely used by any trade.
"Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies" (jordanwphillips)
12/06/2017 at 19:37, STARS: 0
Tacoma’s have stupidly narrow tires.
"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
12/06/2017 at 19:39, STARS: 1
Still not a fan of those Altezza taillights...with the red lights in the rear hatch, the Altezzas always just looked really out of place to me, I always wondered why the designers did that as they don’t look like they match at all in my eyes!
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 19:44, STARS: 1
I’m going to buy a 7-footer here soon too.
"RPM esq." (rpm3)
12/06/2017 at 19:44, STARS: 7
Some chandeliers are really wide, I guess.
"Nibbles" (nibbles)
12/06/2017 at 19:48, STARS: 3
Fuck those left lane motherfucks
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 19:50, STARS: 0
And the taco had zero weight in the back so it’s about as unsettling as dinner with your in-laws. I threw a few 100 lbs back there because I’m tired of this crap. It was 32 degrees for God’s sake and the truck went sideways at any speed over 25 mph. Meanwhile every other car drive through fine.
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
12/06/2017 at 19:54, STARS: 0
Its hilarious to me to say that car is small or low to the ground. I just become so used to my Miata basically sitting on the floor and having just enough room for some toothpicks, unless I have a passenger and then those have to go. But then I get in my STi and it feels like I am sitting in a truck or something and theres just SOOO much room, I could bring like 3 or 4 friends along and still fill up the trunk with all sorts of stuff. So its funny to hear an even larger car (comparatively) called “small”.
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 19:55, STARS: 5
I don’t know to tell you. My Altezza litetally has Altezza tail lights because it is an Altezza.
"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
12/06/2017 at 20:01, STARS: 0
Oh, I know! The Altezza is the JDM name. That light style originated on it. I just call them that because that is the widely accepted name for that style. I always just thought the lights in the hatch and the taillights on the car looked disjointed and wondered why the Toyota engineers did it that way. :P
"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
12/06/2017 at 20:04, STARS: 1
I have very little pickup experience, but I rode in my friend’s Ranger several times. As soon as the roads were wet, anything more than crawling forward from a stop on a hill made it spin tires a silly amount. That said, I was 16 and didn’t pay attention to things like what tires it had, or I forgot.
"feather-throttle-not-hair" (feather-throttle-not-hair)
12/06/2017 at 20:09, STARS: 1
Man i like those a lot. One of my favorite wagon designs of all time. If you see a dude waving to you in a 350Z on I-90 its probably me. Probably.
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 20:11, STARS: 0
I mean sure a Miata is smaller: It has two seats and a trunk. But this car has “5" seats and a hatch, and yet much like the Miata, you can’t ride in it if you’re too tall or too bigly. Climbing out of the passenger seat is most familiar to when I had my mom’s NA Miata.
"feather-throttle-not-hair" (feather-throttle-not-hair)
12/06/2017 at 20:12, STARS: 1
Were I ever to get one, there’d be a mighty battle waged in my mind between aesthetics and laziness that’s for sure....
"Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies" (jordanwphillips)
12/06/2017 at 20:15, STARS: 1
It is terrifying in rain.
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 20:16, STARS: 2
Nah, do the red vinyl. Then at least the center lights will still be 4 circles inline.
"Highlander-Datsuns are Forever" (jamesbowland)
12/06/2017 at 20:25, STARS: 0
I’ve never used anything beyond a 4 foot level, I wouldn’t even know what to do with a 6 foot tool.
"Highlander-Datsuns are Forever" (jamesbowland)
12/06/2017 at 20:26, STARS: 1
Honestly the Impreza may have the same or more interior room than an Alteza.
"feather-throttle-not-hair" (feather-throttle-not-hair)
12/06/2017 at 20:28, STARS: 0
yeah i’ll pretty much accept any “fix” for them. They’re the only part of the car i dont like. Though honestly, they’ve been around for so long that its now at the point where i see them and think “its not really that bad”
"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
12/06/2017 at 20:30, STARS: 0
Oh wow its really that sunk in the seats? I had just figured it would match up closer in size to the Impreza platform like my STi. And being a wagon instead of a sedan makes me think you would have even more room. What are the seats like in that car?
