my good and loyal friend for the past two years, my 4-door toyota tercel, passed away of a cracked cylinder head or blown head gasket (i’m not sure which) on sunday. he was 12 years old and had 191,732 miles (308,497 km) on the odometer.

trina, who has a penchant for giving nicknames to cars, refered to him as “toyo-san” in recognition of his japanese heritage. and true to his toyota namesake, toyo-san was one tough car. despite a rusted-out radiator, an exhaust pipe ready to fall off, only 60% compression on two cylinders, a leaked-out a/c, and a dented fender, hood, and roof, he got me to and from work every day, and took trina and i on road trips to toronto, montreal, new york, and even PEI. in fact, on one trip to toronto, two of the spark plugs inexplicably failed somewhere in the middle of upstate new york. we drove all the way from new york state to toronto, about 3 hours, on only TWO cylinders. that’s right. toyo-san was one tough mofo.

he got towed off to the scrap heap today. a moment of silence, please.

okay, so, we’re thinking of getting a new car sometime in the next little while. if anybody has suggestions, let’s hear them. right now, i think the front runners are either a certified used honda civic (one or two years old), or a scion xa. i’m leaning toward the scion, i think. and here’s a neat tool that’ll tell you how much pollution your particular car will put out. an ’04 scion xa puts out 7040 lbs of co2 over 12,500 miles, vs a prius, which puts out 4363. nifty.