Blake Noble

Whatever. How about this? I don't buy the PR here. Not a bit. Additionally, foreign Coca-Cola and foreign Pepsi (aka Pepsi Throwback) simply tastes better when it's made with cane sugar versus when it's made with Highly Fucked-up Corn Sludge. I can hardly stomach to drink Pepsi when it's made with HFCS. It's just far too sweet and it tastes horrible after you've had the can open for 15 minutes. Coke isn't as bad with HFCS, but it has a noticeably processed taste versus foreign Coke made with cane sugar. I'm glad Meijer decided to sell Coke with cane sugar in my area. I always buy the stuff by the case full when I have the chance and leave the HFCS garbage in the dust.

And more Craigslist stupidity emerges: http://atlanta.craigslist.org/sat/cto/1952055737.html How about this? Throw in the girl, and I'll take the car. I'll just be buying the car for the girl, but I could sell the T/A when I get back home and recoup my losses ... then lose my recouped losses on maintenance for the girl (but, ayyy, everybody happy).

http://louisville.craigslist.org/cto/1952860302.html Uh, okay? How can you own a car or truck and not know it's a fucking diesel during the duration of your ownership of the vehicle? Jesus.

Well, it did go somewhere and it did go pretty far. That's the point I was trying to make. It wasn't like Ed Cole doodled a new Corvair on a napkin at a drive-in, daydreamed about it for a moment, shook the thought out of his head, then went straight to working on the Vega. Well, GM would have had to develop a brand new flat-six or make extensive upgrades to the existing one to make it last through the '70s and beyond. Porsche was determined to make it work and their air-cooled 911 lasted until the '90s. It had a future but GM didn't have much interest in continuing on with air-cooled engines mostly due to their degree of cost effectiveness. This is pretty much why they had pretty much picked the water-cooled Chevy II inline-four for the third-gen car. It takes a lot of bad PR for an auto company to really take notice (I don't see Toyota leaving the US market after the upteen millions of recalls they've had this year in this country). GM wasn't letting it get to them that bad if they had let the third-generation car almost make it to a working prototype stage. Like I said earlier, what it really boiled down to was Cole's lack of interest and his enthusiasm for making the Vega happen. As to what degree DeLorean's input factored in, it wasn't really all that much. I think he approved the change from square driving lights to round ones, per some dealer's suggestion. That's really about all. He didn't exactly inherit the Vega program from Cole as Cole did indeed oversee the car the whole way through, from start to finish. DeLorean was basically used as something of an ambassador who was communicating between GM Corporate, who was really developing the car, and the Chevy crew, who didn't have much interest in helping with the car (and indeed DeLorian himself never liked the car; he thought GM was betting on too much with too little concerning the Vega). This is true. I think it's a little more than that. As previously stated here and in the Hemmings article, the final '73 Grand Am-esque design was only two-weeks away from going into the prototype stage. It may be far from a pre-production car, but it's still close enough to flirt from a small distance. Cole put a stop to the program at the last minute and basically directed all of the attention and funding to the Vega, which is really what ultimately killed the Corvair. It wasn't just and only just Ralph Nadar. That's pretty certain. During the "Unsafe at Any Blah, Blah, Blah" bullshit in 1965, it's interesting to note that Chevy sold about 230,000 Corvairs. In 1966, Chevrolet still sold 100,000 of 'em. It wasn't until 1967 there was this massive drop off in sales totals that was due to many factors, not just Nadar's little novel full of unabashed drivel. You also have to factor in that the Corvair was a car intended to compete with VW Beetles and other popular import cars at the time. Marketing it against the Mustang was a horribly massive mistake from the start, a real waste of money. Agreed.

Wrong. The third-gen car almost made it to the prototype stage. Wrong. GM was going to go with a water-cooled inline-four from the Chevy II Nova to replace the costly and questionable Corvair flat-six. Bingo. That's what really killed the car.

