Snooze

Shout out to the peeps at Sky (esp. Michelle, handling my call) for quoting me extremely happy today at £490 all in, including an agreed valuation!

I think the general idea is that petrol tax is supposed to cover road tax/pollution costs, therefore is proportional to the amount of petrol you use whereas road tax is to cover the general administration of car ownerships and the road transport system as a whole. Of course, in practice it just goes into one big "TAX" bucket and comes out again in the form of over-inflated MP salaries, but if you don't like it you can always vote for a different corrupt government party!

A friend of mine is picking up his new car this evening. It's a BMW Z3 M-Coupe and I was wondering how my TT would stack up against it. Now the power levels are similar, but the 3.2 N/A M-Coupe I guess will have a lot more torque at the bottom end. It's also a slightly lower kerb weight AND has more central weighting, so he's probably going to corner quicker too. Has my soop got any advantages at all ? (apart from the obvious: working indicators, not being a BMW and not looking butt-ugly, of course ).

Nice. Saw this beast on the road on Thursday. It's a beauty, alright.

Any de-cat jokes allowed?

If you get a 328, don't get a '95 whatever you do!!!! My last car was a '95 328. Apparently they have a flaw which causes valve stem seals to wear overly quickly, which is a very expensive repair job - wasn't worth getting fixed on mine so I carried on running it and it ended up going up in flames! A new 328 was re-issued in '96 and these ones aren't showing the same problem, apparently...... Good luck with the car whatever you get!

Mine's with Northern Rock.

Ben, I have only had the pleasure of meeting you briefly once at an SEM last year, but my whole heart goes out to you and you daughter tonight. Be strong, mate.

'fraid not, Penguin. The Live stuff checks for chipped boxes. If you have a switchable chip, you can turn it off to play on Live but then, of course, you have to have a proper copy of the game. "A friend of mine" had a chipped box and accidentaly connected up to Live with the chip active once. The Live system immediately removed his account, and he was unable to use Live again even with the chip deactivated. Some of the early games (original Halo included, I believe), which could be played by link-up, can be played online without a Live account by connecting directly to other boxes, I believe, though I have never tried this. I think this is the reason why they stopped providing link-up functionality in games.

Retired last year from a 12-year American Football career after too many concussions! Between work, training and playing it didn't leave much time for anything else. Still trying to fill the gap, really. My main hobby now is far less strenuous: boardgames! (my other online home is http://www.boardgamegeek.com)

Listing here: http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/0-60times.html Says 6.9s 0-60 for a 94 N/A.

Frankly, I'm shocked..... Microwaving is no way to cook fresh meat. I'd be worried that it wasn't cooked properly, especially if it was interrupted before the appropriate cooking time was completed.

Precisely. The death you can't be sure about, but if it was up to me, I'd lock him up for life for these crimes alone. Especially as he was on parole already! 12 weeks is ridiculous!

Bit of devil's advocate here (before anyone flames me, I believe that this guy is PROBABLY guilty of Causing Death By Dangerous Driving): Is there anything that says he was driving dangerously or, in fact, even carelessly at the time when he hit the girl? As far as I'm concerned, Driving Carelessly, Driving W/O Insurance, Not Stopping For An Accident should be heinous enough crimes to lock him up for a long time anyway, but I haven't seen anything in these reports that says that he was DEFINITELY guilty of causing death by dangerous driving? Presumably the mother was a witness, but she would presumably be biased. Were there any other witnesses?

Congrats!!!

Actually, this IS a hardware innnovation - the apple touchscreen allows for multiple (something like 15?) independently recognised simultaneous touches.

Noooo! For me the rear seat (/shelf!) was a deal maker. Looks like I'll be back to waiting for the 2007 Lotus Esprit then!

Not exactly what I meant. I only said I "have no problem" with blood sports, not that I positively supported them. In fact, I don't think I either agree OR disagree with blood sports like this. I have absolutely no desire to partake or even spectate at anything of this nature, but I'm also not going to get upset if other people want to...... Yeah - fair point. Like I said in my first post, I do respect those peoples' opinions (ESPECIALLY those like Sonic who talk the talk AND back it up with the lifestyle). I did mean it, and apologise if I offended anyone. I don't really have a direct opinion on the subject of blood sports (I was more stating my opinion on other peoples opinions, if you see what I mean?), but if I really HAD to choose between pro- and anti-blood sports, then I'd probably fall into the anti-blood sports side, but I think it would be horribly hypocritical of me to sit here complaining about fox hunting whilst I'm waiting for my roast dinner to finish cooking, wouldn't it? Again - no offense intended - have a good evening everyone... I'm off to bed before I dig myself any deeper!!

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Probably my incorrect use of the word "entirely". I intended it to just be a lighthearted comment as I only meant I agreed when you said: You clearly feel far more strongly about animal rights than I do, and I wouldn't dare to claim that your strong opinions ( ) and my apathetic ones ( ) are in agreement. Well that's nice. I'm merely stating my opinions, not making personal judgements. If you want to diss me just 'cos I'm not out sabotaging fox hunts, I'll have to put this one down as your loss, I guess......

I don't think this picture loads correctly on my PC - there appears to be a piece missing near the back end of the car??

One last thought which just occurred to me: How many of you have real leather seats? :D

Bet there's not many people here who make sure that they only eat food from humanely treated animals. I reckon without growing ALL your own food, it would be impossible to know for sure.

Love the fact that I agree with Sonic entirley but funnily enough from the opposite viewpoint. I eat loads of meat and love it and I also have no problem with blood sports! How about this: Breed 5,000 pigs and put them in cages too small for them to even turn around. Force feed them the processed remains of their brethren's carcasses. You'll make a fortune selling bacon. Poke 1 dog with a stick and the RSPCA can have you arrested!

The human body at the moment is (arguably - I don't really want to get into that one here) omniverous, and I for one aren't going to stop eating meat anytime soon. Delicacies (sp? ) are interesting..... the way they make fois gras borders on sadism, but damn me if it doesn't taste fantastic! I wasn't making a comment on whether we should eat animals at all or which ones we should eat, but more about how we go about it: ------ Cruelty to animals for sport is done in the name of entertainment. Cruelty to animals for delicacies is done in the name of luxury. Blinding, de-beaking and daily pig-protein injections for chickens left to live out their short, miserable lives standing waist deep in their own shit is done to make sure a McChicken Sandwich costs less than a couple of quid. ------ If we needed cheap food to survive, then I would agree with you wholeheartedly, but we don't. People these days in the civilised world expect meat with every meal - only 100 years ago they would have been lucky to get it once a week. Ever wondered why a free-range organic chicken costs £10 but the frozen stuff costs £5 for two? Ever wondered why meat is getting cheaper to buy when everything else is getting more expensive? Getting cheaper meat just means you can enjoy BETTER meals - you won't starve or die of malnutrition if you don't eat meat twice a day - and isn't getting better food just another form of "entertainment"?

Hope all you animal rights, right-on types are all vegans. Animals in the mass food industry are typically treated as bad if not worse than animals in these kind of activities, and in much, much, much greater numbers. I'm certainly no fan of any of these kind of supposed "sports" and can't see much entertainment in any of them, but I find it kind of hypocritical to criticise it and then tuck into a chicken pie or something..... (just my 2p again - to everybodys' opinions)