Random Thoughts

[molly1216]

My thumbnail is half hanging off, and it hurts like hell... (I bashed it good with a hammer a few weeks back while rebuilding the deck on my house).

i feel your pain..
i am 4 days into a carpal tunnel attack and my right hand is useless.
i have been sleeping with it wrapped around a blue freezer thingy.

[Steve T Power]

My thumbnail is half hanging off, and it hurts like hell... (I bashed it good with a hammer a few weeks back while rebuilding the deck on my house).

i feel your pain..
i am 4 days into a carpal tunnel attack and my right hand is useless.
i have been sleeping with it wrapped around a blue freezer thingy.

Those blue freezer thingies are awesome - saved my legs more than once in my Rugby days

[molly1216]

where have all the boobies gone? just wondering.... watching a lot of 70s and 80s films and noticing blatant booby sightings...aside from movies where people get dissected with garden implements i don't think we have as many naked breasts as we used to.

[tucco]

Why do they call him "The Batman" sometimes, and just plain ole "Batman" other times?
There is no rule based on language that I can see.


Also, when referring to him as The Batman, I liked it better how they used to hyphenate his name "The Bat-Man"

[molly1216]

Why do they call him "The Batman" sometimes, and just plain ole "Batman" other times?
There is no rule based on language that I can see.


Also, when referring to him as The Batman, I liked it better how they used to hyphenate his name "The Bat-Man"

if you are talking to him in the 1st person, i can see calling him just Batman..or Bats if you want it upside the head.
but if you talking about him with shock and awe...he's THE....if you are just referring to him like you know him and hang out together...you want to drop the THE so that folks will think your cool.

[Steve T Power]

Yeah, putting a "the" in front of the name just makes you sound more awesome.

[tucco]

Why do they call him "The Batman" sometimes, and just plain ole "Batman" other times?
There is no rule based on language that I can see.


Also, when referring to him as The Batman, I liked it better how they used to hyphenate his name "The Bat-Man"

if you are talking to him in the 1st person, i can see calling him just Batman..or Bats if you want it upside the head.
but if you talking about him with shock and awe...he's THE....if you are just referring to him like you know him and hang out together...you want to drop the THE so that folks will think your cool.

I always got a kick out of how the older actors on the 60's show would pronounce it "Batm'n" as if there is no long vowel between the 'm' and 'n'.....always got a chuckle out of that when I was younger.
It was like "firem'n", "policem'n", "councilm'n" ....."Batm'n"......as if every city has one...


Or "Mr. Batm'n" sometimes as well.

[chris_mcclinch]

Why do they call him "The Batman" sometimes, and just plain ole "Batman" other times?
There is no rule based on language that I can see.


Also, when referring to him as The Batman, I liked it better how they used to hyphenate his name "The Bat-Man"

if you are talking to him in the 1st person, i can see calling him just Batman..or Bats if you want it upside the head.
but if you talking about him with shock and awe...he's THE....if you are just referring to him like you know him and hang out together...you want to drop the THE so that folks will think your cool.

I always got a kick out of how the older actors on the 60's show would pronounce it "Batm'n" as if there is no long vowel between the 'm' and 'n'.....always got a chuckle out of that when I was younger.
It was like "firem'n", "policem'n", "councilm'n" ....."Batm'n"......as if every city has one...


Or "Mr. Batm'n" sometimes as well.

My favorite of those is actually "Spiderm'n." Unlike "Batm'n," it actually sounds like a plausible surname when heard in passing.

[Stoney]

It is Oscar time.

Found this site. It is pretty cool.

http://www.armchairoscars.com/

[Attrage]

where have all the boobies gone? just wondering.... watching a lot of 70s and 80s films and noticing blatant booby sightings...aside from movies where people get dissected with garden implements i don't think we have as many naked breasts as we used to.

Where have all the boobies gone?
Long time passing
Girls covered them, every one,
When will they ever learn?

Sorry...couldn’t resist

[Steve T Power]

There's about 25 feet of snow on the edge of the parking lot - I feel very "caged" today...

[Paul Kile]

While getting ready to put new shocks in my 93 Toyota pickup. I crawled underneath it and found the left suspension brace and strut rod was all bent to hell. Must have happened when I ran over some metal debris awhile back. The truck drove just fine, even with the bent parts. I replaced the parts with junkyard fresh ones and it still drives fine. I love my Toyota truck.