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 20:36, STARS: 1
Up real close they look great. All the little ridges in the chrome, the sort of dodecahedron shape of the brake lights, I love the details... But they don’t photograph well, and from numerous angles they are indeed unflattering. On the other hand they are distinctive. I think it might flow better if the chrome badges were on to have at least SOME coordination.
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 20:40, STARS: 0
Leg room is 3" less than it’s closest rival at the time: an E46 wagon. But I’ve got 4 people in lots of time now (again, no one weighing over 200 and no one taller than 6').
The seats are wonderful, like a nice hug from behind. Excellent for long trips.
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 20:44, STARS: 4
It might be the most important tool I have. I pick it up like a javelin and throw it at light fixtures that don’t meet my standards.
"OPPOsaurus WRX" (opposaurus)
12/06/2017 at 21:08, STARS: 0
thatw as my least favoirte part of the WRX.
they visually dominate the look of the car.
"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
12/06/2017 at 21:11, STARS: 0
Agreed!
"fintail" (fintail)
12/06/2017 at 21:11, STARS: 2
That house is so stereotypically PNW it hurts, or my eyes hurt, or both.
"wafflesnfalafel" (wafflesnfalafel1)
12/06/2017 at 21:16, STARS: 1
It’s quite a bit smaller - I don’t really fit in the Altezza platform cars (which is unfortunate since they really are a nice package...) but the current Impreza while not spacious seems to be built right around me, (as long as it doesn’t have a sunroof.)
"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
12/06/2017 at 21:18, STARS: 0
Agreed - I think that gen of Impreza looks better with red vinyl wrapped tails as well!
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 21:22, STARS: 0
Yeah definitely one of their more bizarre designs on that lot. This builder builds pretty typical homes (as far as new construction goes), and the inside is one of their usual plans, but I’ve never seen that exterior design option, and I’ve been in every home they’ve built for the last 4 years.
"fintail" (fintail)
12/06/2017 at 21:29, STARS: 2
It’s the distant suburban mcmansion here. Weird disjointed faux craftsman style - check. Small amount of stone veneer - check. Questionable quality looking roofing/siding - check. Random window placement - check. Dominating garage - check. Pellet stove (I assume) appendage - check. At least the windows don’t appear to have prairie muntins, and looks like a nice lot.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
12/06/2017 at 21:37, STARS: 1
It’s all relative. My full size crew cab truck feels like a go-kart after 500 miles behind the wheel of a 14- passenger mini-bus.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
12/06/2017 at 21:38, STARS: 0
That’s what I assumed.
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/06/2017 at 21:57, STARS: 1
You missed the ubiquitous slat (or whatever you call it) front door. Super hip everywhere on the east side. Every renovation seems to get one of these, Plus almost all new construction...
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
12/06/2017 at 21:57, STARS: 1
I hope you never get a look at my house. Built in the 30s, remodeled in the 80s, flipped in the thousands, neglected in the teens. I have still have drywall that needs bigly patching.
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/06/2017 at 22:04, STARS: 0
Don’t come to the PNW. We have more of those campers than anywhere else I’ve ever been. They are an absolute plague here.
"fintail" (fintail)
12/06/2017 at 22:16, STARS: 1
Yep, that’s a big mcmodern thing, kind of a mid-century throwback, but with a boring eastside normcore sheen.
"fintail" (fintail)
12/06/2017 at 22:18, STARS: 2
Built in the 30s is a good thing - should be made of actual wood, not necessarily built asap for a shady builder catering to speculators, crooks,and idiots. Any plaster instead of drywall?
My mom lives in a 1920s bungalow, remodeled in the 60s, renovated in the early 90s, with zero done to it since. Even with that, it has some materials that would cost a fortune to duplicate today.
"Nibbles" (nibbles)
12/06/2017 at 22:36, STARS: 0
Yeah the worst I’ve ever seen and I was only there for two weeks
Don’t care though. Still moving there next year
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/06/2017 at 23:23, STARS: 1
I probably shouldn’t throw stones - our house was built in 2007 in that PNW faux craftsman style. It’s also the smallest house on the block, as it was the model home (therefore built first) and they completed it right after the last bubble burst. After the crash (before any other houses were built in the development) it took them 6 years to sell the rest of the lots and everyone opted for a larger house by at least a couple hundred feet (and we have one of the few houses with a mere 2 car garage (at least it’s side-by-side and not tandem like a bunch of houses in nearby developments)).
