Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

He really is that stupid.

Consistently wrong since 2002

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Stand up, dammit!

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  3. 3.

    JGabriel

    Yeah? This morning I clicked on one video ad here at this site. One. It turned out to be an ad for some new show based on The Playboy Club.

    And now every damn ad I’m getting is related to Playboy somehow.

    .

  4. 4.

    dr. bloor

    Mine’s in February, and it’s destined to be “Annual Inspection and Do You Want the Golf Diesel or the Ford Fiesta Day?” No way baby gets by this time.

  5. 5.

    cleek

    today i learned that SPARC does not allow unaligned access to integers.

    there’s a year’s worth of code in front of me that didn’t know this fact, and a host of managers who are going to shit themselves when they learn i didn’t know this.

  6. 6.

    henqiguai

    Right rear axle ? How many axles your car got ? That’s not to say I don’t feel your pain, however.

  7. 7.

    JGabriel

    cleek:

    today i learned that SPARC does not allow unaligned access to integers.

    I know there’s a joke here somewhere about unaffiliated voters and non-aligned countries. But since I’m not witty enough at the moment to come up with it, I’ll just mention the possibility — thereby ruining the joke for anyone else who might have come up with it.

    I’m kind of an asshole that way.

    .

  8. 8.

    Dan

    If you will be drinking, then so will I. Then I can say that I am not drinking alone.

  10. 10.

    Ahasuerus

    @cleek: Damn kids, with your fancy “integers”. Back in my day, we constructed numbers by reworking the wire-wrap on the perfboard, and we were grateful! Now fetch me a 7400 and get off my lawn!

  11. 11.

    13th Generation

    Been there, done that. Will never buy another GM vehicle as long as I live.

  13. 13.

    jeffreyw

    @dr. bloor: We just traded Mrs J’s 2000 Explorer on a 2011 Fiesta. Great little car. I’m 6’4″ and I can ride comfortably in the front seat. Having a ball playing with the Sync feature connecting to my iPod Touch.

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    @Dan:

    If you will be drinking, then so will I. Then I can say that I am not drinking alone.

    You’re never alone Dan. Never alone.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    @cleek:

    today i learned that SPARC does not allow unaligned access to integers.

    God damn social conservative ideologues.

  19. 19.

    Ahasuerus

    @jeffreyw: When did the Fiesta come back? I remember driving a friend’s back in the late 70’s; cute little car, but the engine was so small it could not support an aftermarket air conditioning system, and there was a large printed warning to that effect on the underside of the hood. And I also remember being some sad when I read about the model’s phase-out a few years later.

    At least, I think it was the Fiesta; it was the late 70’s, after all…

  22. 22.

    13th Generation

    @13th Generation

    Did have a POS GMC Jimmy. What a fucking lemon. Rockin’ the Volvo S60 nowadays. Love it, best car I’ve ever had.

  25. 25.

    dr. bloor

    @jeffreyw: Lotsa good reviews for them and the price point is great, but I have yet to actually see one on the road. Weird.

    Also, my love for VWs is irrational bordering on Abused Driver Syndrome.

  27. 27.

    David in NY

    I do not think my NY inspection would discover this sort of thing. Bad emissions system — yes. Need for brake job — yes. Broken tail light — yes. Otherwise, no. Or maybe my 2000 Honda Accord has never needed much work.

  28. 28.

    Ahasuerus

    @Beauzeaux: I spent months telling him my story, I even helped him proof the galleys, and the SOB never gave me so much as a dime of his royalties. And completely unrelated, but I don’t look anything like Anthony Quinn. Or his sister.

  29. 29.

    Judas Escargot

    @cleek:

    today i learned that SPARC does not allow unaligned access to integers.

    Which compiler are you using? Sun’s cc compiler has some option (“-misalign” if I remember correctly) that let you get away with bad accesses, at a (potentially very big) performance cost.

    For GCC, there’s “-enforce-aligned-data”, which won’t stop the SIGBUS errors, but will at least issue compile-time errors to help you find the nasty bits.

    (My SPARC-fu is a few years old: Advice, as always, worth exactly what you paid for it).

  30. 30.

    bemused

    Comcast, Netanyahu, Cornel West…It’s neck deep in hurt feelings around here today.

