oldshurst442

Nothing crazy in the Montreal area. Other than a few flights canceled and people being stranded at Trudeau Airport. Pearson International being even worse than we. But that is Toronto. And quite honestly, who gives a shyte about 'Toranna' ???!!! Winter has settled in nicely up here. Nothing too crazy. Just the norm. We got another couple of inches of snow yesterday making the roads a tad slicker than what they were before. Temps are not too crazy cold. About in and around 21 F. The usual shyte this time of year. It is said that the next couple of days the temp will rise to just above freezing but dip to 5 F right after and for a good week and stay that way. But that is just the norm.

Downtown. He had parked his car south of Ste-Catherine on Mackay Street. He was visiting a mutual friend's of ours' restaurant at the time on Ste-Catherine between Mackay and Bishop. It was like a Monday or Tuesday night. Like at around 9:00 or 10:00. He just wanted to pop in and say hi. He stayed barely an hour. Put money in the meter for an hour was there for like 45-50 minutes. Real quick. Police never found the car. We thought that the cops will find the car without the engine as at that point in time, Integra GS-Rs and Type Rs were stolen for their engines that were swapped into lesser Civics. But the car was never found. We later believed that it was probably stolen and shipped to another continent. Yup!!! To this day, cars are stolen in suburban areas in peoples drive-ways all the time!!! In and around the Montreal region. To be fair to Montreal-Nord, Montreal, ANYWHERE in and around Montreal, is THE car theft capital of Canada. In fact, many of North America's stolen cars end up in Montreal because the port of Montreal was and continues to be corrupt that the many organized crime...organizations like the Italian Mafia of NYC and Montreal and Chicago etc, and the Biker gangs like the Hells Angels that partake in car thefts ALL OVER North America, have the ins at the Port of Montreal and ship all kinds of stolen cars ALL over the world. A real racket. I think vancouver takes care of the Asian continents part of the shipping of the stolen cars and Montreal takes care of Europe, Africa and Russia. A world racket. Funny you mention Montreal-Nord as that mutual friend of ours married a girl who grew up in Montreal-Nord. The friend is a couple of years younger than us and his wife while the girl's older sister is a year older than us. I hung around the sister a lot. We went to the same high school. Her parents were childhood friends of my moms and my uncles. They grew up in the same island just a couple of villages down. Maybe 3 miles away from each other. The island is Kephalonia. Pastra is the village that my mom grew up in and Agia Irini (Saint Irene) is the island of my mom's childhood friends. I have many many friends like this to which my mom and her childhood friends' kids have become my and my cousin's friends. Kephalonia would be right acorss the middle of the boot in Italian terms. LOL. yes. I think the CRV continues to be Montreal's most stolen car. I wouldnt drive one either. #2 I think is the Ford F150. The Accord and Toyota RAV4 are next if Im not mistaken. I think its also because in the north, all the manufacturing industry is at and the south is more farmland and the negative connotations that come with farmers and farming. Also also, the upscale and rich areas are also more in the middle and north while the poorer is to the south. Greeks are not as divided it seems. The Greek folk that come from the North or the mountains are called "vlahi" meaning highlander but it has a negative connotation meaning uncouth. The thing with Greeks though, we all hate on each other equally, we make fun of each other's regions amongst ourselves and we wreak havoc with each other internally but when it comes to Greece as a whole, we stick together. We WILL screw each other financially ANY chance we get, but THAT has NOTHING to do with what regions we come from. A Greek from the SAME region will try to defraud his literal and REAL definition of 'paisan' but we WILL defend each other when a foreigner comes between us. I take it that Italians will be the opposite of that. Literal/REAL Italian paisanos WILL take care of each other and try to boost each other's economical welfare by helping each other out and not screw with each other but Italians of different regions will not help each other out so easily. With the exception of the Italian Mafia which started out as to help each other out, in Sicily long ago, ended up hurting each other bothn inn Sicily and in America. And of course the rival factions in Calabria that did the same kind of damage. And both being in the South... which does no favours in the looking down part of the Northern Italians to the Southerners like you mentioned. The bolded parts. Both parts. Top and bottom. Do I have that right? Thank-You! You made me tear up quite honestly. Everybody here always wishes each other with well wishes regarding either birthdays or holidays, and I LOVE that we as a CheersandGears community we continue to do that, but when you connect with me on a European level, when we both connect with each other on our Greek and Italian roots respectively, I get choked up. I feel like we would be the bestest of friends outside of this computer screen we share. Καλα Χριστουγεννα In English it would be spelled Kala Christougenna.

