Especially since being a pleasant human being is basically incompatible with traditional masculinity as it’s currently practiced.

The fact that they’re using a TH400 and not the original 4R70W greatly improves the odds that it will actually move. Anything descended from the Ford AOD is fruit of a poison tree in my opinion.

My experience with the Harbor Freight ones is the jaws won’t stay square, especially on the needle nose version. Way too much side to side play.

My best pair of Vise Grips is one I got from my Dad. He, in turn, found it clamped up inside the fender well of a Mustang II he bought. We got rid of the car decades ago but I still use those Vise Grips regularly.

Generally if Vise Grips don’t work the next step for me is a drill or a Sawzall, so mangling it is rarely a real concern for me.

Yeah, there are situations where HF tools are good, but this isn’t one of them. Their locking pliers are useless. The jaws won’t stay square.

I think the best one I saw so far was on a 4 Runner parked outside a local Vietnamese restaurant. The plate said ‘PHORUNA”.

I have a callsign plate on my camper van. I use the van for event communications at rally races so having it already on the plate makes me easy to pick out in a group of vehicles and saves me the trouble of sticking on some kind of cheesy magnetic sign. Plus I can always remember it when I need my license plate number…

I feel the best argument for splitting California up into at least two states is that, with 31 million cars on the road, all the good vanity plates are already taken.

I liked listening to AM when it was eclectic and interesting. Now it’s all right-wing talk, and even if I agreed with their viewpoint it’d get dull pretty fast hearing the same talking points over and over.

I think you’ll find somewhere in the user agreement a paragraph that says that those features are contingent on network availability.

When I moved to a mountainous area I couldn’t believe how useless FM radio became. I mean, it’s fine when you’re parked but when you’re moving stations constantly cut in and out.

I have it in my camper. I frequently camp in areas where there’s no data service and few radio stations in range; I’ve been in a few places where I couldn’t even get NOAA weather radio. It’s nice to have some way to get something from the outside world, even if it’s usually just the Dodgers game. ;)

It really varies from place to place. Most places in the US “engineer” is not a protected title. But I think it’s a fair debate whether it should be. I can’t call myself a lawyer or an electrician because I haven’t gone through the licensing processes for those fields.

Ah, so it was one of those independent contractor deals where you’re basically working for a company, but they get to disavow all knowledge if you do something bad.

I went up Agate a time or two, but I lived in Wads so more often it was MacInnes. Sometimes I’d take Fairview, but I considered that mostly one way downhill in the winter. Had to really watch for that 90 degree turn at Upland, since on the slope right before there I’d pick up speed even with the brakes locked. ;)

But did he *know* he wasn’t buying from the dealer? I’m unclear on that point.

In college I lived in a snowy, hilly town (Houghton, MI) and had an E-150 with an open diff. I used to use the e-brake as a poor man’s version of this — I’d slowly engage it until it added enough drag to force both rear wheels to spin. Just don’t forget to release it after you top the hill. ;)

Well, you definitely don’t want it *inside*. ;)

In my experience it takes months to get the title when you buy from a dealer. They don’t give it to you right on the lot, they mail it to you later.