However, it is built better than the other houses in the development (even if only marginally; the construction is frustrating me already) and isn’t entirely a trope. It is about 70% trope, though (ex: it has real wood floors, but it also has those stupid muntins (something I’m planning to rid the house of when we replace the windows, which it needs because about a third of them have already lost their seals)).
Then again, you’d be hard pressed to afford anything better. This place was on the outskirts of the region I could endure a commute from and was a little beyond what I considered a price we could reasonably afford, but the options were either this or a tiny ridiculously overpriced place that needed more renovation than we could possibly afford.
"fintail" (fintail)
12/06/2017 at 23:32, STARS: 1
I can’t afford a detached house within what I consider a reasonable commute (<30 mins). I’ll still throw stones. I live in shoebox in a building with many other similar shoeboxes, no special finishes, but at least some of it is concrete, and the costs are low.
The design and quality of affordable detached housing in this region can be depressing, and condos are often no better. I wish I could have got in after the last bubble burst - some fortunes have been speculated here in the past decade.
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/06/2017 at 23:44, STARS: 0
We also have commutes/traffic that is worse than all but Los Angeles (in time) and it moves slower than any other metro area in the country.
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/07/2017 at 00:19, STARS: 0
Our place is ~30-35 minutes from Redmond (where we both work) in rush hour traffic and ~20 minutes with no traffic. It’s a lot more than I’m accustomed to (I was used to ~5 minutes with no traffic at rush hour, or ~8 minutes if I took a scenic detour route), but it is something I’m slowly learning to endure (we’ve been in the house 1.5 months and I have been full time in the house exactly a month now).
It truly is depressing. Most of the housing stock here is ghastly and the prices are so high that you have to make really terrible decisions. Our house is truly insane when you realize that the former buyers paid $140k less a mere 3 years earlier... That’s more than my parents have paid for any house they’ve ever owned, and our house cost over 5x as much as the most expensive they’ve bought (where they had nearly 50% to put down). It’s just crazy and I’m frightened that we may have bought at the top of the bubble, as our place actually sat an entire month on the market in a period with the lowest inventory this metro has ever seen. That is, contrary to the cheerleading from the RE people, the market is cooling heavily. Even the RE sites are starting to pick it up in their ratings of the outer suburbs...
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/07/2017 at 00:39, STARS: 0
If you’re curious, this is what mine looks like:
The entranceway is not surrounded by pillars, although they look deceptively like them. Half the windows you see here have lost their seals (you can see it in the rightmost window). I really want to remove both of those stupid dishes from the roof, but they were installed horribly and I may not be able to do much beyond take part of them off until we need to replace the roof...
Some claim that at least the front was pretty well executed on ours, but the rear and sides are nothing more than huge flat expanses of hardboard siding.
"Nibbles" (nibbles)
12/07/2017 at 09:00, STARS: 0
I work from home ;)
"fintail" (fintail)
12/07/2017 at 09:46, STARS: 0
A friend of mine has a house that looks very much like yours. They are in the far north of Bothell/Mill Creek area, Snohomish County. It’s on a 4000 sq ft lot (LOL) and they paid nearly 500K for it a little while ago - and were thrilled to get it. Insanity. At least the snow softens the PNW “style” - I don’t get how the faux craftsman became such a thing, must be via the use of wood, or wood-looking substances that warms the heart of the conspicuous outdoorspeople here. These are equivalents of tract housing in flyover states, where the fronts are brick but the sides and back are vinyl. Oh well, still beats living in those places ;) I have a friend who lived in suburban Atlanta - although you could have easily found a decent enough house for 100K, living there wasn’t worth it to him.
It’s disheartening to compare what our generation faces re: housing compared to the luckyboomers. Go back to 1980-85 and see what housing stock, especially older material, was selling for on the eastside. Compare it to salaries. You’ll feel sick. Don’t even thinking about comparing the 60s to now. But the prior generation had it rough, lolol.
