Blake Noble

I don't know if it qualifies as road rage when you're sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It does qualify as plain old-fashioned assholicism, though.

Anyone have an address? I have a memo I need to mail to her. ... Huh? What's that? Sure, I'll share it with the rest of the boards. Okay, here goes ... Ahem ... Dear Large Sea-Fairing Mammal, Regarding your actions towards an unassuming Duramax owner in the prior month of May 2011, I have to say that your actions are nothing short of crude and shrewish. Then again, it's not surprising considering the level of ignorance and mindlessness a large faction of Prius owners are capable of, with you being included in that faction. If you do feel up to the task of educating yourself, dear large lamb, instead of blindly following the politicians and newscasters you treat as shepherds, step outside and do a little research. If you can muster the energy, open the door, squat down and find the lever in the driver's side footwell marked "Hood". Don't be afraid to pull it. Then hustle those doublewide buns as fast as you can to the front of the car. There should be a large gap above the grille. Afterwards, if you run your hands in that gap, you should find a latch which you will have to push up on. Then you can lift up the assembly mechanics call a "hood" (or "bonnet" in merry old England). Under the "hood", you should see what's called an "engine". Besides helping to move that hunchback lump of lard you consider transportation that "engine" also produces ... wait for it ... EXHAUST FUMES. Sure, you may not use gas when you're idling at a stop light, but when your large nether-regions have to scoot down the interstate at 80 miles per hour to get to the nearest IHOP, it's spewing -- yep, those two words -- exhaust fumes. If you really believe what you preach, you don't need a car. You need a bike. But, alas, it seems I have forgotten someone of plus-sized dimensions such as yourself doesn't want to actually put forth such effort in moving between places. One last thing, here's a tip regarding your appearance: you might think those glasses may make you resemble Janis Joplin and bring you closer to the hippie roots you may believe you have, but also please bear in mind Joplin was not the size of the state she was originally from and hippies generally had better taste in cars (VW Bus, hello) ... if they didn't decide to walk somewhere instead (which is why you didn't see very many plus-sized hippies). Yours (never) truly, Girks Gentley

Tisk, tisk, tisk ... I think you've tortured the poor man enough.

A few I can name: Jeep Patriot (Despite it's shortcomings, you can make one of these off-road worthy. It's also one of the few small SUVs left where you can get a manual transmission and four-wheel drive. The visual connection to the XJ Cherokee is also a plus.) '73 - '75 Cutlass (The '73 442 is actually one of the more attractive colonnade coupes that is almost completely overshadowed by Monte Carlos and Chevelles of the same vintage.) Fiat Coupe (I have an odd appreciation of its use of angles and surfacing. It's an interesting piece of design to look at, even if it's not the best ever.)

It appears worse in person. Would you know an average ballpark on how much it would cost to fix that?

Next $h!ass I see that carelessly catapults a goddamn shopping cart in the direction of whatever car I'm driving, I'm going to kill the f@#king bastard by stuffing my fist down his trachea. Pics:

They're runabouts, especially the Compass which was never really intended to be used as a traditional Jeep. It's there to sop up sales from customers who only buy Jeeps because they like the reassurance that comes with the Jeep name. The Patriot, though, can be a somewhat capable off-roader depending on how you equip it. Watch this video. This one has had a few mods, but it shows the Patriot can work as an off-roader. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z83G_q4rU3M&feature=related

