intrigued

I'm throwing in my .02 cents here, mainly because this was an interesting thread that I think has been hijacked by two peoples disagreement. Aatbloke, the fact is that most people, Carbiz included, will admit small cars with higher fuel economy drive trains are going to be very important in the future of the NA automotive industry. I think Carbiz argues so passionately with you because he preceves, and he is by no means alone in this perception, that you talk down to other people in a very condescending way and dismiss their opinions rather harshly out of hand while backhandedly insulting them with remarks about the ignorance of the North American consumer and their tastes in cars. Quite frankly I don't think you act YOUR age after you've accused half this forum of being young and ignorant. I'm not trying to take any sides in terms of this small car debate. I am pointing out that you are not acting in a constructive manner and if you don't want to be insulted, chastised, or treated badly in return present your opinions in a respectful manner, don't shove them down peoples throats and if they don't come around to your point of view don't act superior towards them or ridicule their beliefs. If you do that more people will respects you, people will debate issues with you but not attack you, and a few more may even come over to your point of view.

I'm throwing in my .02 cents here, mainly because this was an interesting thread that I think has been hijacked by two peoples disagreement. Aatbloke, the fact is that most people, Carbiz included, will admit small cars with higher fuel economy drive trains are going to be very important in the future of the NA automotive industry. I think Carbiz argues so passionately with you because he preceves, and he is by no means alone in this perception, that you talk down to other people in a very condescending way and dismiss their opinions rather harshly out of hand while backhandedly insulting them with remarks about the ignorance of the North American consumer and their tastes in cars. Quite frankly I don't think you act YOUR age after you've accused half this forum of being young and ignorant. I'm not trying to take any sides in terms of this small car debate. I am pointing out that you are not acting in a constructive manner and if you don't want to be insulted, chastised, or treated badly in return present your opinions in a respectful manner, don't shove them down peoples throats and if they don't come around to your point of view don't act superior towards them or ridicule their beliefs. If you do that more people will respects you, people will debate issues with you but not attack you, and a few more may even come over to your point of view.

The factory sticker is rated at 17/25. This was the old rating scale of course.

Great game I've learned recently called Chandelier. Great group game that incorparates some aspects of pong and flip cup with an every man for himself vendetta filled atmospher. Rules - Everyone fills a solo cup to about 1/3 mark with beer. Put them in the center of the table in a circle with a pitcher that's at lest half full in the middle. Person picked at random starts. They attempt to bounce the ball, like a bounce shot in beer pong, into someone elses cup (usually someone they ave a beef with or just want to get drunk) If you make it in they drink. If you miss you drink your own cup. If you get it in your own cup like a dumbass you have to drink everyones cup. if you get it in the pitcher by accident or intentionally everybody chugs their beer puts it on the table and races to flip it like in flip cup. The last person to flip it has to drink the pitcher. There is no treal winners for this game and it only ends when people pass out or run out of beer. Cups are refilled whenever they are emptied. Played last weekend and everone on the table , save his girlfirend was gunning for my rommates cup because it was his birthday. Byt the end of the night he was chewing on the corner of a cardboard box and barley knew his name.

Just filled up my mustang for the first time since I got it. 14 gallon (regular of course) fill up that took me 325.5 miles. thats 23.25 mpg. Not bad but it is about 80 percent highway and I baby a lot. Going for the smooth shifts and stuff still since I havent driven a stick since I was 16, almost 6 years ago. Only stalled once so far since I got it. for those who don't know its a 05 GT so its the 4.6 v8 wit 5 speed stick and 3.55 rear end.

Wow. Quick and smooth! Gotta love the 3800SC. Nice classy car BTW.

I'll get some fresh pics up when I take delivery and detail it. My only reservation about the car is gas with gas prices being what they are but I figure if I average 20 mpg per tank with 75 percent highway driving I'll be fine with it.

Hey all, Well here is the new whip. 2005 Mustang GT Deluxe 4.6 SOHC V8 300hp 320 ftlbs - 5 speed manual - 3.55 ratio with LSD wheels are the cool looking 17 inch gunmetal heritage wheels with Perelli summer tires. Leather interior Tinted windows Polished exhaust 6 disc in dash cd changer with MP3 reader and 500 watt 8 speaker shaker sound system. The car has 52k miles on it and has an extended warranty to 83k miles. It is AMAZINGLY clean inside and out with not a single blemish scratch or other imperfection in the paint. It drives very well. CarFax came up clean as a whistle and the owner has all the cars maitenance records to boot. Doing the massive amounts of paperwork now but I should take delivery by midweek next week. Here are some pics taken from last fall. The car looks even better now wit the tint and polished exhaust pipes. Without further delay ... Thinking of adding some racing stripes to it. Either white or gray. Also I'm going to replace the lame Ford blue oval wheel caps. What do you guys think?