[Steve T Power]

While getting ready to put new shocks in my 93 Toyota pickup. I crawled underneath it and found the left suspension brace and strut rod was all bent to hell. Must have happened when I ran over some metal debris awhile back. The truck drove just fine, even with the bent parts. I replaced the parts with junkyard fresh ones and it still drives fine. I love my Toyota truck.

Is it just me, or have cars gotten considerably less durable as time rolls on? My '88 Reliant wagon was a TANK. my 2000 Sunfire GT was good and solid, my 2007 G5 Pursuit has cost me over 4 grand in repairs - which is more than quadruple what the Reliant cost me by '99 when I retired it.

[Attrage]

Is it just me, or have cars gotten considerably less durable as time rolls on? My '88 Reliant wagon was a TANK. my 2000 Sunfire GT was good and solid, my 2007 G5 Pursuit has cost me over 4 grand in repairs - which is more than quadruple what the Reliant cost me by '99 when I retired it.

It’s kind of a yes and no sort of thing. In an older car a minor accident will cause far less damage and cost far less to repair than a minor accident in a modern car. This is because older cars had proper rubberised bumpers and more segmented bodies. Modern cars have molded fibreglass bodies and less “pieces” making up the bodywork, so minor accidents result in having to replace more of the car, if that makes sense, hence it costs more. BUT, on the flipside, you are far more likely to survive a major collision in a modern car, because although the bodywork is molded fibreglass, the inner chassis is far stronger in a modern car, plus you have the added benefits of airbags, crumple zones, etc. Of course these are general statements here...a cheap piece of shit clunker will probably still fall to pieces regardless of its age or of the speed of collision! Likewise a rare older car with hard to find parts would obviously cost heaps to repair.

Of course there’s always the Jeep. We all know older Jeeps were built like small tanks. Well I read a story of these two journalists who were working in Afghanistan around the time of the Russian occupation. They were tooling around in an old Jeep and wandered into an ambush. They were away from the vehicle and in an attempt to trap them, a rocket propelled grenade was fired at the Jeep, seemingly blowing it to smithereens. In desperation they jumped back in the vehicle to grab cover as gunfire started up around them. To their immense relief the damn thing started up. It was missing the seats, the windshield, the roof and the doors but the engine, steering column, fuel tank, axles and driveshaft were still intact, so they were able to drive it out of there and lived to tell the tale. Now, if that’s not a glowing advertisement for Jeep, I don’t know what is!!

[Paul Kile]

Is it just me, or have cars gotten considerably less durable as time rolls on? My '88 Reliant wagon was a TANK. my 2000 Sunfire GT was good and solid, my 2007 G5 Pursuit has cost me over 4 grand in repairs - which is more than quadruple what the Reliant cost me by '99 when I retired it.

In general, I think the biggest problem is the increase in complexity of automotive systems for safety and fuel economy. In the 1960's and 1970's, automatic transmissions like the GM Turbo Hydramatic 350, the Ford C6, and the Mopar 727 were about as reliable as you could get. They would take all sorts of abuse and continue to function. Nowadays, the computer controlled, automatic overdrive, front-wheel-drive transmissions seem to be a lot more touchy and prone to major problems. I know a guy with a Ford Taurus who had to replace his transmission 4 times! Our 1996 Camry transmission started to exhibit problems at around 140,000 miles, but ended up a moot point when the oil pump failed at 160,000 miles. Of course, back in the 1960s if you got 160,000 miles out of a car it was living on borrowed time. People nowadays expect their cars to get well over 100,000 miles, and therefore end up in the territory where major components begin to fail. But that's why I keep my Toyota truck with its manual tranny. I can tear apart and rebuild just about anything on the truck when it fails, and if the relatively simple electronic "brain" for the fuel injection and emission systems ever goes bad, I just buy another one from a junkyard and plug it in.

The only thing that worries me is that the "progressive" State I live in (Fornicalia) keeps ratcheting down the emissions requirements my vehicle has to meet every 2 years. I may reach a point when the truck will no longer pass the smog test, even with perfectly functioning original equipment emission controls!! Now if that isn't something that would make you want to overthrow the Government, I don't know what is!

[Steve T Power]

I'm thinking more a matter of wear and tear. Struts, brackets, bushings, etc. All of that stuff cost me a small fortune on the G5. Never cost me a time on 7 years worth of Sunfires.

That and i'm sure the original transmission on my G5 was bunk from the moment we rolled off the lot - less than a year and 11,000 kms later, 3 grand on replacing clutch and flywheel. With about 10 years experience each on standards between myself and my wife. And GM wouldn't cover the repair under warranty because the clutch showed wear. We were PISSED. Took a fight as high as we could, and couldn't get any satisfaction.