  32. 32.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    John, I can’t understand why you ever leave the house. It’s ALL “Here Be Dragons” out there.

  33. 33.

    13th Generation

    @efgoldman

    Actually, bought it slightly used, got a great deal. My wife still drives her 98 Honda. Also a great car. We’ve got to have at least one nice one in the family, right?

  36. 36.

    jeffreyw

    @Ahasuerus: Wikipedia has a big article on the Fiesta. There have been several generations of the car sold in Europe to great reviews. The current generation is the 6th or 7th depending on how you count. It came back to North America in 2010. It is well built, solid, peppy, and etc. So far we are happy as hell with it. (24 hours without an injury!)

  37. 37.

    Ahasuerus

    @stuckinred: Yeah, I’ve just been reading the Wikipedia article on them. Apparently at least one iteration (Mark IV, from 1995-2002) was not sold in North America, so I’m not completely crazy. They seem like decent cars; hopefully there’s enough trunk space for jeffreyw to fit all of his food shopping.

  38. 38.

    The Moar You Know

    today i learned that SPARC does not allow unaligned access to integers.
    __
    there’s a year’s worth of code in front of me that didn’t know this fact, and a host of managers who are going to shit themselves when they learn i didn’t know this.

    @cleek: Sorry. Being unemployed sucks.

    Wait, who is still using SPARC?

  39. 39.

    Suffern ACE

    @arguingwithsignposts: Well, if he is about to violate the Act, then they should be butthurt and do something about that. Its the 20th. If they needed to debate and authorize, perhaps they should have started on the 14th or something.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I haz a question: I keep seeing mocking references to the crowd of potential GOP 2012 candidates as including “an Arab.” To what/whom does this refer?

  42. 42.

    jeffreyw

    @stuckinred: I still remember a training jump that seemed to be going just great until the man on the ground with the loudspeaker called: “Will the jumper with the malfunction please pull his reserve?!” I noticed shortly afterwards that he was addressing yours truly.

  44. 44.

    stuckinred

    @Ahasuerus: Yea, I had never heard of the Escort until I bought one in 84 and found out is was one of the biggest selling rides on the planet!

  45. 45.

    burnspbesq

    @dr. bloor:

    Not sure why, but Jetta diesels are outselling Golf diesels by a wide margin. I love my Jetta diesel wagon. It may be that people think all Golfs should be pocket rockets, like the GTI and R32, and diesel Golf doesn’t compute.

  46. 46.

    Culture of Truth

    I read that as “SPARC does not allow unaligned access to tigers”

  49. 49.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    @cleek: Oooh… that’s painful. Very painful. Our main platform where we work is sparc… so I know what you’re talking about, and what you’re about to be dealing with. John, cleek wins this one.

    While I’m here… I just wrapped up production on a demo EP for a local acoustic blues singer guy. The five tunes on the EP are up on youtube in the following playlist, if any of you care to have a listen: youtube.com/my_playlists?p=91B6456A2157557F. I’m the dude playing the leads…

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    60k service and new brakes on the Saab today. $1220.00. Of course, no big service again until 120k.

  53. 53.

    The Moar You Know

    I haz a question: I keep seeing mocking references to the crowd of potential GOP 2012 candidates as including “an Arab.” To what/whom does this refer?

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Mitch Daniels. Syrian grandparents.

    I think it’s a non-issue. The fact that he’s about four feet tall will be a problem, though.

  54. 54.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    @The Moar You Know: Tons of people. We do where I work, a high volume email to text processor for a major Canadian wireless telecom.

    If you need it not to crash ever, solaris on sparc is very very good.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @dr. bloor:

    My best friend got a diesel Jetta and luuurves it, if that helps. She has a 70-mile one way commute three days a week, and she’s saving a huge amount of money on gas even though diesel is slightly more expensive per gallon. It’s the difference between filling up twice a week and only once a week.

  57. 57.

    13th Generation

    @Omnes Omnibus

    Just had the same 60k service/brakes done to mine, but it was ONLY $750. Ha! But, I figure with certain cars, if you take care of them, they will more than return the favor.

