Good Lord, it's been way too long since we had a slam-bang, knock-down, drag-out hurricane here in Fort Lauderdale.

Wilma took everyone by surprise. What was supposed to be a relatively quiet Category One blew through at Cat Three. More later...

I'm Flamebait! : Sarcasm & irony appear to be lost on AC moderators.

For future reference:
sarcasm
\Sar"casm\, n. [F. sarcasme, L. sarcasmus] A keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a cutting jest.

irony
\I"ron*y\, n.[L. ironia] 1. Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist. 2. A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.

Long lines, strip searches, deadly colds. Too bad my car can't float.

I just purchased a Toyota Corolla, 5 spd. manual w/overdrive. In another forum some folks disputed my assertion that I can get 40 to 46 MPG on the highway with this car (The car is EPA rated 32 mpg City, 40 mpg Highway). My rebuttal:

A word about mileage:

My other car is a Lebaron Convertible, V6, auto with overdrive. The EPA rated it at 20 MPG City, 26 MPG Highway .

My best high mileage for that car is around 30 MPG, always on the turnpike, top down or up, AC off, 60 to 65 mph. Filled it up in Fort Lauderdale, FL, filled it up again (about 2/3rds tank)in Melbourne, FL. Did the math (miles/gallons)=30.4 MPG. Had over 110k miles on the odo. Got 151,800 now, and it still gets great mileage (as long as I don't participate in the Basshole Race-more on bassholes below).

The best mixed city & highway I ever got out of it was 26.3 MPG. City MPG was 22 MPG or so, unless I started to drive like the other bassholes (what is it with commuters racing from light to light? Or gunning out of the toll booth like it was a starting gate? Are they idiots or just frustrated?)

The EPA MPG for the highway in the 2003 Corolla is 40 MPG. I take that as a challenge to get better mileage. Some drivers will get lousier mileage (busy lead feet, sloppy driving habits, poor maintenance, crappy underinflated tires).

Best trick for great mileage and a long-lasting car? Drive like there's an egg (in the shell, raw) between your foot and the gas pedal. Top speed isn't as important as how you get to that top speed (within reason). Easy acceleration will get you great mileage. Once you're at cruising speed, stay there.

And if you want to race, go to Moroso Speedway Park. But don't try it on my highway or I'll *FHP you're lame loser ass.

Must've tweaked some goober's nose hairs!

Okidoke. As of this posting I've built a grand total of six boxes since 14 May 2002. All were built with the config I figured out from a little reading & web research: mid-ATX w/300w PS, Intel 815 mobo, Celi 1.1Ghz, 256MB ram, 20 GB 7200 RPM HD, CD, floppy. Easy to build, runs W98, W2K, RH7.2, SuSE8.1, etc. Very plain vanilla, fairly quick as web servers, domain controllers, regular office stuff...

SO, now I'd like to build something of comparable quality and price using non-Intel mobo & CPU. The system should be able to accept and run MS or *nix with the same ease that the Intel setup did. Suggestions?

No news there. Capacitors on cheap mobos are leaking, causing system failure. Hmmm. Buy a good mobo from a realiable, long-lived vendor. The price dif. of $50 to $100 spread over 3 or 4 years is just too small when you consider the value of the your data.

Now, if I were a marketer (shudder) for a maker of quality-priced mobos, I would definitely be spreading the word about cheap components...

Let this be a lesson. Mostly to me.

Thou shall not poste without thou hast first read and understood the linked article, or thou will looke like a foole.