Snooze

'afternoon.

It's not. It's really not intended to "help people outside of that target audience understand their culture". They just have to say that to try and make it sounds less segregational. I'm sure you're all intelligent enough to understand that. So now you're just reacting in the way that the media wants you to....... And it IS just like Habbo Hotel. But look at Habbo Hotel and you'll see that it's primarily targetted at westernised culture, so I don't see how this is any more or less offensive?

Yeah, but that's not "doing it properly". Not going at race speed is the racers equivalent of saying you're doing drifting but not actually getting the car off line at all.

Well - just as long as baby doesn't try coming out sideways! I'm all excited for you now (not in that way, Ed!). Have a great week, mate!

It's just marketing - trying to create yet another "virtual universe" targetted at a specific demographic in order to steal some business off other similar products. It's a money-making scheme. Nothing sinister or segregating for the sake of it, just marketed as such in order to capture market share, IMO - even as far as saying it wouldn't surprise me if the creators weren't necessarily even Muslim themselves!

Personally, I'm completely underwhelmed by drifting as a motorsport or spectator activity. The fact that it's judged (possibly including the appearance of the car!?!?!) makes it pretty pointless as a sport for me. I'm not denying it's technically very skillful, but I can't derive any pleasure in watching more than a few minutes of such. However actually doing it yourself is fantastic fun. So whilst I would never even consider being involved in a drift "scene", I would quite happily take my car out to an airfield once in a while for a bit of fun throwing it around.

Not usually my kind of thing, but I did enjoy the album Pendulum did this year ("Silico"?)

Ah - but THIS is the reason I would only ever have a TT. As a somewhat tentative driver, I need to have the power on the straights to make up for what I lose round the bendy bits!

I'm with Mike on this one - if we don't take steps like this to teach people that it's not acceptable to spawn unattractive offspring then how are people supposed to learn which ones to keep and which ones to send away for adoption?

Stock wheels!

After chatting with Dave at Prolex, I decided that the ARBs were the first thing to upgrade on the Aristo (along with the crummy brakes, of course!). When we took the factory ones off, the comparison was amazing - the TRD ones were at least 3 times the weight (and hopefully 3 times as stiff!), and the ride was noticably firmer. Mind you, like the IS200, the Aristo is a big family car, really, and I would imagine that the factory Supra ARBs are pretty stiff anyway, so the upgrade would have less effect than the upgrade for our Lexus family-barges!

This does have the overall effect that people have to start spending more income on imported necessities, like food, heating, etc., rather than being able to splash out 75% of their income on overpriced housing. That's how things used to be back in the 70's before housing prices and lifestyle expectations spiralled out of control......so it could easily be argued that things are supposed to be like that, and maybe this shift is just a reality check and a realignment of peoples priorities rather than a total collapse?

Edited: I'm just glad you walked away, mate.

Glad you're okay mate! What is it about the Supra that makes you think it any less safe than any other car in this situation, after your experience?

But where will these consumers get their money from to spend? I don't think it's the case that people are stockpiling money instead of spending it now - they've just stopped borrowing more. The over-spending up until now has all been done so by borrowing (for individuals mainly against the "pretend" equity in their houses, for the government borrowing from overseas).

Good explanation Steve. That sums it all up in two lines!

I'm trying to ignore the food and housing issues and separate my (albeit admittedly small) humanitarian (feminine? ) side from my problem-solving, heartless (male?) side, btw! I don't think I really could be the person who actually makes the decision to throw people out onto the street, myself. What I'm wondering is: Let's assume that we give these people a 2-year repayment holiday, we borrow loads of money to keep the economy going (ie. to keep as many businesses afloat as possible), we keep house prices up as high as possible (by reducing interest rates), we keep borrowing money at the same rate, etc. etc. What jobs do you think these people will have in 2-years time? Why should all the jobs that are being lost now suddenly re-appear? The problem is that for the last 20 years, through "economic growth", the country and all it's residents have been spending much more money than they generate. That is NOT a sustainable model (how can the cost of living - house buying, etc. - go up so much faster than the generation of income?), so trying to do everything we can to drag it out just makes no sense to me! The only solution I can see is for the average person, and the government, is to come back down to a sensible level of spending....... Edit: This post by SteveR in the GBP-YEN currency discussion summarises nicely what the effect of continuing to drop the interest rate will have too! Japan's recovery over the last 20 years, and the US recovery from the great depression last century were only because the countries had good manufacturing export industries to fall back on.

I'm sorry - I really am, but the suffering of these "normal, average people" (which may yet include me! ) are also part of the pain that the UK is going to have to go through if we're going to let the economy settle back down (weakening GBP, proper rates for lenders, realistic house prices) to a sensible level. By these short-term decisions artificially propping up the economy, it's just being set up for an even bigger drop in the future.

Don't mind people saying that their health/home/happiness is more important than their work - you're allowed to prioritise as you like. However - I'd bet lots of money that these same people would be the first to jump up and down claiming unfair dismissal if they were sacked in favour of someone who would bother to go to work despite the weather conditions. What I'm saying is that if you want to reserve the right to prioritise different things in your work/life balance, you should extend the same courtesy to your employer.

It's not that she can't - she just refuses to because she knows that autos are slower!

I think 3 syllables works best with a 1-syllable surname. What about: Damian Elliot Cameron

Fluffer.

I went to school with a guy called Richard Head. He eventually had his name changed when he was 11. There was also another boy in my school who'd been given the middle name "Marigold". There's some messed-up parents in this world!

I am a Benjamin, but have always been called Ben. That said, I still think that even "Ben" feels like a slightly odd name for an adult (maybe even one day I'll be one myself!) - most portrayals of "Bens" on TV are generally either kids or American family pets.

Go pink! 4 dashes Angostura and lemon, not lime!