Color me very suspicious. The subcompact and compact Jeep indeed sound fine for what they are as long as Fiat does not skimp on making either vehicle rugged in it's design, build quality, and styling. If any weaker, extremely car-like qualities show through anywhere in those three departments, you can guarantee either vehicle is going to be destined to fail from its introduction. The Liberty replacement, though ... that really leaves me disappointed. Sure, I'm going to be passing judgement on a vehicle that hasn't seen the light of day yet, but provided that the information in the previous article linked to is correct, I don't need to wait until then. The Liberty has been chastised by Jeep-philes since the day of it's introduction as the replacement of the XJ Cherokee for good reason: it was heavy, it was overly complicated, and it discarded one of the toughest engines ever produced. It was styled too erratically, it was basically unproven, it was more expensive than the XJ. As I've personally said in the past, the only time the Liberty came close to being XJ good was with the Renegade package, if you ignore it's hefty curb weight. (However, brand new that SUV would have been far too expensive, so consider it the only Liberty worth taking home used.) Those traits were carried over for 2008's redesign, minus the erratic styling. With the calling of a new mid-sized SUV dawning over at Jeep, Fiat has the chance to do things right again and design a true Cherokee successor. However, they're already botching things up from the git-go by using a completely unibody design. As shown with the XJ Cherokee and Grand Cherokee, there isn't anything wrong with unibody construction for a serious Jeep ... as long as your reenforcing it with a ladder frame, and I can guarantee Fiat will want the Liberty replacement to be taken seriously. Although it may possibly share in some of the same efficiency radiated by the old XJ and GC with it's unibody construction, it will still be, by itself, too weak to handle the off-road stress the XJ and Grand Cherokee can manage without breaking a sweat. All-wheel drive will be another mistake with that complex system sure to add unwanted weight, further decreasing its efficiency on and off road. If Fiat thinks their cock-eyed approach will make for a more fuel efficient SUV, they're in for a gross disappointment. With all of the safety equipment tacked onto the XJ near the end of its run, it still wound up lighter than the Liberty and more fuel efficient as well. Fiat needs to return to the past and learn a little bit from the Cherokee. It's not some AMC-era relic, especially when it's still wiping the floor with whatever you're building to "surpass" it. My ranting aside, if Fiat's second phase of their vision for Jeep is botched anywhere, it could very well ruin the largest majority of their so far solid effort to restore ChryCo.

Google is the devil. How's that?

I think it's coming to the US as a Scion. Yes, the Toyota FT-86 will be coming to our shores as the Scion FR-S FR-S? What's that mean in English? FRieS? FuRS? FuckeRS? If there's one company that should be banned from conjuring up alpha-numeric style names it's Toyota. You'd think they'd stop with TRD ...

I farted and it made my butt cheeks flap together, producing a comical noise in the middle of a silent room. Stealth mode has been denied.

Well, I wouldn't exactly call this a final representation of the finished product. You can spot all of the Modellista sourced garbage such as the front and rear fascias and lower body extentions in that photo. Strip that away and there's a car there that slightly recalls the old Supras and Celicas of yore. I honestly hope Toyota renames it when it comes to American shores. This is a Celica, no question about it. ... Wow. I actually sort of almost kinda care about a Toyota. :/

When the '91 and up full-size SUVs rolled out. A friend of mine had an '88 GMC Suburban with a good ol' Detriot Diesel under the hood.

For what you'd have in the whole thing, I'd honestly just buy a totaled Duramax pickup and a totaled later model Suburban and make one out of the two. Look for a '99 and up Duramax pickup that was rolled over with heavy damage to the cab and body work and look for a '00 and up Suburban with front end damage that lot drives. If you did things right, you would have about $10 to $15k invested and that's about what you would've spent on that truck you found to begin with, right?

Just sit in a Compass. Then you'll be inoculated for life. Nope. While I would never go out and buy a Compass over the other Jeeps out there, I do understand its purpose in Jeep's line-up. It's a Jeep for folks who really don't need a real Jeep. They appreciate the idea of one, but would never use one to its full potential. Its there for the guys and gals who bought Cherokees (or RAV4s ... or Vibes ... you get the idea) in the past but never took them off-road and only needed a Jeep as a means to get to work when the weather was a little too rough for their liking. It's another runabout, like the Patriot minus the off-road capabilities. The recent updates also fixed a lot of the Compass's previous shortcomings. Also considering Jeep had flirted around with the idea of small, more car-like SUVs (albeit in concept form) before the introduction of the Compass, it's really not all too surprising Jeep decided to go through with it in the end. That said, it's still not a Cherokee.

Well, it isn't bad. That doesn't mean there aren't ways you can't further spruce it up, though. Some suggestions: The font used for the band's name bothers me. It's ... too chunky. The effect at the bottom of each letter is nice, though, but maybe just a touch cheesy the way it's executed overall. Go for something slightly more streamlined. Fade the top and bottom edges of the photograph so that the transitioning between the dead space above and below it aren't so jarring. Use some other color besides lilac for the font used for the date. I dunno. Just bouncing around a few ideas.

