trinacriabob

Let us know what you think.

Very true. If I had a Pontiac G8, I'd be babying it. In fact, I'd probably have another daily driver, though I haven't done that in years.

I saw "The Green Book" for the second time last week. It was a free community showing. It was even funnier the second time around. Tony: "Maybe he's a doctor of playing the piano." Dolores: (incredulous) "Is there such a thing?" Two plus hours of Bronx New Yorkese ... what's not to like?

I saw a white Pontiac G8 at a Starbucks parking lot yesterday. I have rarely seen white ones. It was in perfect condition. The white made its simple but great styling pop.

Ok, how about removable battery or non-removable battery? There are still a select few that have a removable battery. I have removed the battery on my current phone some 10 to 20 times over the years to cause it to unfreeze. It was instinctive to do that and it sure has worked.

Right, the developer (for a particular client or business) decides with that business where they'll draw the line. As Android platforms have advanced, I've found that some apps on my phone no longer work. My phone looks like a Blackberry but it's the very last AT&T phone using Android that has the similar QWERTY keyboard. I am now almost sick of it.

I finally did it. I took the sled in and got the transmission fluid changed via recirculating flush. It's been done old school style 2 times prior to this. It's the first time doing this. Prior to this, I had always serviced my transmissions by having them change the fluid and the filter by dropping the pan, which meant leaving some fluid in there. So, within 50 or so miles, the shifts are less perceptible and shift points even seem to be 1 to 2 mph lower under the same light throttle. I don't mind this. However, is it possible that a menu priced transmission service would cause the shift points to change a little? How could that be?

I like the more jelly bean greenhouse. Upon seeing the side view, I do not like the V shaped kink or indentation of the rear lights and I do not like the rear lights that climb over the top of the rear trunk lid. More so than not, it's nicer than the current version. I only hope it's quieter when on the road. In its defense, this brand is one of the easier line of cars (as rentals) to get into, drive off, and get accustomed to.

I agree with this, except that the seating position is low. Damn ... I forgot it's a sports car. I don't like the circular vents in the dash. Someone I know bought one. It's a first year model, maybe second by now. It's silver. This person likes it. When I drive down the street in front of the dealership, they tend to be silver, black, red, and Schwinn bicycle blue metallic. Then, within the last week, I saw one in an enamel charcoal/putty color. It was really eye catching. The price swing between a base 4 cylinder with no sunroof and a V6 with all the options exceeds $15,000, +/-. This is not news, though. The same is true of gradations of big SUVs in the GM stable. I am very mixed on this niche vehicle.

I'm a little hesitant about spending big bucks on a phone. I've trembled *almost* when standing on the edge of a vaporetto in Venice and taking one photo after the next, wondering if the damn thing will fall into the Grand Canal. This railing of a ship, ferry, or water taxi scenario always goes through my head. Therefore, I'd like to stay at a mid-range price point. In general, how long are apps supported on an Android platform? Which is the last Android platform to be supported today by most major apps, or what's the cutoff? Any rules of thumb? Planned obsolescence .... cars, phones, you name it. 1889 vintage ... and to think they had plans to dismantle it.

I'm intensely researching phones during the next week or so. If going Android, many are still based on Android 7. An update to Android 8 is supposedly feasible. On the other hand, Android 9 (pie) has already been rolled out. I'm guessing Android 7 and 8 ought to be glitch free. I'm not sure about Android 9. Besides googling, I wouldn't even know where to look. I know there is one excellent website for compare/contrast for cell phones, along with their pros and cons, not to mention their features listed in tabular form for compare/contrast.

Thanks for the suggestions on laptops. A laptop may come later. At this point, I go between the desktop (recently purchased HP 590) and a phone (which needs to be replaced SOON because it has been irritating me for a while). AT&T either has cheap phones that don't get good reviews or good phones that get good reviews and cost a lot. They also have the "bring your own phone" program, where you buy an unlocked and compatible with your carrier's network and your bill is a tad lower because you are not paying on a phone through them. I've seen some models that AT&T doesn't carry and which I like on-line. With some models, few are new but MANY are refurbished. Would you even consider buying a refurbished phone? And, of the ones claiming to be new but sold by a small indie cell phone mail order store, how do you know they're really new, even if being sold through eBay or Amazon? Any thoughts?

Heard this last night driving home - good '80s music and Eddie Money's best song: For David's mentioning of jazz artist Keiko Matsui, jazz guitarist Joyce Cooling has a song called "South of Market" released at about the time SOMA was becoming a much improved area of San Francisco. Perfect music for crossing all the spans of the Bay Bridge with the traffic moving nicely on a foggy weekend morning ... and that's exactly where I first heard it on a Bay Area jazz station.

The aerial views of the open roof at Notre-Dame in Paris after the fire are distressing. The roof along the entire nave has collapsed and took the central spire with it. There was scaffolding around the spire in the center, so some type of maintenance work must have been going on. Now they will be looking for answers. I'm sure many are thinking of making some type of donation, no matter how small. If the donations go over the needed amount, one would only hope it goes into a fund to keep future restoration and maintenance going. Visiting it, and Paris, are among those things a person doesn't easily forget. Also, this happening within a week of Easter is bad, bad news.

