I wonder if it had already been planned out or partially written. Not too long ago a new Dashiell Hammett novel was published using unfinished screenplays that he’d written.

I think I originally started with G, because I’d spotted it at the bookstore and it had a VW Beetle on the cover. Weird reason to pick it up I guess!

Call Mr. Pao, that’s my name, that name again is Mr. Pao!

Hell, if they get rid of pennies, what will I put in that oversized plastic Corona bottle I got on spring break in ‘95? I finally fill that bad boy up and I should have enough to buy a sweet leather jacket!

I swear that the mall record store I worked at had carpeting in the same pattern as those seats.

Back in 2007 the (aftermarket) CD player in my car was stolen overnight, and they took a little 6-disc wallet I had in there. Each disc was a burned mix, so no great loss, and they left the two “real” CD’s I had in the car (I think it was a copy of the Beatles #1 and Paul Weller’s Illumination, both of which were…

I haven’t had a CD player in my car till I got my current one two years ago (previous one had an aftermarket head unit that got stolen, which I replaced with the original cassette deck). It’s a single disc in-dash. I’ve used it exactly three times, when I’ve purchased a CD at the used record store and listened to it…

I wonder if that’s a Griffith or a Grantura? The alloys make me think the former.

Like a lot of performance and luxury cars, they get to their third or fourth owner, who buys it cheap, and doesn’t maintain it, and they go to hell. I’m even seeing C5 Corvettes like this, despite the 5's reputation as the car for old guys who only drive them on Sundays to the show and shine and/or ice cream shop.

It’s rare enough (including British market cars) that swapping engines would ruin what value it has. If you really want a fast(er) version of this find a 350i, with the Rover V-8.

I was about to say the same thing. The airline food story would also fit in over at Jalopnik (which is more broadly transportation related with a focus on cars).

I had a guy tell me that even though a Honda was built in the U.S., the money from the purchase “goes to the motherland”. I pointed out that, as opposed to his Canadian built Chevy (or something, I forget what it was now), the Honda was putting Americans to work, who got paid money here in America, and spent it here…

Oh I agree, I think it’s a stupid reason. But then again most restaurants around here don’t have anything smaller than a four top. The only exception I can think of is Chili’s, which has these little two seat booths in the one near here - every other place I can think of (chain or otherwise) doesn’t have anything that…

It was relatively unscientific, as they didn’t do a teardown to see if there was any internal damage (they were using a well worn junkyard engine, so I imagine it would’ve already been out of tolerance on a lot of things), and they weren’t taking power readings on a dyno. The engine stopped running with the bleach,…

Yeah, I discovered that at a lot of places if I want to take a picture of my food I have to really edit it to make it look good, because the lighting’s so bad. (I won’t use the flash when eating in a restaurant, unless I’m taking a photo of a person I’m dining with, because I try to take food photos on the sly.

I can smell the mildew and patchouli from here.

Apropos of nothing, but has anyone else noticed that the patch on Debbie’s uniform shirt says “Blagojevich Parking”? To a Chicagoan that’s pretty damn funny.

A local Chipotle has a bar along the street windows - it’s where I’d sit when I still ate there. It’s about perfect when I’m by myself.

I don’t so much mind eating at the bar if it’s not busy. I was in Nashville for a few days back in October, and ate out solo every time. One restaurant (that I otherwise liked) tried to get me to sit at the bar (which was kind of busy with guys hooting at football on the TeeVee), so I took a table in the less busy…

I dunno, if the driveline was still solid, and it hadn’t been crashed, I might’ve taken it for a grand, just to have something to haul my bicycle around in without using a rack. Service it, cheap head unit, cheap paint job, and you’re good to go.