fplanque: off topic

Breakups are frustrating… always… I believe this guy coped with his frustration pretty well, though ;)

You’d think the real estate market crashed everywhere and there’s plenty of available square feet, but check this out: what you saw in the 5th element has actually become a reality, in Hong Kong!

I've been following the forex rates of the Euro compared to the dollar for several weeks now, since the EUR/USD hit a low point of 1.24 on November 21st (as shown on the forex charts screenshot above).

I have all those USD I'd like to convert to EUR but I just can't get myself to do it at the current rate about 1.40.

All I can do no is hope that when Obama gets into office it's going to boost the USD enough for the difference with the EUR to go back down below 1.3...

I live in L.A. but I don't own my car; I rent it! Furthermore, I actually turn it in every time I fly out to a conference and then get a new one when I fly back. This gave me the opportunity to try out quite a few different car rental companies located at LAX.

First, they all have a shuttle from the airport terminals to their facility. What you need to do when you get out of baggage claim is locate the curb segment that has Purple signs saying "Car Rental Shuttles" and wait for your shuttle there. The other colors are for Hotel Shuttles and parking shuttles.

Here's my experience with several of the car rental companies (Note that I am typically renting Compact cars):

• Avis: I've had a "dirty car" experience with them in the past. I've been avoiding them ever since.
• Dollar: probably the best deals on the cars. You can choose your car within a category section. The problem is with the shuttle. You sometimes wait for quite a bit more than the advertised "every 15 minutes". WARNING: After like 20 rentals with them I needed some documents for my insurance and they never sent them to me. Actually, the people who work at their claim dept are either trained to be disingenuous or they are genuinely retarded. Either way, their customer service is an outrage. Don't go there!
• Enterprise: expensive unless you have a coupon. Car had no wiper water.
• Hertz: Very expensive
• Thrifty: Rude front desk. You can choose your car within a category section. Car had no wiper water. Took 20 minutes to turn in the car instead of 2 minutes everywhere else.
• Fox: Shuttle runs more often than many others. Efficient front desk. Dirtiest car ever; all seats severely stained with God knows what. You cannot choose your car (and you can end up with an ugly PT Cruiser).

I will come back here and edit this post as I rent more cars at LAX.

Facing your manga is the hype du jour. This is approximately what I'd look like in an L.A. manga right now... procrastinating on my next haircut! (At this rate I might as well wait I get back to France...)