It's not that bad at all. There's a very, very faint echo of the last-gen Neon SRT-4 in there somewhere.

My unemployment didn't last long. I'm "unofficially" earning a few bucks with a job I have lined out for tomorrow morning. Let's see how long this lasts.

Agreed. Trust me, I've had almost four long years after high school to really think and learn about things. Read my response to Camino above regarding my outlook on pursing a more "creative thinking" type of job. Although it's what I was pretty much made to do, it won't provide me with much of a future right now. Regarding a sales job, I personally would prefer to completely avoid that line of work in the future. Working a sales position at Guitar Center was almost like selling new and used cars and I say that with absolute seriousness. For the guys here who are in that line of work, does the term "sales ups" sound familiar? The whole thing has left me feeling a little ... sticky. I should also add I mean what I'm saying with no disrespect, but I know it's a line of work I could never stay in the rest of my life. You all have my sincerest empathy. I think I'll be looking into what the medical field can offer me for awhile. The shear magnitude of job security in that field in this state alone has been enough to grab my attention. I'm hesitant to go that low again, unless of course it was a some stupid-ass, once in a life time deal that would land me a very nice Jeep or other interesting 4WD SUV for next to nothing. Remember, I bought my Cherokee for $450 and I wound up biting off more than I could chew in the end. I'm not saying no, just saying I'm trying to find that happy medium first. I know $1,500 might get me something decent if I look hard enough. There's a lot hinging on the Challenger going or staying, though. I should know what happens over the course of the coming weeks. I've got the height -- I stand 6 feet even -- but not the weight or muscle/muscle tone. I only weight a scant 160 to 165 pounds. Funny considering my diet would probably give someone cholesterol just thinking about it. Chalk it up to my freak metabolism. I guess I've been eating absolutely terribly unhealthy foods for so long my body must have adapted to it. I've considered the possibility of that, but as it stands right now I don't think it'll have to go to those extremes. I can't rule anything out, though. Nope. Not yet. If it's still around by the time I have a few minor things sorted out, I might be getting in touch.

Thanks Camino. I've always been attracted to art in general, in whatever form it should come to me in. It's my ultimate hobby. Music, writing, drawing, graphic design ... the list has no end. I initially tried to pursue a degree in graphic design during my previous swing at college. My previous job and, to a far more milder degree, my doubts over finding successful work with that degree ultimately killed my hopes of having a job involving it, leading up to my dropping out. Going for a journalism degree was something else I've considered in the past, but it's more of the same song and dance: exactly how far will it take me? I suppose I'll eventually find a way to make money at my hobby, one way or another. The only challenge, of course, is to prevent the business end of things from soiling what fun you get out of it. I suppose if I can't find a way for the two to co-exist near harmoniously, then I'll drop that pursuit of mine. As a related footnote, being around guitars constantly was the only real highlight of my old job at the end of the day, although my opportunities to play what few interesting guitars they stocked was extremely limited. It was also nice to be able to chat about old guitars (I have a knack, it seems, for old Fender and Gibson guitars and old amps like balthazar has with old stuff in general) with a small number of guys who were passing though there. I'd love to own a vintage guitar shop one day, though, regardless ... which brings me to my number one goal in life: own my own business and be my own boss by the time I'm around 35 or so. If I succeed at that, then it would be the same as early retirement in my opinion. The thought of working has never bothered me, but I will admit that I would much rather work on my own terms. I wasn't born to follow until I'm old and gray; everyone who knew me when I was old enough to speak and walk will tell you that.