[Paul Kile]

I'm thinking more a matter of wear and tear. Struts, brackets, bushings, etc. All of that stuff cost me a small fortune on the G5. Never cost me a time on 7 years worth of Sunfires.

That and i'm sure the original transmission on my G5 was bunk from the moment we rolled off the lot - less than a year and 11,000 kms later, 3 grand on replacing clutch and flywheel. With about 10 years experience each on standards between myself and my wife. And GM wouldn't cover the repair under warranty because the clutch showed wear. We were PISSED. Took a fight as high as we could, and couldn't get any satisfaction.

Steve, I know you are a GM guy, but I have seen too many low-mileage failures of parts that should have lasted much longer on GM cars. Some examples - my Dad had a 1993 LeSabre that had a catastrophic failure of the water pump at 25,000 miles. A buddy of mine diagnosed an electrical problem on a Chevy Aveo, the car had just died and wouldn't re-start. Turns out the engineering geniouses ran the ground cable from the battery to a bolt located BENEATH the battery tray (perfect place for corrosion to develop), and also used a cheesy crimped-on connection for the engine block ground (a good ground to the engine is essential for the starter to crank). My buddy installed a new battery ground, attached to a bolt on the engine and solved the problem. Your clutch and flywheel failure in less than a year sounds like the same sort of thing - something was under-designed to save a few bucks.

I have always chalked it up to the penny-pinching design compromises that GM has historically made with their cars, if they could save a few cents per car by cheaping out on the quality of a part or the configuration of a system, they would. GM has also been very guilty of releasing new car designs before they have been sufficiently de-bugged, they use the buying public as their beta testers (remember the horrendous J-cars of the 1980s?). And what really galls me is how GM will take 4 or 5 years to finally perfect a design, just in time for them to take the car out of production!!! The Buick Reatta, Pontiac Fiero, and the late, lamented Pontiac Solstice all come to mind here (and of course, those were some of the few GM cars I would have actually considered buying).

Let's hope the newly re-born GM will straighten up and engineer better quality into their cars.

[Steve T Power]

I'm thinking more a matter of wear and tear. Struts, brackets, bushings, etc. All of that stuff cost me a small fortune on the G5. Never cost me a time on 7 years worth of Sunfires.

That and i'm sure the original transmission on my G5 was bunk from the moment we rolled off the lot - less than a year and 11,000 kms later, 3 grand on replacing clutch and flywheel. With about 10 years experience each on standards between myself and my wife. And GM wouldn't cover the repair under warranty because the clutch showed wear. We were PISSED. Took a fight as high as we could, and couldn't get any satisfaction.

Steve, I know you are a GM guy, but I have seen too many low-mileage failures of parts that should have lasted much longer on GM cars. Some examples - my Dad had a 1993 LeSabre that had a catastrophic failure of the water pump at 25,000 miles. A buddy of mine diagnosed an electrical problem on a Chevy Aveo, the car had just died and wouldn't re-start. Turns out the engineering geniouses ran the ground cable from the battery to a bolt located BENEATH the battery tray (perfect place for corrosion to develop), and also used a cheesy crimped-on connection for the engine block ground (a good ground to the engine is essential for the starter to crank). My buddy installed a new battery ground, attached to a bolt on the engine and solved the problem. Your clutch and flywheel failure in less than a year sounds like the same sort of thing - something was under-designed to save a few bucks.

I have always chalked it up to the penny-pinching design compromises that GM has historically made with their cars, if they could save a few cents per car by cheaping out on the quality of a part or the configuration of a system, they would. GM has also been very guilty of releasing new car designs before they have been sufficiently de-bugged, they use the buying public as their beta testers (remember the horrendous J-cars of the 1980s?). And what really galls me is how GM will take 4 or 5 years to finally perfect a design, just in time for them to take the car out of production!!! The Buick Reatta, Pontiac Fiero, and the late, lamented Pontiac Solstice all come to mind here (and of course, those were some of the few GM cars I would have actually considered buying).

Let's hope the newly re-born GM will straighten up and engineer better quality into their cars.

I was always more of a MOPAR guy to be honest. But the Sunfire GT converted me back in 2000 (with the first major design overhaul). I drove EVERYTHING in that class in my region, and went with the second last car that I would have initially wanted. It was my first "new" car purchase. I stuck with them more out of convenience than anything, I was leasing, not financing, until the G5. go figure.