I clicked on the site to which I had an advert. It says: "Thinking of you in Tahiti". if Tourism Tahiti only knew how I loooooooong to be right there right now!!! To all at CheersandGears and all visiters to this site that have to endure this latest winter blast in all parts of North America right now. Enjoy the paradise! If only in pictures. Penser à vous à Tahiti. Ad Ce sentiment quand vous savez que c'est le début de quelque chose de spécial. Tahiti Tourisme Ouvrir

Ford never took the GT to the Nurburgring. I wonder what times the Carbon Series would do on that track? Ford GT MKIV with 800HP as a final send-off would probably be a fast lapper. I keep on saying it, I want Corvette to have SEVERAL trims to SPECIALIZE and COMPETE with ALL supercars. The latest C8 Z06 is a road car. Its a track beast but it retains TOO much daily driving weight to it and is TOO much of a road going car. The Z06 NEEDS a road legal, but less forgiving daily driver version to be able to beat cars like the Ford GT, or Ferrari 458 Pista and Porsche 911 GT3 RS.

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...

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???!!!

The SL has its place in the automotive landscape. Its clearly an original product being the first of its kind after WW2. Its been copied since its conception as a GT car meant for, like how I said it, a trophy wife's car/gold digger plenty of times. But that was me trolling SMK when I call it a trophy wife/gold digger car. I aint wrong though viewing the SL that way. You would also be correct in your position of it. Cadillac twice has tried to copy the formula, BMW as well. BMW three times to be exact. (if not more) The BMW 507, The BMW 8 Series and the Z8. It has been the benchmark for decades. But I took offence with this statement. Knowing how he wasted time and energy derailing that Corvette thread about a rumour of a Corvette SUV and Corvette being its own brand. A RUMOUR started by a rag mag that was written 2-3 years ago. NOTHING coming out of GM/Chevrolet has hinted any of that to be true. It HAS come out FROM GM that the CAMARO would be going down THAT road. IN China though... Smuggily, SMK is glad that the SL is 'still' a roadster and while true, and that Mercedes didnt make it into an SUV, while technically also true, Mercedes has changed the role of the SL looooong ago and has turned it into a rich soccer mom's/trophy wife/gold digger's ride since the mid 1960s waaaaaay before there was even such a thing. Escalades, Range Rovers, and all those fancy pancy soccer mom SUVs are just the equivalent of the SL's mission SINCE the mid-1960s. When Corvettes and 911s and Lamborghini Miuras and Ferraris were pumping out race cars IN those mid 1960s and well INTO today, the SL has loooong ditched THAT formula and the SL CREATED that exotic supercar formula when it was first introduced. SMK LOVES to talk a BIIIIIIG game denouncing a Corvette, but he says he likes the Corvette, but he denounces it every chance he gets, but the Corvette hasnt strayed from the formula it was first created in. The SL is nowhere NEAR the supercar it once was. It CREATED THAT niche only to abandon it not even a decade later. Only for Mercedes to revisit it and retro it, but never calling it the SL. Just called it the Gullwing. And then creates another supercar in the AMG GT, makes it look like an SL, past and modern, to compete in the realm of a Porsche 911, AND a Corvette since the AMG GT is a BIG V8 front mid-engined, RWD sports car, EXACTLY like a Corvette, but leaves the SL just as a trophy wife car... I like the SL. I call it a trophy wife car. But I wouldnt mind owning one for myself. Several model years in its history as well. Starting with this one I LOVE this era of SL And this one. LOVE this one. And this one is the quintessential trophy car/gold digger model this one too. Its a GREAT SL. Great looking car. Great performer for its time. And the last SL that I love. Its very effiminate. The other quintessential trophy wife/gold digger SL. But I love it. But lets make this real again. If SMK is permitted to spew bullshyte about how GM is possibly screwing with the Corvette, a RUMOUR but in reality, not a bad idea if executed properly, I could screw with the SL as Mercedes DID screw with the SL formula and DID succeed with it. Mercedes went BACK to the ORIGINAL SL formula, but with a DIFFERENT name. They left the SL alone AS a trophy wife/gold digger car SL went Mercedes re-invented it niot even a decade later after Mercedes created the FIRST LEGIT modern supercar with the FIRST SL... SMK shoudnt try to hide THAT fact...

