regfootball

So everyone should go buy a Park Avenue or DTS?

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a cobalt or ion or focus can more than hold its own on the interstates at customary cruising speeds. and, if there's a crosswind, they won't blow off the road, either.

that's ok, if anyone in the US is driving a smart, hopefully their insurance rates are adjusted appropriately (i.e. MUCH HIGHER), so when the carnage does occur, we're not all stuck paying for the miscalculation.

It's not so much about value anymore as it is "difference." Just take a look at the Hummer brand. You could get the same vehicle from Jeep for probably a lesser price than the H3 is. However, the H3 is "different" in terms of styling, functionality, etc.

Todays market is not dominated by "value" it is instead dominated by DIFFERENCE in terms of styling, etc.

The Aveo is doing well because of its value, however it is not doing as well as the Honda.

Because while the Honda does lack styling, it has more "difference" than the Aveo.

I hope you understand where I'm coming from.

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great post.

I think a 'G4' would differentiate itself nicely with a Stage 2 ecotec, 6 speed manual, distinct charcoal interior and killer seats. 18's...too.

Pontiac should make the Ecotec an option on the vibe. i know its had to do being a toyota and all, but a 2.4 ecotec in the vibe would be so much more attractive than the torqueless beeoch in the vibe right now.

Is it the Pursuit that you people think is bad for Pontiac or the Delta platform? The loss of the Sunfire is 40k sales Pontiac's not seeing, and a Pusuit could easily get those back.

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Queen says no Pursuit, but its easy enough to just call it a G4......I agree, Pontiac owuld regain those sunfire sales with a G4 or similar.

oops

it's not even about getting laid...I mean, while it may sound sappy and pathetic, I mostly just want someone to be there for me and to share my feelings with and likewise. You know, someone to just hold in your arms and be with...It doesn't have to be about sex and making out and whatnot...while that is fine and everything, there is more to it than that...If I was younger I probably would be wanting more of that, but being that I am somewhat older now, I want whatever happens to be right the first time and to be with someone who isn't just a booty call...

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Nick buddy, it'll come around. Sometimes the girls you like or are hot for you may not be the ones who are outgoing or the 'popular' types we are all told are the ones to be with in high school. once you get out of that crappy high school bullshit for awhile and don't have to be exposed to all that stuff, people become more themselves and I think you'll find that in the near future, somebody who's good for you, you will meet. Its a matter of getting out there and approaching them and talking to them and getting to know them and making them feel special, unique and very good about themselves. In theory, they reciprocate all that right back to you. You may find a very shy girl who blossoms from being your friend and she will turn into this amazing person right before your eyes because you will think of her like no one has thought of her before.

Unfortunately our highschool environments breed an atmosphere that only rewards jocks, cheerleaders, and outgoing pretty people. The rest of us suffer through that time and have to wait to enjoy our social lives when we get a little older.

Wow, lots of good advice from reg there.  My studio is made up of about 70 people, and probably 30-40% are girls.  Many of them, like you say, are headcases.  You get the ones that are so caught up in architecture that they have no time (or need) for anything else....arch is their life.  I'd say out of all the girls in my studio, about three to five of them are down to earth and normal.  The rest either have their emotional fits or are just too liberal for me (I'm a straight up moderate kinda guy...extremism on either side bothers me, as do feminists...which there are WAAAY too many of in architecture).

Anyway, this one girl just seems right for me.  It's the type of girl I've been looking for for a while.  We've grown up in similar families, have similar interests, and at times there has felt like a connection.  I'll admit I'm somewhat shy (I've been that way since I was a kid), but ever since college I've kinda gotten over that.  Something inside me says just move on and forget about her because it'll probably never happen, but it's hard when you see her every single day in every single class (I even sit next to her in two classes).

I've started branching out and meeting girls around the res hall, but like I said, it's hard to be in studio and be hanging out with them.  There's this one girl down the hall who is from California, brunette and attractive, but it's frustrating because even the short couple weeks we've known each other it's already going to s*** due to me being in studio all the time.  Studio kills social life, period.

The bad thing is, I know everyone in studio almost too well.  Some people you get along with better than others...but sometimes you just want to get away from there because nothing ever changes.  It's so predictable.  Although, sometimes it can be extremely fun (I can remember some hilarious late night antics last year).

