oldshurst442

Montreal City Hall

10 hours ago, David said:

This is too funny, never seen a Mach-e Hearst till now and that is crazy looking, reminds me of the Munsters.

Photo of ‘menacingly’ unusual car at charging station sparks debate online: ‘I wouldn't be caught dead in that!’ (thecooldown.com)

I aint  brand snob or anything, but for MY final ride only Lincoln or Cadillac will do.   

9 hours ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Does anyone else think "Corn Stars" is an odd name for a female wrestling team from the midwest...?

 

On the other hand, these kids get into it. 

meh...

Ive heard that wrastlin' is fake...

@ccap41

Something familiar with the tune and melody. Same with the way Jagger singing it.   I cant quite put my finger on why it sounds so familiar.  It feels like a classic Rolling Stones ballad.  Could it be a retro modern version of one of their hits?  Or is it a hommage to classic soul music from 50-60 years ago?   I feels the song in my heart.  I know this style of music is from a time just before I was born,  but I am quite familiar with it.   I didnt grow up with that style, yet this new Stone song makes me nostalgic about that particualr time that was just before I was born.      

Love Gaga's part in it too.

Over all, I love the song. 

 Two songs into this new album and this is how I feel

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

the last one was weak and way too long, and didn't like the ending

I havent seen the last one just yet.  My kids arent into James Bond so Im waiting for a day or night when Im alone to enjoy it.  Id rather watch or do something together that all of us could enjoy.  James Bond amongst some other movies of the like, Superbowls, Stanley Cup Finals and World Series is more of a solo thing for me.     

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

For a modern Bond, I'd rather have seen Clive Owen, maybe James Purefoy or Dougray Scott

 I could  see Clive Owen but especially Dougray Scott in that role now that you mentioned it. He was a baddie in one of the Mission Impossibl movies as well!    I havent seen James Purefoy.  I googled him for his movies and havent seen ANY.   Yeah...I wasnt into Knight's Tale back in the day.   Although I did see Churchill...

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

 For modern Bond-ish films, I've really liked Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible films

Me too.  Enjoy them immensley.   I havent seen the last Mission Impossible either.  For the same reasons as James Bond... 

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

(even w/ their BMWs). 

LOVE the sarcasm.   Pierce Brosnan also had Bimmers as his choice of ride.   LOVE the Z8!!!   HATED the 7 Series of that era.  HATE most generations of 7 Series.

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

George Lazenby was very wooden as a Bond

Never saw that one.  

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

As far as CGI, CGI can't make up for a weak story..which seems to happen all too often today.

100%

39 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

For good recent movies w/ little or no CGI, I watched a drama the other evening I hadn't heard of called 'City of Lies'... Johnny Depp and Laurence Fishburne were excellent, a drama about the aftermath of Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur's murders and the LAPD investigation and Death Row records... interesting reality-based story..

+1

What Mark says about wanting to buy a product JUST to see that company succeed JUST to see what they could do next is how I felt about Tesla.   I had much much faith in Elon Musk about 8-9 years ago.  That faith lasted for about 2-3 years.  Today I just wish he go away.  I still like Tesla cars.  The engineering and manufacturing is just held back by Elon Musk in my opnion.  

Its too bad.  

I now have faith in Lucid and in General Motors and possibly Rivian and Ford for advancing American EVs and to be global leaders.  Tesla at the hands of Musk is a dead duck. 

The way the Lucid engineers explain the Air and the Sapphire trim. The way the talk about the engineering, it seems that Tesla is the one that is behind in EV tech.

The Geese guys ironically talk about how some 1st gen EV vehicles from legacy OEMs engineered compliance cars, they didnt talk about Tesla and how Tesla had a decade advance in engineering thought and tech.  They just wax poetic about Lucid.  But truth be told that when Lucid was just a seed in the dirt, and some of the engineers were still employed by Tesla, Tesla was not JUST a decade in front of everybody, but 2 decades and had the WHOLE EV market to themselves.  

Tesla did NOT advance the tech in that timeframe.  Ive said that plenty of times.  Elon Musk ALLOWED every OEM to catch up to Tesla in LESS than a decade and in some instances such as Lucid, it seems, to have surpassed Tesla and it seems that Tesla is playing catch-up.  Maybe not in sales...but THAT scenario will surely change.  

