Robert Hall

Crown Vics would make decent cheap beaters, I think.... back in the '80s, my brother went 5 winters on 2 '73 Ford LTDs, one was $50 and the other was $300...both ran great, one had 250k miles...Ohio rust eventually killed it (he ran over the radiator after it fell off and the rear axle w/ both wheels attached fell off...) I've been half tempted to pick up a CVPI myself as a commuter car..

That's the trend these days, what with the economy..would be a dramatic way to take one's self and family out...though I would think a cop would have just used a gun.

My favorites are the toilet paper and the hand reaching out of the toilet one..

Steering feel in both of those cars was great... and that generation of Golf ('99-05?) has one of the best small car interiors ever, IMHO...love the gauges and the layout. Rob

Don't laugh, but my only extended small car experience is with an '84 Ford Escort diesel that my folks owned for over 15 years and I drove off and on for a few years in HS and college. Had 52 hp, but got 55 MPG. But the steering feel was incredible....For a low power FWD car (and I was young at the time), I thought it drove great on the windy, twisty Ohio backroads, and the 5spd manual was reasonably smooth... The best small cars I've driven in the US were a buddy's Focus SVT and another's '05 VW GTI, and in Europe, it was a Merc A-class diesel in Italy...was a fun little car, wacky interior design and materials.

If people's handwriting in general is getting worse, I what this bodes for handwritinng analysis in the future. Another possible future will be like one in 'Idiocracy'...everyone lazy watching TV and eating fast food...

Never had a stuck accelerator, but I've had a broken accelerator..would only work if pushed all the way down. My first instinct in an automatic would be to try to shift to neutral, park or reverse with the brakes to the floor..with a manual, shift to neutral. Sad story.

With GCs, I'd avoid the first gen models ('93-98)--they have known transmission and electrical problems. Of the 2nd gen models ('99-04), the '99s had higher than average transmission and brake issues. I've been quite fond of my '00, it's never stranded me in 9 years and 103k miles, I've stuck to the factory maintenance schedule..it's had a few issues w/ engine, transmission, transfer case and rear axle seal leaks, and eats rotors every 30k, but the only big issue so far has been the driver's seat frame breakage issue. Still drives quietly and rattle free. The smaller XJ Cherokee has had a good reputation overall, I believe. They are quite rugged. Rob

Good point. Being able to type is just as if not more important in today's world. Being able to communicate effectively via email and typed documents is essential in any sort of business today. Hand-written documents and communications, like print media, are an artifact of world gone by, of the past.

+1. If I didn't have my Jeep, for a winter SUV I'd look at the '90s full size Blazer/Tahoe or the '92-96 Ford Bronco...I've always liked the last Broncos, thought about buying one in the late '90s when I had the Bronco II.

Saw a '77 Catalina 4dr today...was pretty straight and solid, dark red paint faded on the roof, hood and deck. Don't see those very often.

My notes I take at work in meetings, on sticky notes, roughing out a design, etc are a mix of print and cursive (my penmanship used to be quite good in school, but it's more of a scrawl now). Though strangely, when I print, I find that I often write with a mix of upper and lower case letters--- lIkE tHiS... At home, about the only writing I do are shopping lists on sticky notes..pretty much anything else I need to write I do on the computer.

I had a coworker that bought a used '05 in '06, had 14k miles when he bought it..had a ton of problems over the year he had it..brake failures, wiper motor failure, etc...unloaded it on a new 4Runner in '07. But I'd avoid the Blazers like the plague.

I'd avoid the Blazers for the lousy crash test results that generation had. How an '02 TrailBlazer?

I haven't written anything besides my signature in cursive probably in 12-15 years or more... Even then, though, any papers I wrote were done with a word processor (MS Word for college and LaTeX for grad school academic papers and journal articles). Anything I've written corporate has been w/ MS Word. Cursive handwriting is definitely a lost art.

Yeah, but white Corollas, Camrys, Sentras, etc? Couldn't get duller and more uninspired than that. That's what I see every day in traffic...depressingly dull FWD generic appliances driven by the masses. I generally don't like white cars...there are a few that look good in white, like the new Camaro and the pearl white Caddys..

The Nov issue of HCC came today..has a pair of beautiful '73 Cutlass Supremes on the cover, one blue, one white. Other GM content in the issue incl. a '52 Buick Super 4dr.

I found the Vista Cruiser at Target tonight..pretty sweet. Also found the Merc SLR and Prius.

No idea...just trying to figure if there is an engineering reason behind it. I believe even the magazines have commented about the offset in the X3.

Don't know...but didn't some GM products have that problem in the past? It could be a packaging issue under the hood w/ the placement of the steering column and gear...

When I was in high school, the new cars kids got ranged from Mustang GTs, Mustang LX 5.0s, Camaro IROC-Zs, Firebird Trans Ams/GTAs, a Buick Grand National, Cutlass Supremes, Monte Carlo SSes, to more prosaic Cavaliers, Daytonas, Corollas, and Civics. Circa '86-88. In my senior class, probably 60% of the kids got a new car during senior year or one they had got during junior year. (it was a small high school in a Florida resort and fishing town). I got my Mustang GT between junior and senior year, an early graduation present. The most outrageous car, though, was the kid with the new bright red Merc 560SEC AMG. He and his dad were in the 'import-export' business. Found at out at my 10 yr reunion that they were doing time in a federal prison for their business. He did show up at the 20 yr reunion, had been out of prison a couple years, back in town. Alas, a few of those new cars got totalled during senior year, incl. two Mustang GTs and the Grand National...kids and 'high' power cars often don't go well together( well, they were powerful for the mid '80s). Rob

Or the yearly Girl Scout Cookie sales. I just ignore any emails or people trying to sell stuff, and if anyone asks me I always respond that I'm a contractor, not an employee...i.e. leave me alone. As far as corporate events, etc... When I was an employee a few years ago, I did like some of the corporate events we did--the occasional official happy hour (at a local Hyatt w/ delicious catered food) or the holiday party (same place, more delicious catered food), since I genuinely enjoyed my team and many of the other people in the company, when it was still small and Canadian before it got acquired by a big conglomerate. Not to mention the unofficial weekly team happy hours (that often lasted until 1-2 am). The annual company golf tournament was always a blast, drinking at 9am, seeing drunken colleagues rolling a golf cart at 10am, etc. The pot lucks were fun, esp. when the Indians brought in delicious spicy curry dishes. 4 of the 5 years I was there was probably the best of my career so far, as far as satisfying work, interesting people, and good times. Now I'm pragmatic about work...get a high bill rate, spend 40 hrs in a cube, go home. In boring AZ.

I'm sick of it and plan to get out of AZ as soon as practical..probably Q1 of '10. Go someplace greener, more humid and more authentic...

Same here...I see a few new American cars, which is great, but the vast majority on the roads seem to be Japanese generics...and a lot of the Korean ones these days as well. White and silver FWD blandmobiles.

AZ is currently claiming 9.6% or so, but analysis on the radio claims it's considerably higher. AZ is as much a toilet as NV, the economy here is too reliant on real estate (building generic beige houses in hideous beige suburbs), tourism (golf, golf, and more golf) and retirees.. AZ (along w/ NV) were growing like crazy the last 30 years, and that growth is stalled currently..so many empty big box stores, empty strip malls, half finished subdivisions. Bottom line, many people moved here, but is there anything of substance to retain people and to lead to growth in the desert? There is no meaningful future here...