Would any of you guys living stateside care to help me with shipping an item I am planning to order?
Basically, I will place an order with Cobb Tuning (for a Mazdaspeed 3), it will be shipped to you, I will paypal you the cost of shipping via USPS, and you'll send it to me...

 

What're we talking about? Cobb can't drop ship?

I can help if you need it.

PM me with details

 

I spent 3.5 hours today changing the belts on my wife's Tracker. Yeah, that's right, over 3 hours, just for belts. Was it having to pull both the skid plate and radiator? Nope, piece of cake. Was it the pain in the *** fan shroud and fan? Not really. Was it the belts themselves? Nope, less than 15 minutes for both. So, why would it take so long?

Glad you asked. it was a simple spring hose clamp. Connects a line from the tranny to the radiator. Rusted out, little tabs broken off. Naturally, it had to come off to get a new one on there. Oh, how I hate rust.

 

Then don't live in shitty NY.

 

at some point in the last 10 years, it became absolutely forbidden to use "under construction" banners on websites.

also, resizing images has gotten a lot better!

 

So, I've noticed an interesting trend here in Jersey-by-Manhattan.

Parking, obviously, is a bit of a problem. The number of cars exceeds the number of legal parking spaces.

Whenever I see someone parking an an illegal and inconsiderate manner (double-parking, parking in a right-of-way, on the sidewalk, in front of a driveway, or in any other area which is clearly NOT meant to have cars parked in it), I seem to notice that the driver of said vehicle tends to be non-white at a rate which greatly exceeds that which would be produced by a random distribution, given the demographic statistics of the area.

(eg: for the combined Hoboken / Jersey City area, we would expect roughly 50% of illegal parkers to be white, wherein the actual percentage of white illegal parkers seems to be nearer 20%, even if we count Guidos as "white.")

 

General civilty on the roads and parking lots has gone way downhill in the last 20 years, IMO. Low beam burnt? Too ******* lazy to dim highbeams? No problem! Should be a $500 ticket and a tasering on first offense.

I put a big-*** LED bar on the front of my pickup. refusal of oncoming traffic to dim the brights means I unleash it on them. I can see their faces in the car when that thing lights them up, and it looks uncomfortable. *******.

 

That seems like a dangerous and immature reaction.

 

What's worse is the asshats that think they are being the savior of mankind by flashing their brights at me when they think I have my brights on, but I don't. Just because you don't see me turn of my brights (because I never had them on) doesn't mean I have my brights on. I hope they feel stupid for the rest of the trip when I turn my brights on to flash them back. ******* noobs. For the record my headlights were within normal spec, OEM light pattern, nothing crazy.

 

Perhaps it is.

As is blinding oncoming traffic with highbeams. I can't see the road when that happens.

Two wrongs unfortunately don't make a right, do they?

 

That's also a rather strong reaction...???

blip of highbeams, blip of highbeams back... nobody's blinded, nobody should be angry..

I used to not care... Then I hit about 37 or so...

 

Rather strong reaction? I said EXACTLY what you just said... flash my brights back. I'm allowed to get angry about it. It's not like I said I flash my brights, flip a bitch, follow them and murder them and the rest of their family.

The way you talk I get the feeling that you are the type of person that get's walked all over until they set the building on fire over a stapler.

EDIT: I see you are not the one who posted the other comment to your comment about it being a rather strong reaction. My comment towards you doesn't make much sense now that I have reread. But that also brings me to the point of confusion how you would consider my reaction strong, in comparison to yours. You are most likely the asshat flashing their lights at me because you think I have my brights on.

 

*gets*

Not so much. Just maintaining ....civility..

 

If you're being flashed at fairly often, perhaps it is time to consider whether or not you need to adjust your headlights.

I think we've reached a bit of an impasse here, so I shall go on about my asshattery, and leave you to yours.

 

The next person I see wearing an *** on their hat about headlights is getting a Pony avatar.

 

You two can do whatever you like (obviously). I just find life is easier when I try not to be ruled by my emotions, and don't feel that it's my responsibility to teach every ******* a lesson. If someone blinds me for a couple seconds with their brights, so be it. I'll flash back once or twice in case it's an honest mistake. If they don't notice (or perhaps their headlights are just misaligned), then there's not much I can do about it, and no point in wasting any further emotional (or physical) energy on it.

 

Back to your parking observation-

You think foreigners, or otherwise?

 

Well, define "foreigner."

Someone who literally just got off the boat?

Someone who has been here a while, but on expired papers?

Someone who has their green card?

Someone who is of non-US birth, but a naturalized citizen?

Someone who is of non-US ancestry, but was born and raised here?


I honesty don't think that nationality has as much to do with it as ethnicity. And yes, this is the point where certain people will invoke Godwin's Law at me, but I'm actually serious.

 

To clarify-

Somebody who's new here, and not used to our rules...

 

I'm betting it is a cultural group of people who know the rules but as a culture DGAF about anybody's rules, much like it is illegal to steal cars in Jersey.

Hey, certain cities in northern Jersey used to lead the country in auto thefts ten years ago, but seem to have completely fallen off the list. Now California is the clear winner. Maybe they should stop concentrating on smog and start working on grand theft auto as a priority.