Two lengthy reviews from the motoring press seem to really like the new changes in the 2009 Cayman. Along with the well known addition of a dual-clutch gearbox and direct injection engine, additional options like a mechanical rear differential and retuned suspension really have these journalists keen on the Cayman:

Driver’s Republic: The Enemy Within

Winding Road: You Really Need a 911?

Audi pulled out of American Le Mans Series while Porsche no longer is running factory RS Spyders either. Honda is out of F1 completely and both Subaru and Suzuki are out of the World Rally Championship - a racing series they made famous here in North America buy a blue Impreza driven by Colin McRae.

With financial pressure on all car manufacturers, not just North American ones, all of them are faced with slashing discretionary spending wherever possible and these racing programs are not only expensive, but have arguable value in the business of selling cars when times are tough.

My friend got this recipe from All Recipes - their description reads: “Chocolate cream cheese cupcakes, rich and gooey. Serve these little gems with a tall glass of ice cold milk.”

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line muffin tins with paper cups or lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese, egg, 1/3 cup sugar and 1/8 teaspoon salt until light and fluffy. Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, 1 cup sugar, cocoa, baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Make a well in the center and add the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Stir together until well blended. Fill muffin tins 1/3 full with the batter and top with a dollop of the cream cheese mixture.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

Do you have a phone with a data plan? Like an iPhone or a Blackberry? As these phones get more popular, demand for something called “tethering” is becoming to be more noticed.

“Tethering” allows your phone to act like a modem, allowing a laptop to use it as the network and use data via your cellular data plan, not wifi. This is expensive, unless you have a good data plan allowing for lots of data, however it is very convenient especially when you are somewhere that doesn’t have wifi - the GO train comes to mind.

Currently, only the latest Blackberry’s like the Bold have this. The iPhone does not.

This site maps the different sizes of the world’s subway systems

One day early, the new LIGHTS video hit the “InterWeb” on MySpace. Hopefully a YouTube HD version comes next. Check it out below:

Wordpress 2.7 is out and one of the steps to upgrade is to remove the wp-admin and wp-includes directories in the blog. Upgrading Wordpress at 12am is not recommended, because I blew away my wp-content folder which has all the contents including all of the images used in my posts.

Luckily, the database contains the content of my posts, but I’ve lost all my images unless I figure out a way to come up with them from a backup. What’s worse, is that before trying to upgrade, I was going to skip doing all the backups, but instead I decided to backup the database but not the files. So, when i deleted the files I still lost some info, but thankfully not all the content.

So, if you’re looking at older posts and wondering where the images are - they’re gone. :(

MuchOnDemand hosted LIGHTS on Tuesday where they played her new video for February Air. Video is supposed to be available online on Friday. In the meantime, here are the MOD videos of her interview and two live performances:

Live Interview

Drive My Soul

February Air

Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation provides a nice Interactive Map of traffic information for the Toronto area. It includes closures and restrictions as well as traffic information.

The title is how Autoblog summed up an article in the New York Times. It argues that GM fed short term profit goals with business strategies such as offering lots of SUV’s and few economical cars and were not prepared for the sharp turn of the markets.