Heavy Clutches

A friend of mine is looking at buying a used E36 M3 (probably a '98) and he found one in pretty good condition locally so we went test driving the other day. The car was extremely well taken care of, although it had close to 80K miles. I was very impressed with the E36 M3 engine, it was very smooth (didn't feel like a 6 year old engine with 80K miles) and extremely free revving. The car was a lot of fun and definitely felt more balanced than some of the newer cars in terms of having an appropriate amount of power/torque for its handling setup (unlike the 350Z). Unfortunately the rear tires on the car were completely worn so it didn't handle as well as it should have, but with a fresh set of rears it could be a very fun car. My only complaint about the car? The clutch felt heavier than any clutch I've ever used. It was a strange sort of heavy feeling though, an almost artificial heavy - although my friend tells me that a simple clutch stop will help a bit as some of the clutch travel on the E36 M3 is apparently unnecessary.

I'm a pretty big car nut (if you haven't been able to tell) and have been lucky enough to at least try a handful of interesting vehicles over the past several years. A couple of months ago I found myself with the opportunity to drive a Cayenne Turbo, and I got a second experience behind the wheel of one a few days ago. I'm not a fan of big cars at all, much less SUVs. I've said before than the new Elise is something I'm definitely looking forward to seeing and I can see the Elise being one of the most fun cars to drive. The Cayenne Turbo is at the exact opposite of the car spectrum from the Elise; weighing in at close to 6,000 pounds it's not exactly my cup of tea. That being said, it is a very impressive car/SUV/brick/whateveryouwanttocallit. The power delivery is extremely smooth, the turbos are laggy but they kick in very smoothly and deliver a well controlled surge of the 450HP that bi-turbo V8 produces. It's not pin-you-in-your-seat acceleration, but it's pass-everyone acceleration that the Cayenne Turbo offers, which is exactly what its target market wants. The peppermobile handles very well for a 2 ton SUV, it's no 911 but it's no Expedition either. The Cayenne seems to be saving Porsche's butt now that their sports cars aren't selling well, hopefully that'll translate into more interesting 911s and Boxsters in the next couple of years.

While Vinney was down here on her Spring Break we went to go see Starsky and Hutch. I'd never seen the original series (not even reruns), but the movie had its moments and made me laugh enough to recommend it. We also used her break to watch a movie that neither of us had seen but both of us had heard a ton about: Scarface.

Now I loved Godfather I & II (not only is it cool to hate Part III, but I also genuinely hate it, go figure) and I thought Pacino did a good job in the entire trilogy so how could we go wrong with Scarface? Believe it or not but I hadn't actually ever heard the story behind Scarface so I went into the movie not knowing anything about it. The quality of the DVD was quite impressive, you'd be hard pressed to tell that it was originally filmed in the 1980s (other than the clear 1980s themes in the movie). The actual movie was pretty bad though. It even had the classic 80s music montage in the middle of the movie, now I did not expect that even though it was made in the 80s (remember future filmmakers: popular doesn't always mean good). The story was interesting but lacked development in so many areas. Manny (good friend since middle school) summarized the movie best: "it's basically Godfather squeezed into one movie." And that's exactly what it is, with definite [negative] influences from the 1980s. There was enough to make fun of about the movie that it was worth watching though.

Scarface and Pirates of the Caribbean were the two movies we bought while she was down here (I've got a ton of Best Buy Reward Zone certificates :)...) and thus starts our DVD collection together. I've made some bad DVD purchases in the past, so hopefully starting with a clean slate will give me a chance to learn from my mistakes :) Care to share your worst DVD titles? I'll start: when I first got my DVD player the only DVDs Best Buy carried were Austin Powers, Double Team and Playboy DVDs. I already had Austin Powers and I'm not big on porn so yes, I bought Double Team. For those of you who don't remember, that's the movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman. Needless to say, Scarface was a better movie :) Now it's your turn.

Just over a month left of my undergraduate career, I'm beginning to see the light at the end of this poorly taught tunnel. I'm going to start blogging about education soon...

Take care and sleep well.