I’ve noticed highish-end stuff in Bellevue is often sitting on the market for months. Not the ubiquitous 1.2MM 98004 teardown, but 20 year old nice but unremarkable houses that have tripled in value in 15 years (often with an “8" or three in the price), listed at maybe 1.5-2MM. There’s definitely something going on. I wonder if foreign demand is cooling - but with Jared courting the money laundering “investors”, I don’t know. I have noticed some outlying cities are still in a boom - Bremerton is apparently pretty crazy right now, and prices are strong even outside of Olympia, compared to the recent past.
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
12/07/2017 at 13:38, STARS: 0
I would have used a non-snow picture, but that’s the only one I have taken of the house since we moved in (the ones from the listing are heavily oversaturated and the trees have all their leaves, so you can’t see as much of the house). It’s so thoroughly unremarkable that the snow is the only thing that made it worth photographing.
We’re in King County and our lot is 6k sq/ft. The house itself is 2.5k sq/ft plus a 2-car garage (420 sq/ft), with a ground-level footprint of ~1.75k sq/ft, not including the deck. We paid over 600k for ours, which we felt was actually a decent deal considering what we had as options. It was a sobering experience as we watched places we didn’t even want go for hundreds of thousands over list (for example, one unremarkable smaller house in one of those shoehorned-in tight-packed neighborhoods in Kenmore that we passed on making an offer for due to the poor condition was listed at 550k and sold for 880k). We were very happy to get ours, too, considering how fast houses go around here and how bad the bidding wars get. We paid a bit over what I considered market for it, but we paid less than asking, which is a miracle in itself.
They are definitely equivalent to midwest tract homes, although I associate these Potemkin houses with a random mix of styling cues more with McMansions than traditional tract homes. On the upside, something about local code or expectations means this is the best-insulated house I have ever been so well acquainted with. Exterior walls are 8" thick and there is at least 18" of blown-in insulation in the attic. It’s kind of unreal. Now if they only would have put in decent quality windows (every house in the development is suffering the same problem).
I like that term, “luckboomers”, because it’s incredibly accurate. They saw their “awful” situation relative to their parents and older siblings, but cannot even fathom what our generation is up against. Most are completely ignorant of it and simply put us down. They don’t understand how our stagnant wages are a problem when housing is completely unaffordable by any realistic measure. We certainly wouldn’t have even the house we have if I wasn’t for the fact that we both have decent-paying jobs. Most of our friends have moved deep into the suburbs just to find anything they can afford, to the point that we rarely see any of them because it’s an hour or more to get to most. Just in our circles, people our age have ended up in North Marysville, Auburn (near Lake Tapps), Black Diamond, Maple Valley, about 5 miles north of Sultan, Monroe, and an early-30s couple that bought their place in 2009 in Tukwilla...
"fintail" (fintail)
12/07/2017 at 16:03, STARS: 0
The snow adds interest, must have been the event early last month (I was away). 880K in Kenmore sounds insane unless it is waterfront or something - I can still find truly decent places in east Bellevue for that, and I know where I’d rather live (closer to work). You’ll have a hard time finding something detached and halfway livable in 98004 for that money though. Funny about the windows, I notice those in local housing too. It’s almost to the point where old aluminum frame single pane windows might be better than some of the shoddy vinyl models.
Maybe your house was over-built because it was a model, and was made to impress browsers. They might not know the house they bought was made from cardboard and compressed oatmeal. The architecture may be different, but I think the quality here is the same as flyover tract housing. And just like there, some of the older housing is amazing quality, but you have to really look to find something maintained properly.
I get irked and snarky when I hear a certain generation whine about young people today, or how hard they have worked. Other than dealing with inflation and high interest rates, they had nothing to deal with that compares to the issues today. These people won a lottery jackpot in terms of asset appreciation, and lack the self-awareness to both see it, and see it relative to those younger than themselves. The “me generation” indeed. I’ll wager nobody will have it so easy again when it comes to education costs, housing costs, and career formation. A house that was 100K in 1985 can easily be 1.5MM now. Yeah, they had it so hard.
Of all those places you list, Tukwila might be the most palatable for me - just get a security system. I’m not doing a Sultan or Lake Tapps to Bellevue commute, life is too short. I once thought Renton or Kent might work, but with a single income, even by Bellevue standards, it isn’t really viable unless wants another 90s era condo.