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I am greater than what I believe myself to be...My Motto is ""It is a pain in the a$$ waiting around for someone to try to kill you."-R Zelazny, "Trumps of Doom""
"Daisemi'in rhhaensuriuu meillunsiateve rh'e Mnhei'sahe yie ahr'en: Mnahe afw'ein qiuu; rh'e hweithnaef mrht Heis'he ehl'ein qiuu." ("Of the chief Parts of the Ruling Passion, only this can truly be said: Hate has a reason for everything. But love is unreasonable." - V Raiuhes Ahaefvthe (from "My Enemy, My Ally" by Diane Duane) blog entry If you can watch this and not laugh...entry #13. posted on 3:45pm May 05, 2009 - mood: happyThen you're dead, Jim... no comments. : add comment
blog entry Gentles...entry #12. posted on 10:02am Apr 19, 2009 - mood: amusedRock and roll is NOT dead. (If you can't feel that reverb crawling up your spine, check your pulse...) no comments. : add comment
blog entry The Last Muscle Carentry #11. posted on 9:53am Apr 03, 2009 - mood: confusedThis is NOT an automotive love story. If anything, it's an indicator that, IMO. President Obama had a pretty good idea when he forced Rick Waggoner out the door. Thanks to my friend Rob in ChiTown for sending me this... ****************************************** The last muscle car Sexy as a swollen porn star on meth, twice as useless By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, April 1, 2009 Have you seen this thing? This sexy macho bloated Hot Wheels fantasia dreamgasm of a car-like drunken child's funbot crayon sketch? No? Because it appears to be a vehicle that at least some across the Big Autosphere are still secretly praying, despite the sudden overthrow of -- despite the deadly *ultimatum* for -- General Motors, might yet prove to be a savior. Indeed, it's a car some hope will maybe, just maybe sell like crazy and restore a tiny bit of faith in big, thick, meaty, rather inane American cars that have no real place in the new millennium, but which for some reason they keep building anyway, presumably because aging frat boys you should never, ever date think they're totally wickedcool and will therefore be willing to shell out 35 grand to own, unless they won't. Am I talking about the ugly-as-a-giant-vacuum-cleaner Chevy Volt? Am I aiming this admittedly overheated verbiage at the ruddy, useless Impala? No, I am not. I am talking about the brand new, leering, pseudo-masculine 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. What's that you say? You had no idea that Chevy was resurrecting this rolling mullet from the mausoleum of the '70s because, even after sucking up billions in bailout money, GM still doesn't really have a single fresh and forward-thinking idea, and hence the best they can do is scrape the barrel of macho nostalgia in a desperate attempt to cater to male Boomers who drink too much light beer and think Maxim is the height of masculinity and are still debating which Van Halen vocalist totally ruled? Well, they did. And it's here. And they don't. And it's David Lee Roth (of course). And it's worth noting because, well, this wild new Camaro will very likely be the last you will ever hear of U.S. automakers vying to be a kickass, world-dominating force in automotive inspiration. It is most certainly the last gasp of that overblown, yet much-beloved myth, affectionately known as the American muscle car. Is it time? Can we finally just say it outright, even as we risk invoking the wrath of every true-blooded American gearhead from here to 1965? Oh hell, let's just do it: Good riddance. Yes, this is just a little bit sad. This is a moment to pause in fond remembrance. You could say it's the end of an era, but of course it's an era that should've ended about 25 years ago. Oh well. Do not misunderstand. Muscle cars and their pony car brethren -- all those Challengers, Road Runners, Mustangs, Novas, Trans Ams, Chevelles, GTOs et al -- have a hallowed and well-deserved place in American automotive lore. Nothing, not even the full-sized SUV, exemplified the lopsided American posture better. Power over finesse, weight over grace, peel-out ability over handling, go hard over stop quick, sword over pen, meat over vegetable, trade school over college, violent death over aging gracefully. Forget for a moment that they were, by and large, dangerous, horribly built vehicles with dreadful chassis and zero engineering integrity. Doesn't matter. They were fast. They were wide. They had huge back seats perfect for impregnating various small-town teen cheerleaders. They got eight miles to the gallon and about nine to the quart of oil. They were cool. Sort of. Not anymore. Behold this weird new Camaro. It is, in sum, exactly the wrong car at exactly the wrong time with exactly the wrong attitude attached to exactly the wrong hopeless hope for a return to a rather crude