It's been bittersweet for me with the G5, as it's by far the smoothest car i've ever owned, and a REAL pleasure to drive. fits me like a glove, suits my driving style, just the right mix of sportiness and comfort, and it honestly still feels like a car that should cost at least 6-7 grand more than it does, it's just the bolts and gears of the engineering that sucks, and in truth, i guess that's the heart of it all. Even after all of the money I've had to sink into it, I still can't help but love the thing whenever i slip into the driver's seat, which, sadly, just isn't enough. I work close to home, and the wife uses my car to commute.

[Paul Kile]

I was always more of a MOPAR guy to be honest.

AHA! That's cool. I've only owned two Mopars, a 1965 and a 1967 Barracuda. The 1967 was a co-owned car that a buddy of mine and I fixed up and flipped for a profit, but my great old 1965 served me well just out of college. It had the 273 hi-po Commando engine with the single Carter AFB carb. The air cleaner housing was more or less just an inverted metal cake pan that gave it the greatest intake howl when you buried your foot in it. Mine was already pretty seedy on the outside when I got it from another car buddy for $200 in 1978, but it NEVER failed me mechanically in the 5 years I owned it. And her name? Mother Mopar, of course!!

[Steve T Power]

I was always more of a MOPAR guy to be honest.

AHA! That's cool. I've only owned two Mopars, a 1965 and a 1967 Barracuda. The 1967 was a co-owned car that a buddy of mine and I fixed up and flipped for a profit, but my great old 1965 served me well just out of college. It had the 273 hi-po Commando engine with the single Carter AFB carb. The air cleaner housing was more or less just an inverted metal cake pan that gave it the greatest intake howl when you buried your foot in it. Mine was already pretty seedy on the outside when I got it from another car buddy for $200 in 1978, but it NEVER failed me mechanically in the 5 years I owned it. And her name? Mother Mopar, of course!!

My old man had a '71 Dodge Demon 340 that he had until I was just old enough to form a memory of it. Mom bought a '77 Volare Road Runner as their new primary vehicle, which stuck around for what seemed like an eternity (It was the first car I ever drove, at the age of 12-13, and was being eaten alive by body rust at that point - but God I still look at pictures of that machine and drool). My family were all MOPAR boosters - except for the one uncle who restored a 69 GTO "Judge" in the early '90s. One uncle had a semi-restored '71 Challenger RT, which would be my MOPAR of choice, but he just ran out of time/energy and sold it off about 15 - 16 years back.

The big one for me though, the holy grail, the mid-life crisis mobile of choice, the car I would slave over daily and treat better than my children - the 1974 AMC Javelin AMX. Forget taking your shoes off before you get in, I'd make you wear a surgical mask and lint free museum gloves to boot!

[Gabriel Girard]

Is the guy who wrote this review for Super really the same man who wrote the screenplay for Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls ? It boggles the mind.

[Jon Mercer]

Today is the first time I've seen Dr Pepper in cans since 1989.

[Andrew Forbes]

Today is the first time I've seen Dr Pepper in cans since 1989.

Willful blindness or one of those weird Newfoundland distribution/packaging/culture/timezone anomalies?

[Jon Mercer]

Today is the first time I've seen Dr Pepper in cans since 1989.

Willful blindness or one of those weird Newfoundland distribution/packaging/culture/timezone anomalies?

The latter. Though truthfully, I only saw them in 1989 in a vending machine in Bangor.

[Kenneth Morgan]

I'm in New Haven for a conference and took a tour of Yale today. During our walk through the Old Campus section, I noticed that someone had chalked "Vote Saxon" and "Bad Wolf" on one of the buildings.

No, I didn't see the TARDIS anywhere nearby.

[Dunnyman]

I was always more of a MOPAR guy to be honest.

AHA! That's cool. I've only owned two Mopars, a 1965 and a 1967 Barracuda. The 1967 was a co-owned car that a buddy of mine and I fixed up and flipped for a profit, but my great old 1965 served me well just out of college. It had the 273 hi-po Commando engine with the single Carter AFB carb. The air cleaner housing was more or less just an inverted metal cake pan that gave it the greatest intake howl when you buried your foot in it. Mine was already pretty seedy on the outside when I got it from another car buddy for $200 in 1978, but it NEVER failed me mechanically in the 5 years I owned it. And her name? Mother Mopar, of course!!

