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Oil change and fuel injector cleaning are two unrelated systems, and it will do plenty of good not harm, I'd rest easy for this maintenance. As far as the 5.0L V8 being Supercharged and having 11:1 compression, i'm not sure, but isn't this motor direct injected? If it is, then lower compression isn't necessary to run a blower (or a turbocharger), 10:1 is the new 8.5:1 in direct injected vehicles because of the cooling properties of the fuel on the cylinders during compression. Admittedly 11:1 seems a bit high even for a direct injected motor, but it might not be running very high boost to give it more low end.

That Audi comparison isn't even fair, of course the Audi is a better car in every possible way, but it also costs a small fortune compared to the HSV

but branded with Pontiac trim and emblems, i'm more akin to the Holden trim and emblems.

We have the GTO state side, but i'm more interested in turning it from a Pontiac into a Holden, the Holden body treatment (front bumper, side skirts, rear bumper) has (IMO) always looked better than the Pontiac doppelganger.

I think most people would find that super cars look much better in person, there are just some things that even the best photography can't do justice to. I saw a black R8 yesterday, and i've seen them before, but the owner was in front of it and he let me get up close and personal with it. That car is stunning, i've always admired it in a strange way, but also kind of thought it looked like a TT with more vents. After really getting a 360 walk around and being able to sit in it, that car is really worth the price tag. My friend (mechanic) noticed the same thing, it's easy to criticize a vehicle until you've experienced it on some kind of personal level. He used to think Ferrari's were viagra in a glossy red, but after being able to work on and drive a 355, his opinion has 180'd.

I bought one of those a couple of weeks before Christmas and still haven't opened it yet. I guess i should get around to doing that.

None of my cars are in that database, 00 Subaru Impreza Outback, 98 Audi A4, 02 Ford Explorer. If someone told me a G8 was half off i would run as fast as i could to buy it. Such an awesome car, i would probably get rid of the Pontiac specific body treatment and import over the Holden/Vauxhall parts with the money i saved.

also make sure your Local Area Connection is set to "obtain an ip address automatically" and to ensure your NIC is not malfunctioning, ping the loopback address. go to start->run, type cmd hit OK, in the command prompt type: ping 127.0.0.1 (if it says reply with four/four success, then your NIC is working). To ensure you're obtaining your ip and dns info automatically, go to Start->Control Panel->Network Connections (you may have to click "show classic view" in the upper left hand corner to reveal "Network Connections") then right click local area connection and hit properties. You'll see a scroll box that says "this connection uses the following options" with a bunch of check marks, scroll down to the bottom of that list and double click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), You should have the two radio buttons filled for "Obtain an IP Address automatically" and "Obtain DNS Server addresses automatically", if you don't, select then and hit OK for both open windows. Like Ghost Train suggested, ensure you have a working CAT5 cable. If you have the ability to web/telnet/ssh into the router/modem, then access it and check to see if DHCP is enabled on the external interfaces. Often times this is as simple as opening a browser and typing 192.168.1.1 in your browser's address bar then exploring your options in the router/modem. Also if you have another computer or networking device available to you, try to connect it to see if it receives an IP address and can route to the internet.

The Droid Eris is a fantastic phone, my co-worker just got one and he loves it, i goofed with it a bit and it's Sense UI is pretty remarkable. It isn't without it's flaws though, some apps would crash the phone, and many menus that you would expect to be simple navigation are overtly complex, a lot of that fades once you get an idea of how the phone operates. I think a lot of the apps crashing the phone might be due to it having Android 1.5 instead of 2.1, which is expected to have an upgrade very shortly. I also got a long hands on with the Moto Droid and for a Motorola it's a huge step in the right direction, but the keyboard is absolutely useless and it weighs a ton, it feels like you're holding a brick in your hand. I looked up the specs and it doesn't weigh that much over most other smart phones but i guess the weight is balanced poorly because the sucker feels heavy. Build quality feels good, but with Moto's track record i'm waiting to hear reports of how it really holds up over time.

I hate how they portrayed John Connor in this film, he was nothing like they always built him up to be from previous films (calm, tactful, and reliable) he shouted and grunted for absolutely no reason (which was very annoying), had little in the way of tactics (let's just raid the main hq that sounds like a good idea), and was flaky and reckless. I like Christian Bale a lot, but i really didn't like him in this movie, i dunno if anyone else noticed, but he had a horrible lisp when speaking through connor's dialogue, not sure if it was on purpose, but it was painful to my ears. On the flip side though, the action scenes were fantastic, and the CG was definitely on point. Some of the designs that looked poor in concept ended up looking very good in practice. The films premise was actually pretty good, but i couldn't help but think that it would've turned out so much better with a different director and some better dialogue. Any scene where Bale had to speak was hard to sit through, i don't know if it was casting as much as it was crappy writing. I can only hope that once Cameron gets bored with 10ft blue cat creatures that he'll come back and maybe helm a Terminator flick.