Tesla better have secrets in their 2nd gen Model S and Model 3/Y to unveil because if Tesla's tech hasnt advanced with those 2nd gens, it will seem like they have stagnated and THAT will spell disaster for their EV manufacturing.   They will survive with supplying electricity via recharging everybody else's EVs and perhaps sell EV motors to others, but as far as the S-3-X-Y vehicles they offer today, will not make it to see a 3rd gen...  

1 hour ago, A Horse With No Name said:

The old days before CGI were so much better. 

 

I like the 70's Pontiacs infinitely better than the modern BMW's. 

I prefer  Daniel Craig as James Bond.  I prefer his movies over the others too.  Timothy Dalton comes in at #2 as James Bond, but his movies are just as corny as the Sean Connery and Roger Moore movies but the Connery and Moore Bond movies ARE fantastically fabulously great.  Love them.  Just prefer the Daniel Craig era of James Bond movie telling.  Dalton Bond movies are #3 position.    Sean Connery as James Bond is #3 and Moore #4.  

Never liked Pierce Brosnan as James Bond nor the movies.  I like Pierce Brosnan as an actor but at least for me, I dont view him as a suave spy guy.   He doesnt sell it well enough.  

I like Dalton because as I sees it, Timothy Daton's Bond was at the start of trying to get the character as close to the novels as possible.  The precursor to the eventual Daniel Craig Bond.   But then again, it was probably the director's fault for misdirecting Brosnan and Dalton to look and act so wooden.  I guess they wanted to evetually go the Daniel Craig way but didnt know how to ease into it.  

As far as CGI goes.  It depends how one uses CGI.  Jurassic Park from the 1990s was greatly done.   Heck, Terminator 2 looks fantastic today as well.  Still hold ups.  But over the top scenes with over the top CGI to go with it with all things living or non-living being CGI other than an actor or two in front of a green screen does suck big time.  

Without professing my love for Pontiac, let me remind people yet again that I HATE BMW.  More NOW than ever because now, they produce CUVs. TONS of them. Makes me miss the shytty econobox E30.  Makes me want to create a shrine for said E30.  Which would be the last phoquing thing I ever want to do. 

On 9/22/2023 at 1:21 PM, ccap41 said:

The fact they created a "diversion team" for this is what sours me more than anything else. I get that there will be fluctuations and every manufacturer will push their advertised number as much as possible...for advertising... but creating a team to deliberately fck with people (basically) is what's infuriating here, IMO. It isn't as bad as what VW did but it feels pretty close. 

Its just as bad as VW with their diesel scandal.  What makes the VW thing a tad less sinful is that several automakers cheated with clean diesel.  Doesnt make VW or any other less culpable, its just that it was a wde spread cheating scandal amongst many.  And everybody knew that diesels would NEVER EVER pass those emissions ratings unless software tweaking was involved. 

Tesla may be the only one to cheat with this in the EV world.  Not more culpable, but if Tesla is the only one, this scandal adds to desperation as well...    As in when VW was passing emissions tests when they were not supposed to, Mercedes and others knew EXACTLY the reasons why these tests were in the clear as they were doing the same type of cheating...   In Tesla's case, especially when all other OEM EVs dont match Tesla's ratings, it seems to me that they are legit readings.  Tesla cheated to oversell their technology and are probably a but frazzled right now when GM's and Hyundai''s current tech and Lucid and Rivian are actually legit and perhaps surpassing their numbers... 

47 minutes ago, David said:

Just looking around at all the lovely woman can keep one youthful!  

 LOL

How did you remember this conversation?

It was nice to revisit!!!   And yes, Montreal does have some of the finest looking women in the world.  But one has to be careful with such lovely creatures because there is a whole lotta truth to that famous quote.  One will age real quick if one decides to scourn one.

Glad to hear you are still healing. Even if its slow.  Knee injuries are a bitch.  Word play on the beautiful women angle and the  female dog thing I just said.  Hope you found it funny.  That is how I stay young, though.   By laughing all the time.   Much safer...  

I posted the video above this post before.  I didnt want to ever post things twice.  What is done is done.  So here is another video to compensate for the lack of imagination and creativity on my part.

9 hours ago, David said:

@oldshurst442

New BMW Style Concept

Current 2023 M3 Style

Current 2023 7 series

Which one you like better?

