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I know you wrote "no turkeys" but I saw my first Porsche Panamera this week. Ugly..

I think they were using stock footage to give a sense of place, that Tuckahoe was just outside of NYC?

I wouldn't tell the people who live there that they're "barely" in BH, they won't react well. The El Rey is a nightclub and has been one since the 80's, but is still there. The Fox Wilshire is still there as well, under a different name and is still going strong. The Carthay Circle did indeed get torn down, as did the Warner Theater futher west in the 80's and the Beverly Theater more recently. The Cinerama Dome was saved by preservationists who convinces the new owners to build the Arclight Cinema complex behind and next to it. I hope you got to show your cousin the Egyptian, which was an earlier theater of Syd Graumanns that's been restored by the American Cinematheque. The Purple Line is still up in the air. But a lot of people want it in West Hollywood and the Valley (to cut time on a trip to the Westside centers of Employment)

I'm sorry to read that; I hope you get something very soon..

Actually there are two: Wilshire/Beverly and Wilshire/LaCienega. Century City and the Beverly Center stop will be about a 15 minute walk from the city borders. The problem with the subway is convincing people to actually get their asses out of their cars and use them, rather than just thinking of them as ways to get "other" people off the roads to make their commute faster.

I vote keep the Fleetwood. As far as costs go, the price of the new car payments and other payments (like the insurance- a new car under lease will have to have full coverage) will be a lot more than just keeping the old one. As far as the wife goes, a nice "date night" dinner out and a movie once a month with some of the money you aren't shelling out to GMAC and GEICO might ameliorate the whole used-car thing for her.

It does. I have no signal at my place at all. If I want to make a cell call I have to walk over to Santa Monica Blvd.

My friend visits often for business and she's gotten both of these. Just awful interiors. Nice design but cheap plastics. The last rental was a Toyota Corolla, awash in a sea of hard gray plastic. The fit was marginally better than the Chryslers but plastic is still plastic.

I tip 15-20%. The service has to be reaaaalllly slow for me to tip less, and really rude for me not to tip at all. The last time I felt like not tipping (I wasn't paying for the meal; it was my birthday) was at a dinner at a trendy place in South Pasadena. The waiter was making a theatrical gesture and spilled red wine on my light green sweater, basically ruining it. I didn't make a huge stink because it was an accident, and I had bought the sweater at the Barneys Outlet for like ten bucks a couple years earlier. Fine. The food was good but took forever to get there. Then they brought coffee. Which the same waiter managed to spill in the lap of my friends husband. Needless to say my friend had a word with him when the bill arrived saying "I find it a bit curious that you charged me for the coffee you poured in my husbands lap" They ended up comping my dinner and the coffee. I thought they should have comped the whole meal, frankly, because here's the kicker: the owners (and the waiter) were friends of my my hosts! They were out of business in about 6 months. She didn't tip.

I found Julia Child's way to be the easiest and tastiest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWmvfUKwBrg

I postponed mine and they allowed me to choose the week that I would want to serve. Unfortunately, it's not at the Courthouse that's a 15 minute stroll from my place, it's at the corner of Crack & Addicted south of Downtown LA where I served a couple of years ago

Isn't Toyota the Happy Green Company? Toyota looks to have a potential public-relations nightmare on its hands. According to CBS News, one of the company's former lawyers, Dimitrios P. Biller, has filed a federal racketeering suit against the Japanese automaker. Biller worked for Toyota from 2003 through 2007 defending the company against rollover lawsuits blaming injuries and deaths on the alleged instability and weak roof structures of the company's SUVs and pickups. Biller's suit alleges that Toyota has withheld electronic evidence like emails in over 300 rollover cases, and it states that evidence was destroyed by the company in spite of his efforts to secure the data. The suit also alleges that Toyota withheld design and test data for vehicle roofs, and it also states that some vehicles on the road today don't meet roof safety standards.

Very nice! I miss that green- we just don't get that here.

thanks!

Ford Nucleon

Well, since Tundra's seem to fall to salt rust the first time they get wet I suppose those 75 people better be able to process them quickly..

I was under the impression that most trees have a root system that's as large as the tree canopy. As a matter of fact, most cities are removing certain specimen trees (like ficus) because the root system is so aggressive that it cracks concrete and buckles sidewalks.

I hope they're able to build this. Not only would it be a good way to pay for the platform but I think it would be a nice "FU" to Toyotas Jolly Green Giant image. I know it would sell on the Westside..

Stuff to do in Malibu: Go to the Getty Villa (no, technically it's not Malibu, it's Castellamare) http://www.getty.edu/visit/events/villa.html Newly re-opened Malibu Pier http://www.malibupiersportfishing.com/ Visit the Adamson House, the home of the Ringe family, who originally owned all of Malibu. http://www.adamsonhouse.org/ Stop at the Malibu country mart, have a coffee from Coffee Bean and Tea leaf and people watch (last time I was there I saw Pierce Brosnan) Eat at Neptunes Net and watch the "bikers" http://www.neptunesnet.com/ Have a drink at the restaurant in Paradise Cove http://www.paradisecovemalibu.com/ Have a romantic dinner at Geoffrey's http://www.geoffreysmalibu.com Go for a hike in the hills http://www.malibucomplete.com/mc_offthebeach_hiking.php While it's true that locals make it difficult to get to some beaches, there are several that are easy to get to by the public, from Topanga close in to Zuma out towards Ventura. A little known fact is that the beaches are easy to get to on public transportation: the Metro 434 bus passes a lot of them. No parking worries on a hot day.

I've never seen anyone test the smart Cabrio with the roof rails removed. Smart makes such a big deal about that safety cage being so strong, but the cabrio allows you to breach that cage.

This for some reason reminds me of a Top Gear episode where they compare the quality of an old Jag saloon with a Town Car by seeing how watertight they were. By running a fire hose through the sunroof. Needless to say the Lincoln didn't retain water like the Jag. I remember thinking at the time that this was a good thing; considering a Jag's reliability, using it as an aquarium would be a good back-up plan.

If I remember correctly, Cimmaron was foisted upon Cadillac in response to CAFE standards to balance out the rest of the line. I read that it was originally going to be X-Body based but ended up being what it was because it was the newer car, which didn't lead to them being able to differentiate it much in such a short time. I drove one once and hated it, but then again I hated the 190 as well, since it came out with an engine that had about 100hp and wasn't exactly lighting the tires at stoplights- but then again nothing was. As a matter of fact the 190 was looked down on by people who owned W124 and W126 models as cheapening the brand. The difference was the Mercedes spent millions making the thing work well, and later more putting a decent engine in it. Cadillac tried, but the car wasn't great to begin with. But yes, at the time it Cimmaron was looked at as a pretty decent little car.

http://pansysrants.blogspot.com/

I love when people who've visited place "a few times" are suddenly students of the entire state. I've lived here 20 years and I can't comment with any certainty on the general majority views of the people outside of my zip code.

Voted. Do I get free admission? A ride-along one Sunday?