DukeNukeEm

So the starting OL now is: LT- Bushrod LG- Slauson C- Garza RG- Long RT- Mills Aside from Garza, who is probably the worst C (if not offensive lineman) starting for any NFL team right now, that's a complete turnover at 4 positions. I cant put into words how idiotic it is to keep Roberto Garza around but at least they have the right idea. Would've rather seen Webb cut but they're not paying him anything now so whatever.

Without getting too far ahead of myself this time next week I'll be starting my career in long distance trucking. No more juggling 3 jobs, no more Chicago... pretty stoked.

If he can be good, and Gordon Beckham can be for real there is no reason this team cannot compete next season with the a couple decent offseason pickups. I'm ready to give up on the draft, just win these games and get these guys thinking positively about next year.

I dismiss the idea that racism still exists in this country. One great way of getting rid of people who insist it still does is get really sarcastic and refer to white guilt a lot.

I know, its fantastic.

I dont really agree with this exactly. Most people have jobs where they come home every night, they aren't working 6 or 7 days a week for 6 months, they aren't on the road for week+ long stretches. With your standard 9 to 5er if you have a death in the family or your wife gives birth you get some serious time off, in baseball you might get a couple days if you're really good and been with a team a long time but most of the time you're still obligated to show up for work. That's tough, and it can wear you out mentally. Not for lack of trying or bad effort, humans can only handle so much no matter what kind of compensation they are seeing in the end.

Oh man, if only it was as easy as that tutorial. I would be a lot more reckless around the redline in my Miata if swapping a head gasket was as simple as that tutorial says. I've never had to change a head gasket but if I ever did I wouldn't trust myself to do it. People who've DIYed it have compared to some of the worst and most time consuming engine jobs. If you've got a mechanic friend and he'll accept beer as payment (and he'll bring the needed tools) go for it, but other than that its gonna have to go to the shop.

You're gonna have to look up the part relative to your make/model/engine, but they're pretty damn cheap. Its a labor intensive process though, you're basically taking the engine apart completely. Also be prepared to see some thing you'd probably be better off not seeing. Head gaskets usually dont blow unless the car is suffering from some abusive driving or other maintenance has been neglected. Not trying to pass judgment or anything because I dont expect people to get as neurotic as I am replacing parts at the first sign of worry, but if enough strain has been put on the engine to send the head gasket into oblivion there's probably other problems down there as well.

It'd have to be pretty ancient to start looking like a chocotaco in there. You're obviously going to want to flush the coolant anyways but I see a compression test in your future. That'll give you a much better idea of whats going on.

When are you getting smoke? High revs? Idle? Just starting up? What color is the smoke? Burning oil and blowing smoke are probably the same problem showing two linked symptoms. Valve cover gasket is a common culprit for that.

They're actually more like $80k with any sort of meaningful options before a nice government subsidized $7500 tax credit. By the way, complaining that poor little Tesla cannot be compared to the larger companies when 10% of every sale is incentivized by the government and the company itself spent all of its life except the past 6 months suckling on some form of green initiative teat doesn't fly with me. Their lack of innovation annoys the crap out of me. Mercedes beancounters decided it was OK to just hurl some R&D car onto the market offering all these functions we've never seen before. They're letting the market get exposed to the possibilities here. I mean instead of getting bogged down in the tired old arguments that circle around batteries, charging times and ranges that wont solve themselves for probably another decade Mercedes just flat gives us this grand statement on what the electric car can (and should) be. It should not be a luxo-barge weighing in at 2.5 tons that delivers its power to one set of wheels in the most inefficient way imaginable considering the available technology, that's just a colossal waste of tech that already exists. And yea, an M5 MSRP's for about $90k, F-Types anywhere from $70-90k, used DB9's with sub-15k miles can be found under 100grand. There's ton more than that too, its a crowded arena. Tesla is raking in because they're a new domestic carmaker that gets some really great publicity, but eventually they're going to have put something out that's better than the rest if they want to compete. I dont see the Model S nor Model X doing that much longer.

Watch that if you're interested in what's possible with electric cars. Here's the problem I have with Tesla. Mercedes is just throwing s*** against the wall and seeing what sticks and coming up with stuff like torque vectoring and these interchangable chassis/engine output settings that completely change the identity of the car. Press a button and your comfortable, efficient highway cruiser can gain AWD and be great in the snow. Its traction control on steroids, it starts defeating the purpose of brakes altogether (and the most inefficient thing you can do in a car is brake)... brilliant. It start creating an identity around the electric car that instead of trying to be the ICE it does something wildly different that you average driver will probably find better. Tesla isn't doing that. They are making ICE cars and just swapping out the drivetrain components, accepting all the faults of electric cars with only one or two of the real benefits (no gas, great torque). The Model S, when you compare it with cars in its pricerange, just gets smothered. Would you honestly have a Model S instead of an M5? Or F-Type V8S? Or maybe the greatest GT car ever (DB9)? Because that's what its competing against directly. It not trying to be that different at all...

John Danks $15,750,000 32.64% Adam Dunn $15,000,000 31.09% Alexei Ramirez $9,500,000 19.69% Jeff Keppinger $4,000,000 8.29% Chris Sale $3,500,000 7.25% Matt Lindstrom $500,000 1.04% TOTAL PAYROLL $48,250,000

That's actually a pretty good comparison, NASCAR cars with restrictor plates have about the same horsepower as the Model S.

On a racetrack going flat out through every straight? That's what I meant by "tracked them". Obviously your regular daily drive isn't going to run the thing flat in 11 minutes, but if you want to enjoy the performance of the things you are severely limiting its battery life.

