Croc

Uh...I think Halloween was lower-key this year because it fell on a Sunday night. Now, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were hopping, but not last night in my neighborhood.

Um...can I just point out the VERY OBVIOUS that even IF someone travelled back in time with a cell phone, they wouldn't be talking on it unless their Delorean could also fit a cell tower inside it too! And a satellite! And a satellite launcher!! And therefore Cape Canaveral!! My god, is humanity really getting so stupid they don't even know how their everyday gadgets work??

Actually, I've seen Custom Cruisers that were monochromatic. Very, very rare, but they've been done. Remember, back in the early 90s you weren't locked into strict option packages/guides like you are now. Custom Cruiser may have only been offered as a two-tone, but back then dealerships were able to "special order" especially since a paint job isn't that hard to change logistically.

+1

I've never had a problem with Cingular / AT&T. Great coverage, and fast data transfers. Honestly, Blackberry's old-school browser is the bottleneck there, and that's remedied with OS6. I'll be getting an OS6-compatible phone this Xmas most likely, either a Torch or an updated Bold (love the Bold, just need OS6, and hope the updated one is more like the 9000 than the 9700 from a size standpoint. Haven't played with a Torch yet...I'm not a huge fan of touch screens, and so I gotta see how irritating its is, though the slider keyboard is awesome in concept).

I love it. BOTTOMS UP!!

It really just depends. My inclination is for consistency, BUT I think you can get away with it no problem by turning it into something special, either by laying it in a pattern/design, or doing something just plain fancy with it. ONCE. If you have 7 different kinds of wood floors in your house, though, it doesn't do much for resale. It's like madras for floors. Cabinets can be and often are different. I think it'd be weird if the cabinets matched the floor, but whatever.

Purging is fun.

But the higher trim levels don't get better interior bits, do they? That's the main deficiency here--VW cut corners on visible, touchable pieces instead of simply creating a lower base price by decontenting standard features.

I love it; I say the same damn thing but go super far out of my way to make it clear I'm only analyzing business decisions/SWOT analysis and NOT judging someone's fondness of the VW brand, and instead of -4 I'm rated a +4. Seriously? I mean REALLY?

I feel like this is getting circular. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with VWs. I'm not knocking the company, but I'm definitely questioning the wisdom of their conscious business decision to go downmarket. I mean, they've had quite an enviable market perception that has enabled them to command the MSRPs that they have...just because they have a VW on them. I really want to stress that my comments are based on my analysis of their business decisions. The only automaker I dislike is Toyota...I think the industry is better when ALL manufacturers are doing well because then designs become the differentiators. I WANT VW to do well, but I don't think they've thought this strategy shift through and are making the same mistake GM did in pushing Oldsmobile and Cadillac toward volume at the close of the 70s and then into the 80s.

Here are appropriate links for comparison: Dependability: http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/dependability-ratings-by-brand/ APEAL: http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/performance-and-design-ratings-by-brand/ Initial Quality Ratings: http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/quality-ratings-by-brand/

Well, seeing as JD Powers and Associates have done both the IQS and long-term reliability surveys for years and years, that's the valid metric here. On MSN autos, it's not scientific at all being a huge free-for-all on the internet. They say they get their data from a particular source, but they don't explain their metrics in taking that data and compressing it into check-marks, exclamation points and Xs. Your comparisons are also quite cherry-picked. Why Oldsmobile? Several of your links didn't work. The more apt comparison would be to look at the scores of all vehicles across the lineup and do a breakdown of what percentage of each respective company's models fall in what percentile. When I wrote my post, I actually had the Buick brand in mine as the LeSabre, Century and Park Avenue were known for super amazing reliability and low costs of ownership. But either way it doesn't matter because during those years it isn't like GM was selling aspirational cars with amazing interiors but bottom-of-the-pack reliability. GM has usually been pretty middle-of-the-pack all around, and IMO they shine due to exterior styling...in some cases.

Yeah sounds like a consensus here. Too bad, but we've known for awhile that less than 18 months out will be an interior refresh. Hopefully I'll have the money to buy one of those then.

