trinacriabob

Double entendre. I love it. I wonder if this was even slightly controversial in its day.

You guys nailed it. Put a dark t-shirt on him and put him in a cherry Riv in a middle to upper middle class neighborhood and that was the dude!

Very random thought - sort of Memory Lane like ... I found out I'm not the only car enthusiast who does this. I have sometimes rolled down the passenger window while going over a narrow bridge (covered bridges are even better, if you can find one!) to have the engine's purr echo back at me. This was particularly gratifying with an Olds Rocket V8. I got the idea while sitting in the passenger seat of a new Olds with a V8 in California while a teacher was driving us on a field trip and we went over a stone bridge. The sound was beautiful. I subsequently did that various times on my own after my dad handed me down his Cutlass Supreme and it had an Olds V8. Ah yes ... the simple pleasures in life.

I was driving down a major street and a last-gen (late '90s) Buick Riviera coupe was coming the other way. It was in perfect shape. It was the pearl white color. I like some special metallic extra cost colors, but not the off white. The guy driving it looked like the working class version of that silver haired bearded guy who is on an ad for alcohol or maybe "poverty sucks" that people seem to post on social media. I can visualize the ad or meme but can't recall what product or message he represents. Also, he zoomed away from that light. I had my window down and could hear it. Maybe it was supercharged as opposed to being a normally aspirated 3800 V6. Polarizing car, that's for sure.

Interesting sighting today. I don't normally pay attention to Mercedes products because I don't need such expensive iron and can't afford it anyway. It was a Mercedes E350 convertible. I noticed it because it was silver with the dark red leather interior, a color combo I've once had in a car and very much like. I have also liked seeing this interior color scheme in Corvettes at auto shows. The people in the convertible were interesting. Driving it was a senior guy , 75+ (or not looking good for his age), who resembled the guy in "The Godfather" who ended up with a thoroughbred horse's head in his bed. Who can forget that? The passenger was a younger lady who somewhat resembled Pia Zadora, was probably in her mid to late 30s, and had sunglasses. I was thinking, "Money talks and bull***t walks."

Why does my signature link appear to be broken? This is fairly new ... less than a week. Lots and lots of wind turbines in and around the Coachella Valley of So Cal (think Palm Springs and surrounding towns).

Here's another question. We've all been spotting '70 something boulevardiers which, at the time, were the gold standard for smooth riding cars ... Grand Villes, Sevilles, etc. Now that I've been in two W-bodies for over 2 decades, would my later W-body cars, which feel very quiet and smooth to me, be smoother than the RWD Cutlass Supremes, Regals, Ninety Eights, or Bonnevilles of the glorious past? Or would they just feel different? I imagine their road feel would leave a little something to be desired.

Do deer whistles work? The ones you get on the cheap at chain auto stores? I know that's a subject of debate. Do they actually make noise? Just wondering. I haven't seen them for a while. Not that I've been looking for them.

This is the one described I'd like the most, either in convertible form or big coupe opera window with landau top form.

These will always look like toads, with or without the steroids. - - - - - Another Olds Alero today - a gold coupe in near perfect condition - a senior gentleman sitting in traffic along a major artery. Never would I have thought Aleros would have been so long lived when I took one from Spokane, WA to Calgary (AB) Canada and back in the summer of 2003. I also drove through Sandpoint, ID on that trip. Never would I have thought someone as dumb and annoying as Sarah Palin would hail from there ... and have been catapulted to such prominence. Never mind.

Only from the rear and rear 3/4 view. In all other aspects, I wish they would made a stock version for public consumption. Nicer front grille (more like Chevy SS), silhouette that isn't as dowdy, sportier dashboard ... still the rear tail lamps are just a hair different to know it's not the regular Impy.

I decided within the last week that I like center mounted stop lamps all that much more. They really make a difference as you're driving along, meaning you notice them more instinctively than you do the outboard tail lamps. I watched one of those insane fit for YouTube verbal brawls on public transit within the last few days. Since I wasn't the only one looking down in disbelief and chuckling, it must have been funny.

Thank you. What a jerk that guy was. If I've owned 2 HP 4 in 1s for home use for at least 6 years each and they never required anything but ink, then I knew something was off. I also avoid that chain since they don't have the best prices to begin with.

Also, by the way, I was talking to this Indian girl who sold tech stuff at one of the office supply chain stores and she said the thing about the periodic maintenance block on the printer requiring a $ 75 piece to unblock it sounded pretty nutty to her. It sounded nutty to me. I wonder what that was all about. That dude should have been reported to management.

I just looked into those on line. They are a little more than either HP or Epson. They also get the better reviews. Since it will be wide format, it will be an inkjet printer. It's funny because you don't see them advertised all that much. Thank you. Not interested in gaming. At all. LOL. Spreadsheets, documents, some household name graphics packages, photo storage and editing, YouTube, and general surfing ... that's it! I'm guessing the above would sort of cover the AMD Ryzen 5.

Yes, I thought he was a goofball of sorts, probably looking to sell a tech support package. It would be my first experience with AMD over Intel if I went that route. They say AMD has a strong processor in the Ryzen 5. (Incidentally, reisen means travel in German.) The next one to unsnarl is the printer. I have enjoyed my HP Office Jets. Both have had kinks that you learn to navigate around by the lasted many years. I'll have to research this Epson locking up mechanically and requiring a piece to free it. That sounds kooky, too. I'm getting there.