My old man had a '71 Dodge Demon 340 that he had until I was just old enough to form a memory of it. Mom bought a '77 Volare Road Runner as their new primary vehicle, which stuck around for what seemed like an eternity (It was the first car I ever drove, at the age of 12-13, and was being eaten alive by body rust at that point - but God I still look at pictures of that machine and drool). My family were all MOPAR boosters - except for the one uncle who restored a 69 GTO "Judge" in the early '90s. One uncle had a semi-restored '71 Challenger RT, which would be my MOPAR of choice, but he just ran out of time/energy and sold it off about 15 - 16 years back.

The big one for me though, the holy grail, the mid-life crisis mobile of choice, the car I would slave over daily and treat better than my children - the 1974 AMC Javelin AMX. Forget taking your shoes off before you get in, I'd make you wear a surgical mask and lint free museum gloves to boot!

I've always been a GM guy, but it doesn't matter what you drive, if you don't take care of it properly, it'll never run right and will have problems. My Mom has killed Buicks, Dodges, Isuzus, Toyotas, Jeeps and is currently trying to ruin a perfectly good Malibu. On the other hand, I got 389,000 miles out of my Toyota truck (and the guy I sold it to bitched about the original clutch going out!), I had 128,000 on my first Sunfire when it was demolished in a rear ending hit at 60+, and my second Sunfire is at 170,000+. Doesn't matter if you have a Ferrari or a Yugo, if you don't maintain it, it won't last.

[JoshRode]

Sleep! Sleep! Wherefore are thou, sleep?

[stypee]

Why are the Kardashians famous?

Why in the world is the cast from the "jersey shore" so popular for that matter? Have we sunk that low? I've never seen a group of individuals as repulsively narcissistic as these people are. They haven't a spec of talent and are an insult to the mere definition of "human being".

Did the execs. at MTV sit around at a table one day and say "Here's an idea, let's get the biggest pieces of sh!t human beings we can find, throw them in an apartment together and make them famous. We'll take the stereotypical Guido angle. I'm telling you, it's gold! Pure gold!"

I suppose the guy or gal who came up with this concept is much smarter than we are. All of the idiots in the cast of "jersey shore" are banking it big. There is no logical reason as to why. They have endorsement deals and even one of the idiots has some kind of fitness thing in the works. I never thought in my entire life I'd want to physically hurt a group of people (or any single person for that matter) as much as I do the cast of the "jersey shore".

The only satisfaction I've received from this desire was watching "The Situation's" attempt at stand-up comedy. He made my point clear, he's very much illiterate, in fact,he's an insult to anyone that is illiterate. He so obviously hasn't a single spec of talent and is quite frankly one of the biggest pieces of sh!t to ever walk the face of the earth. The audience at such event made it all perfectly clear, there are indeed logical human beings left on the planet who are desperately waiting to flush a giant toilet.

[JoshRode]

Why are the Kardashians famous?

Why in the world is the cast from the "jersey shore" so popular for that matter? Have we sunk that low? I've never seen a group of individuals as repulsively narcissistic as these people are. They haven't a spec of talent and are an insult to the mere definition of "human being".

Did the execs. at MTV sit around at a table one day and say "Here's an idea, let's get the biggest pieces of sh!t human beings we can find, throw them in an apartment together and make them famous. We'll take the stereotypical Guido angle. I'm telling you, it's gold! Pure gold!"

I suppose the guy or gal who came up with this concept is much smarter than we are. All of the idiots in the cast of "jersey shore" are banking it big. There is no logical reason as to why. They have endorsement deals and even one of the idiots has some kind of fitness thing in the works. I never thought in my entire life I'd want to physically hurt a group of people (or any single person for that matter) as much as I do the cast of the "jersey shore".

The only satisfaction I've received from this desire was watching "The Situation's" attempt at stand-up comedy. He made my point clear, he's very much illiterate, in fact,he's an insult to anyone that is illiterate. He so obviously hasn't a single spec of talent and is quite frankly one of the biggest pieces of sh!t to ever walk the face of the earth. The audience at such event made it all perfectly clear, there are indeed logical human beings left on the planet who are desperately waiting to flush a giant toilet.

The Kardashians are famous for being famous, much like Paris Hilton. And it's not a coincidence that the same people who made them famous are the same people who suck up Jersey Shore. Some people simply love watching train wrecks, and both of these examples are 100% guaranteed to go off the rails constantly. And the execs are right; the fact that you want to punch them means you've become at least a little bit emotionally involved. Get out now, while you still can!

[Dunnyman]

On my way back from grabbing a hot chocolate I found a lost little puppy.
Poor little guy looked like he'd been on his own for a bit, but he did have a collar and luckily he had one of those tags with an address on it.


Now I know where to send the ransom note.