automotive golden era that never really existed in the first place. Why does this car exist at all? No one seems quite sure. But it is, if you spend a moment in the various car blogs, all flavors of a dumb, guilty pleasure, hotly discussed and awaited like a giant extra-large triple-cheese quadruple-meat pizza, ever since GM introduced it as a crazy concept car back in one of those years Before All Hope Died. Early reviews? Somewhere between lukewarm and "Holy crap, this thing sucks far, far more than it should, especially the cramped, stifling interior. And the handling. And the brakes. And the build quality." Which is, as far as America cars go, about par for the course. But what about that mean-ass exterior? All the retro car dudes just love the new Camaro's snarling looks, which lie somewhere between a cool flaming dragon your high school stoner friend used to sketch on his Pee-Chee folders, and what a Vegas stripper plays whilst dancing around a pole. Upshot: It's just like the Corvette; another car for 10-year-old boys trapped in 45-year-old bodies. What, too harsh? Too negative? Not really. It's mostly a criticism borne of frustration. I truly am (or rather, was) hoping for something brilliant and inspiring to come from all that American talent. I was honestly hoping one of these companies would come up with a new idea to save all those jobs (Ford is close), to resurrect the industry and prove we can be nimble and viable and revolutionary. (Does it sound like I could be talking about my very own media/newspaper biz? The coincidence is not accidental. Similar infuriating problems plague both worlds, with solutions equally elusive). So maybe what the 2010 Camaro really is, is a fitting death knell, a kitschy cool car that takes American automobile full circle even as it circles the drain. It's the final sign that it's time to look beyond Big Auto for any sort of true revolution or evolution, toward individuals, entrepreneurs, startups, inventors and aging hippie rock stars to solve it all for us. Wait, what? Why sure. Have a glance, if you will, over at crusty ol' Neil Young, who loves his cars big and his grunge anthems bigger. Neil has already successfully converted his massive, two-ton '59 Lincoln Continental into a biodiesel/electric hybrid hellbeast of the future. His company is called LincVolt, and it's aiming for nothing less than the automotive X-Prize. Who says the future has to be all tiny and wimpy and Prius-y? Or you could check in with someone like Shai Agassi, the 40-year-old Israeli entrepreneur and CEO of Better Place, a very, very well-funded startup that aims to create a definitive, international "smart" network of electric car charging/battery swapping stations, an elegant meta-grid based around some hugely forward-thinking, Earth-friendly principles. Could it work? Damn right it could. It's already underway. Of course, if hot, futuristic car design is all you seek, if you really want inspiration and new ideas in automotive design, you skip right past American cars and look to the same place we've always looked: Europe. Here, for but one small example, is some odd French industrial/energy conglomerate called Bolloré, who hooked in with Italian design gods Pininfarina to leapfrog right over the traditional car manufacturers and, well, create the damn revolution themselves. Their invention: the B0, AKA the Bluecar,a tiny, gorgeous, all-electric thing that looks like a Ferrari smashed into a Smart car at the Apple Store. The Bluecar was originally designed as a concept car, to showcase Bolloré's fuel-cell technology. But the thing came out so well, they decided to manufacture it themselves. And so they are. You can pre-order one right now. Oh, not in the U.S., of course. We almost never get cars like this. Or more accurately, we almost never get *ideas* like this. What do we get? We get the Volt. We get the Camaro. We get buried. But hey, at least we look sort of cool doing it, right? Source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/04/01/notes040109.DTL no comments. : add comment blog entry "I wear it for a famous honor..."entry #10. posted on 1:49pm Mar 01, 2009 - mood: depressedTo any here of Welsh persuasion, a happy Saint Davy's Day to you!  no comments. : add comment blog entry Honors this aye day...entry #9. posted on 2:28pm Nov 11, 2008 - mood: happy... to all of my brothers and sisters who wear or have worn the uniform in defense of our country, and forgive me for the belated notice. A special tip of the hat to the men and women of the United States Marine Corps, today 233 years young. Once, when I was a young first-year middie, standing at the port rail of a guided missile cruiser watching Marines on beach-landing drills, I considered switching my preference to wear the Anchor, Globe and Chain. That lasted for all of two