I kinda have seen that face too.  

Like Toyota sometimes, BMW also sometimes uses other brands' design language to  establish an image. 

 I understand that the twin kidney grill design language also belongs to BMW, but I find it quite ironic that BMW seems to get inspired by lowly Pontiac sometimes...     Plenty of occasions that last 15 years or so this has happened.    Also,  the new look kidneys take inspiration from the lowly-ier Fisker Karma.   Maybe it's an hommage to  Henrik Fisker.  He did design the Z8.  

But...the 1970 Catalina was also considered ugly back in the day.  Why did BMW think it would be a great idea to emulate that look 50 years later???   

I like the Pontiac huge twin grills.  I dont really mind the BMWs version quite honestly.   On the cars.  NOT on the CUVs.   

Which one I prefer you asked? 

THIS!!! 

I dont necessarily want BMW to go back to the small kidneys of decades prior.  I think this size is big enough and demands attention and respect BECAUSE one KNOWS its a BMW.  BMWs do have brand cachet.  No need to OVERexpose.   No need to overstyle and risk of taking a page out of somebody else's playbook.    Big grills are NOT what BMWs are all about.  Big grills only acknowledge the stereotype of BMW's douchbag drivers.  There are plenty of other aspects to BMWs than just shytty owners.   BMWs are supposed to be cars that dance around corners.  Big grills look like the car stumbles over its own feet.  Is it THAT image that BMWs want to shoot for?    Former Pontiac and current Dodge cars and their owners???!!!   

6 hours ago, David said:

IAA Mobility 2023 International Motor Show in Munich, is going on in Germany and BMW and Mercedes launched their new EVs and so we start with BMW.

BMW reinvents itself: The BMW Vision Neue Klasse. (bmwgroup.com)

Have to say that I like the new BMW style, away from the HUGE KIDNEY grill approach.

BMW new styling?

I SWEARI have since that face before!!!

Oh yeah....    About a decade ago

Toyotas and BMWs

translation:

I am not a fan.   

Lots of changes happened in my life and in my family's the last 3-4 months.  (I still dont want to talk about those changes)  

But we CAN and SHALL discuss the changes with the car situations. 

Old cars have come back.  New ones have joined. Some have left the scene.  And now we are a 3 car family.  I had to let go of the Acura. I had a little fender bender with it.  Nothing major, but as with the Impala SS, somebody ran into me and so I had to euthanize it.  OK...I didnt kill it.  But we traded it  in for a 2024 Honda Civic LX.    

Just as with the Impala, way back in 2012, yet another female driver, (God bless these women drivers...) ran into my side. The Impala SS was the passenger front door. With the Acura, it was the driver's side passenger door.   I wasnt wanting to repair it, I had to do extensive maintenance work on it as well, so the monies spent on maintaing and repairing and calling insurances and all that, my wife and I decided that I would take over the Fusion, she gets herself a new car.   This happened mid-July sometime, when additional family drama started brewing again, on her side and on my side, and the decision to sell the restaurant also was made.  

We finally got the Civic on Monday with 3 kilometers on the odometer and 3 days later she is up to 80.  Not much Id say.

What about the Mazda 3?

Well, when we bought the Fusion, it was because we had given my then deadbeat brother-n-law, the youngest, my wife's Mazda 3.  So we needed to buy another car. Hence the Fusion.  He has since then become responsible and very hard working and he bought himself another car 3 years later.  We thought he traded it in but he had ALWAYS kept it as a reminder NOT to be a lazy ass person.   He drove it once in awhile as an appreciaition of what his sister and I did for him. And when the middle brother passed away in June, and we started grieving for the middle brother and when we mentioned that our daughter may need a car he surprised us by giving us our old car back.  Its in very very good condition, other than a few rust spots here and there.  

So yeah...   New car.   

Internal combustion.  No battery electric.  Maybe a BEV on the next car purchase when another woman driver rams my Fusion's passenger door...   I am NOT being hostile towards women drivers.  Just spittin' out facts... 

Old Port Clock Tower, Montreal

Saint Sulpice Seminary, Old Montreal  One of the oldest clocks in North America.  Created in Paris and installed in 1701.

Before repairs somtime in the 2000s.

After repairs

Peace Tower, Ottawa, Canada

Zimmer Tower, Lier, Belgium