The Lounge

Hey gents and ladies (where's gmpg these days?) I'd like to think I'm fairly smart, but I'm always a "late adopter" (marketing term) when it comes to technology, for the pricing and for me to "get over" my lack of understanding the new technology. (Duh, I bought a 3800 OHV V6). That being said, I'm using my tax refunds to buy new hardware. Some brief questions: 1) Are the HP Pavilion desktops with Intel Dual Core or Quad Core reliable machines? Any pluses or minuses? What kinds of limitations to their use could I encounter by limiting the size of the hard drive or RAM? (I will not be getting a laptop, though my friend says they're ideal for a coffeehouse person…

If I want to, I can exchange the minor landscape job I'm doing right now for a Vintage smallblock Chevy. It is a circa 1955/56 265 with the original Carter WCFB dual quads on the original GM dual quad manifold. It needs a rebuild/restoration. I really shouldn't do it, but...

I've got a tree in my backyard that I absolutely hate. Its a crabapple tree and I want it to die a slow, painful, torturous death. But my dad likes it and is more than willing to make a spot in his yard for it. Problem is, its pretty mature, at least 11 years old, around 6 feet tall. Is there any way to get it out without killing it?

Y'all know what to do.

This is what I got Googling "oh teh noes"

In my random browsing of wikipedia, I found this production Toyota Crown pickup. Edit: It even came as a double cab!

Anyone tried this? http://www.drcolorchip.com/ I'm curious how it works...

Ferrari struck by train during 911 call.. Seriously, should this guy no longer be allowed to call himself a man doing something this stupid? Just goes to prove that you do not have to be smart to have money...

Hope it's a good one, my friend.

So, here are some photos of the new CEO that I'm hoping some of my C&G friends with photo shop can do a cool phoenix flying out of fire next to the GM REN CENTER PS Fritz is short

Finances dictate that we consider a small, fuel-efficient vehicle if we go new (depending on the incentives GM offers and if I'm part of the pull-ahead program with my lease this month). Feel free to post your explanation after you vote, if you'd like.

It's time to go positive. Now I have to decide how.

deleted. Found pinned thread on same topic

http://www.wheelsfsbo.com/index.php?a=2&b=1378

http://www.myspace.com/soyuneikbeats Just found out about em today. Anything that the mass population might not know about, post em!

Just ugggggg I'm going to go drink until the last 7 hours is a distant memory.

So I checked my email this morning and eBay has informed me that the T&C sold. At first I was ecstatic. However the message from the buyer seems, I dunno...weird? I t just me? 0.0% Positive Feedback Member since Mar-31-09 in United Kingdom Location: East Sussex, United Kingdom

This is why i cant have fast cars. I drove the vette to work today and on my way home i got pulled over for doing 147 of course that caused a whole ordeal... I was arrested and my car was towed away. Once i get to the police station I try to state some people i know and after some calls i was let go but my wife didn't get me till 10pm... I will have to pay all towing fees and such which doesn't bother me. I will call a police chief I know to take care of the rest, hopefully. whats ironic is that early this morning i was helping a army recruiter at a high school and i was telling kids how to be safe in cars.. Also when they where searching my car they found some funny…

My uncle was killed in a head-on collision a few hours ago with another vehicle. The other driver crossed the center line and stuck him on a two-lane highway north of Omaha. We have no details other than both died instantly. The last time I saw / spoke to him was at our annual family Christmas gathering, and I am now regretting not spending more time with him on that day. I'm basically in shock right now...the reality of it all hasn't hit yet.

normally this would go in the auto show section but mpls is not a major show so its basically like going car shopping, but i thought i would post some observations. more people read the lounge anyways. it was a really scaled down autoshow. no concepts hardly and not much for glitz in displays. nearly no models. GM in particular was next to nothing. it really made the GM portion look sad. Gave the impression that GM is dead. on the whole, it was a ripoff for 10 bucks admission and 10 bucks to park, but fortunately, Ford and Mercury each will be sending me 50 buck gift cards after a test drive. that will make it pay off. comments......

