Homewrecker.
Homewrecker who was elected as a Conservative representative to govern. I sure hope her constituants think twice before casting their votes next time.
Of course, when her daddy is the boss, it's a tough call voting your conscience. Assuming those people have a conscience.
[blockquote]Asked bluntly about her sex life, Stronach responded: "Let's face it. I don't sit at home and knit on Friday nights."[/blockquote]
Dirty, dirty, whore.
When shopping for a limited production car, apparently the number of cars being made for Canada is entirely dependant on how much pressure the salesperson feels they need to apply to get you to decide you can afford something you can't afford.
I think when I actually have the money to buy a car, I'm just going to keep talking to salespeople until I find one that I think might be talking straight to me. I'm getting pretty sick of being openly lied to.
On a related note, should a salesperson really be offended when you make it clear that you know more about the car you're talking about than they do?
"Hey… this is an option on that car over there. Do you know if it's dealer installed or whether the car has to be ordered with it?"
"No, that's not an option."
"Yes it is. I know it is."
"No, I don't think it is."
"Listen… I think I know more about these cars than you do… is there maybe someone else you can check with to find out for me?"
"I'm sorry… I'm new here… "
Then they still didn't try to answer my question.
Isn't it their job to know more? Shouldn't they at least make an attempt to find out what you're asking rather than just making stuff up?
I'd much rather have them say "I don't know, but I'll go find out for you" than just start making up crap. Idiots.
Finally… here's my car-buying advice for today: Don't go shopping for a car when you don't plan to buy one for half a year or so. It just gets you all worked up over nothing. 🙂
Today I just want to send a most sincere "Get well soon" to Richard Hammond of the BBC's Top Gear program.
It's one of my favourite shows, even though I can only watch downloaded versions of it, and I just can't imagine the show without him.
On Wednesday, Hammond crashed a jet-powered drag car doing around 300 mph and has reportedly suffered "significant brain injury". Doctors are now saying that he's progressing well and have upgraded his condition to "stable" from "serious but stable".
I'm sure that all automotive enthusiasts are with me in wishing him well and look forward to him being back on the air as his usual comical self.
My wife and I will be buying a car in the next year.
I want adaptive cruise control.
It's a cool feature and I should be able to have it. How often have to followed someone on a long trip where they are able to set their cruise but you have to continually adjust yours because you can never get it exactly the same.
This feature resolves that. The person in front sets their cruise and everyone else just uses radar to maintain a set distance from the car in front of them.
The problem is that only rich people can have this. The Wiki page on the topic lists a bunch of cars that have it and I can't afford any of them.
Stupid rich folk feature!
I'll bet a year after I buy something, every new car coming to market is going to have this.
Y'all can refer back to this when the 08 models hit the showrooms and laugh at me.
Incidentally… maybe it's just about time to buy a wagon. No adaptive cruise control… but I probably won't miss it in that thing.
Study Claims Social Drinkers Earn Higher Paycheques
That's the sort of thing you want to log in your brain for future reference.
I couldn't help but post this up. I've been saying this for years and everyone always scoffs at the idea.
At least I'm not the only one.
Here is a link to the whole article. It talks about how it's impossible to drive a performance car to it's full potential on the streets here within the confines of our laws.
Here is the gem though:
[blockquote]There's an important thing to understand about fast cars, though. A faster car is a safer car. All of the things that make a car fast — a powerful engine, big tires, suspension that hugs the road — also mean it's able to get out of sticky situations faster.
When passing on a two-lane road, you're not exposed to oncoming traffic as long, because you're able to accelerate faster. More grip makes it easier to swerve around situations that slower cars might not have the time or space to avoid.
Most important of all, most fast cars (and there are unfortunately a few exceptions) also have much deeper reserves of braking performance than slower cars, meaning you can more likely stop short of an accident instead of becoming one. Mercedes-Benz's SL55 not only has huge eight-piston front calipers and vented discs, but also senses when it's raining and gently applies the brakes every once in a while to keep them dry and ready for action.[/blockquote]
Now if only I could find the link I once had to statistics showing that cars with more than 200 hp get in less accidents than those with less.
Yep. I'm a regular horticulturist now. I've gone and taken a big patch of pretty much dead lawn under a tree in front of my house and made an attempt at growing some green stuff in it.
Now I apparently have to water it twice a day for a month or so.
That means I'll probably have to wake up even earlier than I already do in the mornings so it gets watered before I leave for work. Needy little plants.
It had better grow all lush and thick as a thank-you for my efforts.
If not, I suppose I could just have it paved.
First off, on the topic of Kimveer Gill, this is well written and deserves a read.
This paragraph sums up the article quite nicely:
[blockquote]There was drama-queen self-exultation in the de facto epitaph Gill posted on his blog: "Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse.''
The line is hardly original — Gill lacked originality, especially in the copycat violence with which he left this world. The couplet comes from a '93 movie, True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino, and is spoken by a character in admiring reference to Elvis Presley, specifically the rebel he depicted — as Hollywood-processed — in Jailhouse Rock. Elvis is about as far from Goth culture as you can get, so it's doubtful Gill even knew the backstory. He was an idiot.[/blockquote]
And now on the topic of home ownership…
I've had my house now for nearly a month. In that time, I've wrecked a shower, broken the washing machine, and set a bathroom on fire.
All good fun on the road to home improvement.
Here's hoping my future improvements are somewhat less destructive.
I was watching the news this morning and they were talking about the whack-job that shot up the university in Montreal yesterday.
They were talking about his blog and how he liked to take pictures of himself with guns and loved that rediculous video game about the Columbine murders.
I'm sure that from that, the media will gather that video games make people kill people… again. No news there.
It makes me wonder though… if some day something terrible happened and it got pinned on me… would people read this blog and determine that I'm some anti-social misfit clearly destined for some sort of self-imposed tragedy?
I'm actually a nice guy in person. It's everyone else that's fucked in the head.
It's downright criminal how much cheaper cars are in the States than they are here in Canada.
Do we all like compact cars because we take pride in our environmental responsibility… or are we just overtaxed and overcharged to the point where we just can't afford the nicer cars that the average American can put in their driveway?
If I were an American, I could get a Subaru Impreza WRX STI with all the options I want for $34,480.
If I convert that generously to Canadian dollars, it would be $38,617.
Now if I go price the same car on the Canadian Subaru site, it comes to $51,038. WTF? Why am I paying an extra $12k just because I live on this side of the border?
This holds true for pretty much every car on the market.
So basically, I'm gettiong a car worth thousands of dollars less than what I'm paying. Thanks big car corporations for bending me over and sticking it to me. I appreciate it. Really.