Blake Noble

Since it seems the Astra's woes are mostly electrical (and expensive), I'm thinking complexity is out for good and pure simplicity is in. Whiz-bang gizmos suck and expensive-to-repair luxuries such as power windows are standard on even a basic Camry. I need a vehicle with two or three moving parts and little computer involvement, a car that's essentially primitive as yesteryear but as recent as yesterday. We'll see what I find on Saturday.

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For next year's act: BV buys a Florida condo and a surplus of bermuda shorts and tapioca pudding.

I'm not worried about taking a loss on the car if I get rid of it. In fact, I know its worth a little bit more than what I paid for it, private party especially. As for the ignition coil, well ... that I could possibly replace myself, but it'll cost me $600 big ones to buy a new one. However, labor costs to replace the coil pack seem to be about as much as the part itself. If it turns out its not the ignition coil and I have to replace the crankshaft senor and two camshaft sensors, then I've spent almost $2,000 dollars if I decide to try and replace the coil myself. While I may have enough money for a $500 beater, I don't have enough money to pay for a $2,000 dollar worst case sceneario, nor do I have any way possible to raise that much money. It's simply not going to happen and, knowing my luck, that could very well be the situation I wind up in. Don't think I'm not considering fixing it, but I tend to think about the worst case scenearios first.

And now we begin the slow unloading process ... Winter's coming and a cash fire could serve to keep me warm during the cold. Etc., etc., etc. Honestly, after these hiccups occurred, I really started to question if I'm honestly happy with the car. Y'know, I don't think I really am. I don't know if I trust the car; I don't know if it's worth investing in fixing a problem that the car may not have to begin with; and I don't know if I still feel the same way about the car now like I did when I first bought it. I'd rather be in something from ChryCo. (mainly a Jeep or an LX car) or maybe a truck. And I still miss the Challenger. I also think it's completely unreasonable and inexcusable that a car only five years old car and with just 40,000 miles is experiencing reliability issues. That's another reason why I'm not sure if I want to invest in this car. Or maybe I should just say f@#k it and start riding a Vespa around and grow some dreadlocks. You live and learn, I guess. What can I say? The first chance I get to trade the car in or sell it and at least break even, it's going. It may not be tomorrow, next week, or even a few months from now, but it isn't a permanent fixture in my driveway. I just hope it holds up until then. I'm currently looking at $500 beaters ... what little is out there, anyway. I almost snagged a running Cherokee with 150,000 miles for $500 the other day, but the guy hauled it off for scrap just before I could get to it. I thought too long about it.

It'll be more than ready for another 200,000 miles after that.

So this is the unofficial story now. Interesting. It seems ChryCo is really in a dilemma about what to do with their next muscle coupe. Here's what I had posted about what I heard back in March. Again, interesting ...

No codes were stored. Now I'm not too sure what I should do. I would hate to wait for it to happen again and the car not restart and I can't exactly afford to start eliminating all of the possible causes. While it may be easy to do simple basic maintenance on this car yourself (spark plug and oil changes), it isn't as easy to do more complex work. EDIT: I guess if it came down to it, I could sell my Gibson SG and my extension cabinet to buy that cheap-o beater and drive it until I manage to repair or unload the Astra. I just don't know what I hate the thought of more; getting rid of my only guitar or having the Astra shit the bed on me on the way to class or work. I would have enough money to buy something like this with the cash I get out of the Gibby ...

When the engine quit, yes. When it restarted, no. It's my understanding that even if the CEL didn't come back on after restarting the engine, the OBD II system still could have stored something related to as to why the engine quit, if it was a cam or crankshaft sensor or whatever. Owning more than one vehicle is in the cards, but it probably won't happen until I'm out of college.

Hmmm ... it's an American bike powered by an Austrian snowmobile engine produced by a company owned by a bunch of Canadians. Sounds to me like you bought something that's only good in a straight line, hellbent on genocide, and runs on maple syrup. Just kidding. It's a nice bike and I do really like Rotax engines. I had one in an old Bombardier Rally 200 ATV and it had a very surprising amount of power for such a small motor. It didn't have any trouble keeping up with quads with twice the displacement.

I'm not quite sure what a "night goat" could be, but it sounds sort of ... bad ass.

I intended to have the OBD II codes read today, but I didn't get around to it. So far, it hasn't quit again but I've been noticing random periods of light sputtering as well as some hesistation under acceleration. I also have to go to work four days out of the week, too. But if it comes down to me having to get rid of the car for whatever reason, I'll just have to figure out a way to manage. I'm not going to let it stress me out.

... For that white Honda Accord. The Astra has started randomly quitting on me. I have absolutely no clue as to why, nor do I know what spurred it on. It first happened four nights ago as I was rounding a turn at 20 mph. I actually didn't even realize the car had quit at first; I was hitting the throttle and realized the engine wasn't responding and the rev counter was at zero. I pulled off to the side of the road and it restarted as if nothing happened. It did pretty much the exact same thing heading home tonight. No warning, nothing. On another note, the gas guage and fuel range read outs no longer sync up. Again, no idea why. Considering there's so few of these things in the States and dealers have to source parts from Opel, I don't expect fixing this to be cheap.