It was a UPS Dodge Caravan. What was so odd was that all of it's badges were removed. I wonder what's up with that.

My retirement papers from GM have been signed and submitted, they take affect March 31st, 2009 at COB. I start officially with BMW on May 4th, 2009. With my sick and vacation time I have, I will be paid until June 15th, 2009 by GM. 20 years with GM, so many memories, so many thoughts, I struggled with this decision for many months, with long sleepless nights, it was not an easy one for me ... I will be 40 in June, here's to another happy 20 years at BMW ...

Hey, noticed this b-day on the forum list. Have a great birthday, Carbiz, down in the tropics! Jealous.

f@#k that new car you wanted, talk the owner of this "ultimate light-duty hauling machine" out of his baby: http://www.loqu.com/bmw-m5-ute-conversion-.../barbara8i-2216

I don't know if any of you are interested ( or if the link will work), but I got on a roll one day and wrote this: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7045...&topic=7792

So close to Washington, D.C., so far from God ...

http://www.gessweinmotors.com/show.aspx?vid=1201556 spendy, but its nice!

Classified documents compromised in 103 countries, researchers say TORONTO - A cyber spy network based mainly in China has tapped into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of Tibetan exiles, Canadian researchers said Saturday. The work of the Information Warfare Monitor initially focused on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community in exile, and eventually led to a much wider network of compromised machines, the Internet-based research group said. "We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from t…

I know this is out of the blue, but anime creeps me out. Anyone else? Not saying it's bad or anything, just that I get a very creepy vibe from it.

Who's on it?

... own a GM Performance dealership. GM performance cars past and present. Restoration parts Performance parts Quality shop and bodyshop Might be a cool way for GM to market cars that fit the description. I'd never leave work...

I get my gas at a local convenience store. There is a lady at the counter in there, about 60 years old. Every time I go in there, she asks me about my car. Does it have Onstar, I need to try the turn-by-turn, is it an '09, it's a nice looking car, she has a Torrent, same as the Equinox, but she likes it, her husband likes Cobalts... etc. etc. When I had my Sierra, I always went to another place to get gas, but before the Sierra, with my Colorado, I used to go in there, and she would always tell me her husband had a Colorado, and that mine was nice looking. It's kind of amusing, especially when she repeats herself every time I see her, but it's also kinda nice to he…

I dont like being awake for 20 hours at a time. In fact, I become a real bitch at about 19 hours. Thursday I was up at 4am, didn't get to bed again until almost 1 Friday morning. Then I was up again at 7 Friday morning, here it is 4:30 Saturday morning and I'm still awake. I should be able to reset this weekend and get back into a normal rythm starting Monday when classes start back up. If I dont, I'll be a freaking zombie, sustaining on nothing but energy drinks.

I had talked to Camino a few weeks back about writing up buyer's guides every so often about some of the cars shown in hemmings muscle machines. he thought it was a good idea, i'll give credit where credit is do and be upfront that i didnt write these or do the research for that matter. i wont do a copy and paste type deal but i will type it up more short and too the point than what they have. So, here for the first one (more if ya'll like them) is the buyer's guide to the 94-96 Chevrolet Impala SS At the end of 1987 there were slim pickings amongst the Chevy loyal that would satisfy the sporty rwd v8 hunger inside. There was the pleabian fullsizers, but save fo…

Sure it's giant, but it just seems so right.

In the course of a conversation at work today, I invented something brilliant. The blueprints are in my head. What I'm thinking is a really big t-shirt cannon that will shoot out hoodies. I'm thinking a potato gun with a big freaking barrel will do the trick.

i got a few hard drives from old computers laying around. one of them in fact has a bout 30gb of music and pics that i would like back. i dont want to send them off to get restored or transfered and found this little doo hickey looking around. anyone used one or know anything about them?

when the fart can mufflers started appearing in my town i was less than happy. most were heavily made fun of to the point of no return but the fad... i mean performance realizations took place and they got a foothold. whilest watching one of my relaxing shows that makes me feel better about myself in everyway ( the smoking gun presents on tru tv) i saw a video clip of a muffler shop that is welding pieces of flat metal with a hole in them into the exhaust tips of cars. how stupid, and of course not one person interviewed for the positives of this "modification" which they claim is for decoration, btw the last time i looked at a decoration it was pretty silent, has one shr…

Happy Birthday, man! Now don't pull a Josh in that GTO...

