Fleeting fame and more.
 

"Admittedly, she's attractive. But damn, can't the Queen roll in anything better than a 1951 Plymouth convertible?"


How can this slide?

It is clearly a mid sixties Lincoln Continental. I'm no expert, but it appears to be a 1967. That is a VERY nice car! One of the last four door convertibles, with rear suicide doors.

Stupid American's don't even recognize their own best work . . . no wonder the world thinks so little of this country.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

They don't teach how to drive a stick in Driver's Ed, so you have to either a) buy one and learn as you go or b) have a nice friend / family member who is wiling to listen to the crunching gears in order to learn how to drive one. I took route a), since my parents wouldn't let me anywhere near their cars. I had no idea that six months later I'd be moving from one of the flattest parts of the country to one of the most hilly. I'm pretty sure that I'm not a lesbian, though I can't imagine going back to automatic. One of the things that might prevent me from getting a hybrid vehicle is that I'm pretty sure that they're all automatic.

I like sticks
 

I learned on a stick, I currently drive a stick, and my overpowered car wouldn't be the same fun with an automatic. As for my sexual orientation, I also own a car with an automatic transmission.

As for knowing how to drive stick just in case, I have taught many people how to drive stick, and I have never failed to be impressed by my effectiveness as a driving instructor when I am drunk.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Fuckers. That's what I am afraid of. You buy a car and spend a couple of years training the tranny and then some needle dick rides the clutch and grinds the gears. Drive it like you stole it but don't steal it unless you can drive it. And you know that they aren't gonna be careful about avoiding minor bumps and scrapes (they might actually park near other cars :eek: ). And they'll probably drive it in the rain. And they might eat, drink or smoke in it. :shock: And not wash it at least once a week. I just got the cold sweats and had to look out the window to make sure that my baby is still there.

Stupid Americans
 

Oh, the irony of the misused apostrophe.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Uh, I live in metro Atlanta --- gridlock capital of the world no matter where in these 13 counties you go. My hubby drives an automatic and his patrol car is, of course, an automatic and he says that I am nuts for driving a stick. I dunno, the traffic doesn't bother me. Having my car shift for me would drive me bonkers.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Yeah! It's pricks like that who give car thieves a bad name!

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I do also (have we managed to find another tediously dull FB poll topic?). My dad did also. He never taught me to build an igloo though. Dad imparted life skills for me - stick shift, NFL viewership, golf, chess, poker, cheap beer, bourbon (ok, I never learned to enjoy the last one).

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Originally posted by mmm3587
Maybe I have just been lucky, but I think you also need to be careful what part of town you park your car in. At home: in garage. At work: in patrolled garage. The only time I worry about my car being stolen is when I am out shopping or for pleasure, but I just try to be careful.

I think that Chicago is pretty safe from actual car theft, but who knows.

We don't drive to those types of things here in Chicago.

All Kobe All the Time
 

EAGLE, Colo., Aug. 21 — A judge has made his decision about whether or not he will unseal documents in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case that could include statements from his accuser and witnesses about what happened in his hotel suite six weeks ago, NBC News reported Thursday. The judge said his decision is currently being typed up by clerks and will be faxed to “the interested parties. It will be made public when the parties confirm receipt of the ruling. The judge said he expects that to happen late this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

The judge would be an idiot to unseal these documents, but in case he does, I'm sure you people will want to post here so I can see them.

your link

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I was convinced to buy an automatic by my ex, who thought I would hate rush hour driving with a stick. I missed the stick. I now have a stick shift and an ex husband. Live and learn.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, dull poll, my fault. How about life skills imparted to you? Never stick your tongue (or any other sensitive part of your body like nips) to anything metal when the temperature is below freezing (this applies to your home's freezer as well) or over 90F (this applies to those doors on your fireplace too and yes, asscheeks are sensitive).

edited to note that this was imparted to me, at one time or another, by both of my parents with the "don't let your nips get stuck to a steel shed in winter" being imparted by my mother after a few bloody marys after which she explained the importance of checking for poison ivy before fucking in the wooded area next to a fairway.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

ohmygod! You're like the half-sister I never had. Except substitute bowling for golf - dad didn't golf. But he did make me gap the spark plugs and change the oil when I was 10.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Prior to law school I lived in Philly for a year. I had a car with well over 100k miles on it. It was a beat up old oldsmobile station wagon. If it was worth 800 dollars I would be surprised. I lived in a very nice neighborhood (as nice as such things can be in Philly.) One evening I parked it on the street, came down the next morning, no car. I wandered around a little while wondering if maybe I had parked it somewhere else. I called my dad, it technically was his car, and I told him I thought it was stolen. His response was who would want it?

