BryanS

They are already turning humans into freight with these policies. This would simply be more direct: we are freight, therefore we pay by the pound to be transported.

Finally, a common sense policy. Pay by the pound! ... You and your luggage get on the scale, and then out comes the price. Slide your Visa or MasterCard and done.

You want to bring 4 bags? Go for it! 1 bag? No problem!

If the bean counters are running amok now... I say just go all out and do it. Charge by total poundage.

AirTran fights back:

...but at the end of the day... airlines that try to compete with Southwest only seek their own destruction.

37 consecutive years of profitability.

Buy it for 46K. Don't put a dime into it. Turn it into a rent house. And we're done.

Im not sure - they don't have an obvious parking lot....the valet guys park the cars behind the restaurant....I don't know if they would let me park myself back there...I've never asked...

[/quote

no------------ they won't let you park it yourself---yes-----you can try neighborhood parking------------no-----it won't be easy-parking in Avondale is tough because of ALL the great restaurants--- yes-- valet parking is worth it------ Ruggles is a terrific place to eat! plus----the tow-truck-maniacs lurk waiting for anyone to mis-park--and will cell phone call the HPD to have you ticketed so they can tow you.

no...yes...no...yes... tow trucks... HPD... Place seems like too much trouble, to even bother.

Ruggles. The place you see down the street, after you're done eating at Baba Yega's. "Glad I didn't go there - looks like a parking nightmare" ... 12 years in Houston... never been, still have no desire to go.

I really wanted wanted to see the 2010 Saab 9-5 on the streets.

2010 may be the last Saab ever made. Good riddance to a pathetic, European car maker.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-totals-saab-2009-12-18

Destruction derby

GM scraps once-proud Saab

Several top government officials rushed to Trollhattan, home of Saab since its inception in the 1930s, to assure factory workers, suppliers and the community at large that all is not lost, though it's far from clear to anybody right now what can be saved.

Hey Sweeden! Screwballs! Why don't you buy Saab, yourselves?! Because nobody wants it. Not even anyone in Sweeden.

Haha, no. Nutria rat. Not beavers. Long rat tail, orange teeth versus flat and not orange. Invasive species, kill them! At least that's what we say in the marshes of Louisiana.

It's amazing how we play God with mother nature. Beaver? OK. Nutria: Kill it. Poor nutrias. All they are trying to do is make it in this world, like all of us... and here we are, trying to annihilate their entire existence. I wonder what the conversation is like around the diner table in a family of nutrias: "Boy, it sucks being us... "

I had one of these, a 1992 Premiere. It was a comfortable car. The V6 had excellent acceleration and handled really well. It was fun to drive. The only problem was the electronics. Since it had a Renault engine, shared with Volvo I was told, the home town mechanics could not figure out why I kept going through alternators. Eventually it left my wife and family stranded out on Highway 77 south of Victoria. I had to have her towed to Victoria and nobody there could figure it out either. I had to get rid of her.

The car I mean.

Our family bought one of these new - the 1989 model. It had a 150 hp Mitsubishi (I thought, but not apparently) V-6. And it was decent. 7/70 warranty. This was the "Last Rambler." AMC bought/partnered with Renault on the design of the car, taking design ques from Volvo (headrests/body style)... and then Chrysler bought AMC... and then rebranded the "AMC Premiere" as the "Eagle Premiere" in 1987/88. It was built in Ontario at fairly advanced factory - for the day. It was the last car AMC attempted to put its name on.

The car had what was called "ground switching" electronics. Most electrical systems always have the ground/neutral connected at all times - and switch the hot (on and off).

In the Eagle Premiere... the hot side of the circuit was always connected... it was the ground side that switched on and off.

Backwards.

Needless to say, we had issues with the electrical, as well as the transmission. And one time.. at a red light the car would not move forward. I had to push it through the intersection.... and then drive it home in reverse (on side streets) for that last mile to the house. I never drove it again.

I saw an ad once: "For sale. 1988 Eagle Premiere. $2000 worth of repairs. Asking $2001 OBO."

Our family should have bought the Maxima. But Chrysler cut us a deal that was just too good to refuse...

Design-wise...

Even style-wise.

It's just the same old junk, different decade.

Check it out, its VW Passat replacement. VW already released 2 skecthes of the unamed car, so someone came up with a render for it. Expect to see the car on the road in late 2011.

Render:

Sketch:

Thoughts?

Incredible. It still has 4 wheels, 4 doors, engine up front. Like every sedan ever created.

I'd like to see more street food vendors. The food is cheap, quick, and usually pretty good.

That is where Austin excels over Houston... I thought all we were allowed were a bunch of illegal taco trucks. But according to some, it is apparently legal to have street food vendors in this city... who routinely get clean water from a taco truck commissary every 24 hrs...

What proof do you have that they're operating without a license? Taco trucks, for example, have to have a license and have to report to the taco truck commissary every 24 hours to refill with clean water, clean their truck, etc. Post specifics, please, not conjecture.

BryanS

Yep. I'm sure every taco truck in this city is doing that.

BRYANS

She'd better get a damn medal.

I think she deserves more than that.

Not sure what Flashman meant either. My only guess is that if HEB blocks development of the old Blockbuster, that SW corner will soon become a dilapidated eyesore with all sorts of riff raff milling around. And this might scare off potential Kroger customers enough to drive business away?

On my original post, I commented that the new tenants seemed to be dragging their heels on moving into the old Taco Cabana. But this weekend, I saw the new Smoothie King sign. So, at least the SE corner will be coming back to life, huh?

What kind of life?

Nothing says Montrose like a "Smoothie King" ... or a Bagel shop...

What a waste.