Suggest a name for my blog. It obviously must be car-related.

So if there's one thing Macs have that PC's don't it's the Helvetica font. So anyone have it that's willing to send me the font file?

http://jalopnik.com/5175571/el-caminoed-vo...r-mangled-minds

Have a good one up there in Hill Country.

A drag race between a 1987 Macintosh and a 2007 Toshiba: clicky

While I was out working today, Arkus pulled his Houdini act and got out of his crate. There was a terrible dogfight, and now I have two injured dogs. Zora really got the worst of it. Now I have to decide which one will be leaving, and figure out how the hell I'm going to make that happen. F'ing hell!

We all have regrets - in fact I think regret should be a four letter word - but I digress back to my original post about the one that got away. We all have been there, a car that to you was either a pain in the ass, no longer willing to dump money into it so you sell it cheap - or worse - junked it! I am talking about the abused of the abused, the downtrodden, and the cars that we did not appreciate at the time, but wish we had them now. Maybe it was a car you never got to drive or own, but saw it slip away because it needed more than you were willing to give or did not have the money to own/fix. For me, it was a lovely 1970 Buick GSX Stage 1 in Apollo white that…

Ok...so as it happens I came across someone who is parting out their `99 300M. He says the motors good and only has 30k on it (not sure if that's the car or just the engine yet). He said he's willing to negotiate a price for the whole car minus what he's parting out. What I want to know is what is a good price and if it's worth the effort. It's located RI, so it means 2-3 hours to drive down there to look at it, 2-3 back. The problem is getting it back if I were to buy it. I don't know what tow rates are but I image that would cost a lot. Junkyard is offering me $650 for a complete engine drop...I have to go down and look the engine over still. So the question is…

I'll road trip to the greater St Louis MO area 4 times in 2009; even so, the quick trip I took down there the weekend of March 14 was not long enough. It never is when you are meeting people and "catching up".... Friday the 13th, I went to work for a few hours, came home, picked up the rental (a Dodge Charger, of course), finished packing and left town about 2:10p. I made a beeline for St Louis (via RT 64 W, I-39 S, I-55 S and I-64 W), hoping to arrive for the ValveReplacement Reunion Friday night dinner. I stopped once, at a Shell station in Raymond IL just off I-55. I noticed a "Route 66" historical marker ... so, I suspect I was on Route 66 a bit. Unfortunately,…

It happens every year, baseball starts, I think my Cubs are going to have a great season, I end up getting boned. But this is the year, GO CUBBIES!! I've been getting more into college baseball as well, been to a couple of games so far, its a great atmosphere, even with only a couple hundred people in the stands. Oh, and I hate Joe Morgan with an unyielding passion.

Craigslist Chrysler ad As seen on Jalopnik. A very strange Craigslist ad.. From Craigslist: I believe the car originally belonged to my Aunt Betsy, who was born in Wisconsin in 1931, and later migrated to California in 1954, while engaged to my Uncle Talbert. She had a Tabby cat named Blinky, who died in the spring of 57. Blinky had 6 kittens in 1955, all of whom she regrettably gave away at a fair in Modesto. The cats where never seen or heard from again. Betsy left Modesto in 1963, approximately at the time she allegedly helped purchase the car for her lover, Benson, whom Talbert was unaware of. Unbeknownst to Betsy at that period, a second Tabby cat, also nam…

Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Maching you can see C&G over the years. Not every thread works, but you can see back to when I objected to the Cobalt name because it seemed like GM just went through a Crayola box. I still feel that way.