Called the cops, reported it stolen. Several months later we got a ticket for abandonment of the car, it was in NE philly somewhere. I called the police and was like WTF it was stolen. They insisted it was recovered. I said if it was recovered, I would have it, yes?

They realized they had never notified us it was found. When it was found it was in perfect condition but for some damage to the locks. By the time we got the ticket and it was towed to a lot, it had been stripped.

Boy was I pissed, cause obviously I hadn't insured it against being stolen, and I couldn't at that point in time, afford a new car.

I guess some kids needed a ride from Society hill to NE Philly, because they sure weren't using it for anything else.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I don't drive stick.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Get me drunk and I'll teach you.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Alright, I don't usually admit this but I got the bowling too. Divorced parents, quality time with dad. Backgammon and how to smoke a pipe also. Weekends at dad's always ended badly when I got home to realize that everything I took over there reeked of stale pipe smoke.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I've pulled that move on a few occasions also. Though I'm not sure which is worse - drunk driving or driving while clutch-knowledge-impaired.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Do I have to teach you anything in return?

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

And when we do, it's not like we're just parking our cars in a big, free lot or on the street. Compared to just fighting with my insurance company, I would love to go head to head with a valet service who got my car stolen. Or deal with the parking garage if it happened there. It's not like you just roll up to a place and there is a nice little space outside. As if. But still, I've had cars broken into a couple of times and vandalized a couple more, but never actually stolen when I have parked them on the street.

I'm guessing that the north side of Chicago just doesn't have the car theft problems that Detroit, New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles have. It's just anecdotal, but I can't even think of anyone who has actually had a car stolen in Chicago. I hear about it happening in those other cities, though.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I've been in the back seat of my own car, trying to instruct another drunk person how to drive a clutch. The rocking back and forth makes you feel queasy and eventually, no matter how drunk you are, and no matter how long you've been passed out, you end up having to drive. Unless, of course, you're RP.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

Swear-to-god we lived in the same house! Dad smoked a pipe for a few years and let me take a puff when I was like 8 or something. Made me sick as a dog. Never wanted to smoke after that. But yeah, your hair, your clothes just stink of it. At least he never got into cigars.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I vote yes.

Gangbangers in Honda Insights
 

You'll be pleased to know that the Hondas both come in a manual transmission, although according to a review I read a while back, one issue is that you have to follow what the car tells you for the efficient recharge of the batteries, which means shifting at non-intuitive times, like downshifting at speed.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

I also vote yes. And I vote that you are both drunk when you do.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

had mine stolen in Detroit visiting a client- (GA question do you bill for the "waiting for police to show up after client meeting" time? ) cops didn't bother to show uo ever, and after 3 days of trying to get a police report my insuirance company just told me to stop trying. it'd fix the car without one.

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

:blush:

(Who called this a boring poll?)

Gangbangers in Honda Insights
 

By all accounts, the gas-electric hybrid platform is tailor-made for a CVT, and the manuals and conventional automatics will probably die out in favor of the CVT if the hybrid concept takes off.

This makes sense to me, since the point of the hybrid is to permit a computer to strike whatever balance gives the driver optimum power from all of the variables. If you wanted to tell the car exactly what to do, efficiency be damned, you wouldn't be driving a hybrid in the first place.

Gangbanged
 

My impression of Detroit is based largely on the various RoboCop movies. And if a city's criminals are able to fuck up an armor-plated cyborg with massive guns and other bad-ass shit, I steer clear of it. Even more so if the airport looks like it should be in Kinshasa. Although I hear the new terminal is much nicer.