Set race records. Puts Mercedes back on the map after WW2 Sets race records for Porsche. Puts Porsche on the map... \ Continues to set race records for Porsche. Same good ole 911... Mercedes gives up on SL name loooong time ago...creates other name plates to set race records. But eerily loomks like it could BE an SL... But leaves the SL to be oooed and awed by Beverly Hills trophy wives and gold diggers. THAT is what Mercedes wants from an SL. same difference

Correct me if Im wrong tho... about the SL not being an SUV...like ever, not like what Chevy is, on a rumour, proposing that Corvette also becomes an SUV...on RUMOUR...NOT on an actual Chevrolet admission, but on a rumour of a rag mag written 2 years ago...on RUMOUR. Ill repeat, correct me if Im wrong about the SL... NOT about IT ever being an SUV, not now OR the future, but for the SL being re-invented a gazillion times though. ORIGINAL SL It was a race car. Then it was a road car GT car. Then it had a 4 cylinder. All in less than a decade. And THAT 4 cylinder SL, prior to it being a race car JUST slightly less than a decade prior let me remind you, was peddled in the US just as the MUSCLE CARS were becoming a thing... It continued on that way for another decade when it gained a V8. Become a true GT car again. BUT...this is where it becomes tricky. M-B uses Dodge and its next generation Viper to build this revival but has the true SL lineage in its line-up but as THE gold-digger's prefered ride. And the SL had become that way since the 1970s... It was a true GT car then with the V8, Ill be honest, but it no longer was the race car... It had become a trophy wife/gold digger car Beautiful car...but no race car. Gold digger car. And then...still in the line-up as a GT car ...Mercedes does another car, a sports car/race car plus a roadster Correct me if Im wrong...but the SL has STRAYED far far far from what it was ORIGINALLY!!! And it was replaced by somethingn else. The SL might as well BE an SUV form what it was when it first came out and enamoured the world. Including Canada's Prime Minister, father AND son. THAT car above...WAS the Mercedes-AMG GT of its day... The SL today is just a gold digger's ride...like I said...it might as well BE an SUV. An Escalade from Cadillac would be the equivalent of the SL... The SL and the Escalade both fight for the same gold digger dollars...

