CARBIZ

You and I must be the last two left on Earth..... Last year (in my previous life) the dealer I worked at brought a couple U.S. version used '07 Grand Marquis up for sale. I would make any excuse to 'borrow' one to do errands or goof off. Other guys thought I was nuts. Well, then again I loved scooping the '03 Mini Couper S, too. Go figure.

I think that some form of world government is inevitable, just not right now: we are not mature enough to handle it. Some of us may still be alive when Earth may need to put up a united front against other 'world' governments.

QUOTE (moltar @ Oct 25 2008, 10:36 AM) Yeah, it's one of those things I realized long ago is that most people don't have the same level of interest in cars as I do..to most people, the details of their car are obscure as the details of the washer or dryer. Yet I know lots of people that can tell me lots of detail about the specs of their cell phone, computer, their TV, their home theatre components, etc yet seem to know little about their car beyond the brand name and year...I run into a few car enthusiasts now and then, but they usually are very brand-specific in their interest and knowledge, rather than a broad interest car geek.. I'd go a lot farther than that: probably half the population has the curiousity of a gnat. They wouldn't know a science journal if it fell on them, nor an atlas or a decent political treatise. Color me wierd, but two of the greatest discoveries in my life was when I learned about photons and how ordinary lightbulbs work and why in the life cycle of a star they can only 'burn' up the atomic table as far as FE, then no matter what the mass of the star it will have to implode, resulting in a nova. I suppose that makes me very wierd. Forget about explaining a 4 stroke engine to the average person.

And I still stand by my original post 2 years ago. In fact, Dsuupr's original post bears this out: I've seen this many times when someone bitches about how crappy their American car is, trades it in for a 'superior' Toyota, then experiences the same amount of troubles - are they going to admit they made a mistake? Hell, no - that's human nature. Human memory is a funny thing. I've had customers scream at me for a $300 service visit, but when I pull up their file they've only spent $400 in 3 years (including their oil changes!) on their car; yet, I've had import humpers justify $6k worth of repairs in a single year. I mean, how does a Honda owner justify a $600 belt replacement on a 2 or 3 year old car in the 21st Century?

Chrysler has been very, very lucky that they have enjoyed such a great design team over the past 15 years or so. Look at the ugly crap they built in the late '80s/early '90s, coupled with their horrific engineering. Until the LH cars came out in '93, Chrysler was heading for the dustbin of history. It has ony been BECAUSE of their great designs, polarizing or not, that they have stayed in business all these years. Toyota has had their 'quality' mantra (deserved or not), Honda that their teflon sheen and General Motors their sheer heft, but Chrysler has always been an also-ran company. If they ever became guilty of bland design, they would be gone in a flash.

QUOTE (gm4life @ Oct 24 2008, 11:55 PM) I have gotten this alot "nice Grand Prix" line with my 2005 Bonneville SLE but I guess since they cleaned up the body there is no V8 badge like on GXP (no striker kick panels) I could see it but even so... I paid for a Bonneville (the first real Pontiac and most expesnsive one not the lesser GP)... As for my Torrent it has been called an Aztek... And that really ticks me off... Someone called it an Equinox too, I about killed them... I hate people that no jack about cars and can't even read a god damned badge or check a hood ornament. Dump shits. Well, you'd better take a chill pill because I'd venture to say that about half the population doesn't know anything more about cars than how to turn the ignition key. Once upon a time, when I was a car valet in a luxury hotel, quite a few people (mostly women, I have to say) could tell me little more about their car than what color it was and how many doors it had. When you work in the car business, you get stupid people remarks about cars all the time. You learn to shrug it off.

Kinda? I saw someone on a jetski in the Chicago River when I was there in July and even though he was wearing a bodysuit, I though - yecch! What if a body part got sucked up into the intake?

