trinacriabob

Miami put its entire Metrorail (heavy rail) rapid transit system up on stilts. None of it is underground in any spot. On the other hand, Houston has its tunnel system below downtown so people can get around on those hot days - just like Montreal has its tunnel system for when it's freezing cold outside - and Houston put their light rail system at grade smack in the middle of the downtown streets. Go figure. People think that they are going to be appreciated for being martyrs or something. Instead, they may wind up being another casualty and another number. Many people lack critical thinking skills. And most people have never taken a statistics course. Those two things, taken together, could help them make better choices. When I was off to grad school, I was given a list of vaccines and shots I should have had. One of them was the MMR shot. I don't remember if I ever had them, or if I was vaccinated. So I marched over to a nearby urgent care clinic and got one. I wasn't about to grandstand and not go to grad school come September. - - - - - My real random thought: When buying pants, the most common waist-inseam for men is 34"-30." Which might come in handy if you're at "Cafe 150" and start wandering around.

Right, so three grilles each year: sedans and wagons had the one above, Regals, always with a formal roofline, had the vertical Parthenon-like grille, and Century and Special models had the sloped back grille. What was interesting is that they made some Century models with the formal roofline and gave them the sloped back grille. Most of them were trimmed out in a sportier way, with very few trimmed out in up-level cloth and wire wheels. I could see these models being amended for NASCAR. I vaguely remember that. Still, my favorite Regal of these 2 years would have been the Regal S/R, by a long shot. Burgundy (manual windows) Tan (and in a junkyard, per how the door is thrashed) That trestle shifter was the best of the quadruplets with buckets in those years.

I had forgotten all about these, and how the sedans were handled! The wagons were handled similarly. Here, the '76 has more of a uniform eggcrate grille. But the '77 has nicer horizontal lines in the grille. Note that this one is badged as being powered by the V6! - - - - - The converse was true for the coupes. The '76 had a cleaner grille and the '77 had too much horizontal chrome trim at the top of the grille. It looks like they didn't do much to the sheetmetal of the sedans and wagons in 1973-1977, while they spent a little more money on cleaning up the colonnade coupes in 1976 and 1977. That investment paid some dividends via big upticks in popularity.

Continuing with the above, I found some other views of the tower and of nearby Seattle buildings ... This is the building's ugliest side, from the east, IMO. Columbia Tower (76 stories) is behind it. The base is something, and so are some of those bay windows up the sides. While a little up, this is how you'd see it as you approach on I-5 from the south. It has the blue-green glass roof. With a skyline that looked like this and not much traffic, this must have been 2 to 3 decades ago!

@A Horse With No Name At first I was thinking, "What's so funny?" Then, it becomes more apparent. Along the same lines, this 62 story Seattle building that went up during the office tower boom of the late '80s has gotten a lot of flack. It was initially named the AT&T Gateway Tower. Architects are supposed to build models and look at the building from all angles. And no one caught on? The public riding on the ferries from across the sound sure figured it out and had the expected nicknames for it. From the north and south sides (elevations), you don't see this ... you only see the glass roof that slopes away and over the top. Its eastern facade, from I-5 and the city, looks clunky. To give it some credit, the granite and detailing when seen up close is pretty nice. And so is the fact that they created terraces and bay windows up toward the top. But, overall, it's just a weird building that could have been nicer. It occupies a great site and has stunning views toward the south ... the port, Boeing Field, Mt. Rainier, etc.

@balthazar What a great link! I wonder how much time I'll be spending there.

I am going to say no, but am not 100% sure. Because they would have had to cant the grille in the Century wagons of the same year! I think BOP mid-size wagons all had vertical grilles. For down line models, they were just less trimmed up and hood ornaments may have been omitted.

I was on the freeway, so couldn't take a photo. We should all be scanning our surroundings and rear view mirrors when we drive. (I know ... I am not your mother.) So, earlier today, I saw this unusual front grille a ways back in my rear view mirror. It was one of the less popular mid-'70s Cutlasses with a sloped front ... a Cutlass S. I expected it to be a coupe and have the triangular window and a fastback rear back lite. Not. It was a sedan. That was rare. It was in really good condition. With the cursive lettering in the back, it was a '76 and not a '77. As it pulled away from me (possibly a 350 V8), it had a rear sway bar. It was almost exactly like the one in this photo: What were they thinking? Who'd be taking this car with wheel covers and whitewalls into some rugged Western canyon?

Per the birthday list, today is NINETY EIGHT REGENCY's birthday. Have a great day, Landis, and keep cool down there by the Gulf!

College towns tend to have good indie ones, and which are usually funky and frumpy. People in that demographic don't want to go to Starbucks unless they don't have other options.

I think it's great that coffeehouse culture has become a part of Americana. And it's not only chains like (cough). It's so many independents that have rounded out the scene. There's good coffee, good tea, some food, a place to read, a place to work on a laptop, and usually a relaxing vibe. You can't beat it. This is one thing we've really done right in the New Millennium.