  59. 59.

    jibeaux

    I had a money pit of a 1994 Volvo, which I once figured out after unloading the accursed piece of crap, that cost me the same as if I’d leased a $450 a month brand new luxury awesomeness. Since which point, I don’t care how many hippies get a half a kabillionty miles out of them, I’m not touching a Volvo again.

    In other open thread news, I’m going to try my hand at canning strawberry jam and cleek, I don’t know what that means but it sounds bad. But the $2 Pistols are playing tomorrow night at the free Saxapahaw River festival thing if that helps. Bring beer. Don’t bring your own $2 pistol.

  60. 60.

    Ahasuerus

    @cleek: SPARC and AIX – are you being punished? More to the point, what are you being punished for?

    But seriously, if you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing on the SPARC platform that makes you vulnerable to unaligned integer issues? Shouldn’t the compiler magick such concerns away? I see that Judas Escargot has already chimed in, but I’m a nosy bugger so I figured I’d ask anyway.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @13th Generation: Had to get new front rotors; couldn’t just replace the pads.

    ETA: The services for this car are the only expenses it has. I am willing to pay to take care of it.

    ETA II: They gave me a new 9-5 as a loaner. Fun, but big.

  62. 62.

    tomvox1

    I assume you trust this mechanic, John, and it’s not just an annual visit to Some Random Guy in Coveralls? ‘Cause finding “damage” and failing your car at an inspection is pretty much the oldest trick in the mechanic’s handbook. Just sayin’–a second opinion never hurts for $37 rather than paying the full freight on a new axle.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    If you need it not to crash ever, solaris on sparc is very very good.

    Yeah, well, so was VMS on a VAX, but look what it got DEC.

    Thank FSM that Sun is still independent!

  65. 65.

    jibeaux

    Edit: I will not be canning cleek along with the strawberry jam, despite the integer thing. Just poor phrasing there.

  66. 66.

    MikeJ

    @efgoldman:

    That, and the fact that he’s almost less compelling than Pawlenty, or Harold Stassen. And Stassen’s been dead for decades.

    Really though, what’s the difference between any of the republicans? They aren’t allowed to deviate from the party line on anything. Any that do wind up apologizing to Rush within a few days. I don’t understand why they’re fighting each other. Pick one interchangeable candidate with the same views as all the others and tell us how much you want to scrap medicare and social security.

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    And Stassen’s been dead for decades

    Well, he died in 2001, actually. But his passing was easy to overlook, what with giant sharks in Long Island Sound and Gary Condit murdering Chandra Levy and all.

  68. 68.

    Bobby

    I don’t know about WV but Virginia had one of the toughest vehicle inspections I ever had the privilege of going through. I mean they jack up your car and check EVERYTHING from front to rear. Now, here in Mississippi they only check your lights front and rear then make sure your wipers and horn work. That’s it. But I think I’ll join you in a drink anyway.

  69. 69.

    Martin

    Well, I’m off to the Dr in a few minutes. Nurse neighbor thinks I may have shingles. It’s been a painful week.

  70. 70.

    13th Generation

    @jibeaux
    I haz a sad about your Volvo. I too have been warned about mine after it reaches 100k.
    @Omnes Omnibus
    I see. Don’t see too many Saabs in my neck of the woods. But I’ve driven one, very different feel from many sports cars.

  71. 71.

    Ahasuerus

    @SFAW:

    Yeah, well, so was VMS on a VAX, but look what it got DEC

    VMS may have been robust, but it had problems. I remember that the VMS C compiler in the late 80’s had major problems with data segments that were not exact multiples of 512 bytes; anything over the 512-byte boundary tended to disappear from the object code. Good times.

    I will say that the saddest thing I ever saw was the Maynard facility sitting empty for the few years after DEC got Compaq’d. It’s got tenants now, but it’s just not the same. And now Sun is gone, too. Perhaps Camping is right – it’s the end of the world as we know it!

  72. 72.

    trollhattan

    @cleek:

    My hovercraft, too, is full of eels. Good luck with the integers thingie. I shall be self-administering syrah (not to be confoozed with Syria or Shiraz but also, too, the same thing as shiraz).

  74. 74.

    WereBear

    @jeffreyw: That is the most awesome thing, that SYNC system.

    A couple of times I have given coworkers’ children rides home from school when their parents are held up; they tell the dashboard where they live and the car tells me how to get there.