That's not what I said at all. What I said is that VW has used their allure of premium refinement (whether styling, engines, driving, interior materials, etc.) to buoy poor manufacturing/assembly quality. VW is perennially at the bottom of quality surveys--this is a fact. There are a gazillion reasons people buy VWs, but of mainstream buyers who are generally brand agnostic, they largely choose VW because they perceive premium refinement at the segment-topping pricepoints. And VW knows it, which is why they market the cars the way they do. Have you ever seen a VW ad touting quality? No, but you see plenty of them touting safety, German engineering, refinement, quality of materials, premium market positioning, etc. I'm also not sure I can agree with you on GM's horrible reputation for reliability. Quite a few GM vehicles were chart-toppers in long-term reliability and low cost-of-ownership throughout the 90s. What maligned GM was poor build quality, poor interior quality (which has only recently been addressed), and poor styling. Oh, and poor reliability in the 70s and 80s, which was the last time a Baby Boomer ever cross-shopped a GM.

Oh look, more downratings Please guys, whoever you are, prove me wrong with facts. You can love VW all you want for all their loveable quirks, but if a majority of buyers desert the brand because reliability stays the same but material quality drops in an attempt to lower pricepoints and increase sales (also lessening "premium" exclusivity), VW will be just like SAAB: a company making loveable quirky cars that no one but a cult following buys.

Good catch. Sorry about that...I gave the recipe for the spiced chocolate pastry cream, but I copied it from the document for another one of my recipes that it's used in. The ingredients list has been corrected.

FlyBrian did that. I forget why exactly, but it was a passive-aggressive thing. There was some kind of unique restriction on your user group, but I have no idea what it is/was or if that's still in place. Someone could probably find out, but that was like 2005 or 2006.

We all know the downratings are from people who are too immature to realize that my criticism of VW isn't a criticism of them personally. I challenge any of them to prove me wrong because I've seen VW at or near the bottom of quality surveys for well over a decade. VWs and AUDIs have long been known as lease cars because they last about 2-3 years before they fall apart. That's why so many McMansions had their leased VWs in the driveway this past decade, and funny, those people just had to be loaded because they always seemed to have a new car in the driveway every couple years! VW used to make a really nice car that felt super premium...for at least a few years.

Yeah dense and...not optimal...is what I remember my sister's bread tasting like. But she's the carb queen and I prefer proteins and fats.

I always love it when sites conveniently leave off the price.

I've never done bread. I don't eat a lot of bread, anyway, but when I do it's Milton's Multigrain. Sooooo good, and made in Del Mar. My family had a bread machine my mother attempted to use once, and my sister used about 6 or 7 times. Don't know anything beyond that. As far as kitchen knives, I have no clue. My knife skills are embarrassingly childish, and a friend of mine and I are trying to sign up for a knife skills class at a local Sur la Table sometime this month. Maybe I can get more info then? Right now I have these $h!ty KitchenAid knives I got from Target a few years ago that have trouble cutting...pretty much anything.

Amazing-amazing new recipe I developed...use it as a pudding, pastry cream, or whatever you like: Spiced Dark Chocolate Pastry Cream 1 ¾ cup milk ½ cup sugar ¼ cup unsweetened natural cocoa 2 T flour 2 egg yolks ¼ t salt 1 vanilla bean, split 2 cloves 1 cinnamon stick 2 black cardamom pods, lightly crushed 4 oz bittersweet chocolate chips 1. Combine the cloves, stick cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla bean and milk in a saucepan and scald the milk. When scalded, remove from heat but let the spices steep for 10-15 minutes. 2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and cocoa. 3. Add egg yolks, and whisk with a little milk, just enough to dissolve the dry ingredients. 4. Add remaining milk and strain. Retain vanilla bean, but discard the other spices at this time. 5. Place mixture in a saucepan and cook on low heat until boiling, stirring constantly, to form a pastry cream. Let boil for 1 minute. 6. Remove from heat and transfer to mixing bowl, removing vanilla bean at this time, but ensuring the pod is scraped clean. 7. Melt the chocolate chips and combine with the pastry cream. 8. Cover with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pastry cream to prevent formation of a skin and place in a refrigerator until chilled.

See, the thing about VW is they've been able to get away with abysmal quality and reliability because everything *looks* and *feels* expensive. They charge at the top of their segment for poorly-built and poorly-assembled crap that looks, feels, sounds, and probably tastes nice. Now, they're starting to cheap out on their interiors. Yeah, if VW doesn't offer such an above-and-beyond premium feel compared to the competition, their buyers aren't going to put up with abysmal reliability.

OK, so they claim that electric cars aren't really green...because subsidies exist? That's some pretty bad logic.