...sounds like people want to turn Montrose into Midtown...

there are already too many failed midrises in Montrose... and you want another one?

Excel. My step-mother used Peachtree, back in the late 80's? Maybe early 90's.

Wait a minute. What about cream-filled donuts?

Yea! ... and what about cream-filled ... oh wait...

To all the moral purists out there...

Your kids are absolutely going to hate living under your roof. And not in the good, healthy way.

"Dad wants to go camping with us... AGAIN! For the love of God, why can't we just go out with our friends!"

I've made several personal observations that kids who live under such regimes end up more screwed in the head than kids with normal parents.

I have rediscovered Twinkies, after 15 years of not partaking. I was at the grocery store, stumbled across them and thought: Hey! I remember these!

I have one Twinkie, with my coffee, every morning now. Not a healthy snack - but yummy.

The solution is to improve the quality of what goes into the kdis heads. Being young myself and not having kids yet (29 working on it) I would never in a million years let my kids watch alot of the television out there now, and I certainly will not let them listen to a LARGE majority of the music...my mom said it time and time again till it was ingrained in my head..."trash in, trash out" If all kids get to watch on TV is sex, sex, sex, that will be all they think about and do. Teens are going to think about it anyways, but when its on every show, every commercial, and the main theme of every song, its worse than it would otherwise be. Parents should step up and take some responsibility for their failings, and cure them.

Also, parents are deferring to schools for everything, and not doing things with their children in their free time. A teen who is busy doing things that they enjoy are not going to be busy having sex. Teens who have nothing to do, and just sit around thinking about sex will end up having more of it out of bordem more than anything else. Take your kids fishing, take em hunting, take em camping, take them to the theater, take them places that they REALLY enjoy....they will from that point on think about that event, and how they can get to do it again...it will take up the space in their heads...They will still think about sex, and many will still have it, but it will be less, and it will help.

Get involved in their lives, society is going to hell in a handbasket, we need to stop the proliferation of trash in every aspect of every day life. Get back to the basics - get em a dog, get em in sports, get em in something other than the couch in front of the tv, computer, or a video game.

I'd say the opposite is true...

You sound like someone who wants to have children that are driven winners.

Maybe your kid(s) will be on the football team - star players. Or perhaps your girls will make the cut for the varsity cheerleading squad.

They're gonna be enjoying quite a bit in life, at that age - doing things they like.

They'll enjoy their extra-curricular activities (playing football, cher leading)... as well as gettin' it on with each other! BIG TIME! If their high school was anything like mine.

...vs... the fat, nerdy ones who stay at home, watching TV, playing video games. Their chances of scoring will be a lot lower than the other driven, popular ones. It just works that way.

...and I am totally confused on the thinking about sex less, and it "helping." It only takes one time... and unless you can purge all sexual thoughts from your kids minds, you are wasting your time.

What a timely topic...

I was talking with the SO ... and it turns out that sex education - in this state - is not uniform.

For example, we had "sex (education) day" in 7th grade. Actually, it was really a half a day. Prior to admission into the class, parents had to sign a consent form.

Guess how many parents signed the consent form in my class? All of them.

It is beneficial, to a limited extent, to have public schools provide such education. They explain all of the plumbing – way better than your parents ever could; however, they were too generic when describing the urge to “touch yourself” – and how that was normal. You eventually get that figured out, but a little more instruction would have been beneficial back then. They encouraged you to have the “moral” discussion with your parents; the class was focused on what was happening to your body, why it was changing, and why you have these urges. It was a win-win.

But where the SO is from, they did not even offer the class. Both of us went to small public schools. I thought for sure if they did it in a school like mine, surely, they would do this everywhere.

Sadly, that is not the case.

In the UK… to combat the teenage pregnancy problem there… kids are told to “touch themselves” – DAILY. To get it out of their systems. That, and free condoms in every bathroom in every public school in the nation, is the only way to combat this problem.

And for those who have moral objections… home school your kids. They may not be active sexually, but you can still be proud of the little spelling bee freaks.

Well, signed the papers tonight on a new CC VR6 with an incredible touch-screen navigation system and an even better price than I tought I would get (thanks Recession!). Very excited to pick it up tomorrow, though I'm dreading trying to keep the black paint clean!

No need to worry about keeping the paint clean. Simply don't clean it... Just leave it. Like I do.

Nice car... what part of Houston did you take that photo? I sure would like to live in that spot...

The new Leaf is not attractive. The rear and front looks terrible imo.

Acura's new grille looks better on its SUV's. I like the MDX.

What a lie. "The Leaf" must be plugged in. So that electric factories can recharge it.

Doesn't look like zero emission to me.

Some of these:

...in yogurt. YUM! ... but DO NOT eat the grape-nuts by themselves. "You'll knock your teeth out." Said one of my fellow LA AFB USAF commissary Compton-area grocery baggers in 1990... who had no teeth. I will never forget that.

Just what downtown Houston needs, the gigantic white outline of a cross slathered across both sides of a building not designed to accommodate it.

It's one thing to make a statement, and if I may paraphrase Voltaire (because I'm too lazy to verify the quote), I may disagree with what they're saying but I will forever defend their right to say it. However, the design of the statement is in poor taste. They should have just erected a clean purpose-built cross much the same way as the church off of Beltway 8 near the Gulf Freeway did.

...or they could've allocated the funds to indigent care. That would've been very Christ-like.

...purpose-built? The cross at B-8, given its enormous size, like this recent St. Joe addition, is not "purpose built." They just scream: "We're here, we're Christians, get used to us!" Kind of like a polite, Christian way, of giving the rest of the world a big giant middle finger.

A purpose built cross would be about 10 feet high, made of lumber, made for hanging bodies on. Or maybe I am describing a "functional" cross? ...