trinacriabob

On a very random level: Am I at liberty to say that Elizabeth Warren is an intense and annoying wench?

Wow, one can get Lime* Disease or Orange Disease * (Lyme, of course)

I find that at least 2/3 of the chat features on customer service pages of company websites are sort of worthless.

Thank you. You learn something new every day! I guess it depends on the Spanish speaking country. I see this works as well and probably more Latin American. I've always known them to be "billetes aereos" and even "billetes de avion."

This was the ride across the pond. I took a funkier combo of flights on a miles redemption to get onto this A340-600, actually the longest commercial aircraft in existence for at least a decade. I figured as much just looking at it. Here it is pulling up to the gate in Boston. Only took about 6:30 across, which went fast. It's obviously a stretched A340-300 with bigger engines. This thing barreled down the runway and it was "wheels up" in no time at all. I like the 2-4-2 seating in economy. There is not much of an economy cabin in terms of length. A lot of the interior space was surprisingly first and business class. With the fog and clouds, the view over Boston, which could have been spectacular, was nonexistent. I love quadjets. They look so regal, for lack of a better word. I miss them as there are fewer of them.

I'm "constantly craving" for videos like these. Thanks! I am in the lobby of my hotel doing some admin. stuff and having some snacks, and the k.d. lang-alike cocktail bar waitress has been real nice to me, which is rarely the case. But, then, I'm in a different country. My personal opinion about LGBT folks who like Trump is that it, if blue collar, it "butches them up" and, if white collar, it's "look at me, I'm mainstream." This is but the tip of the iceberg. A lot of the blame goes to "poor white trash" (I hate to use this term, but the shoe fits) who can be spoon fed or think that they can live vicariously through his wealth and "Camelot" life ... like that wedding at Mar-a-Lago. Add to that minorities who have no business voting like that. The Rio Grande Valley counties of Texas near Harlingen, McAllen, and such, have historically been blue, but have become more red. Translation: at least 85% of the population is Mexican or Mexican-American. However, Elon launches his rockets from the South Texas coast and has created "some" jobs. I was down there on S.P.I. for a couple of weeks, oblivious that there were launches from there. I happened to see the mid-January launch from the causeway, along with many others. (This is the one that failed over the Caribbean, which also sent air traffic controllers for commercial aircraft scrambling to divert planes.) You know that those Mexican folks in attendance with SpaceX baseball caps have gone red. The Cubans embarked on this a long time ago. It's thinly veiled cultural appropriation to be more "white," I'm sad to say. So, Agent Orange has not only divided the citizenry. He has fragmented religiosity. A lot of people who don't want to go to their long-time church because it's a PAC clique have switched congregations or have quit going. This is one very ugly chapter that could have been avoided. I am not blaming affluent and conservative GOP folks. They aren't that big in terms of numbers. I blame the "basket of deplorables." I hope we'll get through this.

Greetings from Houston!

I didn't know I had this on my computer. I thought I'd share it. They're all models of the retired QE2. The order is actually bottom up instead of top down: 1. As inaugurated, with an open passenger space or sun deck up top behind the mast. 2. Still wearing its wartime gray, given that the ship was dispatched to the Falklands for the short-lived 1982 war between the UK and Argentina over the islands; also, the open passenger space or sun deck became the first block of 2-story penthouse suites, right behind the bridge. 3. Returned to its true Cunard scheme, with the black hull, but now additional 2-story penthouse suites have been placed behind the initial ones and practically extending to the funnel; also, the funnel is a lot thicker since the ship was converted to run on diesel-electric power during a major overhaul. This ship didn't get older ... it got better, and it hardly looked like a 39 year-old vessel at the end of its service life. They didn't have to max out the cabins for sharp pencils in that day, so this is 963 feet (longer than 3 football fields) of ocean liner with sleek yacht-like looks. This ship was born beautiful. If life ever takes me to Dubai, I will stay in the harborside hotel into which this ship was converted.

Very cool that Pizza Bank continues. When the Seattle Link train finally crosses the lake, I may visit, ride on it, and might check their pizza, which was top notch, as was Pegasus's on the waterfront in Alki. - - - - - I am thoroughly disgusted. Google Maps plans to relabel the Gulf of Mexico. Much like Chicago's Sears Tower is still the Sears Tower to me and like Houston's Transco Tower is still the Transco Tower to me, the Gulf of Mexico will continue to be the Gulf of Mexico to me since this is about elitism and imperialism. A certain individual cannot contain his hatred for that country. Mexico may not be on my bucket list, but why take away this name, as if they gain that much from it to begin with? I believe it was once the Gulf of New Spain, which would be okay since it's the gulf for many Spains, in a way.

Q: What is a Bellevue housewife's favorite position? A: Facing Bellevue Square - - - - - Dick's in Wallingford, hardly a vegetarian hot spot, is sitting in a neighborhood that is chock full of Subaru wagons, driven by homely ladies with short gray hair who put "keep your laws off my body" bumper stickers on them and who seemed to work in admin. positions at UW. Not a stereotype ... a reality ... one that I repeatedly saw on the campus and when I would cross I-5 into adjacent Wallingford. I once took an out-of-town guest around the city and we even drove around a few streets in Wallingford so I could point out the ridiculously disproportionate number of Subaru wagons parked on driveways and next to the curbs. All in good fun. I never ate at Dick's because I rarely eat hamburgers, but I loved Pizza Bank in Kirkland and Orexi Greek in Bellevue.

In looking at the houses, it could have been. Any idea on which neighborhoods? (That scene looks like L.A., with the vegetation suggestive of a drier climate.) The car? That grille and stacked headlamps! I very much miss seeing those cars on the road.