Awesome, you found them. Again, I have to ask, what really killed the Corvair? We know for sure it wasn't Ralph Nadar. GM didn't care enough to shake a drop of piss out in a bucket for him, that's obvious. I think the answer to my question would be Ed Cole. Cole pulled the plug on the third-generation Corvair sometime during mid 1968. Interestingly, just a short time later sometime around July or August 1968, Ed Cole initiated work on what was GM's first corporate engineered car, the Chevrolet Vega. Digging further, one of the first completed clay-rendered design proposals that surfaced in September 1968 for XP-887 bore resemblance to the Corvair 2+2 that you'll see on page 5 of the Hemmings article, as did XP-849 somewhat (see on page 1 of the article). The Vega also had the same F-R layout as XP-873, a Corvair-related project. See the trend of recycling here? So there you have it. Ed Cole simply lost interest in the Corvair and decided that he wanted to waste his time with developing the Vega. That's what killed America's most innovative small car: Ed Cole and the Chevrolet Vega. You could also interpret the Vega as being somewhat of a half-assed Corvair replacement since they duked it out with the same segment of import competition and because both the Corvair and Vega were projects that Ed Cole most actively participated in and constantly oversaw. I might additionally note that Ed Cole wanted to bring the Vega to production in just 24 months from when he kicked everything off in 1968, so that also coincides with the third-gen Corvair's canceled introduction date of being in the 1970 time frame (although the Vega was billed as being new for '71). Still touching on this note, Corvair production ended during 1969 and the Vega's introduction was during the following year. That's some nice timing there. Wonder why it was so nice? Sadly, no one at Chevrolet shared Ed's enthusiasm for the Vega like they did the Corvair. Additionally, you can also make note that the Vega was the car that sort of foreshadowed all of the BS that was to come at GM. That little car really was the beginning of the end for a big automotive giant, the first sign that they were slowly losing their way.

I don't know what it is, but I've always liked the styling of the second-generation Corvair. GM was going to continue the model for the 1970 model year, actually. They had designs for the new car that closely mimicked the future A-Body cars. (If you can locate the photos I've seen of the mock-ups, post them! I haven't been able to relocate them.) The car may have had a bad rap thanks to Nadar, but GM was large enough and profitable enough at the time to save it. So what really killed the Corvair? They were going to press on with the car even after the Camaro came to duke it out with the Mustang. They obviously still could see a place for the car or else they would have pulled any future work on the third-gen car completely during the second-generation car's lifespan. From what I understand, the third-gen Corvair was pulled sort of at the last minute.

Generally, I have to agree with you. I think Bush was reading to a 5th grade class that day ... I'm not 100 percent positive on that, but I'm fairly certain. If so, most of those kids probably are enrolled in college classes and driving, yes. I was in the 5th grade the day this happened. My elementary school elected not to show us any of the coverage while we were in class. Instead, the staff decided to carry on as if nothing had happened. I do remember parents showing up left and right to get their kids out of there, though, and after a while that sort of alarmed the small lot of us that had to be left there until the day ended. Other than the continuous news coverage that was on just about every cable channel we had (even Cartoon Network, a small, strange detail I remember), there isn't much else I remember.

Assuming Pittsburgh is closer ... '02 Dodge Intrepid SE, 83k, $4995: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1946829848.html '02 "Chrystler" Sebring, 70k, $5145: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1946500638.html '02 Olds Alero, 61k, $4500: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cto/1942647424.html '02 Pontiac Grand Am, 79k, $5900: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1941367956.html '01 Buick Century, 21k, $5900: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cto/1937111728.html (no pics, but ...) '99 Buick LeSabre, 45k, $4050: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1935105104.html

So Pittsburgh is closer? Just asking so that we can help you out a bit with your search. I don't think anyone here wants to see you guys wind up with a Verona.

GM, I think, has made a mistake in labeling this car as a Cobalt replacement. They should have given the Aveo that label and tried to sell this as a entirely new entry for the Chevrolet line-up, not meaning to replace anything, and introduced to bridge a gap in between the Aveo and Malibu, since that clearly is what they intend to really do here judging by the size and pricing. *looks up spy pics* Ohhhh gawddddddddd ... I thought they were going to do away with that craptastic interior?

