Random Thoughts Thread

[Drew Dowdell]

10 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

You're not wrong, at all. 

So stop it.

[ccap41]

1 minute ago, Drew Dowdell said:

So stop it.

Yes, sir. 

[A Horse With No Name]

45 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Unfortunately, it's no longer possible to disconnect politics from automotive. There once was a time when the U.S. government just set safety and efficiency standards and let the rest of automotive go about its day.   Now we have an activist government that is breaking apart decades or even century old auto manufacturing supply chains to try and score political points without any contingency plans in place.  It has forced our closest trading partners into an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" stance and pushed them to make deals with China instead of us.  It has undone progress the prior administration made in bringing manufacturing back to the US via EV regulations, entirely counter to the current admin's stated goals.   It's all just so stupid and unnecessary, but there's no way to avoid it anymore. 

I too long for the days when we could just complain about CAFE standard or the weight gained from improving crash scores.

Hence my transition into hiking and biking. I would love to be an enthusiast, but overall, so many things headed in the wrong direction for me. 

[Drew Dowdell]

1 minute ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Hence my transition into hiking and biking. I would love to be an enthusiast, but overall, so many things headed in the wrong direction for me. 

It's painful to be an auto enthusiast these days. All of the fighting over stupid political shit is such a turn off.  Like what you like and don't yuk other people's yums.

[surreal1272]

15 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

It's painful to be an auto enthusiast these days. All of the fighting over stupid political $h! is such a turn off.  Like what you like and don't yuk other people's yums.

Same. I have no problem with a little auto related politics but most of the last few months here has been basically a bunch of “F America” nonsense with no real substance. Just trolling is all it is and at 52 years old, I have better things to do than to constantly sift through the same nonsense just to read something of actual interest. 

[A Horse With No Name]

18 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

It's painful to be an auto enthusiast these days. All of the fighting over stupid political $h! is such a turn off.  Like what you like and don't yuk other people's yums.

it's painful because former fun things like SCCA racing and autocrossing are also full of political banter, as is the vintage car show scene. 

1 minute ago, surreal1272 said:

Same. I have no problem with a little auto related politics but most of the last few months here has been basically a bunch of “F America” nonsense with no real substance. Just trolling is all it is and at 52 years old, I have better things to do than to constantly sift through the same nonsense just to read something of actual interest. 

If you live your life in a constant state of rage, you have let the evil bastards win. Going to live life to the fullest. I used to be 66 Stang on here....was born in 65. In 1965, Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam war was just starting up. Were I to be an enthusiast in 1965/1966, I would just go buy a Mustang Fastback or GTO or something. 

The problem now is that the interesting stuff is often not available here, or that ideas are dying out. Balthazar, god rest his soul, would tell you the vintage scene is not dying out, it is, slowly but surely as the folks that bought muscle cars new age out. The autocross and sport compact scene also. People are still building cars, but much fewer. 

For me, interesting means gets me to the hike and bike thing safely and efficiently with a little bit of style. 

[A Horse With No Name]

As a guy who played with tires under a Mini Cooper S and a Miata, and also playing with bike tire sizes, its interesting the parallels in tire technology and rolling resistance. 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by A Horse With No Name

[A Horse With No Name]

Interesting aviation perspective. 

 

Interesting take on the technology of high speed steam locomotives, and their limitations. 

 

[A Horse With No Name]

The future is here, the only constant is change. 

 

[trinacriabob]

Just for its humor value, the guy that was running for mayor of New York City who had 16 cats in his apartment got 16% of the vote.  For being as eccentric as he was, it was surprising to see that he was the GOP candidate.  

He's got quite the local accent, so the whole kit of parts is really quirky.

Probably an interesting guy to talk to.

[A Horse With No Name]

9 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

Just for its humor value, the guy that was running for mayor of New York City who had 16 cats in his apartment got 16% of the vote.  For being as eccentric as he was, it was surprising to see that he was the GOP candidate.  

He's got quite the local accent, so the whole kit of parts is really quirky.

Probably an interesting guy to talk to.

I would love to sit down and have lunch with him. Miss greatly the pre MAGA days of interesting and quirky conservative folks. And I love cats!

[trinacriabob]

3 hours ago, surreal1272 said:

There used to be less of the childish political back and forth back then too. The increase in these posts has an effect on overall participation here. Sorry it has come to this @Drew Dowdell.

You're right.  At the time, the forum was more GM-centric and all of the car divisions were around, with Oldsmobile just having exited.  The Canadians on here were just like the Americans and they themselves also had a long history with GM cars that they owned or that their families had owned.

Some of these folks were interesting, and even funny.  One such person was a Torontonian who had held a lot of different jobs, one of which was selling GM cars.  He took us back to the Toronto that had a sizable middle class thriving there, unlike the very expensive Toronto of today.  He told quite a few ribald stories, sometimes oversharing, but they made for interesting reading.  He had a significant other from Brazil, so he began dividing his time between Toronto and Brazil and then participated less and less.  But he made some eye opening posts!

Yep, it was just normal back and forth car stuff - commenting about mostly ICE coupes and sedans that were still around - or just random daily cartoon strip stuff that was happening in our lives.

During this period, I met one of the more understated Canadians on the forum when I was in Canada on vacation and he had recently picked up a babied rust-free Cutlass Supreme colonnade. That meeting was a good experience.