Both good. Simon and Garfunkel's version isn't as lethargic as I recall it being. However, the Bangles's rendition packs more energy. It needed that extra energy to go along with an edgy movie about Beverly Hills kids with "too much time on (their) hands" ... yet another song.

That's true, especially right now. What I read into it was that people in SoCal who are house poor need to spend less money on wheels (the big canyon between the haves and have nots that is getting wider all the time) AND that the Cruze approximates a foreign compact to some degree while the unmistakably American big Impala sedan does not at all.

In the car, I heard the song "One Night in Bangkok," one of the worst songs ever created. There were periodically some stupid songs. Another one I recently heard in the car was "Midnight at the Oasis" (not as bad).

I like the grille, belt line character lines, and lower body character lines better on the gold/brown one. I like the roof line and lower front lighting better on the white one. It is very sad that we're losing the current Cruze. When in SoCal, a Chevy salesperson told me that they don't have any problems selling them, whereas the Impalas move off the floor somewhat slowly. As we already know, it's the profit issue and not the volume issue. There's no GM car in the compact to midsize slot at this point. Meh. Maybe the Malibu is a mid-size even though rental car agencies consider them full-sizes. Funny thing is that the 'Bu isn't leaps and bounds above the Cruze in road manners, refinement, and comfortable driving. Edit: those brown colors for the exterior and interior are nice. It's about time that the tans offered for the exterior no longer look like metallic urine samples and the tans offered for the interior no longer look a few shades off white and prone to showing stains.

I wonder what the de facto most beautiful (usable) beach on the Great Lakes with warm enough water is. Who knows ... Is in on the Michigan/Indiana side of Lake Michigan? Is it on Lake Superior (brrr), which makes for a lot of great postcard views? Is it on Lake Ontario, on either the Canadian or American side? Toronto's lakefront is a continuous strand of beaches. When I think of the Great Lakes, I am more likely to think of the sinking of the "Edmund Fitzgerald" (it occurred in NOVEMBER) than I am beautiful beaches.

I think that the design intent behind this vehicle was to provide a sizable trunk that was ideal for putting various high school friends into and getting them into the drive-in movie theater free of charge.

@oldshurst442 For me, it has to be Cuba. I have/had numerous friends from Catholic school whose parents came from Cuba and, not to sound like a jerk, they see themselves as Europeans and Spaniards, with over 60% of Cubans having lineage that came (to Cuba) from Spain's Canary Islands, so they have a good sense of self and are therefore much easier to deal with and get along with. As an adult, I look back at what my friends' parents went through in leaving Cuba with the shirts on their backs and how, in short order, they had such upbeat personalities and incredible senses of humor here in the U.S. I want to walk around the places they probably walked around when they lived in Cuba. I'm talking about friendships that go back to childhood. The good news: Summer is 2 months away and it's time to take a trip or two.

Bad news: the tide has turned and it is now more difficult to visit Cuba (from the U.S.)

FCA, and specifically Chrysler, has come a long way. They didn't wake up from their last slumber until the New Millennium. They saw some success with the K-car and the minivan, of which they might have been the originators ... not sure. As for the K-car, I would continue to see some around after older X-cars had gone bye-bye. I knew a girl who drove hers back and forth from Atlanta to see her parents in Westchester County, N.Y. without any problems, even when it was more than 10 years old. Prior to that, the only feather in Chrysler's cap was the Cordoba ... interesting on some levels, but overshadowed by GM's similar coupes by leaps and bounds.

When it rains it pours. Saw another Lincoln Continental today. It was bronze or cream or something like that. It turned in front of me and I was able to then look at it in my rear view mirror. What I said about it holds. I also read about it for the first time. The reviews cited a transmission that wasn't as well behaved for the price point, lackluster road manners on mountain roads and/or curves, and other minor complaints. They acknowledged that it was different and made a statement, but the reviewers were not impressed.

Happy April Fools Day, folks. To kick off this thread, I don't have a really interesting sighting. Just an observation. I saw the current Lincoln Continental going down the freeway next to me, ultimately passing me as it was moving along to my left. The Continental's front grille makes that nice, vertical Lincoln statement. I once sat in one at the auto show. The interior is really nicely finished and the one at the show had these blue leather seats - nice ones, not tacky ones. Then, as the car pulls away from you, the effect sort of sputters. The rear deck lid tapers and the twin horizontal lamps are sort of wimpy compared to the statement the rest of the car makes. And this is weird because both the Lincoln MKS and (even) the Ford Taurus have these substantial looking trunks and rear deck lids, making for good rear 3/4 views. And, while not FoMoCo, the current Cadillac CT6 also looks good as it's pulling away. Not so with the Continental. In a way, it makes me think of how weak the old Lincoln Versailles, derived from the old Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch, looked.