Disclaimer: this is all personal rambling. If you want to get to the meat of the story, skip the prologue. Well, as I mentioned here before, I'm entering what has turned out to be a transitional period in my life. On October 18th, I quit my job after a two-weeks notice. I had been working for Guitar Center for almost a year (about three weeks shy of that mark) earning minimum wage plus commission where it was a sales-based job. While the job was not physically taxing, it was very mentally demanding and the constant long hours left me feeling trapped and continuously fatigued. It was a very financially unpredictable job as well because of the country's unbalanced economy, and towards the end I was lucky to break even driving about 40 miles one way to work (in all honesty, I had to spend money I had saved up to work my last four weeks there). The financial strain of me quitting my job has turned out to be considerably less than when I was working, simply because I no longer have to spend half a grand every month on 89 octane gasoline. The Challenger had a mere 13 miles on its odometer when I got it back in April. Now it has a staggering 17,000 miles only six months later, meaning the original warranty would have been completely used up sometime during the summer of this coming year. I have to wait about four more days before I really know what my final paycheck will look like. It could go either way and a part of me wonders if I'll get screwed out of a little bit of money. I'll be looking things over with a fine-toothed comb. Next month, I'll get to work on re-enrolling in college. I'm planning on going year-round so that I can earn a four-year degree about a year early. Going into college full-time at the age of 21 seems like a late start, and it is, but I also know that I'm more capable now of flying through college than when I first graduated high school. When I went to college for a semester last year, I had about a 3.0 GPA and I didn't really even have to try. I consider that a benefit of my post-high school graduate education in the real world for four years. Now I'm more apt to take college seriously without the perspective of a teenager. I'm hoping that this time, I won't have to finance my entire education as well. After I sort out my education, I'm going to see if my sales experience may possibly land me a job at a local bank. I wouldn't mind being a teller. So now, the only thing I have to deal with before my re-enrollment is what to do about a car. Chances are I won't be able to keep the Challenger, although I've been thinking of ways to keep it should I have difficultly selling it. Assessing the situation, I know that I could sell it myself for $23,000 and I could sell it to a dealer and only make the payoff on it. It's all somewhere in that ballpark, anyhow. I previously boasted that I came out to the good on it either way regardless and, yep, once again I have to eat crow. That's fine. I should've known how many miles I would wind up racking up and accounted accordingly for that before I ran my mouth. So, regardless if it somehow stays or if it goes, I'm going to need another car. The Jeep Cherokee I had was originally bought to supplement the Challenger for going to work and to get around in during the winter months, and possibly replace it in a worse case scenario. However, that didn't work out because of what it would've taken to repair the engine. Money is tight, so I'm going about this in a very Top Gear Challenge sort of way by setting a budget and undercutting that budget every way I can. Being resourceful, I can scrape together about $2,000 and still be okay for a little while. So what am I mainly considering to pick up, all things depending? Here's one option: http://lexington.craigslist.org/cto/2661412625.html Here's another: http://lexington.craigslist.org/cto/2642898515.html Again, we'll see how it all plays out.

Eh, for the same price of a set of good winter tires and rims on a nice car, I'd rather buy a beater. (Those Hertiage rims probably were a few hundred bucks and the tires probably will be too.)

I so badly want to place this car in the same light as the '67 Eldo, but I can't. If you want to correlate history to the present, you definitely can spin it that way. The Eldo was a big, cushy personal luxury car. The XTS is a big, cushy personal luxury car. The Eldo was a front-driver and was the original, sole front-driver in Cadillac's line-up when it was redesigned for '67. The XTS is a front-driver and will be the only front-driver (car-wise) in Cadillac's lineup when it's trotted out. The '67 Eldo was supposed to be the pinnacle for technology in Cadillac's line up back then and the XTS, in a way, fills that role now. However, this car just doesn't stir the soul the same way that '67 Eldo does. Just take in the styling, for starters. The Eldo looked cutting edge back then. The XTS doesn't with it's sterile, neutered aura. God knows the XTS won't possess any personality like the '67 Eldo did either. It almost smacks with a peculiar undertone of Roger Smith-era malice. Just wake me up when they build the ZT-whateverthehelllettertheymightuse.

I personally loved the Magnum and came close to buying one before I bought the Challenger. I don't much care for sedans, aside from a select few. I do, however, care a great deal about wagons and coupes. Wagons offer unlimited versatility and, especially in the case of the Magnum, just look damn cool. I will admit that I see where the Magnum failed. It wasn't because it was a wagon, no. It was because it was first offered as a Intrepid replacement, and that was an idea doomed for failure, hence why ChryCo rushed to introduce the Charger sedan to the market. Add to the fact that it looked too closely related to the Chrysler 300 it was parked next to on dealer lots and the Magnum's fate was definitely sealed from that point. There was quite a bit of potential with the Magnum that was squandered thanks to the dunderheads from Daimler who were running the show at the time.

I'm doomed to live a involuntary celibate lifestyle. Oh well. Romantic love is such an insipid idea anyway.