About public transportation. Even in Montreal, when OUR public transportation is #2 in North America, right below NYC, even OUR public transportation does NOT favour Joe Public to abondon his car to use the bus, train and subway. There are vast parts of Montreal that has shytty service. In and around the core of the city is AMAZING. On the island itself, 85% of the public transportation is GREAT and going to get better when the new electric train that is above ground is going to go online. But, even though the West of the Island is going to get covered by this new electric train, most of the WEST of the Island is STILL crappy for public transport. Off island ANYWHERE around the ISland of Montreal is pitiful still. We do have subways in Longueil (South of the Island) and Laval (North of the Island) but Vaudreuil (West) and Repentigny (East) has nothing and the train service and bus service sucks) Lots of room to improve, yet Montreal is #2 in North America... Our DRIVING culture takes precedence in North America. And its a NARCISSTIC one at that which spills unto our public transportation perception of. We dont want to use public transport BECAUSE we simply dont want to because WE want to drive. Which was fine up until the 1960s. But since then, we dont even want to drive anymore. We want to eat while we drive. Shop while we drive. Text while we drive. Hell, we want to SLEEP while we drive. (Do I have to post pics of shytty Tesla drivers sleeping?) And yet, we could do ALL of those things nowadays IF we used the public transport system and HELP our governments, local and federal, to spend the money on producing a very very good system but we narcisstically dont want ANY of that because WE want our cake and eat it too. We want a car, but not just a car, an SUV or truck just so in we pick up a load of lumber or the hundreds of desks and tables we will by in our lifetimes, so no bus. Hell, we dont even want to buy an EV JUST because we MIGHT go on a family vacation somewhere, but we dont go anywhere because we would rather fly, but damn that EV electric range... Sorry for the rant, even if it doesnt make any sense, my mind is racing in several directions. @David has me riled up... Our driving habits, our driving wants is based on pure narcissism. WE dont drive well because WE dont give a shyte about OUR surroundings. Its all about the individual. And since public transport is PUBLIC, its a no-go for such a narcissitic culture. The driving rant and the public transport rant is all the same thing.... These next pics just summorize ALL of my rants on why we SUCK at driving and its NOT the language English thing, and why we dont want to use public transportation... Its a phoquing traffic sign... Its in English, but its more for an Amri-Canadian rather than a European or an African. I dont think an immigrant not knowing how to read this sign actually texts and drives. If he does, he learned it from OUR shytty car culture!!! ABC news....that lady is an AMERI-CANADIAN.... I dont think its a foreigner immigrant.. Even if it is, that lady learned to be lazy and hate driving, yet wanna drive, because of OUR shytty driving culture... TAKE the PHOQUING BUS, BITCH!!! But NO!!! Why should shy???!!! She owns a phoquing car!!! So she could wait in line for HOURS waiting to stuff her phoquing face with a burger and a coffee while not having to leave her phoquing car. A public bus will NOT stop at the Starbucks for her...

Common David... Even after Im TELLING you that North Americans SUCK at driving, here you are trying tom defend your pointless position. Newly arrived immigrants actually DO do as Romans do in Rome regarding driving. Americans and Canadians have possibly the WORST driving habits in all of the world. Texting while driving. Eating while driving. Doing anything and everything BUT driving. Tailgating. While not soley an Ameri-Canadian thing, its a hugely widely common problem here. American stop. The definition is not coming to a full stop at a stop sign and the name that it has lends itself to the country where its probably the most prevalent. Greeks in Greece fight with the Italians in Italy and the French in France for the title ofEurope's worst drivers and NONE of those peoples have a driving violation named after them... You are dead wrong on this. Its NOT an immigrant problem not speaking English or non-comprehension of English. Its a driving culture that sucks. Its a system in which Ameri-Canadians get driver's licences but the programs to help them GET a driver's license SUCKS. Its a culture to which is narcissistic. To which is geared more for comfort rather than actual driving. Its a culture that promotes shopping while driving. Eating while driving (drive-thrus and phoquing cup holders to which those things were BORN in AMERICANA culture since the END of WW2) All the immigrants are doing is just copying what they see while they drive on North American roads... German drivers dont do the shyte what WE do. Even when they DO come here to live, because THEIR driving culture is SERIOUS. They dont DARE do the shyte we do because they have been taught NOT to do that kinda shyte what WE do. Greek drivers in Greece on the other hand, because its a lassier-faire affair much like here, they just ADAPT to the shytty ways that WE here in North America do. And maybe, they are a tad better drivers because they DONT eat while they drive because in Greece, there are no phoquing DRIVE-THRUS in Greece. But if they DO eat a phoquing Big Mac in their car, they are just COPYING this SHYTTY car culture we have here that WE have taught them. And if they SUCK at THAT worse then us, its because WE have taught them to eat while they drive. WE ENABLE shytty driving culture... WE enable shytty driving habits. WE enable shytty driving because OUR standrads are low. If we accept peoples around the world to drive on our roads, they WE should teach THEM to NOT eat and drive. text and drive. shop and drive. We should show THEM the correct way to drive. But we dont because WE have shytty driving habits... German and Northern European folk IMPROVE our track record. On par countries like us DEGRADE here because OUR standards are sooooo phoquing low. Maybe WE should adjust to BETTER driving culture rather than blame language... Stop being stubborn on this... You are dead wrong about it.