Anyway, I always love teaching people, especially women, to drive a stick. An hour or so is all it takes, and then she'll remember you for the rest of her life just because you taught her how to drive a stick. It also has a high frequency of getting you laid; there must be some coming-af-age book or movie that involves a young lass being deflowered and taught to drive a stick by the same guy. Plus, there is a lot of opportunity for doublespeak and hand-touching and the like. Golden!

Gangbangers in Honda Insights
 

Please explain this CVT concept to me. I saw reference to it on the Stalin board. Has anyone driven a car with it? Is is sluggish compared to the old automatic?

Manuals will never totally die out b/c of the band of neo-lesbian women who will fight until their dying day to have the right to drive a stick. Our leader will be Thrashers Fan.

Gangbanged
 

Lloyd Dobler went to law school?

Gangbanged
 

The Ladies Man lives. Goofball.

Gangbanged
 

There is. Say Anything...

Edited to add: Scroll, THEN post. Scroll, THEN post.

To Whomever
 

posted the link to the Office Space game - "Fuck you."

My favorite day so far is February 6th. He writes "My desk is 60 quarters wide."

Gangbanged
 

I'm so embarassed that I had to google this. Mmmmm, Ione.

Gangbangers in Honda Insights
 

My six kitties will be so proud of me. My son will be thrilled to find out that I am a neo-lesbian -- we pal around with my only real friend from work and her girlfriend/fiance and my 5yo son has now begun asking if daddy has to be a man. There is always a collective "awwwww" when he asks when their "mitten" ceremony will be. I was afraid he had learned about disco muffs or something until I realized he meant "commitment." awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Gangbanged
 

that's why it always amazes me when out of town lawyers show up and underestimate us- i mean we survive in that shit-
robocop 1 is pretty close to accurate. there are some minor inaccuracies, they never actually got the spider robocop to work for the DPD because it was hijacked and sold to grosse pointe on the black market- GP uses it at the border checkpuint with detroit. oh , and that one tall building (the Ren Cen) doesn't really have all glass elevators. Robocop 2-4, on the other hand, did take some liberties with the truth,

Gangbangers in Dodge Stratuses
 

You really are my SP. I have always driven a stick and I like guys.

Whenever I drive an automatic, my left foot flops around uncontrollably. I don't think it engenders a lot of confidence in my passengers. Couple that with the right hand accidentally shifting into "N" and "3" all the time, and I think it's just safer for my to drive a stick, fuel efficiency be damned.

Gangbangers in Honda Insights
 

It's like an automatic, only with an infinite number of "stepless" gears. Okay, not technically infinite, but instead of intermeshing gears there's a heavy-duty steel chain that connects two tapered shafts. Think of the gear-and-chain arrangement on your old ten-speed, only with a lot more gears. There are hundreds of potential gear ratios, and a computer is used to find the optimal one for engine load. So you accelerate from zero to 70 without feeling any shifts, and with the tach constantly in the ideal RPMs for power no matter what your speed. With a four, five, or six speed transmission, a lot of your acceleration occurs when the engine is using gear ratio that is inefficiently producing power, 'cause you blow right through the one RPM "sweet spot" per gear.

A person who drives only manuals on principle will not buy a CVT until age 50. But if the automakers get the second-generation engineering right and the chain doesn't break under load, it's an ideal replacement for the automatic. Audi has the best CVT, but they're also in use in some Hondas (including the Civic hybrid) and the Nissan Murano crossover.

Edited to add: There's a pretty good description of them here. The other aspect of CVTs I forgot to mention is that they eliminate the long-term fuel efficiency advantage of manual over automatic. A car with CVT will get around the same mileage as a stick shift car driven the same way, because the "stepless" shifting means there no inefficiency in gearing. I just hope they kill automatics and don't kill manuals, which stay in U.S. production usually because of fuel efficency and repair cost advantages over a traditional automatic transmission.

The auto press generally reports that the only driving difference is that it's weird to hear the engine rev consistently from zero to 70, and it takes some getting used to. C&D reports some problem with the Audi A4 CVT in starts from zero after a year's worth of testing, but Audi will probably work the bugs out.