cheekyfutch

To be honest I havent really got an opinion on the subject its just an article which was emailed to me, I just fill up with it and drive :) Amen to that. :D Seriously though, I have been using it for the past three months and have noticed a considerable improvement in mpg. I dunno... maybe I'm a more conservative driver than I was when I first got the IS...

Yeah... it's always well polished! :D

They started charging everywhere about a year ago.

Sorry guys, can't make it this time! Here's a tip when parking in MK at Xscape (Snowdome)... DON'T! They charge something like £8-11 in their car park when literally over the road, it's £2.20 for 11 hours. Bloody daylight robbery!

Don't suppose anyone here has managed to get any tickets? I've been trying the phone line for the past 17 hours now...

I'm pretty sure they are illegal in this country - that's why the FM transmitter for the iPod hasn't been released over here even though you can probably buy them over the counter at a shop down Tottenham Court Road if you give a knowing wink to the person over the counter.

There are many sites out there which provide free mp3/other format downloads, usually as a taster of what to expect. If I do download a commercial mp3 from Kazaa/Soulseek and I do like it, I usually end up buying the album it came from along with the artist's back catalogue - not because I feel legally obliged to but because I like the artist. And it's these people that the authorities need to clamp down on... not 12 year old schoolkids who download mp3s from their PC at home. The RIAA need to look at other measures to inform casual home users that it's not ok to download copyrighted material illegally. Education rather than a heavy handed approach is better in this situation. Course I see your point. Record companies need to also realise that the market is changing - digital music as a form of distribution is getter bigger and they are realising that there is money to be made from legal downloads - look at Apple's iTunes and Coca Cola's cokemusic.com websites - they're already proving very popular with music lovers who want to download music legally. These sites let the user download what they want to so instead of buying a CD album with maybe 3 or 4 tracks you like, you only buy the tracks you want. True, one of the main excuses people give when asked why they download mp3s is that old chesnut, 'CDs are too expensive.' Even if the record companies lower their prices, you'll always get someone who'll want it for free and that basically is where it all stems from. Oh, and here's a tip - avoid Virgin Megastores like the plague when buying full priced albums. Some of the markup prices they put on albums are astronomical - I've seen a markup of almost 80% on one particular title in my local one. :tsktsk:

I have over 800 original CDs which I have bought and store at home. I use backups of my originals that I have made in the Lexus CD changer as I wish to keep the originals in tip top condition at home. (I currently only have about 10 backups in a CD case that I keep in the car). I also have an 40gb iPod on which I store AAC versions of my albums. I normally only use my iPod if I am not using the car that day or when I am at work. I used to download mp3s on Kazaa/Napster etc but because the sound quality differed between each song, I deleted all of them. Now I only resort to using Kazaa/Soulseek to download bootlegs/remixes which are pretty much impossible to find on vinyl or CD because they are out of print/too rare. Does this make me a pirate Tony? I think it's unfair that you group people who download music illegally with muggers and thieves as not all downloaders of music are connected to Kazaa 24/7 trying to download anything and everything to add to their vast collection.

Maserati GT Coupe and only three of them?!?! Those are the winning cards then dude. The promotional website says that there's a possibility of being 3 winners this time round so it sounds as though the above car is the winning card! Bugger. :(

Those sites are great! Cheers for that! :D If you want XDK made programs, you could do a lot worse than go here.

Has anyone here got a modded Xbox and apart from 'backing up' games, what else do you use it for? I plan on modding mine so that instead of an X logo in the middle, I'm gonna put a Gold Lexus logo on there instead (and yes, this'll eventually go into my IS200) :D

The 6100 is quite nice if you want a sinilar phone but with better placing of keys.

Quite a sturdy phone. One of the first mainstream colour screen phones to come out. Bit old but will last you ages. :D

Even though he sounded young, wasn't he actually 34 when he died?

I only really knew about Lexus actually being part of the Toyota company when I first came to these forums! :) However, I have never heard anyone bar my friend and now my Japanese mate pronounce 'Altezza'.

I've just had a quick word with my Japanese mate and he agrees with me, it's pronounced All-tet-za. Apparently, it's supposed to be Italian?!?

And I thought my 3 points for having parked my car a foot over a pedestrian crossing zig zag at 8am on a Sunday morning was bad...

I would've walked out and never gone back...

Altezza? I've just realised this as one of my friends calls it: 'All-tezza' (as in Jezabel) But I've always pronounced it: 'All-tet-za' as in Subaru Impret-za'

Not that funny if you're not in I.T. but... The following gaff was by a Team Leader colleague of mine at work - an I.T. director was visiting our helpdesk offices and was being shown round when the I.T. suit asked her a few questions about how the office runs. One of the questions was 'What's your support window?' She replied with 'Er... Windows 2000 and XP'. I had to hide my head behind my screen as I couldn't look her in the face after that. :D

I reckon too many people beat up on ol' Bill. No one ever mentions the millions of dollars he gives to charities and other non-profit organisations.

I'd probably prefer my security measures to be a bit more stealthy. There are some eejits out there who, if they can't get into the car, will just key it just because they can't nick it.

Points in total - 11 (5 for one speeding offence, 3 for another and 3 for parking - currently at 8) All involving Rozzers with speed guns. Parking tickets - too many Pulled over - twice - once for having four people in the back of car, and another for illegal right turn - oops! Towed - Twice. Once in Harrow and once in Brighton. Clamped - once (at a pretrol station - frikkin cowboys!) *edit* I have to add that I had a clean license for almost 10 years until 2001 where it all went horribly wrong. :(

I have: Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Coupe x2 Audi A8 Quattro 4.2 Turbo x2 Audi RS6 x2 Caterham Superlight R500 x3 Ferrari 360 Modena Coupe Honda NSX Coupe Invicta S1 4.6 V8 x2 Maserati Quattroporte x2 Maserati Spyder GT Convertible MG X Power SV x3 Morgan Aero 8 Convertible Range Rover V8 Vogue Auto x3 TVR T350c x2 TVR Typhon VW Phaeton W12 4Motion VW Toureg TDI V10 x2 *Edit* Updated 30/3/04

I've got a few of those... I'll check when I get home this evening! :D