I agree 1000% But at least in the US and Canada, our roadways and signage between our 2 countries also have some sort of standardization. So there is that. But like you have stated many times, the idiocy of drivers not driving well has nothing to do with not knowing English. And not getting into the French language thing in Quebec, not knowing French or English does NOT prevent you from knowing that this is a STOP sign. Even though its not written in English. Meaning its NOT a language issue. Its a RED octogon and in North America, in Canada and in the US at least, THAT means a car has to come to a full STOP at the intersection.. And a French only speaking Quebecker, a full force Quebec nationalist separatist hatin' on the Henglish, and will never ever learn to speak Hanglish, will visit New York from time to time, Plattsburgh or Burlington, but NEVER Ontario, will KNOW to stop at the bloody intersection when he/she will come across this sign http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/54b6c509e4b062126976d942/58f6664de6f2e1a8b587d19e/1492607075008/20353724820_239383b608_k.jpg?format=1500w More to it than that, I think any non-English speaking human coming from any part of a non-English speaking country actually knows the word STOP. But whether Canada and the US did not agree with European signages...we could all agree that this signage, in German, is kinda universal... Other than in the US where the speed limit of 30 KM/H would be written in MPH Canada The language written is not important and not necessary to understand what a driver really should be doing in this zone. In Germany, the US and Canada, the signage is pretty much the same even though North America's signage differs from the European system. And for good measure...in Japan And although I do not know what the writing is telling me, because I UNDERSTAND the picture that it might BE a school zone, maybe as a driver passing by this place, I should be slowling down to either 15 MPH or 30 KM/H... The issue is not of language spoken, but maybe of quality of driving... And...the American way of obtaining a driver's license is 3rd world bad. American driver's and Canadian, really arent taught HOW, to drive, HOW to master the car. We pump out drivers, but we dont TEACH them ANYTHING. If anything, @David maybe your issues with drivers is how shytty our respective countries dish out driver's licenses to ANYBODY. Its like you say, its a privilege and not a right. And its OUR drivers that are of concern. Its definetely not the German drivers from Germany, or the Nordic European drivers or even those from Japan and Korea. Those Countries TEACH their drivers how to control a car. India, China, US, Canada...ALL fail. But it aint because of the lack of English... Its because of lack of skill.

@David The AMC Marlin has more of a Chrysler feel to it than a Buick. Actually, nothing about a Marlin says General Motors in any shapr or form in any of GM's brands. '66 Dodge Charger (with the hidden lamps unhidden...) And back in Australia, the Chrysler Charger Valiant. I dont mind the Marlin. Not the prettiest girl at the prom. But you do have a date to dance with when the slow dances come on. AMC had uglier cars in their history that Im grateful I was too young to know about or remember outright. Unfortunately, some movies have glorified these freaks of nature. Looking at you Wayne's World. Or even Police Academy. (That god aweful Matador police car)

I do a new thing. I watch documentaries of all sorts, or movies that involve real places and I track the places mentioned via google maps. I try to choose movies that travel from one place to another realistically in a realistic manner of that place in the movie where the actual city is used and not in another city as a stand-in. Ive done Los Angeles and its surroundings the last 2-3 weeks. It all started with O.J. Simpson and his murderous rampage of his ex-wife Nicole and her acquaintance which lead to Motley Crew singer Vince Neil killing his friend passenger while his was driving drunk in his Pantera one shyte-faced party fueled night and then unto several Los Angeles 'hood" movies like Menace II Society. From there I 'google map drove' to Jay Leno's garage and several other points of interest in and around the Los Angeles area. Compton, Watts, Santa Monica Pier which I have also visitied plenty of times playing my son's Grand Theft Auto video game... I could now safely say that I am comfortable actually visiting L.A. and not getting lost. I actually know how to get around. The awesomness of modern technology, computing power and the all powerfull Google. Google is like the Wizard of Oz... Im kinda liking this new hobby. I feel like I have accomplished something. I dont know what exactly it is that I have accomplished, but Im pretty satisfied with myself.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42233053/shelby-estate-wins-eleanor-ford-mustang-copyright-lawsuit/ Shelby Estate Wins 'Eleanor' Ford Mustang Copyright Lawsuit