But would you ban someone for being rude, belligerent and vulgar, or simply because they disagree with members? If, say, an import humper haunted C&G, would you necessarily ban him just because of his beliefs? We all reluctantly will admit that Toyotas are decent enough vehicles, so someone who actually likes them (and there must be some out there!) shouldn't be banned just for that! I mean, if the member kept harping ONLY about Toyota - well, that would get tedious, but if the member posted thoughtful remarks on non-Toyota related topics like in the lounge, wouldn't that member be contributing overall to the community on C&G? It's not like I was one-dimensional on UT. I posted on a variety of different topics, from chiming in on the state of the economy to the bone-headed idea that the Mayor wants to tear down the only highway this city has in the core. You guys probably know me better (4 years, as opposed to 4 months) but my arguments (I think) are consistent and backed up with a helluva lot of experience. Anyway, maybe for you veterans getting banned is a rite of passage, but for me (and I consider myself an all around swell guy ), this has come as a bit of a shock.

.... and take pictures!

Well, you should have been suspended for that! What an insult to goat f$#kers!

It's odd: I keep telling myself I am better off without those a-holes, but somehow it bothers me that I was banned. That's silly, really - considering none of them really have a clue who I am. I guess what pisses me off the most is that others were allowed to post derogatory remarks about me (like I said earlier - one poster said that since I was gay I was a piece of $h! - his exact words) and I always ignored them. Like C&G, that site was a source of information (I admit I did learn a thing or two about my city that I didn't know), but it was a nest for car-haters, to be sure. I guess what bothers me about opinons in general is that there are some opinions that are better than others. One of the issues I have with the internet is that many posters seem to be addicted to linking. It's like you have no basis for a remark unless you can back it up with 2 or 3 links. Or pictures. Does human experience count for nothing these days? I think the thread that got me banned was a general discussion on traffic in various cities. One member kept demanding that I back up my claims that Toronto has the worst traffic in North America. Other than the fact that the 401 is listed as the busiest highway in North America (a sad feat when you consider Toronto is half the size of L.A., Chicago and only about the same size of 'newer' cities like Dallas, Atlanta, etc.) and the fact that I have driven in many of these cities, I was shot down repeatedly. Honestly, this city is addicted to 4 lane roadways and the traffic in the core is horrendous. I have driven in Chicago, Vancouver, New York and Montreal many times, plus I have been to L.A. for a week and Atlanta twice, and I never encountered the same degree of traffic as I have in this city. Not volume, obviously, but the sheer bottlenecks. All cities have a problem with aging infrastructure, but unlike cities like L.A., Toronto has an enormous amount of reconstruction due to the salt/winters. And unlike L.A., Toronto has no alternate routes. I found navigating from Hollywood through the city at 8 in the morning to be a breeze because I could plan my trip. Ditto from Long Beach to Hollywood at 4 pm on a weekday. Not so for Toronto - our highways are clogged from 7 a.m. to 8 pm and there are no alternate streets. Tell me guys and gals - is anecdotal evidence really that weak? Surely one can tell the difference between someone's remarks when they have travelled exactly nowhere, as opposed to someone who has travelled extensively! One of the downfalls of our modern political process is that nearly all politicos get bogged down in 'studies' and statistics. For example, if the Hoover Dam was proposed today, it probably wouldn't get built in any of our lifetimes because it would have to go through so many 'studies.' And why are we so eager to jump to personal attacks? We all have strong opinions, but aggression is the final resort of the incompetent, as they say. Once a discussion degenerates into name calling, any degree of credibility on the part of the denigrator goes out the window. In a bar fight, I can understand this, but on the internet we have the opportunity to be more circumspect with our remarks because we can think first, type later. One of the posters on the other site said that if I ran for political office he would back me, both financially and physically. This is not the first time I have had that offer. However, getting banned from that site proves to me that I could never go into politics. Although politics is never about winning friends, one must be able to temper one's opinion to win over debates. I don't know how to do that. Just my ponderings on a cloudy day off.

This was precisely the topic I was posting on in another site when I was banned. Most people don't care. Those that think they care are woefully misinformed. It isn't as though they want vengeance because their '86 Pheonix was a piece of crap - the general public honestly believes we can get along just fine without a manufacturing base. On the tree hugger sites, they want all manufacturing banished because it is 'dirty.' (It's okay for the Chinese to poison themselves, though.) In some quarters of society today the automobile is the source of all evil and General Motors is the flash point. It is a very different, more selfish world than in '80 when Congress bailed out Chrysler.

You, sir, are one of the most amiable people I have never met - I can't imagine you being banned from a knitting circle!

Good for you - it's important to be good at something!

