We had a big Strolling show today at the Missouri Athletic Club. A small ensembled played for the cocktail hour, and the full group with a bunch of alumni leads played for the dinner, which had well over 400 people crammed in a small room. So that was really interesting. The problem with space wasn't as bad as I had thought though. Afterwards, I went with a bunch of sophomores to Talayna's, where we had Pizza. So that was tons of fun.
Friday, 2nd of February, 2001
After hunting around, I finally found a picture of the Audi AllRoad with the 6-speed stick. And boy it looks nice.
You know you're from Missouri when... (so true, my comments in parentheses)
Thursday, 1st of February, 2001
I went to the annual St. Louis Auto Show today, and it was cool. My primary objective was to scout out the Audi Allroad, and so I got that done. Explored it inside out. I got the expected dissapointment - it's an automatic transmission. However, the nice black S4 beside it had the 6-speed, so I goofed around in there. I would think the 6-speed in the Allroad is similar anyways, the interior is already similar enough. Under the hood, got the typical nice German clean engine layout. Inside, I found all the features that it's loaded with, though it doesn't look complicated at all! For me, that's almost a dissapointment, since I like lots of gadgets and switches to show off the gadgets, but owell. The thing is built to be pretty rugged too, there is this interesting bag-like device that allows you to slip long objects into the trunk and through the back seats without damaging the interior. The ultimate example of a luxury car trying to do some real work, I don't know if that's a little overkill. Though the built-in hatch latch thingy that will allow you to tie the hatch halfway down when carrying oversized loads can be quite useful. As for the 6-speed, it's awesome. The throw is so absolutely short, and the clutch nice and short and seemingly peppy. A dream would be to drive an Audi with a 6-speed.
The 2002 Impreza was not there, the lady said we're a week too early, and it'll be at Chicago next week. Darn. So the Subaru section was basically familiar territory. Saab had some nice tricks up there sleeve, they had a black Viggen and an Aero. Nice. And there was also a 9-5 with "AWD" printed on the side. Hmmm. It wasn't really in the Saab section, but rather the custom audio, so I don't know what the status of that one is. Speaking of the custom audio, there was this ridiculous Ford Excursion there with 12 gigantic amps, 12 12" subwoofers in the back, and speakers and tweeters all over the place. Ridiculous. And they wouldn't even let us turn it up loud. I went around and sat in cars I probably won't get chances to sit in, mostly sports cars like the Corvette, Celica GT-S, and what not. So that was fun. As for normal practical cars, today really confirmed my notion that not many cars are better than the Subaru Legacy.
Another car that deserves mention that my brother also got a kick out of was the Toyota Echo. It's so nice, $11000 base price ($1600 more for A/C), and it has a gigantic interior and trunk space. Gigantic. Absolutely impressive, comparable to small station wagons. And the interior? I sat down, and being tall, I had tons of head room left over. It's not like the S4, where my head was almost sticking out of the sunroof. And at 42 mpg, it's definately a nice-value car, though I guess it's really not the best car for a person like me, who likes to soup things up... maybe I should stick with the Hyundai Elantra for that.
CNet publishes a Cell phone radiation chart, it's interesting. It seems Motorola dominates the low radiation levels.