I actually like that 300M myself. I don't know why. However, it would look even better if the body extensions were color-keyed. The Vent-Shades would have to go. I've never cared to see them on a car for some reason.

Well, it's a Daewoo ... so use your best judgment I guess? Other possibilities? I kept everything under five-grand and tried to keep the mileage under 100k. 2000 Chevrolet Impala, 105k, $3k: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cto/1947716994.html 2004 Dodge Stratus, 88k, $4650: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1947626571.html 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt (I know, I know), 70k, $4995: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1947480141.html 2001 Buick Century, 84k, $4995: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1946838296.html 1998 Olds Eighty-Eight, 85k (according to dealer's site), $4595: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/ctd/1946260447.html 2001 Ford Taurus, 69k, $4500: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/1947476669.html 1998 Cadillac SLS, 97k, $3500: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/1947119563.html 1995 Chevrolet Caprice, 45k, $4000: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/ctd/1946885296.html 1997 Audi A6, 98k, $4595: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/ctd/1946599726.html

The only other program I typically have running in the background while using a DAW is Firefox. Maybe iTunes after everything is completely wrapped up and that's for burning the finished product to a CD or transferring it to an iPod (well, my iPhone now).

If you don't have the same demands I do for a computer, update yours to 7. It only costs a spare $100 bucks. Like I said, I still prefer Win7 to Snow Leopard, but I'm highly annoyed that my PC isn't up to the task that I want it to do out of the box when it really should be all because of a stupid inherit issue. Depending on who you talk to, Microsoft is still living in XP's shadow. And I can see why someone would think that. There wasn't anything really much wrong with that OS at all. Microsoft should have just used XP as a basis for whatever it wanted to replace it with; add more features and update the appearance and then leave it alone.

You did. I have no idea where I had been seeing 30GB at. Indeed. This secondary computer doesn't need to be blisteringly fast. In fact, I'd make a bet and say 1GB would do just fine. My old XP-equipped HP Slimline only had 512MB of RAM and it never game me any problems when I wanted to record something while also running Firefox and a few other programs in the background. I'm not sure exactly what soundcard is in this laptop. It isn't horrible, though. Good point. I'm not terribly worried about this, though, but still you made a good point. Well I brought up ProTools because ProTools M-Powered 8 is a DAW that works specifically with those soundcards. If I'm going to go that far, I might as well go all the way, although I personally dislike ProTools. Open Source/Free programs like I've been using work just as well honestly if you take the time to learn how to use them effectively. I like assigning certain roles to those programs to make the process a bit easier, although I would like a DAW that could effectively combine the roles I've assigned Audacity and LMMS to. Too bad I would have to pay for a program like that (well, I don't, but I don't like using cracked software and "portable" versions currently don't work on 7 ... that's another thing I really liked about XP). I could probably snag a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini for about the same price as the PowerPC version I linked to, probably even cheaper (like I said, I found a C2D MM that had recent OS updates and a recent copy of iLife with Garageband for around the price of a boutique guitar pedal). I'd have to bid on it, but I'm not too worried about that. Typically sellers do mention if they've upgraded those specific things as well. I might actually know someone who did a dual-boot. I'll get in touch with them and see if it corrects the latency issues. I don't see why it wouldn't, but it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

Sounds good then, Z. I'll drive it next, check it out top to bottom. I also have some relatives in the area where I found the truck, so I'll also see what I might could do about a "discounted inspection". My car is worth more than the truck is, even if the truck has less mileage than my car.

I've got an idea. You know all of those fascist groups that want to limit free speech and limit the freedom to choose what you want drive? Those groups that are all butthurt over something they don't really comprehend? Well, how about we send all of those folks waivers for a free round trip cruse to the Bahamas ... and drop them off in Cuba? And don't return for them? Ever? Sounds good to me. We'll have Fox News fund it ... and send them as well, since they paid for it. There's your first stop on the road to American recovery.