    Their eyes get so big…. science fiction car!

  75. 75.

    jibeaux

    @13th Generation:

    It’s been, like, eight years. I’m coming to terms with it. :) But thank you and better luck with yours. You do see plenty on the road, mine just wasn’t one of the ones that wanted to be there.

  76. 76.

    Citizen_X

    @Nomad: Oh, lovely.

    And here’s more ugliness (well, the non-violent variety). Seems some minister–and ally of Bachmann!–opened a session of the MN legislature with a prayer that ended with

    this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it’s not about the Baptists and it’s not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans. Or the Presbyterians the evangelicals or any other denomination but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged.

  77. 77.

    13th Generation

    @Omnes Omnibus
    Unfortunately, down here south of the Mason-Dixon, it’s still giant dinosaur SUV country.
    Part of me wishes gas prices would go to 7-8 dollars a gallon just so some of these people would at least consider driving something a little more fuel efficient.

  78. 78.

    cleek

    @Ahasuerus:

    what are you doing on the SPARC platform that makes you vulnerable to unaligned integer issues?

    translating COBOL to cross-platform C++, reading lots of packed binary data files, bit shifting/masking, encryption, etc..

    thought i’d be clever and read the smaller of those data files into RAM and access them as arrays. works fine on Windows and x86 Linux. sends SPARC into fits of SIGBUS.

  79. 79.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    @SFAW: Since when? Oracle bought them last year. Mind you, the reasoning is good… they want to be able to make appliances that never fail.

  80. 80.

    gnomedad

    @taylormattd:

    Maybe the axle broke when Rosie jumped in the back seat.

    Right, he was in the back seat with Tunch and Lily having a “moment” when all of a sudden …

  81. 81.

    SFAW

    VMS may have been robust, but it had problems.

    I’ll take your word for it, but I still think it was leagues ahead of pretty much anything else that was out there in the 80s and much of the 90s. On the other hand, I’m just a lowly hardware guy, so my assessment is worth the amount of money you’ve paid for it, etc.

    Although the extreme mishandling of the Alpha program helped kill them, as well as Ken Olsen missing the boat with PCs , there’s still a special place in Hell reserved for Bob Palmer, may he burn there endlessly.

  83. 83.

    SFAW

    Since when? Oracle bought them last year.

    Yes, I know.

    I was being ironic or something.

  84. 84.

    Ahasuerus

    @cleek: Ouch. My sympathies. Perhaps you can salve your frustration with the knowledge that once you’ve done the necessary realignments you don’t have to worry about them again. But it’s going to be a LOT of work.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    thought i’d be clever and read the smaller of those data files into RAM and access them as arrays. works fine on Windows and x86 Linux. sends SPARC into fits of SIGBUS.

    Bally Jerry pranged his kite? Cabbage crates coming over the briny?

  89. 89.

    dr. bloor

    @burnspbesq:

    I like the Jetta wagon, although the sedan doesn’t do anything for me and I’m not eager to shell out extra coin for the wagon. I drive a GTI now, and like the feel of the hatch. I’m really going to miss the GTI’s giddyup, but I drive about 24K a year for my job, and the diesel looks really good with gas north of $4 a gallon.

  90. 90.

    gbear

    @Citizen_X:

    OMG I can’t believe that they let Bradlee Dean into the chamber to say a prayer. Who ever planned that knew it would end in a dustup. The guy thinks that stoning gays to death isn’t really all that bad an idea. He’s got a heavy metal band that goes into schools and spreads his garbage.

    For what it’s worth, I saw in that article that the republican house speaker apologized and said that no one ‘like him’ would ever speak in the house again.

  91. 91.

    MattR

    @Cassidy: I just googled to get the name of the webiste that offers post rapture pet care but it turns out that are actually several. Another missed opportunity to make hundreds of dollars.

  93. 93.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:

    How it is the state that gave us Ivins and Ann Richards has fallen so low is a vast and cruel mystery. Although I’m told their supreme court is the best that money can buy.

  94. 94.

    John O

    I came home from work to find out that my housecleaner had destroyed my blinds. Cha-CHING! (They are too old to blame the cleaning lady.)

    Parallel universes.

  95. 95.

