trinacriabob

Ding - ding - ding I've been to Hot Springs, Arkansas. What a cool place with an interesting history, complete with gangsters. There's a scenic viewpoint you can drive up to for a view over the town as well as that other tower in the town you can go to the top of for a 360 degree view for a little bit of coin. It was on a Missouri trip that looped into and out of STL during the pandemic and fall colors. I wasn't expecting Arkansas to be as beautiful as it is. I came into its NW border from south of Branson, MO. Eureka Springs was a cool hippie-dippy town with the usual coffeehouses and gift shops. It's the location of the nondenominational architecturally unique Throrncrown Chapel. Stunning places and views at Mount Magazine State Park as well as a precipice you have to drive down a graded dirt road to get to its parking lot: Hawksbill Crag. I was going to turn back, but I'm glad I went ahead with it. Very nice photo of you two!

Ok, thanks, but what would be the gain or loss related to the Timeline as a specific feature? Why they made a bifurcated yes/no decision on desktop versus phone is weird. I will continue to use Google Maps. Remember Mapquest? Yikes. Not to digress, but I use the Moovit app with great success when it comes to planning rides on transit. It resets itself to the metro area you are in and seems to do a slightly better job than Google Maps.

With all this discourse, I need some input. I have put off ... and forgetting about ... my election for the Google Timeline, which is about to sunset. People seem to say it's phasing out for desktop, but will stay on phones. Like others have said, they get more mileage out of it on their desktop/laptop than other their phone ... ditto for me. Who really benefits from the Timeline? I've looked at it a few times, mostly to be amused. What election are you or people you know making? What is/will be salvageable? What do you recommend?

It all comes rushing back when I see one on the road, see it on YouTube, or similar. I miss what could have been - like influencing my parents on their choices. They could have just as easily gone with buckets - the big, comfortable kind - in that first colonnade coupe. I'm talking the Salon or S/R type buckets. No one ever sat where the armrest was and there were rarely more than 3 occupants in the vehicle. I miss what was - there was nothing quite like the ravine dash with full instrumention in the '88 to '94 Regal coupes (changed for '95 and '96) that I enjoyed looking into as a daily driver for a good number of years, and in a car with stellar reliability. In general, I mourn the loss of all the personality and luxurious creature comforts older cars had.

It takes something not feeling right (suspected sprain, crick, etc.) to push me to getting to get a massage, so less than a handful of times. The ones that hurt just a little are usually the ones that resolved the issue. (I'm not referring to anything remotely kinky.) I know baking is something you appreciate. You wouldn't have wanted me to make you a cake. My mom didn't bake many "American" things, so I once decided, as an early teen, that I could make what I wanted and keep it on hand: the marriage of two phenomenal flavors ... orange and chocolate. I'd drool over the boxes in the supermarket aisles with the photos on the cartons. I bought the orange frosting mix and chocolate cake mix. I was salivating in anticipation of the finished product. I don't know what went wrong. I followed the instructions. The result was kind of hard and dry. The frosting was not moist and shiny. I still ate it over the next few days, but never attempted to bake anything again. Anymore, people often go to get their cakes made for them.

It was a joke. I think I've put up that same photo before saying she'd make a formidable 007 film villainess and needs to go to a casting call rather than just be useless and high maintenance. When I see her, I think of an Eastern European foe of James Bond and the main 007 theme goes through my head.

Q: What are you listening to? A: The James Bond theme!

Join me in wishing @Drew Dowdell a happy birthday. Have a great day!

I agree, can imagine, and sympathize. The Dow may be up, but I wonder if that's because it foretells that the rich may get richer and the poor may get poorer. I may benefit some when the market is up, but it's not all about me. At any rate, I'm glad we're back up and trust that some redundancy is there or will be bolstered to shore things up.

They want them as side dishes but not for anything serious. When in the U.S. or Canada, they might bend that rule to some extent. In SoCal, they bent that rule a lot ... if the wallet was thick.

Good morning ...

This came up again as featured in one way or another, so I watched it again. Riviera: what a storied nameplate ... one with highs and lows. The high of its introduction. The low of being a 1977 and 1978 dressed up LeSabre coupe. While I really liked the 1989 to 1992, I mostly like this last attempt. Car design is like surgery. Millimeters matter. I think that more millimeters in some areas and less in others could have made a difference. For one, I think the length of the rear could have been slightly shorter so it wouldn't have had those equal volumes. The sturdy rear flanks look great as this Riv is slaloming around. I also loved the dashboard and the feel of the cabin of this model. It would have been even better with a 3800 that was either a Series I or Series III because of their better reliability. I very much miss American coupes.