$289 bucks gets me 2GB of RAM and a 30GB harddrive. What sound card does that come with? Now, as for that version of ProTools, I wouldn't really need it. The software isn't any better than Reaper and my MIDI keyboard has interfacing that allows me to connect my guitar or a microphone, so I wouldn't really need the FastTrack interface. I'll admit, it's better to have more interfacing, though. If I still wanted to pursue the Mac Mini route, though, I could score one for the price of a guitar pedal (a boutique guitar pedal) if I really wanted to. I would have a gig to a gig and a half less RAM, though. I would have more HDD space however. I'm going to sleep on it.

LOL at whoever thinks you need to spend a grand to record basic frigging demos. Ha, if I could record the sort of music I'm doing with an old four-track recorder and an old microphone as easy as I could with a pedestrian computer and pedestrian open source/free programs, I would, trust me. Sampling is a bitch with just a mic and a four-track, FYI. I don't know who it is, but I do know you're going to disagree with this post. I would save you the trouble of hitting the little red "minus" button if I could. learn2production d00d.

Read that thread, actually. Ultimately, that's just about the same as MTS's solution. And that thought crossed my mind. I don't trust myself enough to install a dual OS on my main computer that I rely on for school however. I rely on my laptop for a very major task and I don't think it makes sense to tamper with it. Proud of it. I'm on a very small budget and I'm only recording and producing demos for a band I play in plus recording and producing demos for a project I've been dabbling with off and on for some time now. So, let me break down the cost of all of that. "a desktop that's modern" - Okay, lets say I choose to buy a used HP Pavilion Elite from eBay. 8GB of RAM, 1TB of storage. The basics are modern. The cheapest one I've found used is $449 bucks. Ouch. And, wait, it has Windows 7. Oh, never mind then. Partition the harddrive off for XP? Experienced or not with the whole procedure, yes, I could do that. There wouldn't be any issue with doing that on this PC, but it's out of my price range. So, ultimately, what's the point? "dedicated sound card from M-Audio" - Typically one of those runs about $100 bucks or more depending on application. And if I have all of that, well I might as well buy ProTools (which I don't care much for) to go with it. Pro-Tools M-Powered 8 runs $299.95. Do I really need all of that to record demos? No. Does any of that fit in with my budget? Nope. That's more than what I need to record demos with anyway. In fact, it's complete overkill. To record good quality demos/recordings, you don't need to spend almost a grand on equipment and software. That's a fact. I can attest to that. Hell, I know a guy who insisted on pressing shit his band recorded in his living room to CD for their last EP (sounds good, man). Don't forget Sabbath -- Sabbath for Christsake -- recorded their demos in a fucking basement and didn't have much gear to go on for the job. So I know for a fact you don't need any of that crap to make a decent recording. What you do need, though, is an understanding of what you're doing and an understanding of how to do what you're doing with what you have. Also, I think a touch of a lo-fi asthetic to music adds a certain emotional depth that you lose with highly polished, over engineered, +4db (make it loud, man!), $5,000 an hour studio recordings. That last bit is just an honest personal preference, though. For the Mac Mini, this is what I would be out: $235 for the Mac Mini itself, Garageband is free, Reaper is free. I don't have to build anything, I don't have to modify anything. I already own everything else I need (microphones, headphones for monitoring, a MIDI keyboard) to do the job. I'm not jumping on any bandwagon here, if that's what you're thinking. I just have a hobby in music. My only PC does not support that hobby (and if it's pedestrian, that's just fine; I've got 3GB of RAM and a 250GB harddrive that serves me just fine, thanks; I may not have 8GB of RAM and 1TB of harddrive space, but my pedestrian laptop ain't really broke, so I don't need to fix it). I might ad plenty of people use pedestrian laptops for recording/constructing demos as well (it worked for Trent Reznor with writing "Year Zero" lolol). Like I said, I don't need an expensive system specifically for recording what I want to do. Actually, if I still had a PC with XP and XP were current, I wouldn't have posted my crazy ass rant or this one. So I found something the Mac is definitely better at out of the box because Windows chose to limit 7's functionality in one aspect. So what? Overall, I still prefer Windows 7 to Snow Leopard. I'm just annoyed that Microsoft intentionally did something stupid and refuse to patch it (it sure does seem like they're refusing to patch it anyway). And, yeah, I still think Microsoft and Apple both suck, minus the dramatics. It's ultimately a case of "who do you think is the lesser of two evils?" And I don't see the point to join the "Screw Windows!" camp or join the "Screw Mac!" camp. If I really had went on a batshit crazy ass rant, I would have said something stupid like, "I shouldn't have bought CS5 for Windows, should have just chucked this POS for a Mac and bought CS5 for Mac" and probably went on about wanting to sell my laptop to fund a fucking new MacBook Pro when that wouldn't have made a bit of sense. Get a grip, man. I know what I want and what I'm going to need to do the job I want without downgrading to XP. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. Didn't anyone tell you not to argue with a crazy person anyway?

