I totally agree about the current TLX but the new one hypothetically has some potential.

The Explorer turbo V6 is way more powerful than those other options, and the ST at least tries to be good to drive. Doesn't necessarily mean those high prices are worth it but there's *something* extra. 

I’ve driven a couple TLXs. They’re ok but not my jam. The chassis tuning is a bit soft, the 9-speed on the V6 is occasionally herky jerky, and the dual dashboard screens are unintuitive.

Kia’s top level trims are genuinely interesting alternatives to more expensive cars, but the dealers are still used to pushing the more commodity stuff with incentives and/or bad credit approvals.

Ford is really stretching the upper end of the Explorer range. It’s almost like they’re trying to price it like the F-series now where you can just keep going and going and going with options.

That’s easy. For a long time, Honda used to be leaps and bounds better than everyone else at making excellent-handling fwd cars. Back 10-15 years ago the manual transmission TL came with an LSD and Brembo brakes when neither of those were very common at all. It was still fwd but an excellent car, especially the 07-08…

Actually I should say the new RDX is pretty dang good although the touchpad interface for the infotainment is questionable.

I was a huge Honda/Acura fanboy in the 90s and 00s but I’ve been meh about them for about 10 years now. Especially Acura. Honda has been on fire with the new Civic (in spite of its styling), Accord and CR-V but none of that goodness has made it over to Acura, yet.

2 of our 3 cats have hyperthyroidism. They’re mother & daughter so there may be a genetic aspect to it.

These are halfway decent.

I’m vegan but I love the smell of Popeye’s. If I drive past one with the windows open, it’s lovely. 

FWIW the Snapdragon 800 was the 2013 flagship SoC from Qualcomm. 2014 flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G3, Moto X and OnePlus One had the Snapdragon 801, and by the end of 2014 phones like the Galaxy Note 4, Nexus 6 and Droid Turbo were on the Snapdragon 805.

Manufacturers often quote very conservative 0-60 times in their listed specs relative to what magazine test drivers are able to achieve.

Taxes are too inconsistent across the US for the car companies to provide that in the price. We don’t have VAT, but each state has its own sales tax rate, and many counties and cities charge additional smaller taxes on top of the state tax. With 50 different state tax rates and who knows how many local taxes on top of…

BT5 doesn’t have anything to do with the codec support. There are other better bluetooth codecs besides aptX, like Sony LDAC, but aptX is kind of the baseline decent audio quality codec that’s now baked right into Android. Even if Sony skipped aptX but included LDAC on these, I’d be happy as I’m pretty sure LDAC is als…

No aptX and no water resistance for over $200? Nope.

My office is a few blocks from the park where they shoot off the Rockville fireworks. There’s a band and party of some sort at the actual park but my wife and I are probably just going to scoot to the roof of the parking garage at my office like 20 mins before the fireworks are scheduled and avoid all that hubbub. 

On the DC Beltway in Maryland, there are electronic signs that have been saying “DC EVENT 7/4, EXPECT DELAYS” for the last several days. Except I have a feeling there will be way fewer people than usual, because the Trump admin has kept the DC government totally in the dark about what’s going on with their little pagea…

Road America and Elkhart Lake are just wonderful. One of my favorite places from when I lived in Wisconsin. 

I’m fairly certain slavery has been illegal for a while now.