Lying would be a BIG reason for being banned, IMO.

Twenty nine again? :AH-HA_wink: Make it a good one!

I joined ToyotaNation and haunted there for a while about 2 years ago. It was surreal, so I quit going. I don't even remember my handle now. I guess I came across as being somewhat haughty on UT. I guess that's the problem with any newbie that joins a site: they have to find a niche and see if they fit in. They can get bored before they are hooked, or another serious error is shooting off one's mouth on a topic that has been beaten to death. I think a lot of us on C&G are guilty of getting, shall we say, intemperate with newbies when they come on all full of piss and vinegar about a topic that we, ahem, seniors have Personally, I enjoy the disagreements, as long as they don't get too personal. There are lots of colorful folk on C&G (and you know who you are), but wouldn't this site be BORING if we all sat around, masturbating about oh how great GM is and trashing Toyota just for being - well, Toyota? (Well, okay that last part wouldn't be TOO bad, but I digress.) Anyway, I guess I was naive in thinking I was going to change people's minds on a site that celebrates 50 story condos on every corner and thinks that Toronto should ban cars from downtown, just because other city's (in Europe!) have done it.

One of the members posted a very unflattering picture of Leona Helmsley in comparison to me! I think he dug her up to make the comparison. I resented being compared to her, at least not in that unflattering light!

I noticed today that anyone who invested in the TSX 5 years ago would still be up almost 20%, so long term is the way to go. I blame the internet because once upon a time you had to wait until your quarterly statement came from the bank to see how much you'd made (or lost.) Now you can watch it almost hourly. It's hard not to get emotional when the market is up 600 points one day, then down 800 the next.

Color me stupid, but how can GM (or anybody) 'buy' Chrysler just to get their hands on the $11b cash? Won't Cerberus want $11b, plus whatever else they think Chrysler is worth?

Calm down, 68! I was banned from UT tonight for saying a lot less than that! PCS loves to ride people (well, not literally that I know of). I wouldn't take hsi jabs personally.

Hey boys and girls: I just got banned from my first forum. I feel like I just got voted Prom King! I've been hanging around Urbantoronto.ca for a few months. Boy, are they a bunch of tree huggers! You guys would HATE it there. First of all, most of the site is based around pictures of big holes in the ground, which is what Toronto is becoming these days, but almost from the beginning I endured personal attacks (and was even called a piece of $h! for being gay), all the while the mods did nothing. I tried to take the high road and did get sympathetic PMs from a couple posters, but although I read most of the threads (as I do on C&G), I found myself only posting on threads to do with banning cars from Toronto or people shooting their mouths off about GM, etc. Perhaps I was a trifle too opinionated (eh, FOG?), but the personal attacks were uncalled for. I guess I should have known: while I was combing through the back-threads last summer in an effort to catch up with what I'd missed, I came across several references to people being banned. The general consensus was that those people didn't have the right opinons. Well, now I guess what those opinions are. So, today I got banned FOREVER . Reason: being an 'idiot.' (Geez, don't get so technical!) I never resorted to name calling, I never attacked any of the posters, I merely expressed my opinions that Toronto has the Worst Traffic in the Known Universe and that I think closing down arterial roads for fun festivals is a bad idea. Now, I know there have been some sensational people banned from C&G in the past and I also know that some people have voluntarily left, but I honestly don't understand how simply disagreeing with people can get a person banned! Have any other folks on C&G been banned from other sites? C'mon, 'fess up. I wanna know!

That's what passes for logic on WallStreet these days. That is what all the graduates of economics classes are being taught. The banks will loan you enough money to hang yourself - and then when you do hang yourself, they get all pissy about it.

The money has never been 'free.' General Motors gives cash to GMAC up front and GMAC has been able to borrow money with that cash and make profits on the hedge. But that only worked when GMAC could 'borrow' at 6 or 7%. Now that they are forced to buy at a much higher rate, it no longer makes sense to GM to keep propping them up. Plus, the number of defaults has skyrocketed and that is somelthing neither GM or GMAC can predict. It's all about controlling the long term expense side of things. When GM was profitable and money was cheap, nobody gave a damn about long term exposure. Now long term exposure is everything.

Have you noticed them digging in the backyard lately?