So I think it's finally time to upgrade my computer. I haven't done anything to it since I built it after all, and the 7950 GX2 is showing its age. I've been shopping around lately for a good replacement that $200 or under. EVGA 896-P3-1262-AR GeForce GTX 260 Superclocked Edition 896MB Seems to be a nice combination of performance and value. However I'm open to other options if anyone's got some to recommend, since I'm just shopping around at the moment.

I know what you're all thinking; "What happened to my Jalopnik??" Don't worry, we're not a fully engaged Planelopnik just yet, but we had to show you this newest iteration of the F-15. It's a Jalopnik-esque story of a beat up and forgotten platform, that's been revamped and re-engineered to compete with the newest bad boys on the scene, the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Boeing is marketing the new F-15 Silent Eagle for the international set that want to get into the modern jet age, but don't have access to our newest, greatest ninja toys. The customers that Boeing has aimed its sights at are Israel, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and South Korea, which are …

Vote, Discuss, Vent, B!tch...

well after 4 faithful years of service my systemax is getting ready to bite it. it has the computer version of being senile and difficult to wake in the mornings. after 30 min of tinkering i finally got it to pass the boot screen (i think the faulty usb port card had somethin to do with it). the power supply acts funny as well when you turn it off. anyhoo i got this last one from tiger direct which i had heard great things about... my experience with them was less than stellar. ordered a tower and a monitor only to get just a monitor in 2 weeks. waited a week and nothing ever came. called them and the tower i had ordered was discontinued 2 days after the order. actually j…

my buddy who sometimes meanders upon our forums (mainly hangs out at the ranger forums but he wants back into an Fbody) dsfd506 is a state employee and brought up a video for me to watch. this is from our capitol city, the used car salesmen i think is fueling this without knowing (or caring) what he is sould be contributing to. its one thing to own an ex cop car but i cant help but think that maybe there are ulterior motives that could be afoot. what is your opinion. http://videos.thestate.com/vmix_hosted_app...1&sort=NULL

My '09 Cobalt needs something more to make it mine. My modest dream list includes: tinted windows Eibach lowering springs Goodyear Assurance Triple Treds, 205/55R16 Koenig Traction rims What's your dream list of mods for your own vehicle? Post them here.

That epiphany is this: Australia knows how to build a better American car than we do. These videos from Top Gear Australia only prove that point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eHZhsF8hwI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTjV3EeFrf8 I have to wonder, where are our bold, brazen Chevelles, Impalas, and Novas? Australia has the Commodore and Falcon that openly embrace the American muscle car values that we desired so long ago. Sure, we have the Commodore here as the G8 and it's a great car, but we don't deserve it. The average, stupid, fat, lazy American doesn't understand what a car of the Commodore/G8's magnitude represents. And that brings me to another point: since …

WTF is up with Memphis right now!!!! If they loose to Fullerton my bracket = FAIL!

Within the last couple of weeks, I saw "Slumdog Millionaire." I thought it would a comedy, when someone told me about the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" theme. It was anything but. It was probably one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen If anyone is feeling down, see this movie and you will feel better...we don't have it that bad. A co-worker has also lent me "Shawshank Redemption" and "Primal Fear." They are mid-90s movies I've never seen. Both are also really powerful....the first for all its messages about life (and an unbelievable Morgan Freeman performance) and the second one for the way the courtroom drama and forensics stuff plays out, not to mentio…

Just wasted several hours in "live chat" with verizon support. Problems not solved. ugh.

Does the seller need to be present at a notary to transfer the title or does he just need to sign the title and hand it over? Reason for asking is, that is what someone with a NY registered vehicle that I'm looking into is telling me. I don't want any complications.

The short answer to your production question on the Healeys last night: About 72,00 "big Healeys" were built between '53 and '68. Many more Sprites were built and they ran until about '71. I'll post more detail tonight.