Maybe you should gert a second job being a waiter? I've waited during highschool for good money and then later bartended (still do) on top of my day job for extra income. Plus the hourly payis awful whic is good tax wise since the tips which are the vast majority of these jobs are cash and can't be taxed unless you report them. As for working out I would recommend rowing on an ERG machine for what you said. It will work your lats and obliques very well and is a great cardio workout, actually its a great full body workout in general too. Also it's low impact. As for your but deep squats with good form and heavy, but not too heavy, weight is the key.

I bught my dad socks, something he's been complaining about needing a card and also helped my brother cook him dinner.

Hey everyone been super busy lately. I got my license back after having it suspended for a DUI which I got because i was a complete idiot and drank and drove and I ran into a checkpoint. I sold my 2006 malibu SS to pay for the legal bills and to pay off the ballance of the car and a few other debts since I wasn't going to be driving for about 4 months. So I got it bacl about 3 days ago and I don't NEED a car right now but it ould be convienient to have and I WILL need a car come next school year. So thought about what cars I wanted for a good long while. First I wanted RWD, I was tired of FWD cars. For GM that left me the CTS, since I scratched a sky or solstice off immediatley since they were too impractical. It would obviosuly be used because my limit is about 20 grand. I then dropped the CTS because I don't see myself driving a Caddy yet, I love them but I'm not even 22 and I'd feel silly driving one. So I was watching Transformers and I started drooling over the camaro again. I thought it would be great to buy a $h! box for six months and then get a 3.6 DI camaro but It would still be out of my reach price wise. Then I thought what's american and like a camaro that I can afford? This thought process has lead me to buying (in the process of closing the deal. Should be done by midweek next week) a 2005 Ford Mustang GT. It's black, has the 3.55 lsd rear end and has a manual. about 40k miles plust extended warranty to 85k miles included. It has the classic heritage wheels which are cool and tan leather interior as well as a kickass shaker 500 watt system. Really fun car to drive, not crazy fast but it is legitimetley fast and it looks good. Interior isn't made with great materials but it has high quality assembly is comfortable and ergonomic. I wish i was driving a GM but they don't make anthing I can afford that I really want right now. In wa few years I'll get a camaro I imagine but till then I think I'll be happy with this. I'll post pics on monday.

Hey Nick, are you alive today? The 21st can be rough for a lot of people. In terms of hangovers and lost diginity the day after.

Many people underestimate what it takes to be a rugby player. Especially the forwards which I am. We do all the dirty work, maintain posession of the ball, run crash plays tackle the other big guys etc. The average forward runs 5 miles during a game but its all jog pause and sprint at random intervals with no recovery time. play doesn't stop unless there is a penalty, there are no time outs except for injury and a five minute break at half time to seperate the two 40 minute halfs. There are out of shape rugby teams but they are the ones who $h! the bed 30 min into the game when they are sucking wind. I'm a very good smart player but the people on my team are so fit that I can only last about 50-60 minutes running the game at their pace. Because of this I end up being a bench player coming in early second half as an impact player or injury replacment. Back when I was in awsome shape I was one of the people setting thepace for the team. I want my starting spot back.

I'm trying to loose a few and get back in better shape. at the end of my sophmore year in college I was in the best shape of my life. I was a ripped, less than 7 percent bodyfat, 195 at a shade under 5'10. That was after 2 years of football in Highschool, 4 years of indoor and outdoor track sprinting 2 years of crew and 1 year of rugby in college. stopped working out and playing sports cold turkey junior year to work. second semester I took off from school completely to work full time on a big case the firm I work for had. was working 70-80 hour weeks drinking with office friends every night and eating fast food probably twice a day while drinking half a fridge pack of coke, a pot of coffe and I would ocassionally smoke. I ended up at 220 or so and horriby out of shape. a pathetic 8 minute mile would almost kill me and I was probably about half as strong as I was though still strong compared to most people. This year when I went back to school full time I through myself back into rugby and getting back into shape. I'd say I'm halfway back. It takes more time to undo the damage then to do it. This summer I'm getting all the way back to where I was and then some. Started running three miles a day 4 days a week increasing the pace by .3 mph every other time. Lifting 3 days a week now though that will increase to 5 in a few weeks and running stairs in my 40 floor apartment building once a week and sprints on the football field once a week. Diet is also key. I carb load in the morning and eeat the last carbs of the day around lunch then I it's all protien based meals after that. Also I eat 5-6 smaller meals rather than 3 big ones, only give myself one cheat day a week to eat what I want and drink at least a gallon of water a day. Also I only go out drinking once a week now. I'm at 200 now and I should stay about the same weight swapping about 10 lbs of fat for muscle if I train smart.