Ohhhh ... you mean like this?* *(Assuming its visible to not only just me.) Anyway, I'm going to close out of Safari now and reopen Firefox before I kill myself.

Yup, yup. I noticed Endgadget did that to a mid-2011 model Air. It's nice to know that if I have Win7 withdrawals, it's not that hard to go back. Either way, at the end of the day it's better than having to soon deal with Windows 8's ... well, everything.

Realizing that dressing up Windows 7 to look like Mac OS is lame, I returned the Sony T13 and bought a MacBook Air. I'm officially a douchey douche McDouchepants now. Oh well. At least I don't have to bitch about Sony's bloatware anymore.

Akerson is pushing to CENTRALIZE, not decentralize... http://www.detroitne...O0103/208180317 I'm sorry. Contrary to what you're reading in the media, it still seems to me that "decentralization" still sounds more like the appropriate term to use overall and is still the overall goal. The only thing that will truly be centralized in the future will be purchasing. GM's foreign interests (GM Europe, GM Australia, GM South Korea) will also have more "centralized" communication with home base in Michigan. That's pretty much where the word "centralization" both comes in and leaves and its just so that GM can keep better track of how it spends its money and what its employees are up to. Read between the lines. It's all there.

Who says the Ute would have to be a high-volume seller here? Sales of the Ute in Australia, South Africa, and the Middle East would be enough to support sales of the Ute here. Like, duh. Like I said earlier, Akerson is pushing hard for decentralization. That means, in layman's terms, taking GM completely global in order for better scales of economy ... which also means that "regional" models like the Ute have to become global. GM won't walk away from the Ute and the profits it generates before allowing it to be sold in North America. Expecting otherwise is ignorant and unrealistic. Once again, the VF platform cars could be produced in Oshawa in the near future and, just to remind you guys, GM is pushing for Chevrolet and Holden to be completely aligned. Take a good hard look at the facts. Seriously. The stars are aligning for the Ute to come to North America, but as with any galatic alignment, it takes a hell of a long time. P.S. Before you necromance the G8 ST from its coffin, just stop and forget that ever happened. What ultimately stopped the Ute from coming here as a Pontiac was the massive cloud of uncertainty engulfing the brand, not that the Ute was wrong for the North American market or that it wouldn't sell a billion units a month.

I suspect the statements about tariffs barring the Ute from coming to the US in the future is little more than a ruse to try and shut down speculation, not only concerning the Ute, but the VF program and where it's going to wind up. GM isn't exactly hidden behind one-way glass and you know GM wants that to change. The bottom line: the Ute has a good likelyhood of coming here. Happily, it's more of a matter of when, not so much if. There's a demand for the Ute here; although fairly small it's strong just the same. And with Akerson pushing for total decentralization, Australia, South Africa, the Middle East, and the UK probably won't be able to keep the Ute to themselves in the future. The Ute will have to journey to new markets, and since North America mostly has fond memories of the El Camino, it's a good fit for the corporate portfolio here. South America would also take to the Ute as well.

Like I said, keep an eye on Oshawa and the VF program. Yes, we won't get the Ute as long as Australia is bulding the VF family of cars exclusively. But, if you backtrack a bit you'll notice that it's strongly hinted that some production of the VF cars will move out of Australia in the very near future. When that happens — when the Chevrolet SS moves to Oshawa, anyway — the chances of the Ute coming to America will increase. I also find it interesting that, locally, the Kentucky State Police has begun to phase out their Crown Victorias in favor of the Caprice, with 125 units being purchased — 100 for use by the KSP and 25 for use by the Commerical Enforcement Division. It's my understanding that the KSP was actually considering holding out for the Taurus Interceptor because of the Caprice's Made-In-Australia origin. I have to wonder what changed their mind?

I don't think it's quite that one-sided, that cut and dry. Personally, I'd keep an eye on Oshawa.

I'm just suprised Dan Rather agreed to make a cameo.

GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE seriously, tho. happy birthday dude.

Although I still haven't replaced the dock icons, the new layout is pretty much finished. It's a Windows, Mac, and Android orgy. I don't know if I want to call it MacWindroid or Chardee MacDennis. As for new icons, I'd like to have something that straddles the line between iOS icons and Windows 8 tiles. Oh, and DF, here's that background from earlier if you'd like to use it.

Ohhh yeah. Those are some wicked shelf clouds in the background. I snagged it from an imageboard (yeah), where it was uploaded by someone who more than likely snagged it from DeviantArt. I still need to find a nice orb for the taskbar. The one in the screen print works fine, but it looks terrible when you click it. And since I have to use that RAM hogging Rainmeter app to keep my nifty shut down buttons below the dock, I need to find a cool clock and system status readouts so at least it's more worth while.