I swear to God, this has been the most exasperrating and hard-to-bare week I've ever had @ work and I"m about to lose it.

The combination of a nagging cold, returning to Flint-fucking-Michigan after the gloriousness of Mongerfest '06 in Austin, and my best friend in the department being gone this week (which leaves me solo in the company of the nattering housewives) is almost too much.

If a job (any job) opened up in Austin right now, I'd be gone tomorrow.

I feel ya, Chad. This week has been brutal for me as well. Oh, and working full-time is overrated.

I'm pretty sure Colin needs a full-time bootblack.

Three shows in a row upon arriving from Austin, sick with a cold and one more show tonight. I, too, am having a hard time being at work today.

Now, I get to 'enjoy' being in meetings the rest of the afternoon with a stuffed up nose, hackin' all over everyone.

At least, I have Subways tonight.

True, but when you're me, health benefits are a necessity.

But man oh man, would livin' the life of Lebowski for a few months in Austin be glorious.

Yeah, this week has been slow and tedious for me as well.
When I'm at work I want to be at home workin on songs, but when I'm at home all I do is sleep, eat and go on the innernets.

Blah.

Saw them w/ the lady companion last Friday night and was thoroughly unimpressed, but I hope you have a good time. Sounds like we could all use a little pick-me-up.

yup, i feel ya on that one chad. each week that goes by seems to get crazier and crazier.



were you at tapes 'n tapes last night? i didn't see ya....

i'm totally cracked out today. 4 hrs of sleep and 2 shows 2 nights in a row and lots of vodka. i was supposed to go to another one tonight but i think i'm going to be good and stay home.

it's been busy at work, but luckily no deadlines... just a bunch of ongoing projects.

And just think those GM folks got up to $70,000 to sever ties and not take retirement...sheesh.

$70k - $140k, depending on tenure.

Anybody up for a GM thread?

I think GM/Walmart/anti-corporate threads is for tuesdays but hey it's been a slow week. So what the hell.

GM has cancer, and is taking every vitamin it can find.

Is it all American Motors or just GM that has the cancer?

I think they're finally starting to design cars that people want to drive.

Nope, decided it was best to stay home and recuperate from this dreaded cold.

And, Chad, I actually like The Subways -- I've seen 'em a couple of times and love their onstage energy.

bummer... it was a great show, i'mma post a review in a few.

there's a gazillion shows going on tonight: arab strap, cyhsy, metric, the subways but i'm not feeling too well today (case of the brown bottle flu). have fun at the subways t! and please kidnap charlotte for me.

To varying degrees, both Ford and GM, unfortunately.



Not really. A few, some small valiant efforts perhaps, but what little research they've done has been too little, too late. They don't, at a fundamental core level, ask people what they want. It's not Step 1. If people happen to like what they can make (80's 90's), then "great, I guess we're doing a great job. Mission accomplished."

But if people don't like the stuff they can make, they have no way to redirect. I only know this from examples, really. And from comparing them to people who Are making money, and have been able to adapt to changing market needs (toyota honda et al).

They can make a Suburban at the Janesville, WI plant in under 23 hours, start to finish. That's pretty quick. Then guess what? Someone saw that Rail is the cheapest transport method, so it gets loaded onto a rail car and sits... for 3-6 weeks. Meanwhile, dealers want that truck. It just doesn't make any sense, and anybody that looks at it from a distance sees it. But the monster is too big and too old to shift its inertia... like a big old 800 lb gorilla that only knows how to hit the button on its cage to get food. "This button worked last year, why doesn't it work now? I'll just hit it a few more times."

I completely agree with you. It seems Ford is making some strides though in visually appealing cars as opposed to a few years. The 500 and Fusion both seem like some designs that could catch on and maybe compete. Not to mention that the new Stang could re-energize that market.

It seems like GM is trying to make the Buick line a little more classy and hip instead of grandma and grandpa.

But I agree that there is a long way to go and that it is probably too little at this point.

Not all of them. It's tiered, and most of the people who take a buyout are close to or over full retirement eligibility and will still get all that plus health care.

Of course, GM is hoping the younger folks will take the $70K "See ya" payout because then they have no lingering ties (pension, health care, etc.) or responsibilities to those folks.

It's depressing, to say the least. It's letting even more air out of a balloon (this city, hell, this state) that barely has any left in it.

Also GM has way too many similar brands. What's the difference between Chevrolet and GMC anyways? Oldsmobile and Buick? Defintely need to pull a DC comic move and kill off some old superstars.

I have full confidence in saying that Michigan's problems are nothing like Louisiana's in this department. What little hope we have left is hitched to a finite resource. And even though that resource is making a killing right now, it's not making a difference here because it all finds it way somewhere else.

Forgive my ignorance, but what resource are you talking about? I know next to nothing about Louisiana, save for N.O. post-Katrina.

Oil and Gas. We're prime real estate for Gulf exploration and drilling. And business is really good. Anytime that gas prices are high, the oil industry makes a killing here. Unfortuantely poor leadership has failed to captalize on any of it since the days of Harry Truman when we stupidly turned down a compensation package like other states took. Now we're begging the Feds to re-offer that deal.

And I suppose that fact pretty much renders any discussion of alternative energy research akin to heresy. That's the hope here; become an alt energy innovator, make it easy and attractive for the Big 3 to produce hybrid or oil-free cars and get themselves out of the crapper, competitively speaking.

It sounds good, but I'm not making any bets.

Absolute heresy. Most people here are already pretty uneducated and the oil industry has only allowed that condition to continue. You make alot of money without a high school diploma. So what industry can we even try and bring here with a mainly uneducated population?

And our 2nd biggest industry, Sugarcane was defintely weakened by the South American free trade agreement.

If Katrina did anything, it gave once last chance to save ourselves. But it doesn't look like we'll capitalize on it.

GM needs to dump the bullshit and go hogwild on R&D and make some interesting shit, like they did to completely revive Cadillac.