minutes, seeing a fire-of-the-soul that I could *never* hope to match. Semper fi, Leathernecks, and especially to Helena, Drew, Colin and Rob. no comments. : add comment blog entry What I took away from Election Night...entry #8. posted on 5:14am Nov 05, 2008 - mood: hyperYes, I'm likely to gloat here. If you're not of my political persuasion, this is where you use your mouse to navigate away... Surprisingly, the first thing that struck me, upon seeing CNN declare Obama the winner, was that A BLACK MAN HAD BEEN ELECTED PRESIDENT. I've never looked upon the world in terms of race, save the HUMAN one. The fact that a man of MY COLORING was going to be the leader of my nation within my lifetime was humbling... The second thing I take from this came soon after I saw those first words. Out of curiosity, I was waiting for further reports about Senate races, to see if the Democrats would reach filibuster-proof status. That's when I saw that Joe Biden, whom I didn't know was up for re-election, had won his Senate seat. May not seem like much to many, ut the thought that his constituents, knowing that he might not be able to fill the seat, STILL put him back in office. Then, on the heels of that, I saw the election map that indicated what states had gone red or blue. Virginia was BLUE. For the first time since I was THREE MONTHS OLD. (Thanks for building the mind-control ray to my specs, mojo. ;-)) ) And the last thing I ahve for you all was from, of all places, Faux/Fixed/Fox News. mojo, please forgive me for saying his name... Charles Krauthammer. (pausing to spit) Anyone who's ehard of him knows that he's politiaclly somewhere between George Will and Rush Limbaugh, and that he walks around with this LOOK in his eye that says that he's superior, solely because he's a conservative. Last night, as he lent his voice to the final analysis of what went wrong for the GOP, THAT LOOK WAS GONE. I admit to smiling far too much... I end this by saying that this win is just the beginning. There's still lots of work to do, on both sides of the aisle. To those who may read this and disagree with the choice, I say this. He amy seem to be agaisnt your best interests ab initio, but i believe that, if you give Barack Obama a chance, you'll learn otherwise. no comments. : add comment blog entry Something for Grapost...entry #7. posted on 3:14pm Oct 06, 2008 - mood: blahI just finished reading last week's New Yorker, and there was an article on a biography of John Stuart mill, a famous Victorian England philosopher and politician. This is a lengthy excerpt, so please bear with me... "Harriet {(Taylor)'s own writing of the 1830s and 40s on the oppression of marriage has the urgency of immediate experience. A smart woman who had been obliged to be someone's idea of a wife, she had been at that table with the dumb little dictator: 'The most insignificant of men, the man who can obtain influence or consideration nowhere else, finds one place where he is chief and head. THere is one person, often greatly his superior in understanding, who is obliged to consult him, and whom he is not obliged to consult. He is judge, magistrate, ruler, over their joint concerns.' Mill and Taylor, in their later writing, most famously in the 1869 "The Subjection of Women," aren't content to show that women would be happier if freer; they go right to the ground and ask what reason we have for thinking that *any* restraint on women's freedom is just. The arguments against women's liberty have to do with what is natural for women to do, or what women are capable of doing, or what some men would be offended by. They take each case and show that its only rationale is our slavery to custom. WOmen are naturally passive? Go tell Queen Elizabeth. They are happy in their lot? All slaves say as much to the slave master. They are "designed" to have children? No argument from nature can ever alter an argument from ethics: if women want to raise children, excellent; if they don't, there is no natural reason to think they must any more than there is a reason to think that male philosophers should all put down their pens and go out hunting mammoths. "Mill makes the point again and again that no one can possibly know what women are or are not 'naturally' good at, since their opportunities have been so vanishingly small compared with the length of their oppression." - from 'Right Again: The passions of John Stuart Mill' by Adam Gopnik, from the 6 October issue of the New Yorker no comments. : add comment blog entry A simple observation...entry #1. posted on 7:37pm Mar 31, 2008 - mood: depressed"Can't we all just get along?"- R King, c.1992 no comments. : add comment
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Joined : Apr 10,2004. Last On : Oct 11,2009. From Lithonia, GA Status : UltraUser MY BALLOTS CHOICES COMMENTS |