Miata, S2000, BRZ/FR-S (Flat-4, but close enough), C-Class, Z3, 924/944 (RIP)... s*** the new Mustang is going to have a 4 cylinder option again. There's a lot of them.

The problem isn't charging and batteries, you kinda know what you're signing up for when you buy an electric car. Its how rapidly you'll burn through a charge putting the car through any sort of grunt. Dude's have tracked them and gone 11 minutes before needed a recharge. That's like Veyron SS in speed-mode flat out trying to get above 250mph inefficient. Then again, that one electric motor has to drag around 4,600 lbs of car (not incl driver and passengers). Its a fat car, weighs almost as much as an F-150. You plan on having a RWD car (The Model X will have a two motor AWD option, I could write a dissertation on how much I hate about that), with no transmission and weighing in at nearly 5,000 lbs when you put some bodies in it on anything but dry pavement? Go buy a S2000 now and start practicing what its like to deal with snap oversteer, because you'll need to be Sebastian Vettel in order to control that thing in the wet or, god help you, snow. I'm nervous about safety with them in general. Mechanical linkages between driver and car are important, especially in this age of push-button starting and electronic gearboxes. You cant just swap it into neutral if the accelerator gets stuck. You dont get to "keep" your brakes and steering if you lose power, and there's more than one instance of these types of cars just refusing to turn off. In my opinion that's as dangerous as not having seatbelts equipped. This isn't Tesla's fault or anything, most hybrids have this problem. I dont trust reviews when it comes to the Model S. Tesla is engaging in Ferrarism (google: "chris harris ferrari rant" for definition) which makes sense but is really dishonest. I dont hate Tesla, I dont hate electric cars. I just look at them and see the tech as way too new and way too poorly applied 99% of the time to want one. Its already better than hybrids by a longshot but that really isn't saying much.

Tesla's are colossal pieces of junk. I've seen more Model S's being towed than I've seen driving. If you want to enjoy its giggle-inducing torque curve (the thing is singe speed) you'll get maybe 20 minutes out of the battery hammering it and an inevitable breakdown to follow. Amenities suck for a luxury sedan too, you can get more out of a $50k Lexus in terms of car and unless you plan on spending $30kish in gas over the life of your car (and never plan on actually going anywhere) you still come out ahead with more car going with the ICE. Same goes for the Prius, every car company on the planet--even the goddamn Koreans--are making cars lightyears better than the Prius for much less money. The Leaf is garbage too. Awful machine, rife with problems and zero practicality compared to cars in its class. The Volt is the only one worth buying, especially now with $5k off. It'll work most of the time, you can actually drive the damn thing without a doomsday clock and they've worked out the issues. Plus its a very nice car to be in. Either way, my suggestion is get a RWD car with a peppy straight 4 and demand a 6 speed manual transmission. Vote with your wallet to get these car companies off their ass and making something a little more inspiring than bad Prius trims or ugly, unreliable, boring to drive s***box electric cars.

Remember how I said I was kinda thinking about a Fiesta ST and would be saving for a Focus RS if it were AWD? well Subaru just today confirmed an STI BRZ. Time to start saving folks, assuming it costs less than $40k that will be the car of the f***ing decade.

Than the Civic? I mean Civic's have been falling behind the pack for years now. You can get the same economy out of a Focus or Mazda3 except those two cars will run circles around the Civic in terms of performance and options. The redesign helped but everyone pretty much agrees you're better off with a Ford or Mazda now. I dont know if you're willing to go very small but the one FWD car I'd buy right now is the Fiesta ST, which isn't even out yet but the #'s are wildly encouraging. It's better looking than the Abarth 500, crams 197hp/215ftlbs torque into a sub-BRZ curb weight and has such a narrow chassis it actually works with wrong wheel drive. Those little Ecoboost 1.6's are capable of some crazy #'s when you strap a turbocharger to them. Its a little steep compared to the base model, $21k base price, but I honestly might buy it since I'm tired of trying to squeeze every ounce of practicality out of the Miata. I mean, compare that to the Speed3, Focus ST, Abarth 500 and idiotic Mini and its a great price. The Mazda6 is just the best mid-size sedan for the money right now. Looks f***ing righteous and its got literally all of the Skyactiv goodies standard (you almost have to get the Mazdaspeed version to find the same trim levels in the 3). I have to say, none of these cars mentioned really appeal to me (except the Fiesta, which I ADORE) because FWD and all of its failings. A lot of them are numb in steering and sacrifice every lick of performance for 1 or 2 more mpg's so I naturally stay away from them. If the Focus RS had a AWD I'd be saving my pennies in anticipation, but it doesn't so chances are I'll either stick it out with the Miata or buy the Fiesta ST since its cheap and hilarious.

Look into the Mazda3 or Mazda6, if you're the kind of person who buys a new Civic you'll be surprised how much better those two meet your needs than the Civic. If you value performance the Mazdaspeed3 still isn't as good as the Focus ST but the base model is the best hatch in America right now.

More or less seclusion with a little bit of appreciation for the small town thrown in. I would say politics but when you're living in places as remote as Western Australia nobody bothers enforcing the laws on the books as long as you're on your property (which you can afford a ton of because they're basically giving it away in some of these places). If not for the ridiculous winters Alaska would top the list, but I tend to like seasons or at least heat over cold.

I mean, I knew Gawker was kind fun-bad for a while but that may cross the line into bad-bad.

Western Australia West Texas Southern Utah Montana West North Carolina Christchurch Wyoming Idaho West Nebraska

Zimmerman got pulled over for speeding in Texas, he had a gun in his glove compartment, and was let off with a warning. Obamaloons must be inconsolable. Brilliant.