The problem with hanging out with Interior Design girls is that we are in two separate buildings.  The Design College stuck the architecture students in an old 1920s gym with no A/C, while ID, Community & Regional Planning, and Art & Design are in the nice 1970s COD building with its five story glass atrium.  We're "supposed" to be getting a new studio sometime in the near future, but I doubt it'll be before I graduate...the University is penny pinching right now due to budget cuts.

So in summary, I'm around arch students nearly 24/7.  We're isolated in our own building and the amount of free time I have is decreasing by the week.  This girl is the only one who has caught my eye that I see often...but her rule about not dating arch guys just kills me.  I think my only solution is to get my work done quickly and efficiently so I can have free time on the weekends to get out and and hang out with some other girls.  But in architecture, it seems like the work is never-ending...

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well, first off, you've got enough proof in your writeup there to verify how offkilter those arch. chicks can be as a stereotype.

On the next, more personal level though, if any woman, any PERSON, erects rules as rigid and closed minded as 'not gonna date anyone in studio' let me simply say that is just a fraction of the iceberg in terms of what sort of chick hangups she has in the skeleton closet. We're looking at someone who overanalyzes things with their head and doesn't gravitate to the heart's feelings. It also shows you a level of selfishness and how much she'll prioritize the need to satisfy self at the expense of leaving an open mind to follow exploring a new love interest.

i.e. this is someone who has put up limits and is knowingly attemtping to curtail the chance of anything good happeing from a love interest standpoint.

We can't pick and choose where our suitors come from and trying to control that seldom works. Attemtping to sacrifice too much personal happiness for scholarly happiness to me suggests someone who can't handle both facets of their life elegantly. I've known of far too many women who cannot handle both work/school and personal lives and usually the brunt of failure gets diverted onto the male at some point.

I might be being overly blunt and simple here, but unless there's a special magic in her that transcends her self imposed limits, then I would at least knock her down the priority list......(of course if she's cuter than all get up and has an awesome rack and ass, well, i could see being drawn to that!)

What this means is bump up the efforts with friends, dormmates, etc. I KNOW its tough, trust me. I worked at a job mostly full time while going through the program (arch.) and I sacrificed a lot in terms of time in studio vs other things. My grades went down some, but not that much. Your social interaction is what fuels your desire and interest in everything else.

Everyday I review in my mind opportunities I missed in school in various things because I spent far too much time on 'projects'. Learn how to crank out the projects in half the time. I worked more form home and had more productive time the last few years. i still was up in studio enough to get in on the life up there too. Thing is, studio is a monoculture of liberal types, green types, art types, engineer types, 'thinkers' and philosophers.......4-6 years of that takes you out of normal mainstream thought of the mainstream and the rest of the college group. you become a sad granola eating nerd like the rest of them!

At times, I lament not having more good times with my studio friends, but all in all, in the end, 80-90% of the time I considered them as coworkers and I would always have chosen to be around my friends more often, if given the choice.

In a complete whole life, you'll remember your friends a lot more than your co-workers.

That's not to discount that you won't find a super hottie in the studio, I'm just saying again, force yourself to branch out more NOW. Don't wait for college to end. It gets busier once you start working and you meet far fewer people. Why not sample the ladies menu now when you are in the ultimate women buffet (COLLEGE)?

Balance your studio and social life, but don't waste your prime years in college by not getting out and seeking friends while they are so accessible. People put up barriers as the years go on. the experiences you will share with your college friends are the most intense and open shared times and will last you forever.

You can sacrifice the A- or B+ grade for B's and B-'s across the board if it means an extra 15-20 hours a week time for you to develop friends and love interests socially in dorms, academic clubs and org's, bar hopping, parties, intrmurals, and road trips. Part time jobs are a great way to meet others too.

In my college they kicked the architects into some old farm quonsets. Now I guess they have them in an old remote building that they were gonna knock over, but somebody gave a bunch of dough to renovate, so now the architects and stuff are like 3 miles from the rest of the campus! How is anyone supposed to get a rounded education being segregated like that?

Again, if a woman has rules NOW, when she is in the free-est environment she will ever be in, how many RULES will she have later in life, for herself and her hubby?

Sample the ladies outside your studio and then report back with your findings. I bet generally you'll have more fun with women outside arch. Psych majors are a trip. those chicks are crazy. Buisness majors are a hoot too.