Today's big divide in America here instead of on the joke thread ... Q: What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages? A: Bilingual Q: What do you call a person who speaks 1 language? A: American - - - - - Carry on ...

Q: Who is Heloisa Pinheiro? Don't look. A: . . . . . . . . . . Okay, I'll tell you This is an ageless gem in world music.

I'm sorry ... I saw this when I was looking for a good image of Suze Orman and was doubling over laughing, so here it is. https://amp-includes.tmz.com/videos/0-c6cbtqbv/ I've seen this TMZ org before. I looked it up and it means "thirty mile zone," or a 30 mile radius from Beverly Blvd. and La Cienega Blvd. That would mean they altogether miss Santa Barbara and Palm Springs. As you can see, they stoop fairly low in dispensing ET, or "entertainment trash."

This.

An example of what I'm looking at ... a SEAT Ibiza coupe (gasoline instead of diesel, and a DSG 7 speed automatic) with this body style; most are manuals ... and under VW's family of companies at this point.

Nice, evocative photos. It stops at the clams! LOL. I am very ok with fish that is of the filet-able form. I have had intermittent bad gastric experiences with shellfish, so I tread carefully. I have no idea why it's random.

Good morning ... She'd make a great Karen. - - - - - Sadly, I share an alma mater with her - one of them. I'd really want any financial advice to be dispensed by someone with an MBA, or even a basic business degree, instead of a BA in Social Work with marginal grades. (Yes, I know she worked in financial services.) As much as she tries to come across as sincere, she tries too hard and there's way too much flash. Also, Tom Leykis doesn't like her. That counts! Happy Sunday.

They have manuals in the cars they test with as a baseline. If not, they probably have some code to restrict the license (to automatics). I'm going to say go with the flow in case you need to rent a manual or drive someone's manual car for some reason.

If overseas, economical car with automatic and not ICE. I will have too much on my plate ... the (stress of the) to do list is insane, including doing driving school. Italy will not swap U.S. driver licenses. (The school is always done with a manual, so I'll have to get back on that bicycle.) Portugal will exchange them. I talked to one lady in Italy who was really nice but also a douchebag in how she made it sound like I was preparing for a flight to the moon. I went to driver's ed in 10th grade, cracked jokes with my friends, did the work, got an A, got 2 wrong on the written test, and got a 100 on the drive test. My parents moved us to Italy before I ever started school and we came back before the 3rd grade. I did not speak English and K through 2 was in Italian. In the 5th grade, my teacher, a nun, said she wanted to talk to me. I was wondering what I had done wrong. She just wanted to pull me aside to tell me my standardized test scores, which surprised the hell out of me! Point is that Italians have one glaring fault - they are quite obtuse in getting it that smart people can figure things out. I think they have this narrow view because they did not colonize. Somalia doesn't count. OTOH, the Spaniards, French, and Portuguese did, so they are less likely to insult people for minor speech "irregularities" since people in other lands far away have slightly differently accented versions of their languages and some of their customs. End of rant. Small car. Automatic. Reputable brand. Gasoline engine.

Today marks the 1 year anniversary that I don't have a car registered to me. Letting go of the LaCrosse was initially difficult, but I've gotten used to it. I rent when I need to. (That's what people like Manhattanites do!) From 16 on, I had regular access to a car, even if our family ones weren't registered to me. I have to figure out what to buy and when. If across the pond, it will NOT be a new car. A weird state of limbo to be in, to be sure, but I don't really have a choice and I'll get it sorted out.

Neat! How are you situated with GM in the '70s and '80s?

Yeah, true. But it was put into motion for different reasons and it was a bug that my foreign born doctor out West put in my ear about 10 years ago. I filed it away. It then involved contacting the consulate to get the citizenship recognized and then be issued that passport. It's not bad if you're first-gen, but it's still a lot of work. You have these third-gen on one side who have to have it, and they have to come through with a big paper trail. Still, I never thought it would come to this. The EU in general is also very concerned with the outcome.

Two weeks to go ... and this "casual Catholic" is praying a lot.