Plug

Mrs Plug has gone away for the weekend, leaving me to fend for myself. So, being off the leash as it were, I decided to treat myself to a DVD recorder today, nicely slotted in now in the pile of silver gubbinry underneath the telly. Let's see how long it takes her to notice when she gets home... Cheers, Plug

Congratulations! Mum and baby are fine, that's the main thing, can't ask for more. But no sleep for you for a while then.. Cheers, Plug

You made the right decision... Have driven a couple of N/A scoobs and they are nice enough, but not the same without the turbo Just watch your right foot for the first few days, once the turbo spins up it does get a whole lot faster very quickly.. it wouldn't do to run into the back of someone in your new pride and joy Enjoy (and you will)! Cheers, Plug

Now that's a good idea! One of the things that really gets on my t*ts is that if it's raining and you crack the window open, water drips in... right onto the electric window switches. Nice bit of design, guys. The question begs.. if they knew about this (which they obviously did, having come up with a solution), why didn't they fit it as standard? Grrrr, car companies! Cheers, Plug

Mrs. Plug has gone away for the weekend and left me to fend for myself... So, let's see, the pizza is on its way, the fridge is heaving with beer, and I have my new copy of GT4 to play with.. How will I cope without her Cheers, Plug

I paid 34.99 in MVC yesterday.. pricey But a) there was no queue (it was my lunch hour) And I know for all the hours of fun I'm going to get out of it, it was worth the money.... Cheers, Plug

Ebay motors is just another way to buy a car.. you have to keep your wits about you, the same as any other trade. There are good and bad ones wherever you look. I bought a car unseen on Ebay. One day sale, eight hours to go when I saw it, 100 miles away. Could I be arsed to go all that way, rush back and bid on it? No. E-mailed the seller a couple of times, took a view that the car and seller were genuine, sniped a bid in with 45 seconds to go and won it. But, and here's the big but, I got it for £250.. what is now Mrs. Plug's Fiat Panda. 18 years old with only 42K on the clock. It's a cracking car (somewhat slow, admittedly) and apart from a sticky bonnet catch and a couple of blown bulbs (don't you love Italian electrics) it hasn't given us any trouble at all. Starts on the button and revs like a maniac! All this for less than the price of a set of tyres for the Scooby. Which is really the point.. I was prepared to buy it on a hunch because I could afford to throw it in the bin if turned out to be rubbish. There's no way I'd be prepared to spend even a four-figure sum on something I'd never seen, let alone driven. I've had umpteen car cars over the years, some from the small ads, some from the forecourt, and now one from Ebay, it just depends how much of risk you are prepared to take. Cheers, Plug

TBH, I was considering the Mac as it's (allegedly) silent, and I am so fed up with the noise of my PC wheezing away under the desk. But although the Mac mini is cheap, there aren't any to be had at the moment so I have compromised and ordered myself a nice expensive case with super big fans etc. that is supposed to be whisper quiet. I can spoon out the insides of my old PC and re-use them. I've spent quite a bit on the PC and it's got loads of goodies in so I didn't really want to bin it.. just needs to kick out a lot fewer decibels. Although I suppose earplugs would have been cheaper.. Cheers, Plug

Not sure if this is an "urban legend" or for real Seen on a builders van - "Patel and Patel - you've tried the cowboys, now try the Indians!" Cheers, Plug

Just a thought - how many PC/Mac users have we got on the forums? I don't want to start any kind of flame war (people get wound up about these kind of things, I hear).. just interested in the balance. OK, hidden agenda.. I've been a PC user for years and quite like the idea of the Mac mini, but have never used a one-button mouse in my life.. any thoughts? For my sins, I have been using Microshaft products since the days of DOS 3.3.... Cheers, Plug

From an American perspective, but I'm sure you'll get the gist.. The Ant and the Grasshopper~OLD AND NEW VERSION ~THE OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the Summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. ~THE MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the Summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood. Vote Labour... Plug