I had a year of glut when I took time off from college and worked full time. Ended up with about 4500 in CC debt even though I was making very good money. I have since tried to reform and have brought my current spending in line with what I make and my fixed expenses. I still I have about 1500 left in debt from 2007 because i still spend a little to much on partying and haven't paid it all back yet. Anothre 2 months and I'll finally be debt free again. (doesn't include college loans but I digure owing 24k for two BAs isn't bad debt to carry in this day and age) Still US citizens in particular need to find ways to live within their means. I'm just worried how such drastic spending cuts could effect the econemy if many people simulataniously started being financial responsible.

One time I had to go somewhere for family emergency. I was trying to leave the dorms but I couldnt find my keys for the life of me. One of my roomates saw the distress I was in and let me borrow his car since he's a good guy. He went on to locate my keys while I was out in the trash. No idea how they got there but needless to say I bought him a case of his favorite when I got back.

I drove my moms for two full tanks on a road trip last year. i got on the 3.6 every now and then because I like to drive fast and its a sweet engine but with only moderatley conservative driving got 26 mpg with a fair few WOT momments.

My friend and I, both with 5 years experience with legal assistance and an international buisness degree and almost an english and marketing degree between us are starting a temp agency specifically for the need of lawfirms with temporary heavy litigation needs. We'll be able to help out some friends with jobs and make ourselves a percentage. Getting that off the ground is my number 1 priority. Getting a new car is my number 2. Decorating my new apartment is my third.

I thought this car was supposed to be shown in concept form by now. When is the shang hi show?

Happy birthday!

Yeah the Fairfield beach area is full of young people with fin places to hangout, the beach itself isn't as nice as compo but it is a bastion of young people. Does Fairfield U still have actual housing options on the beach or is it just private rentals. I know the town always complains about the college kids on the beach

Westport is really nice. It's a lot like the more down to earth version of Greenwich with a lot more "new money" than "old money." There are a lot of type A people because most everyone has a highpaying corporate job and EVERYBODY has money, at least to some extent. My family felt VERY middle class in terms of how we lived and spent compared to most people in the town and my dad made a good bit more than 250k a year sometimes approaching 400. The town has a lot of nice historical sections, has compo beach which is the nicest beach on that side of Long Island sound (every resident is a member of the beach club for an extremley modest fee - I think $25 a year) You'll run into actors and other celebraties ocassionaly. Paul Newman lived less than a mile away from my house and I was playing in the front yard and he ran by my house with Robert redford once. As for the mcmansions they are ripping down old houses and putting new monster houses up. On the plus side thess houses tend to be far less cookiecutter and are much more customized than most mcmansions. They also landscape them well to keep them well hidden or make them fit into the more rural roads and while sometimes they divide the old 2 acre lots they never do worse then spliting them down the middle rather than wplitting them into 4's. It was a really nice place to grown up though I can't vouch for the public school since I went to Catholic grade school and a Jesuit high school. With my dad having retired from working in the city a few years ago my family moved up to Guilford to be near Yale where both my brother and Dad not work. Back on the cars, as far the GTO goes I'm pretty much ruling out anything with a v8 both because of fuel economy and more importantly insurance since I'ts going to cost me a fair amount to ensure any car I get anyway because of the DUI I got.

watched it, is that a 2.4 LTZ? pretty cool.

I smoked very rarely in social situations, IE totally hammered and bummed one off a friend for no particual reason. Last year when i took off from college to work full time, way over full time since it was 80-90 hour weeks, i started smoking for the buzz it can give you in order to help consentrate on work. I got to about 1-2 packs a week at my peak and smoked for about six months. Beggining of this year when I went back to school I quit cold turkey and haven't touched one since. Now, I DO love a good cigar on ocassion but I view that as a treat and not a habit.

hey Bimmer325- I no fairfield and fairfield U very well as I went to Fairfield Prep on the same campus. Maybe we should meet up during summer break and have a few beers, I live in new rochelle year round these days. I know most BMWs will go a long time with no problems but I've seen firsthand what an unreliable one can cost to fix under warranty. Plus I drive more than 20k miles a year so that makes me extra scared of buying a car without a warranty. The aura is a back up I've decided because the only XR's I've found have wierd options or $h!ty colors. There are a TON of well optioned g6's with the ideal color combos. I'm also looking at the CTSes closer because I've driven one in the past and it is a fun car but I need to get it as a certified used so I can buy an extended warranty on it. I just drive to much to own a car without at least 50k warranty left on it.