    Tonal Crow

    @cleek: My sympathies. Better learn about other potential architectural surprises now, if you can. BTW, why’s your code depending upon the ability to access unaligned data? It’s usually a lot slower than aligned accesses, even on processors whose data sheets claim otherwise.

  96. 96.

    Tonal Crow

    @cleek:

    translating COBOL to cross-platform C++, reading lots of packed binary data files, bit shifting/masking, encryption, etc.. thought i’d be clever and read the smaller of those data files into RAM and access them as arrays. works fine on Windows and x86 Linux. sends SPARC into fits of SIGBUS.

    Ah. I hope it won’t be too difficult to write an unpacker to get the data into the right form.

  97. 97.

    Mo

    My annual vehicle inspection became my annual inspection + front and rear brakes. I haven’t stopped drinking and that was last March!

  98. 98.

    slag

    What is this? A yuppie-off? What next? Someone going to complain about their mochaccino spilling all over their Pradas* this morning?

    * These are shoes, no?

  101. 101.

    beltane

    @Citizen_X: Sounds pretty denominational to me. Two “C” words come to mind: Christian and Crazy. These people are creating a multitude of atheists every time they open their mouths.

  102. 102.

    cbear

    …..right rear axle.

    Why not ask Joe Beese to have a look at it for you—he’s already under there and seems to know a lot about the ass-end of things.

  108. 108.

    HRA

    I do sympathize JC. Though it is a tad difficult to do it.

    Three weeks and counting with loaners after Mr. A had an accident in our 2011 Sierra. It’s was $10,000 and counting for the repairs before they decided to send for a new frame.

    The loaners did teach us to not buy a Ford. A 2011 Ford is no comparison at all to our own loaded GMAC Sierra.

    Done with rant.

  109. 109.

    KXB

    I have a regular mechanic that I trust with my car, but I can only get to his shop on weekends. The one time I took it to a different place, for a simple oil change, my engine started idling really loudly at red-lights, and then just would not get out of park. I waited 2 hours on a chilly night for a tow-truck to take it back to that shop. The shop had the same problems I did, but could not “find” the problem. But now it was working. My guess is that they forgot something during the oil change, but were not going to admit to it. But, they did charge me $80 for trying to find the problem.

  110. 110.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Cassidy:

    I’m looting.

    Since I spend most of my free time in San Francisco, I’m not expecting many opportunities for that. I do plan to check out what will no doubt be broad stretches of abandoned houses here in Oakland when I’m back at work on Monday. I figure since the minister who’s bringing the good news is a local guy, he’ll suck a whole bunch of folks straight up to Raptureland with him, right?

  111. 111.

    John O

    @KXB:

    I’ve had $10K+ repairs done on the sheet metal of my “luxury” car inside of 75,000, old lady-driver, garage kept even at work miles, due to grossly premature rusting. Cost me $1500 and a threatening letter reply from “Luxury” car company’s attorney for my tenacity and *blush* behavior with their customer service.

  114. 114.

    Svensker

    @jibeaux:

    In other open thread news, I’m going to try my hand at canning strawberry jam and cleek,

    Oh, please don’t can cleek. We need him around here, not on some pantry shelf.

  116. 116.

    El Cid

    Tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe more, Spanish protesters are in the center of Madrid and even more around the rest of Spain.

    It’s described as being “young” people, but the age range is far greater. As here, the government’s focus is on budget cuts, and next to nothing on unemployment and pension collapse.

    MADRID, May 20 (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Spaniards angry over unemployment protested for a sixth day on Friday, ahead of Sunday’s local elections in which the ruling Soshullists are expected to suffer heavy losses.
    __
    Dubbed “los indignados” (the indignant), demonstrators have filled Spain’s city plazas in a wave of outrage over government austerity measures, marking a shift after years of patience over a long economic slump.
    __
    Witnesses said at least 20,000 people packed the Puerta del Sol plaza in the heart of Madrid on Friday evening and more were pouring in, challenging a law against political events on the eve of elections, which goes into effect at midnight.
    __
    The Supreme Court on Friday evening upheld the ban on demonstrations, but police are not expected to enforce it and provoke clashes that would hurt the Socialists…
    __
    …”We are not going to budge from here,” said a 44-year-old unemployed man who declined to give his name. He was among hundreds who have camped out all week at Puerta del Sol. “Our next move is to spread this to the rest of Europe.”…
    __
    …Voters are expected punish the Soshullists over their handling of the economic crisis and the protests will make things even harder for Zapatero, said Jose Juan Toharia, president of Metroscopia pollsters.
    __
    “There will be an authentic cataclysm for the Soshullists, who are going to head into general elections next year without a single stronghold,” Toharia said.