You'll meet plenty of architecture women once you begin working, if you don't meet other chicks in school anyways.

My advice, to all....weddings....CRASHER or not. I met my wife at a wedding, so did our best friends. Wedding stories, hey that should be a separate topic! Someone ought to start it up!

its hard to commit your one car payment to something that's not a good freeway car, even if you don't venture out of the gridlock that much.

The guy from 60 minutes tried out the Smart in the big city. He found it quite practical because he could park it sideways and most places only demanded ½price.

And the fuel economy is great!

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so long as he didn't get a side impact hit from a suburban at 40 mph.......

anyone wanting rear leg room will immediately flock to this car compared to a Cobalt or Ion. GM fked themselves royally by not putting any rear seat room in those two cars.

well, an aztek like mine equipped without too many goodies gets good mpg and holds like 90 c.ft of stuff and can be bought under GMEP for like 16 grand. base Ford Freestars and SWB Caravans can be had in the 16-17 range. The Freestar's mileage might be less than desired. The Element is a good choice, but can get pricey. A focus wagon holds an assload of stuff assuming you buy a cheaper version. Vans still are the most useful although the often lack AWD. most minivans will get 20 mpg. The Element doesn't really get much more than that.

los angeles, who's the babe? she wears a dress nicely.

i love this. this is like saying 'f-you' to toyota's face.

well, for starters, be patient for a bit more, it'll come around. lots of opportunities arise from simply haging out with a lot of people and meeting their friends and going to parties etc. Sometimes you don't hit that stuff that hard until after 18.... realize too that a lot about trying to get a mate is emotionally stroking them......and that's the tough part.

ok, now i'm freaked out, or I'm LOL>........ nope, men do NOTHING for me, sorry mr. hairy palm.......

I can't believe I've missed this topic.  I too suffer from the dreaded "nice guy syndrome."  I'm just too god damn nice.  At this stage in my life, girls don't want a nice guy...they want a daring guy, but that's not who I am.

There is this one girl in my classes that I just feel would be absolutely perfect for me...we have similar interests (she's into muscle cars *thumbs up*), kinda laid back personalities, have every single class together...but she has some crazy rule that she won't date guys from the same major.  I don't know if she's noticed that I've showed some interest in her, but some days we'll be pretty close, and others it seems like we're merely just acquaintances.  She's kind of a loner when it comes to relationships though...she's an attractive and popular girl, but her last couple relationships ended pretty badly and I don't know if that's part of the problem why she distances herself so much.

Ever since my last girlfriend, I've been striking out quite a bit.  I think I'm setting my standards too high, but I don't want some ditzy sorority chick or someone that has little ambition about what they want to do in life.  I think another part of the problem is that I'm always busy...everytime I start getting close to someone, I get bogged down with projects and schoolwork.

I don't know, I guess I'll just have to wait it out until I'm 25, out of college, have a steady job, etc...I hear that's when the girls are looking to settle down with the nice guys.

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stang buddy, your first mistake (aside from architecture as a career) is to attempt to date a woman in architecture. Females and architecture are a deadly mix. The women in architecture are often messed up and unstable, and just out of whack. I still remember my crush on Michelle in my first high school drafting class back in '84. She had an Ally Sheedy kind of cuteness (MAN OH MAN that DATES ME) and an aloofness I couldn't stay away from. Well, what saved me was, yes she had a boyfriend. Over time I found out how f'ed up she was. That still doesn't keep me from remembering my favorite fantasy about her, being with her in her bedroom in her parent's house, getting down with T-squares and 'french curves'. Oh, I loved her SOOOO much, and she was just a FREAK. She had a bit of a moustache, which I dig a hint of on chicks (but that's another story). Just that slightest bit of facial hair above the lip and MMMMMMMMMMMM, its Christmas!

On to college. I would say in my college there was about 40-60 women in our program and maybe about 15-20% were women. In my year, I cannot think of ONE that didn't have some big issue. And that's not just me talking. No doubt there's a few that are normal, and fun, and behave normally towards men, but....