Most BB come with a lot of the same stuff (GPS, Wi-Fi, Micro SD, etc.) almost all of the AT&T BB's come with Wi-FI where VZ disabled Wi-Fi on all of their BB except the newest Curve. Only other big differences you'll find are Edge vs 3G, camera (or no camera), and touch pad vs track ball. I personally love the touch pad, but some users find it hard to get used to. Obviously the latest and greatest will appeal the most to you but if price is an issue, really any BB will do "Business" just fine. My work provides me an 8820 (this model is a couple years old now) that i put an 8GB Micro SD card in, and it plays music fine, has GPS, has wi-fi, but no 3g or camera. The battery life is mediocre and it's a bit bulky but i consider the 8820 an entry level device and BB's just get better from there. I have a 9700 that i use as a personal phone and aside from some minor quirks (it just came out a couple weeks ago) it's been a fantastic device.

AT&T Bold 9700 Verizon Curve 8530 As long as they're running a BES you'll have no problem with any BB on their infrastructure, really any BB will do e-mail but the Bold with AT&T and Curve with VZ are the cream of the crop (in regards to latest and greatest), the BB's that try to cater too much to entertainment do a terrible job (i.e.: Storm). If the AT&T Bold and VZ Curve aren't your cup of tea then AT&T Curve and the VZ Tour are decent. The Storm is hit or miss with different users, for me it was a huge miss, but your mileage may vary.

Did anyone else pick up the AT-TE for $50 last week at TRU? I got one for my son for Christmas, never felt it was worth the $100 price tag, but at $50 i couldn't refuse.

Unbreakable was just "OK" to me, i watched it once i want to say two years ago (I have a friend who's a huge M Knight fanboy with whom i watched it with) and i remember liking it, but i wouldn't reference it as a great film. The happening was too preachy, his other movies build up very well but he has no clue how to end his films. If he doesn't throw a huge twist as the climax then the movie just suddenly ends and is very anticlimactic. Signs was actually one where i liked it when i watched it in theaters, but i watched it again on DVD (with the same friend) and really really disliked it. I didn't realize how horribly cheesy the whole movie was, maybe the ambiance of the theater helped create a better mood for watching the film but watching it in a casual setting at work made me realize how bland the dialogue was and how long and strung on portions of the movie feel. M Knight bashing aside, i hope Avatar does well and he sticks to the established canon because the film practically writes itself.

I thought Manny Shymamalan was heading up this project? Aside from the sixth sense, M Knight doesn't hold a reputation for good films. I'm kind of worried to see a series i like translated to the big screen by a director who's a one hit wonder.

No kidding, those 18's look like 16's on that car, it needs 20's to keep up with those wheel wells and probably a pretty good side wall to flesh out the rest. I'm a big fan of how these are designed, but finding a light and stylish 20 inch wheel (that won't bankrupt you) is still pretty hard, it'll be easier in the next few years since all of the new performance cars are using 19 and 20 inch wheels, but i can see why people are settling for this kind of look in the mean time.

I enjoyed the movie but the pacing is off from after the first 20 minutes of the movie. They go from a slow and steady story and character build up to a light speed fast forward to every event that they felt they needed to hit. It didn't allow you to connect with the characters and the characters don't go through any of the typical emotional stages you'd expect, and when they do, it fast forwards through it like it doesn't matter (especially in Tenma's case). You always felt like the characters were pulling emotional 180's and you couldn't figure out why. As far as the action, it was pretty well done, the dialogue was good during witty parts but the general dilaogue was very elementary (catered to its audience) and kind of put a damper on the film. That's not to say the film is bad, i enjoyed watching it with my son, the only parts that made me cringe were the parts with Dr Tenma and that has to do with Nicolas Cage's horrible voice acting, his voice is so very distracting and through every scene feels completely out of place. As long as you imagine a different voice in your head while Nic Cage talks, it's easily something you can enjoy watching with your kids, you'll probably enjoy it a lot less watching it by yourself.

The wheels don't do it for me, maybe it's because they're on every GT Mustang i see around town so the look is spoiled, same thing goes for the hood pins being on every ricer car with a stock motor and a fart can muffler. Edit: I think the wheels would've looked better if the rears were a little wider, looking at the photos the rear proportions don't look right to me and i think it's because they used too skinny a wheel (or the offset isn't correct), or maybe if they staggered the rear wheels slightly (not ridiculously, but in a subtle manner).

