mmrmnhrm

Yes. Just ask Rosa Parks what one tired woman with sore feet can accomplish.

Ehh, don't get too worked up. Deep down, I'm a libertarian and a capitalist. The oil companies are doing nothing more than providing their product at a price the world is willing to pay. Don't get me wrong, there's a certain glee in using the pumps half as often as I used to, but as Akula's 40mpg non-hybrid shows, you can do pretty good without all the fancy kit. My primary concern right now is whether this is a good time to pick up some oil stocks for dividends, or sit back and expect a sell-off in a month or two. Trends say buy, historical cyclicality says sell

They're making a huge-ass profit because they expected to be selling the stuff for a lot less than what they're actually getting. Cold economics... If oil were $5/bbl, it wouldn't make sense to drill in a lot of places that have only marginal quantity/quality. So the company just lets them sit. When oil starts reaching the break-even point on a field (let's say $20/bbl), they may build a couple rigs in the expectation that the field will soon become profitable when oil reaches $30/bbl. But then when you have 2 billion people (China + India) suddenly demand the stuff, plus religious nut jobs gunning people down and blowing shit up, the company can suddenly sell for $70/bbl, making $40/bbl of absolute pure profit they never expected to have. They'd have sold at $30/bbl, cause it would have made them money. But when folks are lining up to pay over twice that, why shouldn't they? Business is there to make money for their shareholders (are you one?), not to give people cheap gas.

Nononono... the first one was made by Hattori Hanso. The second wasn't

No, because then all the other drivers would whine even more about her weight advantage. I'm with the rest of the gang, though... she hasn't had the car or the pit support that someone like Andretti gets, and yes, I'd also be in line to hit it

What's with everyone running 93/94? As I understand things, the added octane doesn't do anything for mileage, it's just an anti-knock enhancement. Do your engines actually require the stuff, or is there another reason for the pricey stuff?

I've still got all my socket A gear, ready for someone to take it off my hands. See the thread in 'garage sale' a couple weeks back.

Here... have a whole crapload. AMD has lost the raw performance crown. Period. I never said they lost the performance-for-price crown, and with the price slashing about to happen, odds are those sparklies will shine even better. As you say, Core Duo will be a "look at my chip, cause I have.... compensation issues" piece, and it'll stay that way for quite a while as Intel first ramps up production, then milks it for margin.

Same show, by the look/sound/feel. Why can't we get this stuff here?

Pony, sit tight and wait about 2-3 weeks, or possibly just after labor day. From everything I've read, Intel's new Conroe microarch is laying waste to everything on the market. Pentium4D (Netburst) cores are pretty much obsolete, and AMD's lost the performance crown. The upside to that, Athlon64 cores are going to get pretty cheap really quick, and AMD has had the price/performance crown for quite some time. This is only going to make it sweeter.

Only the japanese could have come up with something like that. Frackin' hilarious :-D

DarkFormula might have something to say about that The aircraft carrier (my 96 Sable, all stock, 3.0 DOHC V6) averaged around 24 city/27 hwy when I unloaded it back in March with 125k on it. If I had the time, tools, space, and know-how, I'm pretty sure I could have gotten at least another 75k out of it, but alas, I have none of that, and reliability is a big thing for a one-vehicle apartment.

Should be able to find the answer on http://www.oplates.com. My guess would be that you'd end up getting hit for the full amount again, since you'd have to buy another pair of plates with the new wording anyway.

I do about 35-40 miles weekdays for my commute (Dublin/Delware). Curious what the "maintenance" items you have in mind are. Eli's taken a look under the hood and sees some possibilities for a CAI, and I know a couple of folks out in Cali are trying to figure out how to get a larger/less restrictive exhaust setup. Not too keen on taking the cat itself out, though. I'm still mixed on the K&N air filter... on the one hand, it seems like everyone loves them, but it apparently lets an awful lot of stuff through, too (see Tech help thread). I'll probably wait until next year before doing anything really major to it, assuming I don't get sidetracked buying a house or something like that.

I'm still waiting for BuckeyeGT to post his numbers. The 50.6 lifetime for me is somewhat misleading since the car's just now getting broken in. Last three tanks have been 54/60/56.

Do you now, Buckeye?

It's been said a number of times about these refs already, but it bears repeating. *ANY* time more attention is being placed on the officials than on the game itself, there is something seriously wrong. The officials are supposed to be, for the most part, invisible. Sure, you gotta call obvious crap (elbow shots and head butts, cleating and flagrant offsides), but if a team gains nothing by an infraction, you let it go. Don't make yourself an object of attention, then pan it off as being "I was just following instruction." Take that British ref... he's arguably one of the best in the game, but he was so worked up and distracted by having to make questionable calls that he didn't even realize he gave someone three yellows (2Y = 1Red for you non soccer types).

do a google search for 'klite codec'. the 'lite' pack will bring along just about any codec needed to play anything these days encoded with the avi or mpg wrappers. the 'mega' pack will also let you play mov and rm without downloading quicktime (which now forces itms on you as well) or realplayer (which i've never trusted since their download helper fiasco).

http://www.stuffonmycat.com/media/2/20060704-Chloe.jpg

I probably answered one of their fifty-odd shoplifting questions wrong, since even today, I've never been fired.

I did both sales and merch while in college. The pay, as Alex says, is crap, and that's assuming you can even get through their automated telephone interview (which they forced me to take one summer, despite having worked there two christmas seasons and one summer already... that was the end of my Best Buy career, as they had "... other, more qualified applicants." There wasn't a single technical or sales question on there!)

I'd hit it Sorry, brings back too many painful memories of elementary school girls and their Strawberry Shortcake lookalike contests. Well, until one decided she'd had enough, and went Punky Brewster on the rest of 'em.

There's just something inherently wrong about the General Lee being repainted and made into a cruiser.

Careful if you go that route... Carriers tend to charge an extra premium for any lapse in coverage (I carried one day of "double" coverage when switching from Nationwide to Geico to prevent this), and if you get one of those beautiful letters from the state saying your license came up in their random "prove you've got insurance" sweep, you're fscked.

1 micron is 0.001mm, and according to http://vettenet.org/knfilter.html, the ISO 5011 test has particles ranging up to 200mics. I get where Rice Eater's coming from... something .001mm big is likely going to just get sucked in, combusted around, and then blown right back out without ever causing a problem. Something .2mm, though, might get stuck on the oil film and scrape along a little bit. So the question of the day becomes "How big is too big?"