I live in Minnesota and it is illegal for any car dealerships, including small used car lots, to be open on Sunday. Recent attempts to change this have been fought by the dealers themselves, claiming the same issue of overworked staff. Personally, I think they just like to have the leverage over a buyer who can only come in on Saturday. If the buyer knows he can't come in the next day, he's more likely to make a quick decision. It may have started as a blue law, but it's now just about screwing the customer. Just another reason why I don't like most car dealerships.

My two-year old daughter, so I can get her started on a life of gadget lust in proper fashion. Oh yeah, and the 360 if my wife pays attention to my Christmas list. If not, I'll hook it to my laptop for HD solitaire and Hapland.

My suggestion is to have Mercury sell the European design cars. Ford claims they did not bring the updated Focus here because the price was too high, but Mercury is the more expensive and "refined" Ford, so why not let them have it? The rebadging thing just doesn't cut it. Ford should also bring on the new Bronco, add the Ka, rebuild the 500 to look like the 427 concept from a few years back, keep the GT, tweak the Crown Vic to make cops and cabbies even happier with it, redo the Ranger and keep it, and unify the 150 and SuperDuty lines and design.

Then, they should give Lincoln the Iosis and treat it like a seed for more actual luxury cars. Keep the Town Car, though, but add more chrome since there seems to be a market for it.

I commute every day in Minneapolis, and I can tell you this survey is way off. "Minnesota Nice" translates to passive-aggressive behavior. People pretend to be nice and ten get in their car and let their real face show; tailgating, refusal to let someone else merge, zoom around someone, get in front of them, and slam the brakes so they know you are upset with their driving, general ignorance of driving etiquette, etc. It's not so much that Minnesota drivers are bad, it's that they are mean, vindictive, and petty.

Please Please Please

I recently saw the CX-7 at Mazda HQ in California, and it is a beaut! It was parked next to an RX-8 and the front-end similarities were striking. I also saw what appeared to be a heavily camouflaged CX-7 pulling out of their MazdaSpeed facility, so perhaps an even sportier 7 is in the works. Couldn't get the cameraphone out fast enough - sorry!

Thank you for choosing me. I will use my new Treo to click sponsor ads on Engadget Mobile!

My wife has a more advanced Brother machine. You can take any image file, set it up with the Brother software, and emroider it. The machine does all the work - it moves the fabric, tells you when to change thread color, etc. Cool, but spendy - $5,000+. My wife has an embroidery business, so it makes sense. The more expensive machines have more processing power and can handle larger designs.

To bring this back into the Engadget world, our machine also has a 802.11G wireless card.

The Europeans are behind in Hybrids because they have been using diesel engines to address fuels costs three times what we see here. And then they incorporate those new diesel plants and improved transmissions, etc. into their existing model lines.

The Japanese do innovate beyond hybrid, and again, incorporate the advances into their existing model lineup.

Both the Europeans and Asian companies release new models when they fill a distinct class (mini van, crossover, SUV, truck, etc.).

I believe the Americans are innovating and improving, and have some of the best talent in the business. The problem is that too often, the technical innovations are installed in cars that aren't up to par with the competition. A hybrid Malibu would still be a Malibu first and foremost.

It is on this point that the Apple comparison should be applied. What Apple proved is that people will buy a less innovative and less feature-rich product in droves if it has a great design and provides a positive interaction.


The Japanese

Spot on! These continuous new models are another symtom of the Big Two and a Half trying to fix their problems through marketing, pricing schemes, and financial restructuring instead of just making better products. Ford has time to crank out these new models but somehow lacks the capacity to bring us the new Focus that Europe has received? GM tries to streamline by eliminating entire brands and divisions, but their net number of models may end up higher.

More varieties of crap is still crap.