Where I work we recently hired a drafter from another firm in town, a firm that employs someone I used to go to college with. I asked new dude if he knew 'Laurie'. He said yeah, but that she's really like 'anti-men' and stuff and just very moody in a wierd sort of way in general. Hehe, I said 'no surprise there'. This was a chick who was very cute and many of the buddies of mine wanted to get with her. And she had her 'group' of other women and seemingly gay men that she would converse with and she would converse in acadmeic settings. But she never seemingly had dates, much less a boyfriend all those years.

Now, I never heard whether she was a lesbian, but if she was, 15-20 years later, i WOULD have heard about it by now.

Pretty much every other women in architecture is 'beyond the mainstream'. Proceeed with serious caution. You just don't get the same types of women in architecture that exist in normal society. They all have head issues to a degree and they are not always the hottest ones out there either.

Disclaimer, my last job I got to know someone/woman who was at the same college as I went to, just a year apart. We hit it off great and are still super friends, we even talked about going into business together. And she's hot. But I even admit, there's still enough about her that would make me ever question my compatibility with her in any setting, although I sure wish I had known her this well in college. Yeah, baby!

If you must co-hab with someone who knows the difference between plans and sections, try interior designers. THEY have social skills, often dress more killer, and are fun to boot. And they don't have all the head cases. Still, in the scheme of things, maybe its best to avoid them too if you want to share something in life besides the ability to read drawings and talk design.

Its interesting, so many architects get married to each other. Why? because architects are typically such insane personalities and hard to deal with, they like to share the pain and become an exponenetially worse as a couple. You will find many I.D./architect couples, but there is a ton of architects that shack up together, cause they are sometimes repellant individually to others and no one else wants to be with someone so offbeat.

disclaimer again, not ALL of them are like that, but many.

I married a music major. Its a nice mix. My buddy married a pharmacist. Now she works and he stays home with the kids, cause he was making like half of what she made.

Stang, I can tell you're not one of the 'head cases' in your architecture classes. You're a real guy, a good normal, hard working, fun loving guy like the rest of us. My advice, spend more time occasionally outside the studio and start hanging out with as many different girls in other majors you can, as often as you can. You'll find happier girls, and often they will be more interesting and more friendly. And I know this is shallow, but they'll likely be on track to make some nice coin too. Don't like abandon your group of friends in studio, but if you're needing to find some ladies, just diversify. Maybe you already have.

I know I'm stereotyping, but often stereotypes are for a reason. BUt I apologize anyways. I've rarely known a woman in my field who isn't 'off the beaten path'.

Again, Paulie, sorry if this is off topic, just need to set stangman aside and throw 5 cents worth of advice in his ear.

There are apparently a few.  Everyone on this site, straight or gay, is really friendly... you'll enjoy it :)

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and some of us who aren't gay maybe are effeminate. Or just not rifle totin, raw meat eatin, hunt it yourself, women slappin, strappin he men.

But i gotta tell ya, I do enjoy a nice strappin woman. strong and stout. I just don't get into smoky burnouts.

mute, that's a hot 'not lady'

it looks more fetching in person than pics.

man i want a force fed solstice coupe. hopefully with a bit of a trunk.

wow. i just soiled my boxers. in a good way.

"Legroom shrinks by almost an inch in back" not sure why it was so tough to stretch the wheelbase a couple inches, raise the roof and inch or two, and contour the seats for a nice passenger pocket, all in the interest of getting any leg room in the back. just an example of continual 'half assing' it.

yes, its FWD but it serves a niche and it seems to be a very good car. I think it looks good. Mits of late have been super reliable too. Once it gets noticed, it should sell well.

scary resemblence. further proof that the ricers, all they know how to do is copy. the hyundai has 2 gauges and the toyo has 3!

I think the only turn off for buyers that don't want AWD will be when they find out it's RWD. For enthusiats that's great, but most of the vehicles in this segment are FWD, and many soccer moms that could end up driving these probably like the idea of FWD better than RWD.

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agreed. i saw this thing on the lot a couple weeks ago and its a very sharp looking ride. lots of value. well built (to the eye). I want a 5 speed and i think that means RWD only, so no go. Plus, no sunroof unless you go AWD I think.

If I could get the 5 speed with AWD it would be worth looking at.

Off roaders ought to know that this AWD system is kind of rugged for this class.

this is a brief humor break not really on topic here but perhaps some can identify with. This is like on the funniest onion stories of all time. I kind of sheds light on how one person can be caught up in another but the other is being cruel. or psycho.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29357