Happy Sunday. Greetings from (a) Malibu. Hilarious ... that we had cars like that!

I wrote the above because, based on Musk's behaviors, such as saluting as if a fascist and other right-wing postures, there is some movement for folks to get rid of their Teslas and this wave is called "Tesla shame." I don't like the long list of "(insert word) shame," but I do like this one!

Just say no ... . . . ... to TESLA

I'm coming back to this thread and post above after having written it a year ago. I didn't see a thread on the new Camry. I parked next to one of these units today. Everything above pretty much stands. The way I noticed it is that it said Toyota and that the rear sail panel looked "acceptable" ... it didn't shout old Caprice or Impala coupe. The front lamps are nicer but what's below them is not. The stupid diagonal in the console is gone! Everything looks more normal in the front of the cabin, even though there are a lot of horizontal slats everywhere. Looking back, I really liked that Honda Accord hybrid I was assigned as a rental unit at a South Florida airport and which I reviewed. If Honda did a good job with it, I'm sure Toyota will, too.

Astute. I don't think I would have been an American citizen as a child according to the current school of thought. Wait. Maybe they'll cherrypick and give Europeans a pass and give kids of parents from those s-hole country a thumbs down. It seems that things run on favoritism rather than on fairness.

Had I known you, I would have bought that 260 from you! Quietest domestic V8 I have ever heard when the exhaust is newer ... as in amazing. Also, being a debored 350 meant bigger cooling jackets within. I'm going to say your 307 was Olds and not Chevrolet, and maybe from a so-equipped Cadillac hearse. The small block fit should be interchangeable. Beautiful table. That must give you both satisfaction and relaxation from this hobby.

Tesla owners have become sort of cultish. They are very into their cars. One friend has one and was into showing me what it can do, including pin me back into my seat under hard acceleration. What's amazing is that a lot of rich West Coast liberals opt for them. You'd think they'd make a statement and avoid anything with Elon's mark on it. Here's hoping that other EV choices become popular. - - - - - Yep, your '78 with a 260 V8. I remember. And buyers had to spring even more for one of those over a '77. The most glaring example would have been the drastic drop from the big fendered '77 Monte Carlo to the anemic and cartoonish looking downsized '78. Cheap rat-tat-tat pods on the dash, a non descript bench seat, a base V6, and, drum roll, an unreliable Turbo 200 transmission. A couple of years later, they all brought out more engines. Two people I knew had a '79 Regal ... one had Pontiac's newer 4.3 liter (265) V8 and one had this tiny 3.2 Buick V6, which was only 196 cubic inches ... we're talking old Ford Maverick sized powerplants. All of these cars got considerably more attractive with the 1981 refresh, but they were on borrowed time. I loved my '84 Supreme Brougham coupe and won't easily forget the trip from an East Bay suburb up to Portland through the Napa Valley and meth lab plagued Lake County right above it.

Happy Monday ... may someone steal a Happy Meal for you ...

A lot of interesting factoids ... The number of plants producing the mid-1960s Impala were numerous, including 2 in SoCal (Van Nuys and South Gate) and 2 in Canada (Oshawa and St.-Therese). Imagine that ... working on the line with a Francophone in a herringbone cap who breaks out a baguette for his snack break. Then, other plants: up in Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, and the Arlington TX (Dallas) plant that made a lot of Cutlasses. Engines were varied: 230 in line 6 (not the 250 yet), V8s like 283, 327, and a 409 that gave way to the 396. I notice the absence of the 307 at this point. The great 350 came a few years later. - - - - - As far as Cutlass going from 1976 to 1977, they did a few stupid things, yet may have sold even more of them: - the waterfall grille up front got busier, thus uglier - they got rid of the spherical vents on the right side of the dash and made them rectangular as well - they went from a more traditional burgundy (for that type of color choice) interior to a red interior (called firethorn) and it was obnoxious - they slimmed down the bucket seats in the Salon coupe quite a bit - drum roll: the loss leader base engine went from an inherently balanced 250 in line 6 in an uncrowded engine bay to an "odd firing" 231 V6 (in its last year as "odd firing") and the area in the back of the engine bay around the engine itself was crowded. They should have left that one alone. No one should have had a nicely equipped Brougham model with an engine that had a faint shudder at idle. - and, of course, they raised the price a fair bit

Interesting bit of trivia. I couldn't believe the numbers, but, with the arrival of foreign imports coming later, it could be conceivable. In the 1965 model year, they sold 1,074,925 Chevrolet Impalas. That's far more than the 514,000 Oldsmobile Cutlass sales in 1976. I thought this was the peak. They report that 632,000 were produced in model year 1977.

Happy Sunday ... ... trying to "enjoy" my last day under the sort of democracy I've come to know and understand over a few decades *sigh*

I do remember the composite lamps. Ditto for '87 MC and Cutlass Supreme, at the very least. From '85 on, for a few years, power for these Chevy full-sizes could be had from a TBI 4.3 Vortec V6, which proved to be indestructible in Astro vans. After having gotten a crappy 5.0 V8 in a "toy" Camaro, a 5.0 is not to my liking unless Olds is the manufacturer ... where the debored engine's quality is comparable to that of the Rocket 350 V8. As for burgundy, the uptown interiors in that color on the last of the notchback Caprice-Impala sedans is something to behold, if malaise sort of excites you ... rather than give you malaise. Cloth version Leather version I appreciate bigger and boxier bucket seats from the last-gen MC and the Buick Verano, but I love what's up above.

More Italy than Amtrak. Amtrak is just slow. Regular seats are fairly priced. Little rooms with berths are ridiculously priced.

And I've got a good list of what can be wrong with it, too. Some is funny and some is sort of sad.