I found this a couple of days ago. It becomes a great video when this beautiful airplane lands and you can see all 4 thrust reversers in action. These things were a big deal in just coming from Madrid to New York, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles during the summer. It was an even bigger deal for these bigger Airbus planes to routinely go from Spain to Central America, Brazil, Buenos Aires, and Santiago de Chile. This plane (the 600 version) was a little bit longer than the 747-400. However, the latest 747-800 has reclaimed that distinction. I flew on this one summer, with the U.S. service provided by American, and picking it up in Chicago on the outbound and returning on the long flight to LAX. This is an incredible machine, with a more comfortable 2-4-2 seating arrangement and those 4 big engines providing the power. As they are being retired, I realize how much I will miss the Airbus 340.

It is an August sighting ... and it's not. It's more about the license plate frame. This is "clever" marketing. This dealership might almost assuredly reach a particular market segment. I wonder if people in this shopping center parking lot thought I was weird for taking this photo. And this one. What would be funny is if the guy is a teetotaler.

You come up with some pretty random ones, @A Horse With No Name. The one with the lion is corny and, yes, my dad once had that same Impala. But it was a base model coupe, so I'm thinking it had the 283 V8. He thought it was really reliable and, in his estimation, powerful. But, then, he never had a driver's license when he lived across the pond. Thinking of the maxim that, in America, "the streets are paved with gold." The couch one is downright hilarious. I'm having one delivered within a week. It should be interesting to see how that goes.

I also get a kick out of seeing the "Knight Rider" years of Firebird on the road. There aren't many left. Some of them are pretty messed up. And, like you say, you see the pop-up headlamps in the up position or, even worse, you have one up and one down! I wonder what the repair bill looks like to fix a pop-up headlamp that isn't popping correctly.

@oldshurst442 Hilarious story. Cruising around the Laurentians in the most recent of Corvettes without any of the brittle Thelma and Louise bull5h!+. Wow. I guess he got it prior to the opening of the borders. The Canadian border opened to (some of) us on August 9 but the converse is not true for the U.S. And he couldn't go to Quebec City - in the same province - to pick up his Corvette? I like how you describe the craftsmanship. Sounds nice. I think a silver one with the red interior goes to the top of the heap for me in Corvette land. So, how does the new Corvette drive and ride after being behind the wheel of one? I only began to like the full-size Cadillac once they got rectangular lamps up front and became more slab sided. They kept the stateliness but also picked up some "less is more" in the process.

I don't know if this should be in the joke thread, sort of like "Where does an elephant sit?" "Anywhere it wants." Q: Why did the alligator cross the road in West Mifflin (Pittsburgh), PA? A: Because it can. Gator on the Loose Spotted Crossing Suburban Road in Pennsylvania (msn.com) Take note of how LOW the fine is for violators who keep animals they shouldn't be keeping. It would be difficult to relate to people who have a thing for dangerous animals or reptiles as pets. I'm sure police artists can do a great job of sketching up some stereotypical offending owners.

Or like this one ...

Spotted August 8 When finned and "truly" full-size Cadillacs were still a little bit garish ... Front grille Side view Interesting but nasty color ...

This seems to be so common. Even if we have foreign friends teach us 20 words of their language, over half of them will be questionable in nature. I had a good Middle Eastern friend who was Catholic and she taught me a good number of Arabic words, including funny ones and off-color ones. "Majnoon" is their word for crazy. "Sbaleh bedah" translates into white trash. The others are more graphic. This friend attained her degree here in the U.S. with over a 3.7 GPA, so she's smart. But it's funny how she still sometimes omitted articles when she speaks, which is how I think Arabic must be constructed. She had bought a house for a good price in the late '90s and it even has a pool, although it needed maintenance because it was neglected and full of algae. She said, "I bought house with green pool."

I knew a fair number of Cubans in grade school, high school, and college. They all had a great sense of humor. A "pendejo" is basically a jerk, but it literally means a "dingleberry." "Chinga," usually said in the reflexive form as "chingate," means GFY. I took 3 years of French in high school and a year of Spanish in college. It's almost easier to retain Spanish if living in the Sunbelt, even if you've taken less of it.

@balthazar Thank you for sharing. I mean it. So I didn't have to. I assumed everyone was in on the joke. The friend I had a good laugh with about this plate option was Mexican-American and went to college with me. I believe they actually released that plate "into the wild," and, then, when the DMV got more sophisticated or was apprised, they pulled it back in. I don't know if that's urban legend - L.A. style. Either way, that plate, in which the words translated into Spanish approximate biology, is definitely "not available."

We seem to like license plates and license plate frames here. I was looking for the California symbols that you can put on plates and found this first. So here is the CA specialty plate with 4 symbols you can put in, shown at the bottom right hand. I've already mentioned "(HAND) NOW GFY" a while back and I guess C&Gers didn't find that funny. I still laugh about visiting a college friend in SoCal in 2008, having coffee, checking out the DMV site and entering different license plates, and seeing that "BREAD 8" came up as "not available." We almost spit out our coffee. But, if someone lived in CA and loved C&G, they could get "WE (HEART) CARS." If it's not already spoken for. Score!

We think a lot alike. The main difference is that I would omit the Impala SS from my list and start with the Caprice Classic. The Impala SS was too flashy for my taste and wouldn't have suited me ... then or now. I also agree with you on the wagons, with the Olds rendition of the last full-size wagon easily winning that hand.

It looks like a cross between a Dodge Stratus and a Toyota Corolla. Especially the red one. I'm not convinced. But never say never. We all got used to a 4-door Pontiac Grand Prix. Some of us even bought them ... or planned to.