Okay. So it's no secret that I'm not very Komputir savy. I used to mess around with software & hardware back a million years ago when I was in High School & College. These days though I'd much rather read about how to install my BMW's 'cartridge struts' or overhaul a Nailhead 364 than anything with a microprocessor. Trouble is, my retarded cat sat on my laptop's keyboard. She does ALL the time... except this time she managed to rotate my screen 90* on my laptop's primary monitor. I run a two-monitor setup so I've just been using the other one but I can't replicate the keystrokes or undo the changed setting. Windows Help shows nothing under …

Specs: http://www.ironhorsebikes.com/bikes/scotch09/scotch.php#

CARthedral (minor bonus points if you can spot the VW bug) Shark Theme: usually = EPIC_success and who can forget "CATBUS"? Who was it that posted that on here...?

B-52 Park Orlando, Florida Orlando International Airport (MCO) is often jokingly called as the Mickey's Corporate Office, but little do people know that it used to be once McCoy Air Force Base from which it gets the airport code. McCoy AF Base was one of the bases on the Atlantic which handled the heavy hitters B-52 hence boasts a pair of one of the longest runways to let those beasts take off. As a fitting tribute to the B-52's, which flew from the McCoy Air Base, City of Orlando has built a nice little park and placed one of the m in the center. Known as the B-52 Memorial Park, the Park has a retired B-52D Stratofortress #56-0687 which belonged to the 7th Bombard…

Another quick question for the gamers here... I just picked up a free PS2 today (old style), and I'm trying to remember if these came with "bricks" or not. (My PS2 slim does) My slim seems to have an "hour" issue-sometimes it just shuts itself off after an hour, and I know the brick itself is fine.. Here's to hoping...

This Healey was whole when I started, this is as far as I'm going to strip it down. This car will race in May.

Background: Tamils are a distinct ethnic group within Sri Lanka (island nation south of India). There's been a civil war raging since 1983 between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebel movement. The Sri Lankan government is just now clearing out the last of the Tamil areas, and is nearing military victory. There is a huge Tamil population in Toronto, as many of them have left due to the conflict. Over the past couple of months there have been massive protests downtown with the goal of getting the Canadian government to help the Tamils. Depending on who you ask, they are freedom fighters opposing genocide of their people, or a terrorist organization. I real…

Driving the Prototype of the EV Three-Wheeler Wearing a black jacket, she could be a cop, alerted by nosy neighbors to the funny-looking vehicle tearing around the suburban streets. She certainly is staring at us intensely as we pilot the bright-white three-wheeled craft down the street, gingerly depressing the brake pedal to make sure we're under the 30-mph speed limit. Then we're around the corner, she disappears from our rearview mirror and we hit the accelerator. That's the beauty of the 2010 Aptera 2e electric vehicle — you can speed away from the scene and the cops won't know it, with just a quiet hum as the electric motor winds up and a feeling of satisf…

Since you can't see over the Colbalt's dash, perhaps this little number from Volvo is more your speed, plus it can pull a trailer for when those nudist camps pop up on your travels ...

test drove an 08 Magnum again yesterday and remembered why i like them as much as I do. I'm getting sick of driving in tall cars and want something low slung again. And the utility, yeah. The way the clamshell hatch opens, perfect for getting to your cargo. With the 08 interior updates in tan, a livable interior! Not a vessel of death! And just when i might like it, they kill it. Good values on the lot, BTW. Very affordable. Really also makes a good case for the cool wagons like the CTS wagon and G8 wagon.

Why is it that this story conjures up images in my mind of primped-up, A.D.D. chimps with knives for finger nails? In any event, despite the serious nature of the event, I still chuckled at what floated through my imagination. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7944596.stm My favourite part: "Clothes and shoes were abandoned in the street as women tried to escape the melee." Either it's difficult to run in high heels, or it was an excuse to say, "LET'S GET NAKED!" ... sadly, I'm thinking the former.

What the HELL is this going to do? Sounds like some shenanigans! CadillacKing3 gas has carbon in it!!!! CELEBRATE!!!