I had an old Citroen ZX diesel when I first bought the house. It was the base model so no toys at all (not even power steering.. a bit heavy, it has to be said) but it ran like a swiss watch, even with 171K on the clock. Mind you, it had been serviced on the dot every 12K.. the guy who owned it before me did 20K a year for 8 years so obviously he needed something reliable. I sold it on a year later with 180K up and got more than I paid for it! The only car I can ever say that about! Not a car I would have bought by choice, and I hated it for being such a slug (N/A 1.9 diesel = 0-60 in 17 secs) but I have to give it respect for being cheap, reliable transport. Despite my relentless thrashing it never turned in less than 50 to the gallon either. It is very conventional for a Citroen as well.. McPherson strut suspension, so no funny hydraulics to go wrong and cost a bomb to fix.. it was comfy, too. If you avoid the base spec (Reflex) you'll get a few more niceties... I would recommend power steering if your young lady is going to be driving it (unless she *wants* to end up with arms like Geoff Capes ) and there is a turbo variety as well.. but better avoid that, you'll only give into temptation and try to mod it.. Just my $0.02, but you could do worse. Cheers, Plug

I reckon £8K for a 98 is a bit rich with that kind of mileage.. unless you are buying from a main dealer. I am toying with getting rid of mine (98/R wagon with 70k), I reckon the most I could get for it £6500 private, realistically. Make me an offer if you want! Cheers, Plug

Don't know what you call cheap... But this one has been tested with the HP 39xx range.. (it says 'ere) Clicky Cheers, Plug

Ah well, maybe not the jackpot.. But 2 tankfuls and a couple of pints.. better than an a kick in the head Cheers, Plug

I swapped out the stereo on my old (96) scooby for a CD slot-loader. It did need an ISO adapter, which was about the £15 mark (damn rip-off for something that costs about £2 to make). HTH, Plug

Bad news.. doesn't seem to be doable without some extra hardware The 3970 doesn't seem to support the right profile to link to a LAN connection (i.e. Broadband). One of these might do the trick: Clicky Or failing that, an SDIO WLAN card would work, assuming you have WLAN at home... Cheers, Plug Edited to say: Don't think the above will work either, as the access point needs the PAN (personal area network) profile, which also isn't supported by the 3970 At this point I'm giving up.. Cheers, Plug

That's the same as Mrs. Plug's.. I'll have a play and see if I can make it work! Cheers, Plug

What model ipaq is it, McS? Cheers, Plug

I've got BT on my Loox (Fujitsu-Siemens equivalent of ipaq) and can't make it do anthing useful at all.. in my opinion, the world's most rubbish technology. However, it's also got built in WLAN (802.11b) and that works faultlessly for internet connection using a wireless-enabled router.. more reliable than the wired connection on my PC, in fact! My advice would be forget the BT (which isn't that fast, anyway, 1Mb/s vs 54Mb/s for 802.11) and go the WLAN route.. you won't be pulling your hair out every 5 minutes.. Cheers, Plug

It finishes half way round... The full lap is available here: Clicky (Right click-save target as) It's better quality too, but be warned, it's 54Mb.. probably best not to try this on dial-up Cheers, Plug

Ben, look on the bright side... What's the point of being screwed over by the insurance companies just for being young? We all want a nice motor, but there are limits... Get a grotty Escort for a couple of years, cheap motoring but it'll do the job, keep it on the road and put all the rest of the money in the bank. The way Impreza prices are dropping now, in a couple of years you should be able to pick up a decent turbo for £4K and may even be able to insure it with the NCB you've earned in the meantime! And if you think your 1.6 is slow.. you want to try driving Mrs. Plug's 750cc Fiat Panda.. nought to 60 in 23 seconds .. Cheers, Plug

No- one seems to like mods anymore.... 40 years old, full NCB, and the only completely standard '98 turbo left, from what I've seen. Just renewed.. £378 fully comp.. Cheers, Plug

You could try growing a beard to draw attention away from it... I *hate* shaving and would go for it myself, but.. 1) my beard only grows in clumps 2) it is more grey than brown now, if I leave it for 3 days I look like a tramp Cheers, Plug

Thanks for the heads-up. The full text of the act may be found here: Clicky Section 59 makes for mildly interesting reading.. Cheers, Plug