I think it looks better stock than it does "moparized", they can keep their wheels spoiler and hood latches.

The back story still omits how he was able to get the talisman back from the machine, even with back story there are still some odd unanswered questions. Like how come all 8 dolls were alive and scurrying around while 9 was just left hanging about, furthermore, what took 9 so long to wake up in comparison to the other dolls. How was it that only the cat monster was the only machine left alive and that 7 so easily decapitated it, but then mentions how she was fighting a "war", i hardly consider decapitating one cat machine a "war".

I read somewhere that it can be very high, but it's either feast or famine. You have to imagine how much investment capital is needed for this type of business venture. Then you have to factor in time, research and development, production costs, manufacture relationships, the whole nine yards, which is far from cheap. So either you succeed greatly, or completely fail, i don't think there's an in between. If you ever see the people who start up these type of business' it's usually rich people or really intelligent people with rich friends, it's pretty rare you see your run of the mill hard working fellow with a good idea start an exotic super car business.

Visually it's a great film, but there are huge plot holes and aside from the main character you don't really care about the rest of the doll/puppet things. To be honest, it felt like you were watching a video game translated to the movie screen, the plot, characters, and even the script writing felt like video game dialogue, which is probably why you only care about the main character since he's the obvious focal point, they spend no time at all developing other characters. The other problem this film has is target audience, most adults won't watch it (except those who are fans of animated films), most kids can't watch it (it's scary by children standards), and most tweens won't understand it (the stories not complex but tweens are idiots). The highlight is definitely character design, which again, made it feel like a video game, you have your typical burly giant, your super fast skilled soldier, your clerics, your main character who becomes better through experience, the disenchanted elder, and a savant. Looks like they just ripped their character personas right out of a video game, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable, familiar if anything.

That's actually what i thought it was until i read the post. The new SLS or whatever the hell it is looks like ass, Mercedes cars are getting uglier every year.

I had (still own somewhere, actually) a commodore 64, the "portable" one that was about the size of three brief cases stacked on top of each other. Also had a Laser Disc player, don't know where the player went but i still have a good number of LD somewhere. Also the Neo Geo Pocket, i actually really liked the device a whole lot, but it died a slow painful death at the hands of Nintendo. I was also one of those unfortunate people who purchased a MiniDisc Player, it seemed like such a good idea at the time but ultimately a huge failure.

The NSX wasn't really a great car to begin with, great idea with mediocre execution. The idea that it's a super car with economy car maintenance is its greatest selling point, but they used a crappy motor (C30/32 - 90 degree V6, nobody uses 90 degree V6's anymore for lots of reasons) and mounted it transverse so it's hard to work on. So basically instead of engineering the motor to fit longitudinal and engineering a real MR platform (a la ferrari, Lambo, etc) they just took an existing motor and trans design and just put in the back of the car to make an MR car (a la MR2). The worst thing is that Honda never bothered giving it a proper refresh in its entire run, they gave it a little better displacement but still kept the 90 degree V6 all the while they had a perfectly good 60 degree V6 just sitting on the shelf (J32/35). The NSX made up for its crappy motor by having a super light and rigid chassis, if they had put as much work into the motor as they did the chassis, then the NSX would've stood the test of time. There are valid arguments for Japanese cars, but not the ones your defending. The 3000GT was also one of those great ideas with poor execution, a better example of a car with the same ethos as the 3000GT but with perfect execution would be the Nissan GT-R. The GT-R set out to accomplish everything that the 3000GT wanted to, but actually did it right (and that goes for any BNR GT-R R32-R35), the 3000GT is well known to have horrible reliability issues especially with its transmission and transfer case and its general design was poor (another transverse motor type with a maze of turbo plumbing from both the firewall and the radiator side, complete crap to work on). That's not to say that 3000GT's aren't fast, they are certainly fast, but for how long. My friend's VR-4 spent more time in pieces in his garage than it ever did on the road, but when he had it on the road it was something to behold, quite frankly, performance of that type isn't worth it to me. If i can't drive it year round and know it'll perform the same in the morning as it does in the evening then it's not worth owning. EDIT: Also a Vette would kill an NSX, a lightly modified S2000 will beat an NSX, NSX's are pretty to look at and great for their time, but their time was 1989 they set the bar high but not that high. Notable Japanese cars to use for these types of debates would be Supra, GT-R, STI, EVO, FD RX-7, Silvia, S2000, Z cars, etc. try to avoid DSM and Honda's that aren't the S2000.