I'm about to buy a new desktop and a new printer. I've had both for about 9 years. They are HP. The desktop lives on (crossing my fingers) but the printer recently gave up the ghost, after so many years of service. Two questions: 1. I am looking at the lower priced HP Pavilions with 12 GB of RAM. They can come with an Intel CPU (a little more money) or an AMD CPU (a little less money). Instinctively, I've gone for Intel in the past. My desktop computer tower use is for easy stuff. I read a few over my head articles that AMD's Ryzen 5 series CPU is now commendable and has edged up on Intel in the CPU department. I just went into a big box place and one of the guys told me that the AMD runs a lot hotter and uses more wattage than the Intel, so it won't last as long as the Intel version in similar newer HP Pavilions. Any thoughts on this? 2. I am looking at a printer with wide format capability, meaning 11x17 copying and printing. They have some home use HP and Epson models. The interface on HP is sadly like that of a cell phone. It's small. Epson's is more traditional. The same guy told me that when the Epson needs to clean itself (that sounds dirty, I know) it kicks out a mechanical lock and you need to pay for a $75 piece each time this occurs. This sounds ridiculous. Do you agree? On my very reliable HP OfficeJet, all I ever did is buy ink cartridges over the years. I've never heard of a lock of sorts on a home printer during its service life. This big box chain store prices their service plans higher than many other stores. I've rarely bought stuff there over the years. I'm betting that a sales push for these service plans would have come on the heels, had I been buying, but I was just looking. Help and input are greatly appreciated.

I've only been once. The view from the south ridge where the inclines are was spectacular, as was the entrance into the city via the Fort Pitt Tunnel. The weather couldn't have been better that day, IIR. The downtown feels a little shoehorned, though, with the one-way streets on that narrow point. I did not see the area around CMU but I couldn't leave without seeing the Cathedral of Learning (the name for the tower at Pitt, I guess). Trees everywhere. And also some suburbs tucked into what looked like canyons of sorts, in Western lingo. I remember one such suburb in the northern part of the city. There was a good and authentic Italian restaurant there. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Was the STS the Seville equivalent in the 2000s, being a notch above the CTS and shy of the DTS? Cadillac sure got its act together. What a 180. May it keep it going! I like that all brick house directly behind the new used car.

Is this within the actual city limits and it's THAT forested? Interesting. That series was hard to tell apart. For me, '74 to '76 were easier to distinguish. Maybe that's because it was about when I started liking cars ... and those cars, specifically. The green colors in the series you mentioned had that not particularly attractive olive green in the line up.

Love me some Pontiac. Yesterday, I saw a 3rd gen Pontiac Firebird Formula in a parking lot. It was no younger than 1996, because the scoops were tame compared to later years in that series. It was in perfect condition - black exterior, black interior. I looked at the seating area and the dash and they were really nice, as I once recall. Sort of timeless and Pontiac at the same time. I'm sure the backlighting was orange, though. Except for '67 to '69, Pontiac ran each of the successive 3 generations of F-bird for about 10 years apiece! Also, early models of the 3rd gen started you out with a 2.5 Iron Duke L-4 and they did not fare well. The 4th gen started you out with a 3800 Series II V6 and I was reading some favorable owner reviews of them.

Wait, did the minivan owner, over yonder at the left, park that vehicle on the lawn? Today, in a major shopping center parking lot, I saw a newish Chevy SS in a really nice (Schwinn bicycle) metallic medium blue color. What beautiful looking car! Too bad they cost too much and can only be had with a high(er) performance engine. It makes me lament the loss of the Pontiac G8 and its entry level model featuring the 3.6 V6. I actually think that the grille and rear treatment of this Chevy look a little nicer. I've usually tended to like the Pontiac variant whenever it was duping what Chevrolet was doing (Grand Prix over Monte Carlo, Firebird over Camaro, etc.) Inspiring sighting ... thought I'd share.

I was just thinking about new car brochures and ads, including on the web. I was looking at Buick brochures from the 1980s and it seems like they were always set in a beautiful setting, like Charleston, Savannah, New England, or in the national parks of the West or the Smokies. Now, if you look at these same brands and cars, the cars are mostly placed in downtown L.A., another modern downtown, or next to a minimalist, modern, tech-y, expensive as hell custom home. Hmmm ... have those other places lost their appeal? Not to me, anyway ... - - - - - Another thought, it looks like the new Focus (next year) will employ the "laptop left open" look atop its center stack. Oh well.

True. I also vaguely recall that when GM was having a crappy year circa 1975 coincidentally at the time they had just introduced the catalytic converter, it was trading at about $ 34 a share. My dad used to sit there with the morning Times and talk out loud about what he was reading while having his coffee at the breakfast table. Then, during the bicentennial year and the economy got better, and when they couldn't make Cutlass Supremes with the quad rectangular lamps fast enough, I believe GM stock about doubled, into the $ 60 + range. I remember something to this effect. I'd have to look at a chart.

Why is Ford stock (F) so listless?

Thanks. This all makes a lot of sense. Also, I learned the word keystoning today. So, a good rule of thumb would be that the mechanics get it at a discount if they routinely deal with someone, they then mark it up, and it should return to about the retail price I see, but with a possible ceiling of no more than 1.333 x the retail cost to me. That sounds plausible.