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Happy Birthday. Your are one day younger than my cousin. To which the next photo links you and my cousin That I assume is @David's driveway. But that there in the distance is an Acura CL coupe. My cousin had one of those back in the day. He bought a 1995 Acura Integra coupe in 1995, he traded it in for a 1999 Integra GS-R. It got stolen in 2001 and with the insurance money, he got himself a 2001 red CL Type-S. The black CL in the picture also looks to be a Type S as well...

This is so perfect for today here in Washington State.

@oldshurst442 I believe Opel has just been spun off over there. I don't know if they coexist with other brands the way VW does with SEAT and Skoda. I haven't conversed with anyone over there to gauge their perceptions of Opel and the Mokka. As soon as I saw one, I wanted to know what it was, what they called it, and what the transmission was. Obviously, it was a stick. A lady in a Volvo dealership in Northern Italy that was near my hotel several years ago told me that people are really liking automatic transmissions. These were nicer Volvo products, though. What's not to like? Especially if driving in crazy, urban Italian traffic. - - - - - In which part of Montreal was your cousin's Acura stolen? Did they recover it? The last time I rented there, the guy at the counter was really cool (as most Montrealers are to me) and said that the most stolen car is the Honda CRV and that a fair number of thefts occur in Montreal-Nord and also, surprisingly, from driveways in suburban places like Ahuntsic, Laval, etc. I don't think I'd ever drive a Honda CRV. Not my thing. As for the most stolen cars in Italy, they are far and away the Fiat Punto, Fiat 500, and Fiat Panda. The Opel Corsa makes the top 10 list, but it's toward the bottom of it. Most of the car thefts occur in Puglia (Apulia) where it's mind boggling that 3 cities are named, around Naples, around Rome, and in Sicily. In the North, it's mostly around Milan, with other northern areas having much less of a problem. (Then you wonder why there are stereotypes and northern Italians have not historically cared much for southern Italians ... sometimes, just looking at hard statistical data speaks volumes.) If you think about it, Puglia (the heel of the boot) puts the perpetrators near water transport so the stripped parts can then make their way to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. - - - - - How do you say Merry Christmas in Greek? In the meantime, I'll wish you "Buon Natale."

I'm just thankful my furnace hasn't crapped out and the power has stayed on...kept the house a comfortable 72 in the day and 68 at night with the subzero temps and wind outside the last 24+ hours. Several people in my neighborhood were reporting outages yesterday on the neighborhood FB group (but not on my street). With all the content I have crammed in my garage from the farm clearout last summer, my Jeep sat outside in the cold. I tested the remote start this morning, fired right up. (My sister's Trax fit in, she's thinking of trading it on something larger before she heads off to Myrtle Beach in a couple weeks to get out the Ohio winter for 6 weeks).

Not much of a blizzard and storm in my parts of Montreal. So that is a good thing. In other parts in and around my neck of the woods is as bad as the news says it was going to be. But not as bad as other parts of Ontario, in the Toronto region. Very windy though here right now. @David Ice sucks. I thought that in my area, we would have ice problems too, but that never happened. Thursday night to Friday morning, we had a about 6 inches of snow. The news said that we were going to get hit hard. A foot of snow was announced, but it never happened. Then Friday morning, our temperatures rose above freezing and was raining a good part of the day. Again the news said that the temps were going to dip just below freezing and the rain will turn to freezing rain and sleet and by the afternoon, then to snow and another storm to hit. Well, the rain just remained rain and the snow never happened. All to say that I closed the store early yesterday as to prevent any unnecessary headaches. Usually, we are open Christmas Eve until 5:00 PM, but I decided to keep the restaurant closed. There was no reason to keep the restaurant closed, and there is some houses without power in my area due to the high winds, to which I was probably going to be busy today, but my staff is tired, Im tired, my manager is tired... We are all going to enjoy Christmas and Christmas Eve with our loved ones early. We all deserve the rest. I am paying my staff today as if they were working. Another small little XMAS bonus for them. The only thing I do care about though is that my restaurant does have power, some households do not. I hope the community was not relying on my restaurant to have food... There are several fast food joints that are actually closed as well... I dont know if they have power or not, or lack of staff, but not many restaurants are open today... I went to the restaurant this morning to see about the heating. No electricity equals no power which equals no heat which equals frozen water pipes which equals busted pipes which equals a mess to which I witnessed all 3 McDonald's in my area closed and other fast food joints as well...

None of these going away really suprises me and consequently, none of them will be missed by me. The Buick Encore nameplate is going away, but Im sure an EV equivalent with a different name will appear. And that would be my guess as to why its going away. It was a Buick compromise between and Opel and a Chevy as stated before. Opel was never a luxury car. It was always a European Chevy. Most of the time, Opel was even BELOW a Chevy but in the 1990s, Opel became a brand that was in between Chevy and Pontiac in terms of quality and trim. Waaaay below an Oldsmobile and even further below a Buick. Sure, GM watered down Oldsmobile and Buick in the 1980s & 1990s, and the result being that Oldsmobile is no longer around... and Buick in North America coming dangerously close in joining Oldsmobile. If Oldsmobile had been around, maybe an Oldsmobile branded Encore would have made much more sense and a better pseudo luxury branded model in a Encore/Mokka. A Pontiac branded Encore would have most probably failed badly. This was a big problem for GM in the 1990s especially when GM acquired SAAB. They didnt know how to differentiate their North American brands with their European ones. They diluted their identities. Pontiac was fast becoming a bland brand in some cases cheaper than a Chevy and less sporty too. Oldsmobile and Buick had too many non-luxury/econobox cars that had no business being Oldsmobiles and Buicks. The cross-over platforms from Opel to become SAABs and Chevys and Oldsmobiles and then unto Saturn killed SAAB, Oldsmobile AND Saturn. The cross-over of Opel to then become Buicks lead to the same results as Oldsmobile. I dont know what GM did to Opel in Europe, but Opel was bleeding money in Europe for decades. We like to blame Opel and Germany for that, but it seems that Groupe PSA have since solved Opel's misery... Hmmmmmm..... Maybe 'twas GM management that sucked???!!!

@oldshurst442 @ccap41 Seems more cars are being killed off in 2023. What cars are being discontinued in 2023? Honda, Toyota and Chevrolet are all axing models (msn.com)

My greeting from Mother Nature this morning. Not at all amused by this.

Crazy weather coast to coast. Washington after multiple snow storms is now covered in ice and no one going anywhere except idiots. Got up this morning to ice covered windows and yard. The fwd/rwd are crashing everywhere. My driveway @ 11am Sheet of ice.