    Figures seem to indicate far more than 20K protesters in this tiny shopping and bar and restaurant center in Madrid right next to the main plaza.

    They openly say they are inspired by and modeled on the Arab Spring / democracy protests. With 21% unemployment overall and 40% among the relatively younger, the protesters say that with as little attention paid to their situation, it might as well not be a representative democracy, since none of the political sides are doing anything too different from the others.

    Nothing was being done anyway, and the notion that this would change by keeping the same government in power was unrealistic and no one believed it.

    Yet if people think it’s going to get better by punishing the Soshullists and installing a right wing led Parliament, then they are truly going to get to enjoy the resulting fucking over. (This wasn’t from the protests, since this was the polling before this ever began. And if there were protesters intent on re-electing the current party as the way forward, you’d see a dozen people out there, not these masses.)

    Screwed over if they do, screwed over worse if they don’t. Sometimes, people just get sick of being screwed over. I don’t know what outcome if any these mass protests could have, but it sure as hell wasn’t changing any other way. Governments don’t much care for giant and non-stop national protests, and sometimes they end up pushing significant changes into reality.

    Lots of great photos at the Atlantic.

  117. 117.

    El Cid

    Ah, crud, I did a post about the massive protests in Spain by the jobless, but I missed a single quote of the term “Soshullist.” Feh.

  118. 118.

    srv

    Section 5(b) was intended to provide teeth for the War Powers Resolution. After a report “is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1), whichever is earlier”, section 5(b) requires the President to terminate the use of U.S. Armed Forces after 60 days unless Congress (1) has declared war or authorized the action; (2) has extended the period by law; or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack on the United States. The 60 days can be extended for 30 days by the President if he certifies that “unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces” requires their continued use in the course of bringing about their removal.

    Day 60 in Libya. Why don’t you cry John?

  119. 119.

    Origuy

    @Citizen_X: I took a look at the video (didn’t listen, left the headphones off) and saw that the guy wore what looks like a warm-up suit. Even I would put on a tie to speak on the floor of the state legislature.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @stuckinred:

    You’d be surprised. I had a friend who was 6’11” (that’s right, just shy of 7′) and the car he found that had the most legroom for him was a Honda del Sol.

  121. 121.

    EvolutionaryDesign

    @Cole: I just had to replace my tailgate after *slowly* (and distractedly) backing into one of those rent-a-flat-beds at Home Depot. I’m so glad money grows on trees!

  122. 122.

    D-Chance.

    Today was Insects All In D-Chance.’s Houze Day. About 2,000 bees decided to nest in a tree not 20 feet from my front door. And the black ants began their annual invasion… and I didn’t protect the car. It was coated with thousands of the damn things, and will probably take a full month to fully eliminate (they will hide in every imaginable nook in the car).

  123. 123.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @cleek: Ain’t the School of Hard Knocks grand? I just cost the company about $10,000 for my most recent bit of education.

  124. 124.

    zzyzx

    Thank you so so much for this thread. My tags expire Monday and I had completely forgotten. This gave me time to get to the licensing agency before it closed.

  125. 125.

    Lojasmo

    Love Minnesota. No inspections, so we just drive until the axles actually fall off.

  127. 127.

    Glocksman

    In 1999 I bought a 1992 Olds Cutlass Ciera that had less than 60k on the clock.
    Within 2 years I had to replace the water pump, alternator, rear axle bearings and fuel pump.

    Luckily for me I bought a Toyota (I bought the car from a Toyota dealership) used car warranty that paid for all of the repairs minus a $50 deductible.

    When the car reached 100k on the clock in 2009, the harmonic balancer went out and it ran roughly even after it was replaced.

    Given that history and my previous negative experiences with FWD GM vehicles, I replaced the Ciera with a 2008 Kia Spectra.

Comments are closed.