Now Macs definitely have the upper hand for recording (read below). I'm buying a used Mac Mini soon. http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Mac-Mini-Desktop-1-25-GHz-1GB-RAM-40GB-HDD-/370426137829?pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item563f1e4ce5 $235 bucks. I'll just use my 22" flat screen for a monitor. It also plays DVDs, too, so I can use it for that. (I don't own a game console, so yeah.) My Toshiba Satellite runs Windows 7 and the latency issues for recording are bad, man. I didn't try recording anything with it until last night and now I'm highly upset. There's about a 500ms delay. 500ms sounds great only if you're buying an MXR Carbon Copy guitar pedal. For recording with a computer, sounds bad man. Not only that, there is no way to monitor what you're recording while you're recording it. Unless you have Beethoven's sixth sense for music or some shit. Yes, I know about "Sounds, Recording, Show Hidden Devices, Stereo Mix". That still doesn't fix the issue. It just allows you to discover it. Apparently, there's a(n intentional) flaw with how Windows 7 calculates the incoming sound. Hurr-durr, good job Microsoft. Microsoft Tech Support keeps bantering about with an "update your drivers, update your drivers" tirade. Yeah, my drivers are up to date. The problem is on your end, guys. Thanks for your world-class support with this issue. It isn't so much the software anymore. I've found Audacity is decent for recording raw audio. Linux Multimedia Studio is good if you need digital instruments for recording. Reaper is awesome for arrangement, mixing, engineering, and overall production. I actually prefer Reaper to Ableton Live. And all of this software is free (if you ignore Reaper's nag screen). How does it taste, Microsoft? You know? When you're sucking off the RIAA? Must be good, huh? That's the whole reason why you did this. I know it. You caved in to those money-grubbing nazis so someone wouldn't rip music from someone else's digital music player using Audacity. So now aspiring musicians and hobbyists have to suffer too. You did this because Lars Ulrich is just a regular Joe who needs $500,000 to pay for his new indoor, below ground/above ground, heated, Olympic class swimming pool with an optional heated Turkish bath. Good job. Of course, I'll still use my laptop for Adobe Creative Suite, classwork, and surfing the web. But I am highly upset that I will definitely have to buy a second computer just for one purpose and one purpose only because Windows 7 has an inherit software issue. EDIT: And here I had the epiphany that Microsoft sucks and Apple sucks and if you choose either one, you fail. So I guess if I have both a Mac and a PC, I'll fail so hard, I'll win? Bill Gates is a turd sandwich and Steve Jobs is a douchebag. One is too cheap to stop cutting his hair using a bowl and the other is too cheap to buy a jean belt.

You guys may want to have your white Honda Accords on stand by. I've found the exact truck I want. Also, could anyone give me some quick pros and cons of the 4.7L PowerTech V8? To know what I'm dealing with, anyway?

That's our company logo. I also plan on hiring Bill Clinton as Chairman. Of course, I'm the CEO.

The S10 is hideous. The Blazer would only look cool as a 2-door, otherwise it's hideous too. What a very ugly old couple.